Names Have Power: Tim's Magic Voice Makes A Harem (10 page)

Chapter 17
I’m Told I Was Tricked

The next morning, after the Morning Meeting, I was
talking to Betty Jane in my office when Susie burst in. Susie said, “Mister
Hanson, there’s a call holding for you. Says it’s urgent.”

“Tell him I’ll pick up in a few minutes.” I could
say that because we weren’t open yet. I asked, “Customer, vendor, or employee?”

“It’s your neighbor”—Susie looked down at the
paper—“Ashley Lynn Effib, and she insisted that she has to talk to you
right
this minute
.”

Oh, shit
, I thought. Aloud, I said, “Betty
Jane, looks like we’ll have to continue this in your office in a few minutes.”

After Betty Jane and Susie left, I picked up my
phone. “Hello, Tim Hanson here.”

Ashley Lynn said, “Hi, uh, Tim? I’m gonna be late
for Second Period, can’t talk long. It’s about my dad.”

I got a sick feeling in my stomach, but my voice
was calm. “What about your dad?”

“Yesterday afternoon, he was asking me all sorts of
questions about Monday. Remember how I lied to him, said I was going to Debbie
Barrett’s to study? Yesterday afternoon he was asking me about that, over and
over. What we studied, when I got to Debbie’s house, when I left, conversations
we had, the whole nine yards. I did
serious
lying.”

“And he asked the same stuff over and over, like in
cop shows? Like he was trying to catch you in a lie?”

“Uh-huh. When he doesn’t believe what I’m saying,
he does this thing with his eyebrow, you know? Yesterday he tried to hide it,
but twice while I was talking to him, he did the eyebrow thing.”

“So does he know that Monday night, I had sex with
you and your mom?”

“Does he
know
? He’s acting that way, but I
don’t see how. Believe me,
I
sure didn’t tell him, and I can’t imagine
that Mom would tell him anything.”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Ashley Lynn. I’d better
let you go.”

“Tim, one more thing?”

“Yes?”

“You
rock
between the sheets! Seriously.”

An hour later, the other shoe dropped—Ashley Sue called
me. The first words out of her mouth were, “Timothy, I messed up.”

“Messed up how?”

“Tuesday night, after I gave Simon his blowjob, I
asked him to lick my pussy.”

“I thought you had never done that before.”

“Nope, never have. But Tuesday, I was blowing him
and I thought,
He owes me.
So when I could talk again, I asked him to
lick me. He said, `How can you ask me such a thing?’ I said, `Fair’s fair. I
did you, now you do me.’”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said, `This is disgusting! Do not say more of
this.’ I said, `Why? I deserve better than what I’m getting. Timothy says’—”

“Wait, you mentioned my name?”

“Yeah, that’s where I messed up. Simon was treating
me like a slave, and for some reason, that made me mad, and your name slipped
out. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. So what happened then?”

“So then he started asking me what I’d been doing
Monday night. When I’d left, I’d told him I was going window-shopping. Anyway,
he started cross-examining me about that. And I got mad and told him that he
was making up nonsense, false accusations, just to get out of licking my pussy.”

“Good for you. The best defense is a good offense.”

“Then he told me that it isn’t a husband’s duty to `submit’
to his wife, but it’s a wife’s duty to submit to her husband. Including in the
bedroom. And so I shot back with, `Maybe so, maybe not, but it
is
a
husband’s duty to remain faithful to his wife!’”

“Whoa. It got nasty.”

“Then he said, `What do you mean by that?’ I said, `You
know damn well what I mean.’ I wasn’t about to name names—let him worry. So he
came back with `You owe me an explanation for that last remark.’ And I said, `I
don’t owe you jack shit, adulterer.’”

“Whoa. So what happened last night?”

“Yesterday after Ashley Lynn got home from school,
Simon was pushing her and quizzing her, like he’d done to me. Last night after
dinner, I’d just started the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. It was Mary
Bell. Simon fetched Ashley Lynn from upstairs, they and Mary walked into the
kitchen, then Simon said, `We’re going to walk to Mister Hanson’s house, all
four of us, and invite him to church.’ You know the rest.”

“So somehow he found out what really happened
Monday night. Or at least, found out enough to be suspicious.”

“I can’t see how.”

“Did he say or do anything unusual Monday night,
after you two got home?”

“No, nothing. Wait—nah, it’s nothing. But it
was
unusual.”

“Tell me.”

“I was climbing the stairs, intending to take a
shower before he smelled me, and he came to the bottom of the stairs and asked
me to turn off the water faucet to the soaker hose in the front yard. He’s
always the one to turn off the hose before coming to bed, but Monday night he
asked me to do it. He was even polite about it.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like it means anything,”
I said.

“Probably not,” Ashley Sue agreed. Then she asked
me, “So now that I’ve told you all this, what are you going to do?”

I said, “Sometime between now and Sunday, I need to
get a haircut. I’m shaggy.”

“
You’re still going?
But I think Simon is up
to something!”

“I
know
he’s up to something. But I made a
promise. Ten a.m. Sunday, I’m in your church.”

“Your promise, he tricked you into making that.”

“Doesn’t matter. I keep my promises.”

The only excitement in the rest of my workday was
that I slipped out to get a haircut, and talked my stylist out of buying a
Honda. Hours passed, and then it was a little before 5:30 p.m.

I was just climbing out of my car in my garage,
when my cel phone rang. It was Sarah calling: “Honey, I’m a ditz. I left my
sack lunch on the counter. Could you bring it to the club, please, sometime
before seven?”

I said, “No problem. I’ll bring it now.”

“You’re a sweetie. I love you.”

Sure enough, on the kitchen counter was an open
little brown bag, with a sandwich and a baggie of carrot sticks inside, and an
apple next to the bag. I bagged the apple and headed back to my car.

Some minutes later, I was walking up to the open
front door of Club Nimfo. This was the first time I’d been here since the night
that Mike had brought me.

In front of the door was a lectern that was painted
purple and had “Club Nimfo” lettered on it in silver. Behind the lectern was a
woman (young, blond, stacked, cast on her arm) who was collecting the
ten-dollar cover charge. Standing next to her was a man who was huge in every
way: well over six feet tall, and with enormous muscles. His biceps were like
grapefruits.

I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I
had not pulled a single engine, or manhandled a single transmission, since I’d
inherited the dealership.

I walked up to the lectern and held up the sack
lunch. “I’m here to give Platinuma her lunch.”

The big man looked at me like I was a worm. “Hey
buddy, nobody gets in the frickin’ club without paying the frickin’ ten bucks.”
He had a New York or New Jersey accent.

“I don’t
want
to get in the club, I just
want to give Platinuma her lunch.”

“I’m not saying anything more to you, I got woik to
do. You wanna talk to me, you get in back of the frickin’ line.”

“I’m not going to pay ten—”

“Back of the frickin’ line, asshole, got me?”

Seeing no alternative, I went to the back of the
frickin’ line. There were five guys in front of me.

When I was at the head of the line, I said, “I’m
not going to stay in the club. I’m just going to talk to Platinuma for a few
seconds, let her know I’m here, then hand off the lunch to the bartender.”

Big Guy said, “Yeah? Well, everybody wants to talk
to dis stripper or dat stripper without paying. Do you know how many notes
about frickin’
dying grandmas
I seen?”

“Look, you got a walkie-talkie?”

“I’m not tellin’ you jack. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

“Can you call a manager out here, and I give the
lunch to him?”

“Nope, not safe.”

“Will you call a
dancer
out here, and I give
the sack lunch to
her
?”

“Nope. Buddy, playtime is over—ten bucks, or take a
frickin’ hike.”

“Fuck you,” I said. “Will you at least tell me your
name
, or is
that
against frickin’ policy too?”

“Vincent Cesare Capriccio.”

Progress, finally.
I said, “Okay, Vincent
Capriccio, I ask again: You got a walkie-talkie?”

“Yeah, I got one.”

“Then let’s do this, Vincent Capriccio: You tell
one of the bouncers inside the club that I’m coming in, and what I’m up to. And
if I quit the plan, he’s welcome to slam my head into the wall.”

Vincent went for it. Twenty seconds later, I was
entering the loud, dark strip club, a smile on my face and a ten-dollar bill
still in my wallet. I waved to Slave Jeanette (a.k.a. Peachy).

I found Sarah on a stage, naked and rubbing her
hands over her tits. I walked close to the stage, held up the brown sack, and
jerked a thumb at the bar behind me. Sarah gave me a smile that would instantly
cure erectile dysfunction.

Platinuma/Sarah was the perfect girlfriend. She was
tall, platinum blond, stacked, beautiful of face, and muscle-toned; her current
dance moves were pure eroticism. She was affectionate and feminine, and she let
me have sex with other women. And she was
my
girlfriend, thanks to me
(accidentally) using the Power that the golden god gave me. If the golden god
had a temple open, I would be sending its priests a whopping tax-deductible
contribution.

When I returned my thoughts to the here and now, I
was walking from Sarah’s stage to the bar. I noticed a giant of a man watching
me. He was holding a walkie-talkie in his hand.

Walking to the bar, I also noticed my fired
manager, Mike Brown, talking to redheaded dancer Sunset. Mike and Sunset weren’t
touching (because of club rules), but you couldn’t shove a toilet-paper roll
between them. Twenty to one, those two were having sex.

Mike didn’t notice me, and I had no interest in
talking to him. If he would be bothered by the fact that Sunset was once a man
(and legally, still was a man), Mike wasn’t going to find this out from me. As
for Sunset, I believed that unless she were an axe murderer, she deserved a
better boyfriend than Mike. But I didn’t stop to tell her that.

Seconds later, the bartender was asking me, “Yes
sir, what’ll you have?”

I plopped the brown bag on the bar, pulled out a
pen, then wrote “Platinuma” on the bag. I told the bartender, “Platinuma forgot
her lunch.”

A young man who was sitting nearby, spewed beer on
hearing my words. “Whoa, you’re banging
Platinuma
?” Then his face showed
panic and he added, “Or you her brother or something?”

“I’m not her brother or something, and I am definitely
banging Platinuma.”

“
Wow
,” he said. “Is it, you know,
good
?”

“It’s the stuff of legend, guy. But I make it good
for her too. That’s the secret.”

I was smiling as I walked away from the bar. I
grinned even bigger as I walked out of Club Nimfo and past Vinnie the Mountain.
But as I was getting in my car, I wondered,
Did he finally let me in the
club because I wore him down, or was that somehow my Power at work?

Friday morning, I had walked out of the bathroom
and was walking by Susie’s desk when she said, “There’s a man waiting for you
in your office.”

I looked at her in amazement—even the most newbie
receptionist knows better than that. “You let a man in my office when I wasn’t
there? You really did that?”

She nodded, not seeing any problem. “He says he’s a
friend.”

“That’s not how a receptionist is supposed to do
things, Susie.”

“But he told me that it was okay for him to wait in
your office, and—well, I believed it when he said that. Was I unhelpful?”

I did
not
want Susie to go into another endless-loop
breakdown, so I said. “Everything’s fine, I’m sure you were helpful.”

When I walked into my office, standing by one of my
visitor’s chairs and facing me was the SUV Driver. He was even wearing the same
white shirt and blue tie with white polka dots that he’d worn on the day he’d “died.”

As I shook his hand, he said, “I came by to see how
you—Eight planets, I never figured on any of this!”

“On any of
what
?” I asked.

“I was right about you, that you wouldn’t enslave
any women with your Power. Not intentionally, I mean. But by pure accident, you’ve
built up a harem! Starting with—Cancer and Capricorn, I messed up.”

“You lost me,” I said. I wondered,
Do gods “mess
up”?

He sighed in relief. “I didn’t think, and I set up
a Contradiction Conflict within your receptionist, Susan Gloria Cooper. But
already you’ve fixed that. Amazing. Good job.”

SUV Driver stared at my forehead for several
seconds. Maybe he was reading my brain, or maybe I had a ladybug crawling
around up there.

Then he said, “You really are an exceptional man.
You promised that priest that you will visit his temple, and so you shall,
though you suspect him of bad intentions.”

I smiled. “Am I right? About Brother Simon’s bad
intentions?”

He shrugged. “I’m a mind-reader, not omniscient.
But woe unto him if he be indeed a bad priest who abuses true believers.” SUV
Driver walked over and slapped me on the shoulder. “You’ve kept your conscience
throughout, and words can’t describe how that pleases me. Walk me to my car?”