“All of them. You have to give all of them up, if you want this woman to return to your arms.”
The way he stared at the floor was new. “To get Abby back in my arms, I would do anything.”
“Good. Now. I need paper, ink, and that quill.”
“For?” But he stood, shoving back his chair.
“Writing my book – Social Etiquette for Gunslinger Were-squids.”
“One last thing before we begin. Why do the women change? Aren’t you worried about yourself?”
Should she reveal this? What if he took this secret and still kept her locked up? She had to, surely? She had to trust him at some point.
Virginia stood. “It’s the lake. The water. Perhaps only by bathing in it, but I noticed even your drinking water is tinted a slight blue.”
He staggered. “The water in the lake? Is this certain? I’d never have let this happen.”
“Ninety-seven percent certain according to The Gospel of the Skateboard. What I don’t understand is why the rest of the women in the town aren’t affected.”
“The rocks keep the water out of the town’s supply. If only I’d known about this!”
The stricken look on his face said he was genuinely sorry, but she kept her sympathy to a minimum. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t have abducted and ravished those women, just that he wouldn’t have let them drink the water. If she could get this woman to love him, Peckerwood Springs would be a far safer place.
“Can I ask you something personal, John?”
“Yes. Though I may not answer it.”
“Were you always a were-squid? Was your father one?”
His gaze locked onto hers, as if searching out her frailties, and he seemed to look deep down into the very depths of her soul where no one else had ever been – except for her inner voice when she was looking for hot chocolate in the middle of the night. She was not without flaws, she knew this.
“Virginia, you’ve got a spot of chicken there.” He tapped his chin. “But, your question. I was not born this way. My father was not one. He was never here. I am the man who built this place. I may even be immortal.” He shrugged. “If so, I’ve saved a lot of rent over the years. I changed when I was twenty-one. Over the course of several months, I grew my tentacles, and at the same time, I discovered my insatiable desire for women and the pleasures of the flesh.”
“Thank you for answering. The tentacles – unfortunate. The pleasures of the flesh – normal for a man.”
“It is?” His eyebrows sprang up.
“Yup. It’s the kidnapping that’s wrong.”
“Ohhh.”
She had so much to teach this man...squid...gunslinger...asshole.
Chapter 8
For a whole week, they concentrated on his jogging, weight-lifting, and sparring.
After the tenth sprint up the stairs that morning, John came to a stop, resting his hands on his knees while he recovered.
“Why are we doing this? I thought it’d be more kissing and dancing?”
“Ah. You’re right. Fuck. That was Rocky!” She blamed the music running through her head. He would’ve been a good contender for world heavyweight too.
“If you were mine, I’d wash out your little mouth for that curse word.”
“Mmm.” Wide-eyed, and a little aroused at his dominance, she backed a step and made a note not to take out all the asshole. It was cute.
They began.
Dancing. Choosing clothes. First date kisses – interesting to practice. Door opening. Spreading one’s cloak over puddles. No anal until the third date.
Getting there. Slowly. Tediously, except for when he accidentally ravished her, once or twice. The man was learning.
By the end of the week, she had him opening the main house door for her, even if he did grit his teeth and have a muscle spasm stopping himself from grabbing her neck.
“Good boy!” Virginia beamed and stuck the gold star to his coat. Then she skipped away fast.
His foot got in the way and she would’ve face planted on the floor, but he caught her at the last second.
“There’s only so much I can take. Good boy is not one of them.”
Then he sat on a chair, bent her over his lap, flipped up her dress, and spanked her hard. It was a lovely diversion for them both. The week had been hard and grueling and filled with only three sex scenes that for some strange reason the author didn’t detail. Probably because they were boring average tentacle sex.
And because John was supposed to be devoted to Abby by now.
“Shame on you, John.” She rubbed her warmed up bottom, smiling at the welts from his fingers. “No more sex.”
He sighed, shrugged. “I apologize. I didn’t not write them.”
True.
The man had apologized! This was progress.
There was a barn dance in a week. He would be ready by then.
She cranked up the gruellingness a few notches. More dancing, more kissing and holding doors, less...she meant NO anal, or sex, at all. None.
Goddammit, he was gorgeous when he was mean. In seven days she had his asshole percentage down to fourteen percent, twenty-two on a bad day. Perfection.
They rode to the barn dance on his stallion, Big Donger. She had a feeling the horse had been drinking too much blue water. She rode at the front, side saddle. Her inner city girl existence in the twenty-first century had not exposed her to horse riding. Nor had it exposed her to being felt up by tentacles while on a horse.
“John!” She turned in the saddle to glare. “Have you not learned? We are going to meet your...your previous victim, your Abby.”
His eyes were as steady as a train going up a steep incline with Indians bearing down on it and about to blow up the track. Plus the passengers were screaming.
She tensed, waiting for his argument.
“I truly must be monogamous?”
“Yes.”
“Crap.” But he flicked the reins and they trotted onward.
The barn doors were open and the lanterns showed a mess of dancers already strutting their stuff. Violins, fiddles, banjos, and someone had brought a harmonica. It was bedlam and so much fun.
A few cows and chickens wandered in and out at their leisure, perhaps enjoying the music.
Within a second of them walking in through the doors, he saw Abby. She was the woman in the portraits. Though Virginia hadn’t asked him, it was her. Pretty, maybe prettier. Perhaps ten years older than she’d been in the painting.
How many years had he pined for her?
John knew she hadn’t married. As he strode to Abby, her smile blossomed. All these years she’d waited for him to return.
The man had a chance.
The training paid off – not a step did he put wrong in the dancing or the social chat or in the simply being attentive and loving, apart from that one time he grabbed her and bent her backward, against the hay bale, for a tongue kiss. Abby seemed to like it, so Virginia gave him a pass.
As the band began to play what would be the last jig of the night, John came to her.
“You have worked miracles,” he whispered. “She still wants to be mine. I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
“Now? Tonight?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “She will agree. I know this.”
Oh my. Rejection would not sit well with this man. She crossed her fingers as the dance began and he took Abby in his arms and whirled her away.
At the end, when the banjo plunked out the last note, people seemed to realize what was happening. They cleared a space for the couple. John had gone to one knee before her.
Aww. Virginia wiped at her eyes. Sweet.
Everyone watched and listened, as he said those magical words, “Will you marry me?”
They all sighed together and cheered when she softly answered, “Yes,” with a smile big enough to light up the barn.
Then Virginia watched in horror when the back of his shirt ripped and he swept Abby into the air with his ten
tacles. No one spoke. No cloth rustled. No one coughed or sneezed. The barn had fallen silent. Slowly John lowered Abby and placed her behind him.
She hadn’t been certain, but it was clear that he’d never, in all the past decades, shown his were-squidliness to these people in full light.
This could be bad.
“What are you looking at, my friends?” He nudged back his coat, but on this night he wore no gun.
“You’re a monster!” a girl shrieked. That released them. A storm of voices erupted, screaming, shouting, accusing. When they surged forward, there was death on their faces.
“Kill him!”
He and Virginia made it to the horse ahead of the mob and galloped back to his mansion with men riding after them.
She half-turned so he could hear her. “You’re going to have to run from here! Leave Peckerwood!”
“Never!” His growl was so beastlike, she shivered. This night would not end well.
“You cannot, must not, kill them all.”
He was silent.
She would never forget how Abby’s fingers had slipped from his or the look on her face of terror and loss, of ultimate loss. Her scream of “Johnnnn,” and her sobs, echoed in Virginia’s mind.
It was almost as bad as losing car keys down a storm drain.
Wait, this is a love story now, sort of. That simile was so embarrassingly impersonal and rude.
Almost as bad as losing your cat down a storm drain?
Okay, stopping there.
Unrequited love is not funny.
It’s tragic.
Must. Not. Make. Joke.
No bunnies in blenders.
Noooo! Don’t take my keyboard!
After several months of therapy, the author had her keyboard returned to her.
Desperate jokes require desperate measures.
Chapter 9
When they reached the main street and were galloping toward his mansion, Virginia was stunned to see several of Karl’s biker gang lined up before it.
“The Sea Wolves are here?”
“Who are they?” John almost snarled. A mite upset?
“Karl’s men. They can help us. If they’re here, they must have a portal. We can take you back to our time.”
Souleater, Dangerous Bob, Heart Surgeon, and Horse, the man she’d once embarrassed by referring to his small schlong size. She’d almost regretted that until he tried to dry hump her at the edge of a cliff.
Saved. She didn’t want a battle. This could so easily become a slaughter.
Their pursuers had arrived – most of the townsmen. Somehow, they’d grabbed pitchforks and torches along the way and the sky above them was wreathed in flame and poked by the little pointy ends of the pitchforks.
“Always the pitchforks,” John muttered. “How easily they have turned on me. Virginia, I will not yield to these men. I will not turn tail and flee to your time. If I cannot be with Abby, so be it. I would rather die here.”
As they drew nearer, their ugly curses became clearer.
John strode to the front. “Why must you persecute me? Have I not saved you from being killed, molested, and robbed by bandits a hundred times over?”
A bearded man stepped forward, torch and pistol in his hands. “You have revealed yourself to be a monster. A foul being with big long slimy tentacle things. How can we ever allow you, you creature from the depths of the ocean, or from Hell itself, to stay in our town. Go! Before we must kill you. Go. Let us burn your hell nest.” He gestured with the torch at the mansion.
Dangerous Bob came up beside Virginia, the skateboard tucked under his arm. His usual articulate swearing translated instantly. “Fuckitty fuck grr? Fuckerr.” *Want us to do something, Miss? Karl sent us to fetch you after the skateboard came home.*
“It did?” Her voice rose to a squeak. “What about the cure for Karl?”
“Fuckiter Frr. Grr fuck.” *We have it. The recipe given to you was it. The skateboard came with us to show the way. You can either come through the portal with us, or use the skateboard to return.*
“Neither. I have to help John.” Unrequited love. How could she refuse?”
*They want to kill him because he’s got tentacles?*
“Yes.”
*So. We kill the people?*
“No! No damn killing!”
“Fuckerr.” Which meant plain ol’ fuck.
Beyond Dangerous Bob, the massive and menacing Souleater grumbled. Though he seemed merely a big man, like most of the Sea Wolves he had another form. His flesh flickered and blurred in places – signs of him barely restraining himself from transforming into a shark. Here, in a desert? More bad things.
She sighed.
While they’d talked, the townsfolk had crept a few steps closer. The glaring and swearing match seemed ready to come to a boil. What could she do? They hated him. Despised him. Yet he wanted to stay and marry Abby.
In times of stress, she went into automatic mode. Her instinctive schlong detector assessed each man who faced them. She noted some oddities. The sheriff was a ten incher. She’d missed that in the dark, the other night. Even Rafe was here. Traitors, or just scared men? After all the people he’d shot for them. So ungrateful.
Their spokesman launched into another tirade. “We will never allow you to exist here. Go back to your crack in the ground. Begone! Your foul stench invades my nostrils and turns my stomach.”
John growled, again, flexed his hands over his nonexistent gun belt. At the back of the crowd, a rider galloped up and hauled their mount to a dusty halt. Abby.
Oh god. What she might witness.
On the far right fringe of the crowd, a man let out a scream and rushed forward brandishing a saber and a torch. “Yaaaaaaaa!”
To Virginia’s appalled surprise, John stood there, chest out, defenseless. The saber rose and she winced, expecting his death as it plunged into his chest. Instead Souleater snapped into his seven foot tall, four foot wide shark form, opened his many-toothed mouth wide, and swallowed the man whole. The saber rattled to the ground. Smoke puffed from Souleater’s mouth and he spat out the torch...a few seconds later, he burped. Then he flash-changed back into man form.
Stunned silence.
“Neat,” said John.
“Fuck,” added Dangerous Bob.
“Heyyy,” said the spokesperson, futilely waving his pistol. “What? What...”
Oh boy.
Delayed schlong stats swarmed her brain. The sheriff, Rafe, a random dude. All ten inchers when extrapolated to fully erect form.
“Ohmigod!” she gasped. Yes, oh yes. Of course.
“Where’d he go?” asked the spokesman.
She had to act while they were still stunned. Carpe diem thingo. Seize the day of the cock and all that.
“John.” She tugged on his coat. “I can fix this, I think. You said the sheriff and Rafe worked for you. What about that man?” She singled out random dude.
“Yes, he did. Only a short time. Why? How can that solve this? I’m tired of hiding. If they don’t want me here...”
“No. Wait.” She stepped to the front and waved her arms above her head. “I have a solution!”
The spokesman scratched his beard with the bad end of the pistol. Her eye twitched and she prayed it wouldn’t fire.
“What is it? Can you drop this terrible fiend, this anathema, this monster of monsters, into a pit of burning lava?”
“Um, no.” Bloodthirsty fuckers. “What is the one thing you most desire in life? Because John can give it to you.”
That got them thinking. Most of them joined in and threw out answers. “Good plumbing.” “Fresh bear on Thursdays.” “Women!”
By the end of a short debate, the spokesman, hat in hand, and pistol now pointing at his balls...yikes, declared the winning entry, “Happiness. Give us that.” He sneered.
The Sea Wolves made angry noises. She had to get this done fast or they’d eat another of the crowd.
“And here is why John can gift y
ou with happiness.”
“I can?” John was puzzled.
“Yes,” She hissed out the corner of her mouth. “The water. All the men who worked for you have ten inch schlongs. It grows cocks! It’s why you have tentacles. You were exposed for years. In small doses...”
“Ahhh. You are smart.”
“Happiness? Come on. Answer us.” The spokesman jeered. The crowd murmured evilly.
She prayed this would do it. “He can give you happiness because...” Dramatic pause. Wait for it. “He can give you cocks the size of donkeys.”
Oops. Well, she meant the size of donkey cocks, not the size of a donkey. A cock that big would be a little inconvenient.
No one had noticed. Phew.
Dead silence reigned. A whore staggered across in the gap between John and the townsfolk and none of the men moved.
“Fuck,” one whispered. “Really?”
“The sheriff, Rafe, and random dude are proof! They all have ten inch peckers. You know this, yes?”
The crowd murmured agreement. The spokesman looked around at them.
She had these men, almost, in the palm of her hand, defective peckers and all. “Think how your wives and girlfriends will be amazed. Think of the benefits. What more could you ask for?”
More silence. Then a few “Hell yeahs,” perforated the night. The whore wandered through again, singing.
“It’s working.” John put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s working!”
“What about the throw the monster into the pot of doom thing?” someone asked.
“It’s fine.” The spokesman shuffled his feet and stuck a fixed smile on his face. “No hard feelings, hey John? Bygones be bygones.”
“None. All I want is to live here peacefully, barring shooting the odd bandit, with Abby as my wife.” His hand squeezed on Virginia’s shoulder. She swore she could hear tears in his voice.
“But, but, but,” someone stuttered. “They ate...him! You know.”
“Who?” The spokesman frowned. “Him?”
“Yeah. Him.”
“Who was he?” someone else asked.
A suggestion was tossed out. “Cannon fodder?”
The Well-Hung Gun Page 5
