Tagged: bonus points

I Tucked the Bundle of Wire Into My Pocket

  • by jenyour secret is safe with us
  • He did both.
  • her husband materialized
  • no explanations for the fresh cuts
  • took an Imperial Pint of vinegar

Tune in next time part 74                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I tucked the bundle of wire into my pocket and thought about Svetlana. The surprise I felt came not from the fact of her escape from her bindings but from the knowledge that she could have escaped at any time. Why had she chosen to remain my bound captive for so long? Was she proving her cooperation, or attempting to lull me?

Beside the campfire sat a woman. On a spit in the flames was the roasting carcass of some medium-sized animal, maybe a goat. I watched as the woman took an Imperial Pint of vinegar from the ground beside her and basted the meat. Even so my mouth watered.

While the woman was occupied with recorking the vinegar bottle, Svetlana sprang from the darkness and cut two long strips of meat from the roasting animal and disappeared back into the shadows. Where had she gotten the knife?

The woman put the vinegar down and looked at her meal, confused. I could tell her dim imagination offered no explanations for the fresh cuts that now marred the cooking meat.

Just then her husband materialized from inside the weird blue van. I assume it was her husband, anyway. They acted married. I didn’t know whether to expect him to yell or laugh about the state of their dinner. He did both.

While the couple bickered, Svetlana appeared at my elbow and handed me a strip of hot, greasy meat. It burned my tongue and tasted strongly of vinegar, but I was too hungry to care. I ate it all in seconds and thought about daring Svetlana to get us more.

“I’ve had just about enough of your chauvinism, Harold!” the vinegar-woman cried as she shoved the man into the fire. I told you they acted married.

Harold screamed and stumbled around, his clothing and hair in flames. His wife watched, chuckling as he ran blindly off into the desert night.

“Serves you right you sonnovabitch!” she yelled after him.

Svetlana chose that moment to approach.

“We need transportation,” she said. “If you give us the keys to your van, your secret is safe with us. If you feel the need to argue, we’ll tell the authorities what we saw you do to poor Harold.”

 

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When Svetlana Acquiesced

  • by Kentcome on, let’s get high
  • resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose
  • continued after night fell
  • isn’t mature enough to be my sex partner
  • I blame porn for this

Tune in next time part 73                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

When Svetlana acquiesced to walk under her own power and we started off along the side of the road, Jerry dropped his stick and called after us not to leave him. “I have some primo pharma in the way-back,” he implored. “Stick around guys, come on let’s get high.”

Even Svetlana could see that was a bad idea. We trudged for hours without seeing another vehicle. The hinterlands were so quiet that we could hear the rumble of a distant engine for several minutes before we spotted the machine behind us. It was some kind of van, resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose. In other words, not bearing much resemblance to an elephant at all. Svetlana waved her leg over her head in an effort to make the driver stop, but the weird van trundled past without slowing.

Our lonely hike continued after night fell. “Shouldn’t we stop, get some rest?” Svetlana asked. “We could lay down, together, under the stars.” She batted her eyelashes. “I’m already tied up.”

“You keep trying to seduce me, but I know it’s only in hopes of making your escape. You’re only looking out for yourself, which is a major turn-off. I’m not interested in sleeping with someone who isn’t mature enough to be my sex partner.” My speech caused her to pout, whether in genuine petulance or as a come-hither indicator it was impossible to tell.

Topping a hill brought us voices, and the smell of wood smoke and roasting meat. Both our stomachs growled so loudly I was worried the people at the campsite up ahead might hear them. Parked just within the circle of light cast by the fire was the bizarre bluish van, its proboscis accentuated by shadows dancing in the firelight. It wasn’t a nose at all, but a different anatomical reference.

Svetlana chuckled and handed me a tidy bundle of electrical wiring. She started toward the campsite, wrists unbound. “I’m going to get something to eat, you coming?” she called back to me.

“Wait,” I hissed, but she kept going. She presumably meant to ply these strangers with sexual advances, or just attack them and steal their food. I was so hungry I hardly cared, trailing a few dozen yards behind her to see what would develop. I was eager to watch, slave to a deep voyeuristic impulse that often arises at inopportune times. I blame porn for this reflex toward surreptitious observation. Regardless, I hoped for a cut of that meat.

 

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Svetlana Used Her Nimble Toes

  • by jencarried the corpse away with them
  • with an energy peculiar to excited females
  • “faddish” and “exaggerated”
  • Russia at its most bizarre
  • could not be locked from the inside

Tune in next time part 72                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Svetlana used her nimble toes to try to prevent me from bringing her along, but fortunately for me Jerry’s car could not be locked from the inside. While she writhed around and tried to hold all the doors closed with her feet, flailing and contorting her limbs like an acrobat from Russia at its most bizarre, I reached in through the open window and grabbed her by the ankle.

Some might call her struggles “faddish” and “exaggerated” but I knew that in her mind she was fighting for her freedom, if not her life, and doing so with an energy peculiar to excited females. I also think she had a crush on Jerry who stood nearby, still beating the ground with his stick.

I hauled Svetlana through the window by her ankle, narrowly avoiding being caught up in a headlock with her other leg. While she dangled from my fist, I said, “You can either walk, or I can carry you. If I carry you it won’t be fun. It’ll be like when John and Lyudmila killed that feral ninja and carried the corpse away with them, and you’ll be the corpse.”

She glared at me.

I gave a hard smile. “You won’t be dead, but you might wish you were.”

 

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Svetlana Had

  • by jencontrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanors
  • consider looking deeper
  • the reunions didn’t go well
  • kill everyone and live happily ever after
  • the saddest and most pitiful sounds

Tune in next time part 70                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Svetlana had, in her storied past, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanors, but none of her earlier schemes were as ill-conceived as her current actions. She leaned back on her stool, balancing expertly on her tailbone, and, using her nimble toes, threw her drink in the hissing bartender’s face, glass and all. It smacked him right between the eyes, sending a trickle of blood down his nose. I knew that her parents had looked into having her committed to a private home for the violently insane, and I thought maybe they should consider looking deeper.

The drunks at the table all leapt to their feet, their chairs clattering. Svetlana backflipped from her barstool to the center of their table, then spun in a quick circle, kicking them each in the face so that they wobbled and collapsed. Their asses smacked back into their chairs and the reunions didn’t go well. Several seats splintered.

“This place is crawling with spies!” Svetlana cried, staring at me with wide blue eyes. “We should kill everyone and live happily ever after in a cottage by the sea!”

I knew she didn’t really mean it. Happy endings weren’t her style. But for once we were on the same side.

The trench-coated individual leapt up and shrugged out of the coat, revealing himself to be a man. He came at me wielding a jagged hunting knife. I used a ninja maneuver I learned from Tessa to turn his momentum against him, and he lodged the blade in his own groin.

Svetlana and I ran out the door, leaving behind a bar full of men making the saddest and most pitiful sounds I’d ever heard.

It wasn’t long, though, until I heard sounds even sadder and more piteous.

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Buckskin Man’s Cryptic Semen Comments

  • by Kentbalanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner
  • about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions
  • without any flattery at all
  • the eerie rustling of my robes
  • a little liar, a boy-liar, a sweet, white boy-liar

Tune in next time part 69                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Buckskin Man’s cryptic semen comments remained mysterious, because Svetlana declined to offer any explanations. Wanting to find out what happened to John drove my decision to show up at the coordinates anyway, assuming I could decode them from the soggy paper scraps in my pocket. Leading the treacherous contortionist by one elbow, I struck off in search of a temporary base of operations.

It was nearing dark when we reached a bar where I felt safe. It was a corrugated metal shack in the hinterlands with a row of motorcycles out front. But the bikes were more rust than chrome. Entering the shabby building, I sized up the occupants. A table with four men hunched over it, someone drinking alone at the bar in a long tan trench coat, and someone I took to be the bartender, a reedy mustachioed man who balanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner behind the bar.

One of the four men at the table erupted in noisy laughter, leaning back and showing me that he was about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions. I can say without any flattery at all that the elaborate pyramid they’d built from their empties was the most sophisticated example of such architecture I had ever seen.

I stationed us at the opposite end of the bar, away from the enigmatic person in the trench coat, and got to work on the coded messages while Svetlana tried to summon the bartender to get a drink. The skinny, nervous man glanced in her direction but otherwise did not respond.

“You’ll need to help yourself, if you’re thirsty,” said the trench-coated person. The voice was dry and droll, reminding me of the eerie rustling of my robes when I graduated from the Hopscotch Academy with a degree in advanced duplicity. I couldn’t determine its owner’s gender.

Svetlana took the advice and sprang nimbly over the bar despite her wrists being bound. She used her toes to mix herself a sidecar while the bartender trembled behind her. Back at her stool, she again employed her toes to raise the glass to her lips.

The code concealing the coordinates looked tricky, but knowing that the message was intended for John was a big clue that it would be simpler than it appeared. He always sucked at ciphers. I stuffed the solved cryptograms back into my pocket and told Svetlana to finish her drink.

The bartender moved at last. He lunged up against his side of the bar, still on one foot, and hissed at Svetlana, “You know he’s a little liar, a boy-liar, a sweet, white boy-liar!” Everyone in the place heard him, even the suddenly quiet group over at their table.

“We’re leaving,” I said.

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Once He Was Barefoot

  • by jenand then await instructions
  • crowned by telephone wires
  • “Sure you gonna go home, Johnny! I know you are.”
  • doctors weren’t able to analyze the semen samples
  • and tell them to be punctual

Tune in next time part 68                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Once he was barefoot, the enigmatic stranger fished a sheet of paper out of his right moccasin and handed it to me. It was damp with foot-sweat. From the left he fished another note, which he tucked between Svetlana’s lips, making her wrinkle her nose.

“Go to these coordinates once you’ve decoded them, and then await instructions,” the man said as he slipped his feet back into their buckskin sheaths. While he was doubled over I noticed that his head was crowned by telephone wires and the feathers I spotted earlier were actually live birds tethered there.

“I’d rather go home than to your mysterious coordinates, dude,” I said.

“Sure you gonna go home, Johnny! I know you are.” His tone was mocking.

Why did he think I was John? Was it because I was in the company of Svetlana? She was trying to spit the notepaper out of her mouth, presumably to tell this man I was not her brother, but the paper stuck to her lips and tongue, and everything she said was muffled into indistinguishability.

“Things are heating up,” the man said, straightening, and ignoring Svetlana’s sputterings. “Our doctors weren’t able to analyze the semen samples because they were all contaminated with monkey semen.” He smiled briefly. “The samples were contaminated, not the doctors. Anyway, we need to collect fresh samples from everyone, so go to those coordinates, call your team, and tell them to be punctual. We can’t afford another screw-up.” He shook my hand, gave Svetlana a nod, and sprinted down the alley to a waiting limousine.

Svetlana finally spat her paper gag onto the ground and yelled, “This isn’t John!” at the receding black car.

I scooped up her soggy note and stuck it in my pocket along with my own.

“Now, what’s all this about semen?” I asked.

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My Conversation with Svetlana was Interrupted

  • by Kenta “macho male rock figure”
  • with the utmost coolness
  • that delectable pastime
  • turn doorknobs without fainting?
  • began unlacing his moccasins

Tune in next time part 67                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

My conversation with Svetlana was interrupted by a sudden shift in the music, and a titanic increase in its volume. Chopin was replaced by a thunderous chord progression. The flying piano was still upside down, but now the red haired performer stood on it, himself still inverted as well, with his electric guitar’s strap slung cleverly between his legs. He cut quite a “macho male rock figure” up there, belting out crunchy music with the utmost coolness. Svetlana gaped, all carnal thoughts of me clearly washed from her mind, but the sexy swiveling of her hips indicated she was still daydreaming about that delectable pastime.

The female dancers’ fancy costumes had been shucked, revealing neon-toned unitards more suited to the modern interpretive style of their new dance, a swooning rubbery motion that made me wonder, could they turn doorknobs without fainting?

“Let’s keep moving,” I said, again using the pistol to encourage Svetlana to walk. We found another door in a distant corner of the warehouse and exited into an alleyway. One other person was out there, dressed all in buckskins and feathers.

“Who are you?” Svetlana asked. The stranger silently began unlacing his moccasins.

 

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Far Above the Heads of the Dancing Ladies

  • by jenhandcuffed to the table
  • you know that’s not allowed
  • I’m not a machine
  • now she was all sweet decorum
  • I wish I could sing like that

Tune in next time part 66                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Far above the heads of the dancing ladies, the pianist was strapped to his bench, playing what I now recognized as a Chopin etude. He sang along, his voice as striking as his red hair. I wish I could sing like that crazy upside down man, but my talents lie in other areas.

Svetlana stared at the tableau, transfixed. I heard her sigh and reminded myself that even if now she was all sweet decorum she was a very dangerous woman. I led her into the darkened recesses of the warehouse, away from the stage and its peculiar performers.

I didn’t know exactly, or even roughly, where we were, and Svetlana refused to tell me. I frisked her, hoping to find a phone, but all I found under her leotard was her blowgun and a tube of chapstick. My hands lingered on her narrow hips.

“If you keep that up, you’re going to make me horny,” Svetlana purred. “I’m not a machine.” She leaned in for a kiss, her arms still bound behind her back.

“You know that’s not allowed,” I said. “You’re my captive.”

“That never stopped you before,” she pouted. “Last time I was handcuffed to the table.”

“That was recreational. Today it’s business.”

 

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Heinrich Began to Get Up

  • by Kentkeep hearing your name
  • “It’s an honour!”
  • Jeepers creepers!
  • all that glitters is gold
  • danced on the ceiling

Tune in next time part 65                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Heinrich began to get up off the floor, but in a flash Svetlana leapt on him, wrapping her legs around his neck. His face purpled instantly from the pressure. Meanwhile, Aphrodite still had a mouthful of toxic sea life keeping her from breathing.

I picked up the pistol from where Aphrodite had dropped it. My sense of fair play gave me conflicting impulses, dual ways of balancing the outcomes for these three villains. I could probably save both Heinrich and Aphrodite by subduing Svetlana, or I could wait another few minutes until the pirates expired and then polish off the contortionist.

I knew no one here deserved mercy or salvation, but I knew also that I’d be forever haunted by evil dreams, the kind where you keep hearing your name echoing from charnel vaults, if I took part in their deaths so callously.

Plucking the jellyfish from Aphrodite’s tongue, I aimed the gun at Svetlana’s head and said, “Off.” I had to cock the hammer to make my point, but she released Heinrich and took a step back. “Heinrich,” I said, “I’m sure you’re familiar with the classic jellyfish-sting antidote? She needs it quick, at the site of the injury.” He gulped, massaging his throat, and nodded. “Then she’ll probably need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” I added with a smirk.

“It’s an honour!” he said chokingly, with an unexpectedly British inflection. Sliding up alongside his wife’s head, he began undoing his belt.

“Jeepers creepers!” Svetlana cried. I held the gun on her and made her watch the lifesaving treatment for a few minutes before chivvying her out the warehouse’s enormous front door. I swung it shut again, then ordered Svetlana to shift some nearby oil drums to block it. Meanwhile I located some discarded electrical wiring, which I used to bind her wrists when she was done with her assignment. Her face was ashen, her eyes unfocused. Some things cannot be unseen.

“Steady now,” I said. “Like they say, all that glitters is gold. What you just learned is, not all that’s gold glitters. And some of it smells pretty rank.” She looked on the verge of fainting.

I surveyed our surroundings. All the nearby buildings were indistinguishable from the one we’d just left. Hot sun blazed down on us. I directed Svetlana across the alleyway to the next massive building and pulled its door open.

Guiding her inside, I heard music. The interior mostly lay in darkness, except for a rectangular area at the far end. A bizarre orchard of glowing crystal illuminated that area, with a grand piano suspended upside down far above. I nudged Svetlana with the gun and we slowly moved toward what I realized were inverted chandeliers, mesmerized by the sumptuous shimmering gowns worn by a trio of ladies as they danced on the ceiling that had been created for them.

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Aphrodite Snarled At Me

  • by jenme, I want a hula hoop
  • I consider you a rascal
  • burn the air you breathe
  • live long enough to get into space
  • without a hug and kiss

Tune in next time part 64                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Aphrodite snarled at me, “I want a hula hoop‘s width between you and Svetlana.” She gestured with her gun. “No more, no less.”

She didn’t want me to help Svetlana, who was still being throttled by Heinrich, but if I moved too far away she wouldn’t be able to monitor both of us with her single eye.

“I consider you a rascal,” she continued, “not a great threat. I will deal with you once the contortionist bitch is no more.”

Svetlana writhed beneath her former lover/sherpa, her lips a blue grimace, her eyes wide and angry.

Heinrich’s grip faltered and Svetlana drew a gasping breath. While Aphrodite was distracted by that I raised my hand and plucked a jellyfish from my hair. During my years developing the underwater excavation machine I had developed an immunity to jellyfish stings. I was counting on that not being the case for my captors. I flung the gelatinous creature at Aphrodite’s face, hoping to temporarily blind her, but my aim was off and it landed in her mouth just as she inhaled.

I knew from sad experience that man-o-war venom in your esophagus will burn the air you breathe, turning your lungs to fire, and making you doubt whether you will live long enough to get into spaces not built of agony. In other words, it was an effective distraction.

Aphrodite’s gun clattered to the floor and she soon followed it, gagging and coughing and clawing at her mouth. She drew Heinrich’s attention long enough for Svetlana to break free and somersault out of reach, gasping.

Should I take my chances and team up with Svetlana, or leave now, without a hug, and kiss my ass goodbye?

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