I forced my thoughts in another direction. What was that doctor doing back there with Cricket? He couldn’t drug her. She was too strong in her demon body to be overpowered, although she didn’t look it. Then I thought, what if he jumps her and she beats him up? That would be a whole different mess, plus, the twins would then have something on her for competency. Sane little old ladies didn’t clobber psychiatrists. I was on edge, terrified for Cricket, bristling with battle nerves at these lawyers, and I couldn’t figure Lauren out at all.
Lauren snuggled up to me, making me sweat, and whispered theatrically, “It’s because Jonah’s gay.”
I blinked. Jonah hunched deeper over his beer.
David stiffened. A phone burbled. He whipped his cell out of his breast pocket and turned smartly away from us.
“You listen in on David,” I suggested. “Find out if he’s got an ambulance coming. I’ll see if I can hear what’s happening back there.”
Lauren’s mouth fell open. “But they’re in the office.”
I put a finger to my lips. “I know.”
To my relief she stepped away from me and swaggered over to David, planted herself in front of him, and stared wide-eyed like a cat, brazenly eavesdropping on his phone call. That apple hadn’t fallen far from her great-grandma.
I smiled and tuned my demon ears to find Cricket’s voice, coming from the room at the back of the bar.
“—And that other guy was a weasel. He wouldn’t get anywhere. Did you know he was born in Puerto Rico? Fact. Write down that I know that.”
“Really, Mrs. Immerzang,” came the softer tones of the shrink. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Okay. Tell me what else is on your list. Say, you’re kinda cute.”
“Mrs. Immerzang—please don’t stand so close—”
I chuckled and tuned out. Time to mess with Jonah—who was gay, huh? I was wearing a Burberry skirt set that left my legs bare nearly to my buns. I thought about the rest of my look—dialed my boobs up a bit—ran a hand over my chin and sprouted a few bristles—that ought to do it.
“Hi there,” I said in a deep voice. I leaned toward Jonah and sent a wave of beery breath in his direction. “Can I buy you a drink?”
He started up. His eyes bugged out. And dang if he didn’t sprout a boner.
I smelled it.
Lauren was right. As a woman, I bored him. As a six-foot-three cross-dressing or maybe trans man, I could reach him. I set my empty beer bottle on the bar and brushed his hand, zapping him hard—then harder. So to speak.
A door opened at the back of the bar, and Cricket’s voice came louder, talking a mile a minute as usual.
If she wanted a diversion, she’d get it.
I stepped up close to Jonah and slid an arm around him, turning him on his barstool to face his approaching grandmother and the shrink. He stiffened, then melted under my arm. “Cricket, take our picture,” I said in my deepened voice. “I love this guy.”
Jonah turned in my arm and looked up at me with surprise. I put my hand on his leg. One...two...zap, I gave him a succubus mo-job. Also, I planted a theatrical smooch on his forehead.
And I heard the fake shutter-snick and whine of a phone camera.
Jonah twitched under my arm. A wet spot bloomed on his dark-suited crotchal region, invisible to everyone else in this dim light, but visible and smellable to yours truly.
Cricket put her phone back in her purse. “You sure we’re done, sonnyboy? I got all afternoon. I hate to rush this,” she said in that helpful tone I’d learned to suspect.
Dr. Novotny was wiping sweat off his neck with a hankie. He said hurriedly, “No, no, I’m sure I have enough, Mrs. Immerzang, that’s plenty, no thank you.” He gave David a dirty look.
David was pocketing his own phone. He raised his eyebrows at the shrink. “Is she—?”
“Yes, of course she’s competent,” Dr. Novotny snapped. “You might have warned me.” He didn’t say what David might have warned him.
“She’s only like that with mean people,” Lauren said.
“I’m doing my job!” Novotny said.
“I’m sure Mrs. Immerzang is aware of that,” I said soothingly. I was still draped around Jonah.
David lifted his nose at us. “Let’s go, Doctor.” To my intense relief, he left. Dr. Novotny went after him.
“Come back alone sometime, sonnyboy!” Cricket sang out after them.
Lauren was muttering into her phone. “Here they come.”
“For the record, Jonah,” Cricket said, “I never thought you were exactly like David. It’s the nicest thing I can say about you.”
Jonah’s lower lip moved as if he was pressing in words. He stood and faced me. I was a good three inches taller than he was. “It’s been nice to meet you.” He offered to shake my hand.
“You too,” I said deeply. I shook, giving him an extra shot of the juice. He’d earned it.
Jonah followed his brother, walking awkwardly.
“See you again,” Lauren said to his back. Then she put her phone in her hip pocket and looked at me. “Well, you’re a revelation.”
“You have no idea, cookie,” Cricket cackled. She gave me a fascinated look. I realized I was still pretending to be a guy in drag.
I fled to the bathroom, where I could watch the mirror while I got rid of the chin bristles and dialed my voice back to normal.
When I came back to the bar, Lauren was saying, “So it’s all set up. You are the shit, Big Squeak.”
“I just talked to him,” Cricket said modestly.
“Like you ‘just talked’ to the assistant principal when I came out and started cross-dressing, senior year of high school, and my homeroom teacher had a fit.” Lauren laughed and then said to me, “She can talk.”
“Believe me, I know.” I was still light-headed with relief that we’d chased those guys off. I cleared my throat. “Cricket, weren’t you worried? What if they had decided to put you away, right here and now?”
“Oh, pshaw. Besides, I put my hand on his zipper and he about died. Gimme another beer, Little Squeak.”
Lauren went behind her bar again. “It’s not over, you know.”
“Hope not. This is fun.”
I said, “I was worried I’d have to fight them off. And that would make a mess of your—” I almost said, exit strategy. “Celebration of Life. You have a plan.”
Lauren passed fresh beers across the bar. “She has a plan.” She rolled her eyes. Then she opened another beer and drank some, eyeing Cricket, saying nothing. She must have been dying of curiosity.
Cricket seemed to be thinking. She sent a long look around the bar, as if counting all the neon signs. Finally she said, “I didn’t tell you before, Lauren, but I had to get out of that place. Nothing happens there. I’m more afraid of boredom than I am of death.”
Lauren nodded.
“Thanks,” her great-grandma said.
Thanks for what? I wondered. But Lauren just nodded again, as if she understood. For a moment I felt weirdly jealous of their rapport.
Then Cricket turned to me. “You were great! I’d like to buy you a steak or three.”
“Sure.” I went warm all over. “Let’s go. We have practice tonight.”
But when we got outside there seemed to be a commotion. The rain had stopped. Four women were grouped on the hood of a Jeep parked in front of the bar, playing drums and rattles, and a fifth had stood a conga drum on the wet sidewalk. Their drumming filled the air, stirring my blood. Clark Street pedestrian traffic was slowing to look at them. As we emerged from the bar, their complicated beat sped up.
“All right, Bubbe, fun’s over,” a man’s voice said behind me.
I whirled like a wild thing. David had grabbed Cricket by the shoulders and now hustled her toward a black sedan limo parked behind the Jeep. The limo’s back door was open.
“No! I won’t go!” Cricket cried.
I pushed past a gawking pedestrian.
“Hey!” That was
Lauren, behind me. She pushed past and hollered, “Now, guys!”
“No! Let go of me!” Cricket squealed.
All the drummers pulled out their phones and took pictures of David trying to kidnap Cricket.
Raging, I coiled myself to punch David in the side of the head.
“Stop! Help! Somebody help me!” Cricket yelled. Something in her voice made me pause mid-punch. Now what’s she up to?
A couple of pedestrians wearing Cubs blue-and-white gear stopped to gape. One said, “Isn’t that Break Dance Grandma? Hey!”
The drummers chorused, “Break Dance Grandma!”
Cricket slithered out of David’s grip.
She ran out in the middle of Clark Street.
This was not as dangerous a move as it could have been. Traffic was already stopped. A driver leaned out of his cab. “Hey, Break Dance Grandma!”
Cricket pointed at the Jeep-load of drummers. “Hit it!”
The drummers started up again.
And Cricket started dancing.
This wasn’t just grandma-style oogy-woogy-boogying, a little twist, a few Charleston moves. This was the real deal, including the part where she put one hand on the street and flipped over her own shoulder, and the part where she threw herself down on a wet manhole cover and spun around on her back, and the part where she jumped up and flipped in two smooth, swift moves—I goggled.
Phone cameras went snick-and-whine all around me.
David ran around the limo as if to recapture her.
Jonah got out of the car. “Bad idea, David,” I heard him say, over the cheering for Break Dance Grandma. He grabbed his brother by both arms.
Dr. Novotny got out of the car. He looked perplexed.
David was red and rigid. “This is why we have to do it,” he said, as Jonah held him back. “You see?” he shouted over the drums. To Dr. Novotny he shouted, “You see?”
“I see she’s in great shape,” Dr. Novotny shouted back.
A police SUV vooped somewhere behind the stopped cars and the crowd of pedestrians.
“Oh, thank God,” David said, under the thundering drums.
I wasn’t so grateful. Yet.
A cop bustled up, shoving through the crowd, and stopped. “Holy shit, it’s Break Dance Grandma,” he said in that cop voice that isn’t yelling but you can always hear it.
“Break Dance Grandma!” people were yelling.
Lauren slid over to his side.
I stayed where I was, close to the limo, in case they tried to push Cricket into it again. But I stopped hyperventilating.
Lauren raised her voice over the drums. “Officer, these men tried to kidnap my great-grandma.” She pointed at her uncles. “First they tried to get this doctor to declare her incompetent, and that didn’t work, so then they seized her and dragged her to that car.”
Four or five bystanders offered to show the cop their videos of David manhandling Cricket.
The cop turned to David. “Don’t go anywhere.” His look was not friendly. Then he walked up to where Cricket was busting a move. “Hey, Grandma. It’s halftime.”
The drummers cooperated by coming to a crashing halt. Cricket allowed the cop to lead her to the sidewalk. Cars started moving again. The cop got Cricket’s autograph. The cop spoke to David, then he questioned Dr. Novotny, then he got terse with David, then he asked Cricket if she wanted to press charges.
“I think I’d better, don’t you, cookie?” she said to me.
I grumbled, “Don’t ask me, I’m no lawyer.” I could have spanked her. She and Lauren must have set this up while I was in the bar’s bathroom and didn’t warn me.
“I’m a lawyer.” Jonah came up and stood next to the cop.
The cop looked from Jonah to David. “Are you clowns—”
“Twins, yes. I’m sorry, officer. My brother gets carried away.” Jonah sent David the dirtiest look I’d ever seen between brothers. Jonah told him, glaring straight into his eyes, “If you bring this up, I’ll help her press charges.”
It was nonsense all the way from that point.
Lauren and I backed up to give Cricket room to schtick.
“She did this two years ago,” Lauren informed me. “She was outside the Field Museum and there were drummers on the steps and she just cut loose. It went viral. Twenty-two million retweets, almost half a million shares. She’s way better now than she was two years ago. I can’t wait to see how high this one goes.”
“But where did you find the drummers on such short notice?”
“It wasn’t short notice. We set this up yesterday. I leaked it to my mom that Cricket was visiting me here today, and then I called in my derby peeps. We have a drum circle on no-practice nights.”
And Beth had thought Cricket couldn’t handle her family. Okay, I’d thought Cricket couldn’t handle her family.
Every time I think my life as a succubus is weird, life in the field tops it.
The only people besides me who hadn’t known this farce would happen, apparently, were Dr. Novotny and the twins. That made me extra grateful to Jonah. I gave him a full-body smooch before he and his brother drove away with their hired shrink.
Lauren turned to Cricket. “You win, Big Squeak. I backed Mom about the Loriston Home, but I apologize for that. You were right. You’ve become a legend about yourself.”
“Will your mother be mad?” I said, smiling, while Cricket greeted some more fans and gave them autographs and posed for selfies with them.
“Fuck Mom.” Lauren shrugged. “There’s always been something a little hinky about Big Squeak, and that’s okay with me.”
She sent me a side-eye. I decoded that one. Lauren was telling me that she knew I was hinky and she accepted me. For some reason that made me dizzy with gladness.
“I love her for it,” Lauren went on. “I’m hinky myself, in an ordinary way. But she’s larger than life, isn’t she?”
I looked at my five-foot-nothing roomie in Beth’s dowdy dress, a dress chosen, I realized now, because she had planned this stunt before we left the lair. “Yeah.”
CRICKET
That evening, Cricket’s new roommates had basketball practice.
Cricket could see exactly why Amanda had signed up over sports. She seemed so open and free. She was also good at getting the best out of Reg, who kept his mouth clean while they co-coached. The other girls played along, but Amanda was in heaven. She glowed. Does she even know how much she needs this? Cricket wondered.
The team did drills. They practiced free-throws and layups. They ran plays over and over.
Cricket had always been too short to play team sports. Now she itched to get out there.
It occurred to her that she could be taller now, if she wanted.
A big drum full of basketballs sat against the wall under another, basketless hoop. While everybody else was thumping around at one end of the plywood court, Cricket went to the other end, fished out a basketball, and began throwing it hopefully at the naked hoop. That was a total failure. She was too short.
She glanced around, feeling guilty for cheating on her aunt’s rule against having fun with sports. Then she thought about growing a few inches.
That basketball hoop got closer.
She threw the ball at it. The ball bounced off. If she were only a little higher—
Instead of trying to guess how much taller she needed to be, Cricket focused on the hoop. Soon she was tossing the ball lightly through it. Then she could slam-dunk it, standing, from above. Then she was dropping the ball through the hoop, squinting and letting go, aiming for that circle somewhere down by her knees.
Someone let out a shriek. There was a crash of someone hitting the plywood deck. All sounds of dribbling and foot-thumping stopped.
Cricket glanced over at the practice.
Beth was lying on her back. Reg had the ball in his hands. Pog was trying to grab it from him. Jee had her hands on her hips, and her mouth hung open like a bucket. Amanda was laughing. All were halted in place
, staring up at Cricket.
“Cricket—your legs!” Beth shrieked.
“It’s a skill,” Amanda said.
“Holy shit,” Pog said.
Cricket looked down. Her legs seemed to be about twelve feet long. They were white and skinny like young birch trees and, from up here, another six feet above the basket, they looked extremely wobbly. She gave a gasp. The world went swimmy, and, with a swoop, she felt herself sinking rapidly back toward her normal, shrimpy Cricket size.
Then she fell on her ass, howling with laughter.
Reg said, “We should learn how to use this.”
And that’s when Cricket got her brilliant idea.
She sent Reg a look. He was looking back at her, and she could see the wheels turning in his head. Reg was competitive in there somewhere, under the Jee-owns-me thing. He had to be thinking the same thing.
AMANDA
I was right, Cricket was great in the Team Slut vs. the Tall Person drills. I was also wrong. She did know something about basketball. She couldn’t handle her body worth a damn, but she learned fast, and she concentrated as tightly as Beth. As I’d already noticed, with her mouth shut she was actually fun, and she seemed to revert to her youngest age so far—what she called twenty and Jee called nine. We ran harder and harder plays around her. She got good at intercepting in keep-away drills. Her footwork improved measurably in one afternoon.
It was a total hoot to have the extra challenge.
We only stopped because we were starving.
Before chow, we hit the big circular shower-basin in the locker room, where metalworkers had once rinsed off their soot-blackened torsos before going home. The basin was about nine feet across, with a high chrome lip pierced by holes that squirted water—warm water, since we had had it renovated—up and inward, across the gently-sloping, tiled bottom of the basin. A central fixture showered water downward in all directions as well. It was as if a silent movie producer had commissioned a fountain for a Roman orgy scene. Once we had five sluts and their cabana boy soaping up and frolicking in it, it even looked like an orgy.
Coed Demon Sluts: Omnibus: Coed Demon Sluts: books 1-5 Page 66