How Hard Can It Be? (11 page)
My lady bits informed me it was time to throw him to the floor and ride him blind. Neither me nor my nether regions cared if the entire building heard us. But wait . . . I couldn’t. Because he was talking . . . Why was he talking? What in the hell was wrong with him?
“I am completely undone by you. I’ve never wanted anyone so badly in my life.”
“Then what the hell are you waiting for?” I demanded. Fuck, did I say that out loud? Yes, I did.
“I want you for more than one night.”
Wasn’t that my line? Was Herbie the Dentist Cop right? Was Jack gay? No way. The gun he was packing in his pants was clear evidence to the contrary.
“We are going to get to know each other first,” he continued.
“Well, it’s probably a good thing that we didn’t, um . . . you know, do it,” I replied flippantly.
“Why’s that?” He tilted his head to the side and smiled. I almost forgot my name.
“Because I don’t date cops.”
“Really?” He grinned.
“Yup, I don’t like them.”
Before I even saw him move, he was back up in my face, his body grinding into mine.
Can’t think, can’t think, can’t think.
Can’t think, can’t think, can’t think.
“We’ll see about that, Rena.”
He leaned in and gently pressed his lips to mine. My eyes fluttered shut and all my resistance melted away. He deepened the kiss, then pulled back.
Embarrassingly, I gasped at the loss, but did enjoy watching Jack struggle with himself. I hoped he got a raging case of blue balls.
He ran his fingers lightly across my collar bone and down my arm. His sexy smirk was firmly back in place. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Before I could get a word out, he was gone. I sank to the floor and dropped my head into my hands. Shit. I was in lust with the enemy and he wouldn’t even screw me. He wanted to know me better. . . that couldn’t possibly turn out well.
I crawled over to my now melted bowl of ice cream and realized I still had no idea how he’d gotten into my building. Maybe he was friends with the guy who’d moved in downstairs. Maybe they had butt contests . . . standing in front of the mirror in their underpants, trying to figure out whose butt was hotter. I’d seen both and I’d have to call it a draw. I giggled at the thought of two hot guys in their underpants comparing asses. As hot as Jack was, I still didn’t trust his motives . . . Shaking my head and trying to remove him and what could have happened from my brain, I went in search of Vinnie the Vibrator. My lady bits would bitch at me all night if I didn’t comply with their demands. So much for a boring evening . . .
Chapter 11
Pirate Dave grabbed his throbbing tallywhacker in agony, raised his eyes to the heavens, and screamed for all he was worth. “Why me? Why have I been cursed with a johnson that won’t go down?”
So caught up in his own angst, he squeezed his winkie for all it was worth. “Goddamn,” he yelped, letting go of himself and running in circles like his feet were on fire. He shook his fist at the sky and cursed up a storm. “Poseidon, you fat bastard, if I ever die, your jiggly ass is mine. I know you’re up there laughing, you porcine motherfucker,” he screeched.
As his rant at the obese god escalated, the horizon filled with a blazing purple light and a shape-shifting, fairy-like blind troll dropped out of the sky and landed smack on top of Pirate Dave, giving him a minor concussion.
“What the fuck?” Pirate Dave yelled, throwing the sightless troll twenty-seven feet away from him. “Who are you?”
The shape-shifting, fairy-like troll got up and brushed himself off. He was pissed. “Well, you idiot, I’m supposed to be your blind magical fairy troll, but after a reception like that, I think I will become your archenemy,” he huffed, in a teeny-tiny squeaky voice.
“I’m over here,” Pirate Dave offered, as the blind troll had been speaking to air.
“Oh, sorry.”
“No biggie.”
The blind troll fairy turned forty-five degrees to his left and continued. “Poseidon said you were a dick, but . . .”
“Dude,” Pirate Dave cut him off, “you need to turn about twenty-two degrees to your right.”
The blind shape-shifting fairy-like troll’s face burned crimson with embarrassment. “Is that better?” he asked as he made the adjustment.
“Yep.”
“Thanks. Now as I was saying, Poseidon said you were a dick, but he didn’t say anything about how stinky you are.”
“That’s my manly smell,” Pirate Dave haughtily informed the troll. “Plus, I’d guess your sense of smell is pretty sharp considering you can’t see a goddamn thing.”
“True. So what is your problem?”
“My salami won’t go down. No matter how many beautiful large-breasted women I bed, no matter how many sheep I befriend, no matter how many times I yank my pud, no matter . . .”
“I get it,” the blind fairy troll interrupted. “I can help you with that.”
“You can?” Pirate Dave was ecstatic. “If you can help me, I will restore your sight. I am a time-traveling vampire warlock, after all,” he boasted.
“That sounds fair.” The little troll nodded his bulbous head. “Go ahead and give me back my vision and then I will take care of your wanker. It would be far wiser if I could see before I deal with your skin flute.”
Pirate Dave readjusted his rock-hard electric eel and lifted his arms in the air. The blind troll almost passed out from the foul odor wafting from the pirate’s pits, but he plugged his nose and went with it. He’d been blind for twelve thousand years. He’d wade through a pile of poop to get his sight back.
Pirate Dave dirty danced and swore profusely. Warlock spells tend to be vigorous and profane. Sweat poured from Dave as he bounced up and down like he was having an epileptic fit. The troll learned seven new swearwords. He tucked that info away for future use. Pirate Dave finished and the blind troll was no longer blind.
“It’s your turn now,” Pirate Dave bellowed. “You will make the problem with my pork sword go away. Now!”
The troll peered over at Pirate Dave. He was ridiculously handsome in a big, macho, hairy, smelly way. The troll, not one to welsh on a bargain, giggled and turned to the left three times, hopped on his right foot, then his left. Lightning split the sky and a huge wind whipped viciously across the deck of the ship. Three deckhands were blown to sea, never to be heard from again. Pirate Dave didn’t care, he just wanted freedom from his ding-dong. He was tired of his life being dictated by the randy desires of his love muscle.
“It is done!” the little troll screamed, laughing maniacally.
Pirate Dave realized the obscene pressure between his manly hairy thighs was gone. A huge grin split his face. His life was his own again. He was free!
He looked down at his lack of erection and froze. Icy fear ripped through his body, causing temporary paralysis, and he screamed like a little girl. He no longer had a hard-on. . . because he no longer had a penis.
“Holy shit,” Shoshanna choked, “you castrated the hero.”
“Yes, I did,” I replied smugly. I couldn’t tell if Cecil was trying not to laugh or cry. He buried his head in his hands and rocked silently back and forth.
Evangeline slapped her frosted mauve claw down on the table in our icky pink office and began her tirade. “You cannot have a hero who can’t woo and have sex with the large-breasted heroine,” she shrieked.
“I didn’t say he couldn’t have sex anymore.” I pulled my feet up on the couch Indian style and waited for her to combust.
“She didn’t say that,” Shoshanna agreed.
“Shut up, Sudoku,” the Botox Bitch hissed. “How can a man have sex without the proper plumbing? Cecil,” she shouted, knocking him out of hiding. “You’re a man . . . well, kind of,” she sneered. “Can a man have sex without an organ?”
Cecil colored fiercely and his hands clenched into fists. I was missing something about their relationship. Something bad. “I’m not sure,” he said quietly. “It’s Rena’s story. If she says he still can, then he still can.”
“It’s not Rena’s story, it’s mine,” Evangeline ground out between clenched teeth. “I won’t remind any of you of that again. If you make that necessary, I will destroy you and everything you hold dear. Am I clear?” She pointed her nasty claw at us and waited.
We nodded. I had never hated anyone so much in my life.
“So,” she purred, “Rika, if the hero has no equipment, how does he satisfy the heroine?”
That was actually a good question, but in the land of “I’m going to destroy your career,” there’s always a perfect answer. I simply needed to take a breath and start talking. Not knowing what would come out hadn’t been a problem yet... “He’s a vampire,” I stated, as if that would solve it.
“So?” she shot back.
“Clearly you don’t know the rules of the vampire.” I stayed in my casual pose on the couch and spoke condescendingly to the skank.
“Yes, I do,” she insisted, examining her manicured claws.
“I beg to disagree. If you knew the folklore of the magical undead, you would know that if you cut something off of a vampire. . . um, two will grow back in its place.”
Shoshanna stood on shaky legs and excused herself to the bathroom. I was fairly sure she had just peed herself again. Quite honestly, I almost peed myself after that new nugget of information flew out of my mouth. Cecil went back to rocking.
“Yes, yes.” Evangeline’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I had forgotten about the double regeneration of the Blood Drinkers. I read about that in
National Geographic
a while back.”
National Geographic
a while back.”
“Of course you did.” I smiled sweetly.
“I did,” she barked. “You think you’re so smart, but you’re not.”
“Then you must also be aware that a vampire, especially a time-traveling warlock vampire, can self-combust into a gooey green globule if he doesn’t masturbate regularly.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, “everyone knows that. I’ve known that for years.”
“Good, then we should talk about product placement.”
“Product placement?” She seemed confused.
Cecil’s head shot up. I could swear he looked at me with admiration in his sad eyes, but I had to be mistaken. He was on her team and I still worried he’d clue her in. I ignored him and turned to my nemesis.
“Yes, it’s similar to what they do in the movies. I figure you could make a fortune by advertising within your books. It’s never been done. You will be on the cutting edge.” I didn’t bother to mention that it was the cutting edge of obscurity and ridicule. I didn’t feel that was necessary information at this time.
“How is it done?” Her greedy, permanently open eyes got alarmingly wider.
I sucked in a quick breath and tried to squash down the fear that looking at her ignited in me. “We add things like, ‘The pirates ate a bucket of Bucky’s Fried Chicken and washed it down with a Smeerbeer followed by some Dancin’ Donna Donuts and some orange Yummyade.’ Stuff like that.”
“But I’ve never heard of any of those products.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said leveling her with a look. She grew uncomfortable and fidgety under my surprised stare.
“Oh, silly me,” she said tapping her brainless head, “Of course I know those products. I use them all the time! But how did they get all those things? They live in 1492.”
Shit. “Yes, well . . . that’s why I added the time-traveling element. Pirate Dave can, um, pop back and forth to the future and go to drive-through windows of different restaurants.” I stared up at the ceiling, waiting to be busted.
“Does he know how to drive?” she inquired.
“Yes.”
I’d gone too far. The silence in the room was ominous and I started to sweat. Damn it, maybe I should have stopped at the double penis thing . . .
Evangeline stood and began to wobble her way around the room. I fully expected her to strike me at any moment. I tried to make myself as small as possible. Her eyesight seemed pretty bad . . . maybe she’d miss.
“Brilliant,” she roared, scaring the hell out of me. “I will be the richest, smartest, most sought-after author of this century and the next. I will give you a list of the products that shall be in the story.”
“Oookay,” I stuttered. “You should probably give me about three hundred or so and I will insert them everywhere.”
“I was thinking more like five hundred.”
“Even better.” I nodded solemnly.
“Yes, well, I am an experienced businesswoman. I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand the importance of quantity.”
“I am learning so much from you. Thank you.” I bowed my head in reverence and so she wouldn’t see the shit-eating grin on my face.
“You’re welcome. Cecil,” she snapped, “you will escort me to my chambers and I will develop a list so the hired help can continue crafting my story.”
“Very well, Madame,” he said. He took her bony arm and they left.
I collapsed on the couch in a fit of giggles until I heard Shoshanna talking to herself out in the hallway . . . only her conversation wasn’t one sided. She was being dressed down by Evangeline. I moved quietly to the door. I would take that bitch out if she hurt LeHump.
“So you think you’re free now that your illegal, gay, Canadian, terrorist ex-husband has a green card,” the Viper laughed. “Well, I’m here to tell you, you’re not.”
“Canadian terrorist is actually an oxymoron,” Shoshanna informed her.
“What did you call me?” Evangeline shouted.
“Oh my God,” I heard Shoshanna mutter. “Generally speaking, Canadians are pacifists, so terrorist and Canadian do not belong in the same sentence.”
Logic evidently confused Evangeline because there was a prolonged moment of silence while she thought of a comeback. “Whatever,” she barked. “Your obsession with gay terrorists is not my problem, but I am still your problem.”
“And how’s that?” Shoshanna asked calmly.
“If you desert your duty, I will destroy your troops. Utterly and completely,” she spat triumphantly.
“You do realize there is a dungeon reserved for you in Hell,” Shoshanna said.
“Take that back, you nasty old woman,” Evangeline seethed with mounting rage.
“I take it back.” I could hear the steely edge in Shoshanna’s voice. “It’s not actually a dungeon, it’s just a hole. A hole in Hell, crawling with worms and maggots and other truly nontalented, hideous, stupid people just like you.”
“Sticks and stones,” the Viper laughed. “Sticks and stones may break my lovely bones, but names will never hurt me. Just remember that, Sue. I own you and all your little friends.”
“You don’t own Rena. You’re paying her.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised at the way things turn around, Shosheshe. I don’t pay people, people pay me. When you rule the world like I do, everything goes your way. Always.”
I heard her stilettos click down the pink marble hall and fade away. I quickly ran back to the couch. Should I let Shoshanna know what I’d heard? No . . . if she wanted to tell me she would.
It took her a few minutes, but my little friend came back into the room as if the hellish hallway conversation had never happened. She was pale, but had a big smile on her face . . . all for my benefit. I was sure I couldn’t have loved her any more than I did in this moment. This crazy profane woman was one of the best things that had happened to me in a long time. I was more determined than ever to bring Evangeline’s career down in a roaring inferno.
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