
I’m Kaitlyn Gelb, the first human to understand people. If you’re writing a history book, that’s not Caitlin with a c. It’s Kaitlyn, k-a-i-t-l-y-n.
Anyway, everybody knew the people, as they called themselves, didn’t come here to take over. Gah! They had traveled impossible distances instantly using their sparkly amethyst circles. They could have easily popped in and conquered us. Like before lunch. They could have ground us up and served us over chips drizzled in queso. Yummy us! But that’s not what these aliens were about – anyway, they’re vegans.
The people came by the thousands. They swarmed all over London and Tokyo and New York and Dildo, Canada and Condom, France and – you get the idea. They hit Atlanta too. I don’t think it was for our club scene or fried okra. They wanted to hang with humans. That was pretty obvious.
What no one understood was the true nature of these off-worlders or what they were looking for. They never revealed their home planet or dimension or website. The United Frikkin Nations formed a commission – seven old White dudes and one old Black lady with thirty PhDs between them – to study the people, but they didn’t figure out much.
The people tended to pair off into teams, poke around in humans’ business, then pop back to wherever they came from. Scientists could find no specific reasons for their comings or goings.
Within a few years, the people had started to lose interest in us humans. Earth was no longer a go-to destination. A few hundred still popped in annually, but the novelty had clearly worn off. Our phones were primitive. Our cars and planes were clunky. We bored them. And that worked both ways. When Pinkie attached herself to me, I barely got a bump in followers. Your bestie is a big pink thing from another world? Yawn. I’ve got royals to stalk. Later.
When I say Pinkie attached herself to me, I don’t mean attached as in leeches. The people aren’t that kind of alien either. I mean, one day she was there, with me wherever I went. No explanation. I’d wake up and she’d be in the corner of my bedroom. Private time in the bathroom? There she was. Suddenly I had a second mother, always in my business.
My height, she was fuchsia and ivory with a musky-smelling coat, soft like velour. Her eye ring, twenty or so, ran all the way around her head, if the pinto bean shape on top of her blobby body was a head. Her limbs came and went. They were dexterous pods of a sort, able to grip and even work a keypad. They were there, then the people just sucked em back in.
I called her she. I tried “they,” but Pinkie insisted, “I am not plural. Not singular.” Pinkie didn’t protest my use of “she,” but I got the sense I was off target.
In any case, Pinkie got bored with my daily routine pretty fast as well.
“Fun,” she would say in her precise and oddly accent-free voice. More a command than a question. “You need fun. I want to watch.”
Fine. I invited Darby and Janiyah to my apartment for some Gummies. They worshipped flannel and denim and were totally into each other. Not me. We were just buds. Anyway, we indulged and talked about the deeper meanings to be found in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. It was a trippy, farty night.
None of this fazed Pinkie at all. It was nice to have someone who didn’t judge. But their company didn’t satisfy her either.
“Fun,” she repeated a few nights later. Did I mention, the people don’t say much. There’s a lot of silent fuzzy blob time.
Fine. I was so bored, I pulled out a toy and showed her. “This what you want to see?”
“Yes, Kaitlyn with k y.” I would swear one red-in-red eye winked at me. Did people have a sense of humor?
So… I mean, in the name of intergalactic enlightenment and all, I gave her what she asked for. I thought we put in a fine performance, me and King Dong. Everything went swimmingly for a minute or two. Pinkie stared at me blankly with about half-a-dozen of her red-in-red eyes. Then, she slumped. I could read her a little by that point. It was her way of saying “Meh!”
***
Friday came. I returned home from my shit job at the GameStop (so much for a liberal arts degree) to find Pinkie waiting. She’d visited the store a few times, tried some of the games, but found them super easy. So, she stopped following me to work.
Anyway, it was nice to have someone to come home to. It had been a while. Pinkie was my huge cat with too many eyes.
“Fun,” she said.
I was out of tricks.
“What?”
Pinkie reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. An extra digit extended from a pod and she punched up a list of lipstick night spots south of the airport.
“We’ve been out before. You’ve met my friends. You got bored. What are you look—”
“Meet someone,” she said.
Pinkie phoned an Uber – an action that was both exotic and banal at the same time – and we were on our way.
The place she chose looked like a rat hole, and I didn’t want to get out of the car. “Be brave for one minute, then you will be all right.” A long sentence for Pinkie, the words soothed my nerves. We stepped into The Rainbow Connection.
What a difference inside. Atmospheric lighting, red tablecloths, burnished mirrors everywhere. Some gay guy was playing plinky-plunk piano music. He was the only bio-male in the room. The customers looked past fifty and wealthy, wearing enough jewelry to make Tom Shane cum in his shorts. I’ve always had a thing for older ladies. Rich older ladies. Meheheheh. Gah! Down, girl!
I could feel the heat. These chicks might be all kinds of proper in public, but they came here to get freaky. I did not fit the scene, a tatted twenty-something with a nose ring, black nail polish, and a Brandi Carlile t-shirt hiding Wookie pits. And yet… if eyes were tongues, these ladies were tasting the forbidden fruit. I was dripping.
Pinkie led me past table after thirsty table. Some of the women stared while their dates shot me hot death with their eye-guns. It felt kinda cool. I was getting more attention here than I ever did in Little Five Points. We stopped at a corner booth with one lady sitting next to – my heart jumped – a person. This one was shades of Hyacinthe and teal. She (?) sat there, scoping out the rest of the room with her midnight blue-in-blue eyes.
Meanwhile, the woman was smoking a weird black-and-gold cigarette. Her lighter was slender and made of solid gold. She left it out where anyone could snatch it and run. She was an older lady, a few extra pounds and wrinkles, nice hair, totally bangable in a sicko Pornhub mommy-thing kinda way. I was staring. She was grinning.
“Sobranie Black Russians. Want one?” She held up the box and shook a cigarette out at me. I took it, not sure what else to do, so I bent down closer to that gold lighter. “I can’t reach that far. Either have a seat or suck the Black Russian raw.” Ooh! How that sent shocks through my undies. Nice.
I sat down and slid next to her, setting down the unlit cigarette and hoping she wouldn’t notice. I hated cigarettes. Pinkie took the outside of the booth, but kept her eyes on her purple comrade. Once, I thought I caught them doing something. Pinkie’s fuzz began to stand on end, and so did Purple’s.
I had other concerns. “Kaitlyn,” I began. “That’s with a k and –”
“Of course it is, dear. You can call me Maddie as long as you call my private number, and only after six.” Well, that was an interesting flex. The people must have thought so too, since both of them quivered.
The conversation went on for a bit. I asked about her person.
“Mine’s a scientist. I think yours is just a tourist.”
“How can you tell?”
“Something in the way they look at you.” I hadn’t noticed anything in Pinkie to suggest this.
“Fine. Let’s see. Do you have a pen?”
She reached into her clutch and pulled one out. “Montblanc Meisterstuck Solitaire Blue Hour,” she announced as if I knew what that meant. It was a pen.
I took a napkin and jotted down: N = R∗ × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L. The napkin tore a little, but it was readable. Hurray for nerds!
Maddie eyed it and glibly said, “You finished your homework. Gold star.”
Not wanting to show off, I didn’t tell her it was Drake’s Equation. That’s the one where you try to figure out how many intelligent species exist in the Milky Way. Pinkie and Hyacinthe had already blown away Fermi, who paradoxically whined that Goku, Dr. Zoidberg, and the Vogons were ghosting us, but scientists had been unable to get the people to comment on exactly how many sentient races populated our galaxy.
I looked at Hyacinthe. “Can you solve this?”
The two people in our booth looked at one another and at us. Finally, Hyacinthe said, “At least two.”
Gah! Thanks!
Over the next half hour, I got little useful info from anyone at our table. I did learn that Maddie was wearing Malmaison Bubinga Wood Glasses by Cartier and a Vera Wong evening dress, along with all the prices, including the lighter, which turned out to be Van Cleef & Arpels. I acted suitably impressed. “Very nice, holy shit” and that kind of thing. The glasses looked silly, out of date, but that lighter was cool. As for the dress, it suited a younger figure. I pictured it on the floor of Maddie’s boudoir.
I didn’t know if the people could read my mind, but horny old ladies could. “Want to get out of here?” Maddie asked. It was an old, long-cracked code, and I was glad to hear it. She wasn’t my usual prey, but it had been way too long, so my appetite was flexible. “We could go back to my place.”
I remembered our chaperones. “With an audience?”
“Morticia and Elvira watching? Could be fun.” I liked her names for our people buddies better than the ones I’d picked.
Her place turned out to be a five-bedroom, seven-figure home on East Morningside. She won it in the divorce after sleeping with her ex-husband’s law partner who tore him to pieces in court.
“So, which to you prefer?”
With a wry smile, she answered, “One’s needle points where it will. Sometimes, I like to give mine a spin. Oh, Barry’s not bad. Better than the ex, but not nearly as giving as a good woman.” Maddie was a woman of powerful appetites herself.
That first night together was fireworks and rose petals. No, I’m lying. It was sweaty, tumbly, spankin’ good fun.
The following week, we enjoyed a romantic candlelit dinner left there by the cook, who apparently set the table and jumped out the window before I had a chance to meet him. The meal was superb, apart from the meat, which I don’t eat. The salad was superb. So was the sex.
We watched old movies together. I enjoyed “Silkwood,” at least up to where I nodded off. She gave me some of her blouses, which I wore to please her. And I shared my stash, which was fun cause I got her seriously messed up. Ha.
By romp date number five, though, things were leveling off. Maddie suggested spicing it up a little. She’d outfitted one basement room as a suburban dungeon – fur-lined cuffs, oils, candles, a whip (the people seemed to enjoy that trick), and power toys that put mine to shame. “Because the kicks just keep gettin’ harder to find,” she sang. It was something from eons ago that I didn’t recognize.
When she called me the next time, I decided to bring a cheap bottle of wine and a few personal questions.
Maddie sent an Uber for Morticia and me. I won’t lie. I felt a twinge of something at the thought that my Kia could not be seen passing through the giant wrought iron gates of her mansion. “What would the neighbors think?” That you ordered carpet cleaning. Trust me, they know.
I let it pass. I was letting a lot of things pass. Until…
“Yes, that’s right. Right now, as we speak. She’s good. Better than you, loser. She knows how to find my—”
I looked up. “Gah! Who are you talking to?”
In the glow of her phone, Maddie was grinning ear to ear. “Barry. He loves this shit.” She pressed my head back down. “I didn’t tell you to stop.” Suddenly, I was a clown performing at the old folks home. From the phone came the unmistakable groan of a man climaxing. Odd. I’d imagined my first threesome would be more fun.
When I got home that night, I asked Morticia, “Am I her doormat? Am I letting her use me?”
“Yes.”
Morticia’s bluntness struck me as unexpectedly honest… and hurtful, but in a necessary way.
“Fine. What do you suggest?”
“Kaitlyn must stand up for Kaitlyn. Be strong.”
***
The following week, I got my chance. When we got to her place, we gathered in the parlor and, right there in front of the Renoir, I invited Maddie DuBois to march with me in the Atlanta Pride Parade and rally at Piedmont Park.
“No thank you, dear.” Just that. No hesitation. No reason. Just ‘no thank you.’ ‘Dear.’ Dear, like what you say to a child while petting her head.
“What? You could an inspiration to others.” Nothing. That is, Maddie did not respond. Morticia and Elvira were swaying back and forth. I felt my anger rise. I proudly declared, “I’m LGBTQIA+.”
“Good to meet you. I’m Maddie.” A snappy comeback. That’s what our relationship was to her, a stupid sit-com? I shrugged. She went on. “Be who you are, dear. You kids always want to identify yourself by what happens in bed. There’s so much more to you.”
I wanted to say, Like six-thousand-dollar glasses. Instead, I went with “I turned left at ‘you kids.’”
Morticia and Elvira were leaning in and… vibrating? Shivering? Something.
“I’m not trying to be your mommy here.”
“You’re not trying to be anything.” Tears were welling up. Gah! Stupid tear ducts!
She didn’t have to ask “What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked it anyway, and with a strong, clear tone that was the real message: you’re bouncing off my shields.
“Why don’t we – you and I – ever get together in daylight? You always drive me here in your car, and then after ten o’clock at night. Then you send me home in an Uber.”
Tears don’t go anywhere without snot, so there was plenty of that now too. I was worked up and getting in Maddie’s face. She moved back a step, and as she did, I noticed that Morticia and Elvira had drawn close to each other. Like get-a-room close.
“I use Uber for your convenience,” Maddie said. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I’m paying.” She was fully composed. It really hurt to see that. Was she enjoying this? “It’s a long walk back to your shabby little apartment.”
“Shabby?” How dare she call my shabby apartment shabby! Now I was pissed. I was either going to punch Maddie or tear her clothes off. Or both. Both could be good.
The battle continued. F-bombs flew freely. Maddie even lobbed a c-grenade my way, but I caught it and threw it right back in her face where it exploded. Take that, nazi ho!
Mid-insult, she stopped. “Wait. What is that smell?”
Maddie wasn’t kidding. Her oh-so-tastefully appointed front parlor suddenly stank like the gorilla enclosure at Zoo Atlanta. It was the people in the room. They’d turned their natural musk up to eleven. And they were budding. That’s the only word I could think of. Some new form of pods were bursting randomly from their bodies. These were tendrils ending in clusters of dewy pink blossoms. They were using them to probe one another, each pink tip finding a willing hole that also seemed to appear at random. They penetrated each other with a thmf-eej-thmff sound. So much sticky, wet penetrating!
“I think they’re fucking,” I ventured timidly.
“Yes, dear,” Maddie said casually. “They’re definitely fucking.”
Elvira was the more aggressive of the two, eliciting sharp trills from Morticia that may have been cries of pain, but she in no way showed signs of wanting to stop. I mean, as far as I could tell. It was kinda gross, but wicked hot. The flurf came flying off both of them in a pink and purple lint storm. You go, girls! Gah!
Maddie and I sat on the Louis XV loveseat, smoked a joint, and watched. I mean, it’s not something that comes your way every day. The people had serious stamina. We humans eventually picked up our rather loud discussion, which encouraged a second round of hanky-panky between the people in the room. They went at it with a gusto that was… well, unearthly.
It was then that I grasped their true nature. The people were not he, she, or they. She would do in the short-term, since the people were clearly female-dominant but tapping male components as needed. All that was only the reproductive component, however. There was more to them. Damn you, Maddie! In truth, each of the people was a wandering piece of some greater whole. They weren’t broken, just incomplete. The correct nomenclature, therefore, was “one needing one.” Morticia celebrated her being, only became fully alive, by joining with another, in this case Elvira. They had come to Earth to spice things up a bit. Like other people who paired off before them, they sought stimulation, a catalyst perhaps, to seal the deal. It was their version of an aphrodisiac. Some paired people must have gotten their jollies watching human sex. For others, work, or even art did it. These two had found the road to Nastyville by watching Maddie and me fight. You’re welcome.
Around one a.m., the people concluded their coitus celestial.
Elvira said nothing. Morticia looked at me, cooed, and said, “You are stronger than you know.”
I couldn’t remember Morticia ever showing that much warmth towards me. “Thank you,” I said. “Any other advice?”
“Go back to school and get a business degree, something practical.”
Ma!
The two people (somehow) called up one of their amethyst transit rings. As they stepped through, back to wherever it was they came from, Morticia made a sound, something between wind chimes and a baby duck snoring.
“She’s giggling,” Maddie observed wryly, “at us.”
“I guess they got what they wanted,” I said.
“Indeed,” Maddie agreed, lighting one of her black-and-gold cigarettes. “They better give us five stars.” She blew out an elegant stream of cancer. I really hated the stink of those things.
After I had calmed down, I took stock of the situation. Science be damned, we’d learned what the UN’s smarty-pants commission couldn’t: people got their space rocks off watching us have fun. Loud, hurtful fun. The kind that left permanent scars. The kind everyone wore.
Maddie and I looked at each other sheepishly. We tried to laugh, but it didn’t happen. We talked a little, but kept getting angry all over again. Finally, I punched up an Uber and went home.
My apartment stood empty. Shabby and empty.
***
It has become obvious Maddie and I are never going to be a couple. These days, we get together once in a while for playtime. I don’t like her, but I want her… know what I mean? Just to keep myself grounded, I snatched her gold lighter and stuck it in my purse. I could return it, but I won’t.
So, that’s where things are now. A new world every day. Gah!
Very smart people have argued for nearly a century about how many intelligent races might be out there in the stars. Is it thousands or just a few? No one knows. Do humans even count?
I know this: I have met a race from another world. They call themselves people, and I’m the only one who knows who the people really are. They’re the same as us. They’re jerks.
###
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21 years ago this month, I cradle-robbed a 30-something beauty and dragged her to the courthouse. It wasn't exactly the wedding ceremony a woman dreams of. As we waited in the corridor, bailiffs led guys past us in shackles. The judge was late, and half in the bag. Well, we got the marrying done, but I promised Ping I'd get her to a real church for a real ceremony, which I did the following April. It's been a few years since then, so it's really about time I wrote her a love song, don't you think?
PING
The new book, it didn’t sell.
The car’s transmission is shot to hell.
The check bounced ten miles high!
And your mama wishes… you’d picked that lawyer guy.
Our son lives at home. He’s twenty-two.
What’s this weary man to do
with fading dreams and a pile of debt?
Haven’t hit the Lotto yet.
And while we’re waitin’ for some day…
Your love feels warm here inside.
And if it takes us a lifetime
Girl, here’s one thing for sure: I’m in love with my bride.
The years advance, my hair retreats.
Here’s one more snack for my fat old seat.
Makes no sense. It’s such a crime.
I just get older, but you look fine.
It all goes on.
One day, and then two.
The tears and the laughs flow easy
When I share ‘em with you.
And while we’re waitin’ for some day…
Your love feels warm here inside.
And if it takes us a lifetime
Girl, here’s one thing for sure: I’m in love with my bride.
Babe, I’ve stopped waitin’ for some day…
Your love feels warm here inside.
I thank God for this lifetime
Cause girl, one thing is for sure: I’m in love with my bride.
- - -
In case you're wondering, Ping is the inspiration for the long-suffering Jing in Zebulon Angell and the Shadow Army.
https://www.amazon.com/Zebulon-Angell-Shadow-Chris-Riker/dp/1637107056
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I began my debut novel, Come the Eventide thinking it was a short story. Well, the dolphins and octopodes told me I had more work to do. A lot more. Got it done, but I've never forgotten the exciting feeling of being told off by dolphins. Seems like I'm not the only one. BTW, this satire is NSFW, unless you work in an aquarium where the dolphins are cussin' up a storm about the humans.
Wanna know what the dolphins are really up to? I just happen to have the perfect book for you. Come the Eventide. There's a FREE sample on this webpage. You can even get this sucker FREE on Kindle, or get it in paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/Come-Eventide-Chris-Riker/dp/1631834525/
Muriel is laughing at me in this picture:
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Admit it, you've always wanted to be a witch or a wizard. OK, maybe you just point at the TV and expect it to turn to something good -- without using the remote! Guess what, you're a witch! Writing Goody Celeste, I had to dig deep and decide what was real and what was magical. Turns out, we're all magical... both in my book and in this fascinating article:
If magic magic is too spooky for you, try human magic... like you'll find in Goody Celeste.
https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker/dp/1665307072
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The girl – Issy now, Isolde one day – sat in the darkened living room, enjoying the blue-white radiance that fed her eyes as sunlight nourishes the sapling dreaming of mighty oakdom. The first ones were about to arrive.
Even hurrying to get ready, Mother was heart-achingly beautiful, making Issy hate today and wish for tomorrow. When would the gods bestow their gifts upon her, cure her of the gaunt awkwardness that made her dread the mirror?
“Dinner is in the oven for you and your brother. Make sure he eats his peas instead of wearing them. Mrs. Ranken is just next door if you need anything. She’ll look in on you later, and you’d better be sleeping!” Her voice, with its dark undertones, her hair, red like the temple flames, and her make-up, calling back languid evenings along the ancient Nile, were meticulously honed and perfected to attract prey.
“Why can’t I go with you, Momma?” Issy pleaded. Take me with you into the gloaming. Teach me to work the dark trick. Am I not the heiress of Yvaine and all her secrets?
That well-rehearsed motherly half-smile said no as loudly as the wailing of ten thousand doomed men. “Mommy needs some private time,” said Momma, who quietly embodied all the respect she had earned. Momma had been taking a lot of private time since Daddy vanished like all the Daddies before him.
“But –”
“Enjoy your show!” With that, her mother Yvaine swept out the door. She never watched. She had lived that excitement once, and that was enough.
Dinner smelled of processing and supermarkets, but it was a simple matter to serve the warm plates to herself and her little brother. He complained about the meat – “Too rare!” – but Issy ignored him.
She positioned herself in front of the screen and turned up the volume. The hosts, who were not a day above twenty-six, prattled on about how excited they were and everyone else ought to be. They anticipated “the biggest names in the fashion world and the biggest names in the music world and the biggest names in –”
Issy already knew how to be excited. She just wanted these unimportant types to shut up and get out of the way. Let the Night Gala begin!
And here they came, arriving in mile-long limousines painted a beguiling gold, a stark bone white, or a hue of black darker than a six-foot hole. One day, Issy promised herself, she would ride in the biggest, darkest car of all. Each vehicle pulled up to the entry arch leading to the central promenade. How ridiculous to think that the event inside the palladium could begin until the most important guests had been seen on the crimson carpet.
Out stepped the first mistress of the evening: Aramantha, who held her head high amidst a gathering of mononym queens. Tall she was, with enormous hair spun from starlight. Her high bosom stood ready to smash brick walls while her ample posterior could inspire a man’s lust a county away. Aramantha had just dropped her new single “Sly Beat Bae,” extolling the virtues of a woman who conquered her men then spit them out like so many melon seeds.
“Good evening, mother___s. I love you all!” Only Aramantha had the primal charms to curse the people who raised her to the pinnacle of fame.
A reporter dared rush between her and her chosen camera to ask a question. With an audible whoosh, she backhanded him off his feet, causing his head to strike the ground with a meaty thuck. He did not get up again. Issy’s gaze bored deep into the screen, searching out the inner workings of this ephemeral woman.
Yes. Yes.
The next to stop hearts at the Night Gala was the radiant Xing. She was barely older than Issy and yet she had claimed the full fury of her womanhood. No fewer than five vibrantly gay men in sleek tuxes escorted her down the carpet. And what did she do while escorted by five men? Naturally, the irrepressible blonde flirted with the male reporter. The others looked on as if they couldn’t care less. “I’m so thrilled to be here tonight. I told Auntie Min [the richest woman in Taiwan] to buy Ozymandias Chat [sponsor of this year’s Night Gala] if that’s what it took to get me invited… and she did.”
Xing was the heiress to the biggest vanity pharma fortune the world had ever seen. She lived on a solid gold mountain of promises: hairy heads, trim waistlines, and (Issy blushed at the thought) weenies proudly standing at attention. Xing could do as she pleased. Her money opened all doors and transmuted men into dogs. This enchantment was one Issy was just beginning to understand.
Ah, the men. They were such pretty nothings with their shiny suits and moussed hair and perfectly stubbly faces. They strutted and burned up the camera lens with their smoldering glances. They wore tight pants, shirts roguishly unbuttoned to the waist in order to show off oil-slickened pecs and abs. Issy really liked pecs and abs. True, some of the men were stars in their own right, but so what? Whether boy billionaires or foxy phantoms created by the media, they were replaceable. Each and every one. Only the women mattered here. And how the women shone!
Issy felt her heat rise, reddening her face. She hazarded a glance to her little brother, but need not have worried. He was lost in a world of Gundam soldiers battling zombie dinosaurs. The digital guts and gore would occupy his young mind for hours.
Back to the Night Gala. The crowds circled each of the celebrated ones. “Turn right, beautiful! Smile! Over here, darling!” barked the paparazzi, animalistic and brutal and perfectly suited to this world. The mistresses heard them, of course, but they clearly chose when to acknowledge and when to evince utter disdain.
Yes! Yes! Learn, girl. Take it all in.
Issy listened intently to the red-carpet interviews. Reporters flashed their perfect teeth, insisting to know as if their lives depended on it, “Who are you doing tonight?” Organizers had carefully curated the grammatically spurious and vaguely obscene phrase specially for this year’s event. It was better than asking “What over-celebrated fashion designer are you making richer tonight?”
This one had sewn Condor feathers together to form a twelve-foot cape so heavy the model could not move without the help of four assistants. Another had created a gown of molten gold. The model’s face, cold eyes fixed wide, topped the lustrous cocoon/shroud. Still another artiste had envisioned his model into a framed mesh containing iridescent scarabs of the variety the ancients believed bestowed immortality. In this case, the beetles were enriching their lives by nibbling on the trapped model. All praise the designers! Italian vowels flowed like a bottle of – Issy Googled furiously – Romanee Conti Grand Cru 2003. She would taste it some day, while wearing whichever fashion designer turned her envious friends’ faces the greenest.
And envy did rule the night. Not a word slipped from the plumped lips of the maidens of style, but it was there, in their eyes. A soft glow, barely perceptible on this side of Issy’s screen, but growing ever brighter. These women were apex predators and not likely to suffer each other’s company for long.
Just then, an agitation spread among the glistering gathering. Voices rumbled with confusion. The cameras covering the Night Gala began to sweep wildly, searching for the source of the unrest. Issy almost yelled at the screen, “Look up! Look up!” She could see what the photographers and their producers were missing. People were turning their gaze to the skies.
At last, one after another, the photographers caught on to the game. They raised their lenses to the crystalline skies. There, they found an airship, its belly encrusted with jewels of rainbow fire, circling the crowd below. Though at least ten thousand feet in the air, it boomed with a bass funk that overpowered the voices and music below. The beat bore into the chests of all who heard it, retuning their heartbeats.
From this airship emerged a figure tiny as an atom. The person was skydiving earthwards, bearing a strobing ankle light to ensure no one missed her – of course it was a her – entrance. Down she came, spinning and cackling. Close enough now for all to hear. At the last possible second, a Nightshade blossom appeared above her head. The chute slowed her, but not quite enough.
Hesperia landed with her full weight on a terrified cluster of minor starlets, crushing the breath and maybe the life out of them. Issy had read every article she could find on Hesperia, her very favorite of the gal titans. She herself appeared uninjured, most likely never feeling the impact thanks to her use of the very best drugs. Issy thought what that must be like.
Hesperia was an animal, a disruptor, a force of nature. She had branded herself onto every tabloid program worldwide, enjoying the rarest and finest breed of notoriety: fame based on nothing but fame itself. No one dared not to believe. Dressed in drunkenly mismatched clothes purchased (or more likely shoplifted) from Goodwill, complete with surplus army boots from the last war, she flipped off the cameras and stomped over to the big doors.
The Night Gala’s video director recognized his cue. The action moved inside the Grand Hall now. Gothic archways rose hundreds of feet above the coiffured heads of the elite. Row upon row of wrought iron calderas lit marble floors strewn with tiger and cheetah skin rugs. Around the perimeter, tables buckled under the weight of exotic fare: wines made from grapes now gone extinct in the uncertain climate, chilled ocelot pâté, jerk eagle served on platters salvaged from Titanic.
The guests weren’t there to eat, however. There were awards to be won, titles to be bestowed, acclaim to be eaten with platinum chopsticks.
So delicious!
Mortals the world over were watching, each timid heart cowering deep inside the bone prison cell of their chest. Issy’s mouth hung open, each side turned upward in glee. She paid close attention, studying the way these women moved and leered at each other’s awful beauty. She sensed the hunger within them and felt her own appetites growing.
The dais rose in the center of the sprawling mausoleum. The hostess, a crone from a by-gone era lured to tonight’s event with the promise of a momentary taste of relevance, announced the prizes. “Best Public Break-Up” went to the singer Fellatia for that scuffle at this year’s Super Bowl. How many people in the stands had died in the ensuing stampede? Investigators were still trying to reassemble the bits.
The crone hostess called for the next envelope, the one labeled “Most Augmented.” The winner, Lil Booty, required help making it up the steps to accept her statuette, such was the discombobulation her implants inflicted upon her center of gravity.
More prizes went out; too many in Issy’s opinion. Some were a waste of time, not the thing she’d be talking about with her friends tomorrow.
What she wanted to know, what everyone wanted to know was which of the big three would get the main trophy. It was a plain idol made of a cool green stone not found in geology books, standing atop an ermine-draped table bathed in a laser-sharp spotlight. The figure was titled unequivocally: Goddess. Issy knew it was wrong to dream of clutching it close to her heart, but she could not – no, she did not want to help herself. “One day,” she said aloud to the darkened living room.
At last, with all pomp and circumstance exhausted along with the patience of the audience, who now bordered on rage, the crone host announced the main presentation of the night. She called out the nominees. Though a secret ballot, there was not a hint of surprise from anyone. How could the list hold any other names?
Aramantha. The word rang back from the marble columns, ancient syllables of unassailable strength. Xing. Her name silenced both word and thought, so powerful was her will that a single glance could slice head from body. Finally: Hesperia. Of course. Here was chaos rushing at the gates of the holy place.
Hastily moving to depart the dais and the Grand Hall itself, the crone hostess spoke into her microphone the most somber words of their realm: “Choose among you who is worthy, and mercy be damned.
All three goddesses who would be the Goddess rose from their tables and moved toward the center dais. For a moment, they spared no look to each other. Then came the terrible transformation, heralded by a bestial scream emanating simultaneously from three throats. The primal alert turned blood vessels to icy channels of red.
Ever closer the three women moved, zig-zagging like panthers through the crowd. Any who would not move fast enough they struck down with bolts of light borne of purest blinding self.
“YES! YES!” Issy squeed in delight.
Aramantha’s fingers crooked into talons, flying forth and rending Xing’s finery from her lithe body. Pearls and scraps of silk flew in all directions. From nowhere, a pit crew of men sprang into fabulous activity, stripping Xing and replacing her tattered ensemble with a gown even more splendid than the first.
Wasting no time, Hesperia clomped toward the ermine-draped table and the prized statuette, at the same time reaching into the folds of her oversized coat. She drew forth an 18th Century Irish flintlock ducksfoot pistol. Already locked and loaded, the thing had four finger-like barrels splayed wide. The lethal artifact belonged in a museum of the macabre, but its age had not diminished its capacity to instill fear. Well-dressed living targets dove for cover where they could, and where they couldn’t, they grabbed someone else to use as a shield. Hesperia laughed and fired off a deafening quadruple round, killing three and crippling one. She had practiced.
In a voice less heard than felt underneath the skin, Aramantha beckoned forth for her sword, the sensuously curved Vindicator. She charged towards the dais, where Hesperia was already climbing the few steps between herself and her glory, the statuette. Hesperia raised again her preposterous flintlock. Issy had missed it – when/how could she have reloaded all four barrels?
CLAKK-FNUK-PAPP-TAKK went the gun! Aramantha was faster than the rounds fired at her. She raised Vindicator and deflected the bullet meant for her, sending it into the head of a scoop-hungry reporter who had gotten too close to his story.
In that very moment, Xing changed and fell to the floor, becoming claws, ruddy scales, feathered tail, and lethal purpose. She immediately sprang serpentine at the other two women, faster than Hesperia could reload… but not faster than Vindicator could swing. Where there had been one dragon flying at them from a sumptuous gown, there were now two half-dragons flipping and tumbling madly in the air. Teeth and claws flashing to no avail, the segments of Xing fell to the cold marble floor. True, her halves reassembled, but the humiliation proved too much for her. She returned to her lovely human form and slunk off out of sight.
By the time Aramantha turned back to her sole remaining rival, Hesperia had dropped her pistol and claimed her prize in both hands. She held the Goddess statuette high above her head for all to see. The crowd responded with ooohs and aaahs.
“Behold, I am now your Go–”
“No, you are NOT!” Aramantha’s voice boomed out even as Vindicator began its comet-like swing at the pretender.
Issy watched in rapt bliss, using her special talents so as to miss nothing. Now, as the motion on her screen appeared to slow to the speed of a tectonic plate, Issy heard the thoughts of the two women.
Hesperia was laughing. “Fool! I hold the Goddess. I AM become the Goddess. This small statue can thwart any attack.” Her hands appeared to move in real time; that is, faster than anything around her or indeed anything in the world just then. Hesperia moved the Goddess statuette into the path of Vindicator. Her eyes glowered with faith that the blade must shatter into infinitesimals.
Amarantha expelled not an ounce of her strength on rancor. She calmly stated the fact she knew. “It is you who are the fool.” With these words she twisted her wrist in a manner not possible for most, bypassing the stalwart statue and slicing cleanly through both forearms of the woman who held it.
Stunned, Hesperia stared dully at her severed limbs, saying only, “Well, s___,” as Amarantha snatched the precious green idol from the air and held it aloft.
“You will know me now as Goddess,” Amarantha declared to the amazed elites.
“Respect,” said Issy, kissing two fingers and touching them to her heart.
The surviving members of the audience shot to their feet and applauded wildly. Issy watched the cameras sweep the entire Grand Hall, flying over thrilled guests and bleeding corpses alike. The music and credits rolled up from nowhere.
It was done.
Issy sighed. She couldn’t remember a better Night Gala in all her thirteen years.
She turned off her screen and hauled her brother’s limp form to his bed, somehow got him into his rockets-and-flying-saucer pajamas, and kissed his forehead. “Sleep, little fool.”
The girl – Issy now, Isolde soon – ran the tip of her tongue along her line of teeth. Were they there? Yes, she was certain. Nestled in amongst the top row, two sharp nibs were just beginning their preternatural descent. Isolde giggled. She could hardly wait to try them out.
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I hope "Night Gala" has cast a spell on you and you'll check out Goody Celeste:
https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker/dp/1665307072
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Who's the biggest witch in Hollywood? Urm... let me rephrase that. Which witch is your favorite movie witch?
In my novel of youth and love and choices, we meet the epinymous Goody Celeste. (Oooh, look, Ma, I'm usin' big boy words!) Cece as she calls herself is a card-carrying wiccan, but she's also a keen observer of human nature and a damn smart woman. The list below offers different takes on those magical mavens of moviedom. So... is your best cacklin' cauldron cutie on the list? Take a look:
https://movieweb.com/movies-about-witches/
If you'd like more witchy action, check out my complete, FREE story "Rocky Point" here on this site. And please check out Goody Celeste, a story that will wisk you quick as lightning back to your best teen summer.
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker-ebook/dp/B0CJ3GVWTY/
Analog paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker/dp/1665307072/
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