The Hinky Bearskin Rug (33 page)

Probably only
half the tenants were home right now, feeding their pit bulls. Maybe Velvita
had one.
If I was in porn, I’d have a pit
bull.
Of course, Velvita now had Randy.

Who was stuck
in bed. Not much protection for a girl living alone.

Jewel located
the door, hidden in the gangway between this building and the next.
Randy?
He wouldn’t hear her, inside.
Panic welled up in her.

She pulled out
the key that had come enclosed with his letter.

o0o

“So what was with the poppets and the hinky pastry?” Clay
said as he tried on a pair of Zachariah’s cargo pants.

They’re invitations to be my new
avatar.
A poppet-sized
Wilma sat on the edge of Zachariah’s bed, kicking her legs, her blonde curls
falling into her eyes.

“Invitations?”
Clay pictured an engraved envelope with a little RSVP card inside. “You are
cordially invited to let a sex goddess hijack your body?”

More like a message in a bottle. I need
an avatar to help express my goddessness. I wanted Steven,
Wilma pouted,
but he’s been avoiding me.

“Jewel says he’s a jerk.”

Oh,
he’s highly qualified. If you could look at a person without their body, you
could see the sex. It looks like — like lightning. Steven’s just packed with
it.

“Apparently,
he can’t keep it packed,” Clay said drily.

I’ve been very lonely,
Wilma mourned.
The printers knew what I needed, but none of them would say yes. They
cut way back on the offerings, too.
She sounded hurt. She smiled at Clay
with trembly lips.
I’m sorry you don’t
like me.

“You know
darned well I like you. Who wouldn’t? The thing is,” Clay said, sitting beside
her on the bed and nudging Zachariah’s sleeping hand out of the way of his
feet, “you can’t just send out aphrodisiacs wholesale. Bad things can happen if
they get used inappropriately. Like, your precious Steven and old Zach here
used your porn-poppets to cheat old ladies out of the value of their homes.”

Her tiny face
crumpled.
You’re angry with me.
He
felt her unhappiness like an invisible whimpering puppy in his middle.

“I’m not
against cheating. Broadly speaking, it’s my job. Was,” he remembered belatedly.
“I just think it’s a shame you can’t call back all those messages in bottles.
Now that you’re, uh, visiting me.”

Her face
cleared.
Of course I can call them back!
She leaped to her tiny tippy-toes.
Watch
this!

Her eyes
closed. She spread her arms and wiggled her fingers. Her teensy hot-pink lips
moved, and he read the words they shaped:

Come on home! Come back! Come back!

Clay felt a
rumbling through the mattress, through the floor. The room seemed to judder
around him. He slipped off the bed and tumbled over Zachariah’s sleeping form. “Hey!”
He struggled to his feet on the shifting floor.

You want me to recall them!
Wilma yelled, her miniature curls
whipping around her face in a wind that somehow did not ripple the posters on
the walls. She stretched her arms farther.
Rats!
I can’t do this if I’m outside your body!

“Well, don’t
take mine over again,” Clay began to say.

But in that
moment she turned and leaped at him, and he put up his hands instinctively,
uselessly. She sank into his chest, and he felt the rumbling a thousand times
stronger.

“No! I want my
body!”

Whatever you say,
came the silent voice inside.
But here they come.

And here they
came. Dozens of little translucent Wilmas ran through the apartment walls from
all directions, some naked, some dressed in thongs and pasties, some dressed in
black leather, some like nuns, some like cheerleaders, some like slutty
schoolgirls in plaid skirts that didn’t cover their perky pink buns, and every
one of them was charging straight at him.

Breathless,
Clay felt them splat into him: two, five, ten at a time. He reeled and fell
onto the bed. With each impact, he felt a fizzing in his nerves, a ringing in
his ears. He began to believe what Wilma had said about lightning. For two bits
he could reach out and zap something.

He was also
horny enough to boink a sheep.

After a busy
ten minutes, the flood of Wilmas subsided.
I
knew you would like that,
Wilma said complacently in his head.

He remembered hazily
what he had to do. “Jewel. I have to call her. She must be wondering where the
heck I went.” Dazed, he used Zach’s cell to call his suite at The Drake.

No answer.

“Uh-oh.”

Jewel must
have read the letter already.

This could
only mean she was on her way to find Randy.

He sat down
carefully on Zachariah’s bed, feeling like a train wreck with a ten-foot
erection. “I knew this would happen.”

You
didn’t have to give her the letter.

“Yes, I did.”

He tried
Jewel’s cell. It rang five times. He pictured a hundred horrible things
happening, beginning with her deciding to hate his guts for swiping that
letter.

Or she might
hate him for letting her leave Randy in Velvita’s bed.

Or there was
always his gutless
faux pas,
letting
her think she was hinky in bed.

“What if she —
oh there you are.”

“Clay?” Jewel
didn’t sound mad.

“I’m here. I
mean, I’m not here. I’m, uh, at a suspect’s residence.” He clenched his teeth
and crossed his fingers. What had she thought when she found his clothes,
shoes, wallet, keys, and phone in a heap on the suite’s bathroom floor? He
could only imagine, and none of it could be good.

She said, “What
in the world are you doing there? I came back to your suite and I got that
letter and, well, I started to read it, but you didn’t seem to be around, so I—”

Clay let out a
whoosh of relief. “Listen, Jewel, I don’t have time to talk. Can you come get
me in a cab?”

There was a
pause.

“Um, actually,
I’m breaking into Velvita’s apartment.”

That stopped
him.

Right.
Everything goes on hold when Randy’s stuck
in a bed.

“Good letter,
was it?” he said, aiming for Buddha-hood.

She sniffled. “The
best.”

“I guess so,”
he said mildly, but his voice cracked. “Jewel, I haven’t mentioned this before,
but I love you.”

“I know.”

I think I should warn you,
said the unwelcome voice of the
goddess in his head, and he almost blurted out,
Shut up!

Jewel said, “Clay,
this is so hard for me. The way I feel about you—” She paused.

His breath
caught in his chest. She was finally going to tell him.

“Yes?”

Look out, I’m being summoned —
Wilma said.

“I should have
been more honest,” she said, breaking his heart all over again. “You make me
feel—”

Whoops!
Wilma squealed.

Clay heard no
more.

With an
unnerving sense that his dick was being squeezed, stretched, and boinged like a
rubber band, he felt the familiar wild rush as Wilma took possession of his
body again.

Then everything went black.

“Hey, sugar,” Wilma said in babytalk. “Who calls me?”

Clay was woozy
with Wilma-thrill, so it took him a moment to see where they were. An office
somewhere. He stood — well, Wilma stood — on top of a desk, the keyboard of a
computer tickling the soles of her bare feet. Summer sunlight slanted in the
windows.

They had quite
an audience.

A
sharp-looking executive was staring at him — well, at naked Wilma — with
amazement and horror.

So was the
girl Onika Tannyhill called “Honey.” Her suit jacket hung open, its button
dangling by a thread, and her virginal white blouse was ripped.

Where is this? Artistic Publishing?

Wilma smiled down
on them.

“Greetings,
Velvita Fromage,” she said with affection, using Clay’s mouth, or what used to
be his mouth.

Clay stared.
It was the same girl!
But we’re not at
the Artistic!

We are in the lair of my destined
avatar,
Wilma thought,
and Clay heard her thought.

An older
executive turned around slowly. A chorus of office girls stood watching with
open mouths and goggling eyes. One of them shrieked, “My God, she’s naked!”

Wilma’s
beamed. “Glad you noticed. Did
you
call me?”

Velvita’s
mouth fell open. “Uh, I did.”

Clay realized
that a brilliant glow surrounded Wilma. Light streamed out of her, a light so
bright that it felt to him like a high-pitched electrical hum.

Slowly,
Velvita got down on one knee.

Wilma reached
out a hand. “Steven Tannyhill,” she intoned. Clay felt the hum in his chest.

Steven nearly
fell over his own feet.

Wilma spoke
sternly. “Steven, you’ve dodged me for two years. Are you ready to fulfill your
destiny?”

He faced
Wilma, one fist clenched, the other on the crotch of his trousers. “You’re that
slut from the porn factory.”

She smiled. “That’s
me. And you’re the heir to the Tannyhill mojo.” It felt weird to Clay, feeling
those words coming from his own mouth, feeling Wilma’s power hum in his body. “Come
forward, Steven Tannyhill, and join the ranks of the mighty.”

Steven was
panting. He backed up a step.

“You knew I
was looking for you. I sent so many messages.”

He shuddered
all over, like a frightened horse. “That porn shit made me crazy. In my closet.
Tapping. Calling me.” His face convulsed. “Get away from me!”

“You didn’t
eat my pastries?” she said, her face falling.

His head
shook. “No way!” He gave a nervous cackle. “Hah! It worked great on Mike’s
rollout, though!”

The office
girls murmured.

“I’m going on
a diet,” one said.

“I’m not,”
said another.

Wilma pouted. “You
misused my gifts!”

“Get away from
me.”

“C’mooon,” she
coaxed. “It’ll be fun.”

He backed
farther away, putting his hands behind him. “Nnnuh-uh. No way. Nope.”

She stamped
her foot. The computer keyboard shattered under her bare feet, individual keys
popping everywhere. “Come here!” The lights dimmed with the force of her
command.

“No!” White
slobber flew off him.

The hum rose
in Clay’s chest.

Wilma leaped
off the desk, sailed ten feet, and landed practically on Steven’s toes. He
thrust his hands out as if to push her away. She grabbed his hands in hers.

Steven
struggled. He was a good foot taller than Wilma. He should easily have been
able to throw her down.

Instead, he
froze, gasping for air.

This time Clay
was a spectator to a Wilma invasion. Through their joined hands, he felt
everything Steven felt. He felt Steven’s heart hammering so hard it was
skipping beats. Steven had both a terrible hard-on and a terrible pain in the
balls.

Clay hadn’t
known you could do that.

Thanks for noticing,
Wilma said, and suddenly the pain
disappeared, and Steven’s body filled with the rush of ecstasy that was
becoming familiar to Clay.

Steven
writhed. Bad things were happening inside his head. Clay took one look at the
colored spears of agony, terror, and rage banging around in Steven’s darkness
and decided not to go there.

“Submit,
Steven Tannyhill. You will be the perfect avatar, and we will spread my
benediction throughout Chicago.”

Wilma amped up
her power. Clay felt it move effortlessly out of his and Wilma’s body, into
Steven. The glow pulsed around her, the office lights dimmed, a couple of
computer monitors popped, and a fluorescent tube overhead shattered inside its
plastic housing. The office girls screamed.

“Let me in,
Steven,” Wilma commanded.

“No!” Steven
screamed aloud. “Get out! Leave me — augh! Get —
no! No!”

Wilma leaned
forward, standing on tippy-toes, to kiss him. “We belong together.”

And then she
slid into Steven’s body, taking Clay with her.

Or not.

It was like
running full tilt at a mirror and bouncing off.

Dimly Clay
heard the office girls gasp and shriek.

Suddenly he
was watching from a comfy five feet away.

Wilma’s
brilliant light surrounded Steven now. Steven crumpled to his knees. He
clutched at his head, tearing out clumps of hair, making horrible animal
noises.

Then he began
to flicker. Streaks of light whirled in a circle around him. In the
lightning-spiked haze, Clay could make out Steven throwing punches, Wilma’s
goddess-sized tits swinging, the sound of clothes tearing.

Suddenly the
Wilma-light snapped out.

The office
seemed to go dark. Sunlight from the windows cut dusty yellow slits in the
blackness.