by Unce, Bo
"Wait!" TK's voice caught me by surprise. It somehow rang out over the din of the mindlessly chanting sports fans and ushered in a period of silence.
Ms. Dewey's eyes were beyond me now; fixed on TK, I presumed. I tried to look back at her as well, but couldn't find the degrees of freedom needed to do so.
"And who... are you?" Ms. Dewey asked, skeptically.
"Never mind who I am," TK said. She had left the confines of the GMS-KJH86 and was standing on the snow next to me. "I will not let you hurt my precious Preston. He's done nothing wrong. In fact, he's been more helpful to these people than any other large group of people I've seen! And Marcus even promised you all taco salad. Why do you want to hurt us?"
"You are a bold, beautiful woman," Ms. Dewey checked out TK with a lurid gaze that roved from head to toe. After a moment of contemplation, she continued. "I'll make you an offer. Either you can take his place in the net," she motioned to me. "Or, you can take your place in my harem!"
My eyes grew large in surprise. That was why I hadn't seen a vision.
"Ohh shit!" Koochy howled. "Ol' girl down wit' da pus'!"
"Kick me," TK answered without flinching. "I'll take his place in the net."
A gasp went up from the crowd.
Ms. Dewey cocked her head to the side. That was clearly not the answer she had anticipated. She took a second to squint her eyes and look over TK again.
"I misjudged you," she said finally. "Interesting. Are you... sure... this is what you want?"
TK nodded, her eyes closed and lips pressed firmly together.
"Yes, just fucking do it already," she committed.
"Then it shall be so! Penalty kiiiiiiick!" Ms. Dewey announced, whipping her followers into a frenzy.
My followers watched morosely as their prophecies were fulfilled. The slave girls reappeared and began unshackling Bronson and I.
"TK! What are you doing?" I hissed at her once I was free and she was on the planked stage.
"Don’t worry about me, Preston," she consoled. "My body has seen far worse. Anyway, I can heal on my own. We'd have to find you a surgipod."
My face crumpled. This was real love. TK was putting herself in harm's way so that I might pull myself out of it. I didn't deserve such a beautiful, selfless companion.
"Thank you," was all I could say to my lover and mother as she took her place in the dangling manacles that were still warm from my wearing. "Thank you, TK. I love you."
She nodded, grimly. I stepped off of the netted contraption and walked over to stand by Marcus.
"What's up, Bronson baby?" Marcus greeted my penis arm.
"Brronnnnsssssoonnnn," Bronson greeted him in return.
Chanting of "P-K, P-K, P-K" arose from the crowd as they got excited for the penalty kick. I couldn't help but notice that it sounded eerily similar to TK's name. Could she be part of the prophecy as well?
I put aside all thoughts of the prophecy for the time being and focused on my telepathic link with my lover. I needed to be there with her for this.
The slave girls hoisted TK along with her chains and netting up to a raised platform. Ms. Dewey climbed the dais to a roar of approval. Her rust-colored spiky shoes click-clacked on the wooden planks and left scabby dust behind as she strutted over to TK's supple, writhing form.
"There will be five penalty kicks," Ms. Dewey announced. "Behind me are five sealed chests. Inside one of these containers is the holy scroll Cleveland Jesus has come to seek. Behold!"
I stood as high as I could on my ankle nubs to try to see over the murmuring crowd. We were so close to unveiling part of the prophecy! The wooden chests each rested atop a pile of paper and wood chips.
Ms. Dewey placed a strange, truncated dodecahedron-like object behind TK's shapely rear, where it fit into a slot in the netting.
"This is a soccer ball!" she declared. The curious shape now made sense to me, I remembered seeing it in history vids.
"For each penalty kick, if I am able to move the soccer ball, I have won the round," Ms. Dewey explained carefully with exquisite diction. "If my kick is blocked by the body of the penitent and I do not move the soccer ball, I have lost the round. Five penalty kicks, five chests. Each time I win, one of the pyres is set alight. At the end of the five penalty kicks, Cleveland Jesus receives the remaining chests."
"Ay!" Koochy yelled to Ms. Dewey. "Is yo' fine-ass chest remainin' at da end of dem PKs? Big Kooch wanna recei'e dat!"
The rules didn't seem much like what I'd remembered from the vids, but they were at least clear and concise.
"TK!" I shouted to her telepathically. "If we don't secure all the chests, we might lose the scroll forever!"
"I get it, Preston," she replied. "I can hear her too, you know."
"Dat ho best be blockin' all dem kicks," Koochy added. "Cunt punt, like whaa?"
I shuddered to think of the iron spikes penetrating TK's body.
"Hey guys!" Alphonso said. "I parked the GMS-KJH86 back there, I put the club on the steering wheel just like you showed me, Koochy. So hey, did you guys know I used to play soccer back in the day? They called me 'Soccer Alphonso Roy', that was my nickname. And my friends, I had a lot of friends, they'd come up to me and say, 'Hi, Soccer Alphonso Roy, want to hang out and do friend stuff?' and I'd say--"
"Shut tha fuck up, mane!" Koochy smacked him upside the head.
"Ow! My gluteus maximus!" Alphonso wailed, rubbing the striated muscles behind his ears. "You can't do that! Wanna get beaten up??" he challenged.
Ms. Dewey took a long, measured step back from TK's dangling form. The constant cheering enveloping us managed to kick itself up a notch. Ms. Dewey smiled and waved to the crowd, clearly familiar with their pronounced affections. Like I had seen ancient golfers in history videos do when preparing for a challenging putt, Ms. Dewey took a couple of very slow, deliberate practice swings. Only in her case, instead of exploring a path to a hole in the ground, she was exploring a path to the holes between TK's spread legs. Fortunately, TK was clothed, but I was worried that the spikes in those shoes, when coupled with the svelte and muscular legs of Ms. Dewey, would easily penetrate her deeply.
"Oh, TK!" I sent her thoughts of support. I was about to tell her that I thought we had made the wrong decision. That I should've relied on violence instead of love to solve this problem.
Ms. Dewey didn't give me the time to finish the thought.
"Blimey!" she yelled out in an odd battle cry. Her thick thigh muscle knotted up and she sunk her deadly foot deep into TK's underside. TK didn't even try to dodge.
TWHWELCH! The spikes made a sickening sound as they found the most sensitive of flesh. TK squealed out an inhuman cry and began thrashing madly, trying to dislodge Ms. Dewey's foot which had stuck inside of her.
Ms. Dewey frowned. The soccer ball remained undisturbed behind TK's hanging butt, although it was now covered in blood.
"Ah!" Ms. Dewey yelled out as she flexed her hamstring and her foot tore free with another awful noise. TK stopped gyrating and let herself hang heavily from her restrained hands. Blood gushed freely from her damaged twat, down the inside of her legs.
"Very impressive. You should have joined my harem," Ms. Dewey placed her fingers on TK's chin and tilted her face upwards. "But if I can't have you... then no one will have you." Ms. Dewey's eyes, which were inches from TK's eyes, became large and enraged.
"Crikey!" she exclaimed.
She quickly took a step back and kicked again, much harder this time. This time her foot shattered bone and tore itself roughly halfway through TK's pelvis. TK's body was lifted off the ground almost a foot and she made herself rigid with agony. The spikes protruding from the toe of her shoe were so long that the very tip of one managed to touch the soccer ball.
It moved ever so slightly.
"GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!" Ms. Dewey threw both her hands straight up in the air, lowered her jaw and let loose a cry of victory.
"No! Stop! No, please stop," TK was sobbing now. The pain
had broken her spirit.
I tensed my body in preparation to act. Marcus placed a calming hand solidly on my shoulder.
"Ay son, now ain't tha time," he whispered.
"I'm going to kill her," I gritted my teeth and muttered.
"Fo' sho, playa. But thank 'bout it. We ain't got tha fire powa ta take on dis whole city. And yo' god shit get stupid. Last time you use dat shit we ended up pickin' up a whole mothafuckin nation o' fools, yo," he said softly into my ear.
He was right, but I didn't want to hear it. I shook my head.
"Marcus, I... I.... I can't watch this," I finally decided.
"Mane, you owe it ta TK ta watch. That ho scrong."
He was right again. I listened to three more British slang battle cries and watched three more vicious kicks land in my lover's loins. By the time Ms. Dewey was finished, TK had been split from her groin to her rib cage. A few intact lengths of her intestines dangled between her inner thighs like corded drapes. Far more of her intestines had been bludgeoned and ripped into foul chunks by the spiked shoes Ms. Dewey wielded so brutally.
After the first kick, there had been virtually none of TK left to block the soccer ball, so every subsequent kick was successful. For each successful kick, a chest had been lit aflame, just as Ms. Dewey had commanded. Only one chest, the first one, remained unburned.
The bloodthirsty audience was completely enrapt by the horrific spectacle that Ms. Dewey was providing them. Men punched other men in the face in violent celebration. Women tore their shirts off and proffered generous breasts in wanton enjoyment of this public execution. Children threw their stuffed animals down on the frozen ground and stomped at them between their fuzzy legs.
TK hung pale and lifeless-looking from her wrist shackles. My shoulders slumped and I felt terrible. What kind of god doesn't protect his loved ones? Even lets his loved ones die on his behalf?
Ms. Dewey was cackling and changing out of her murderous heels.
"Yes, yes. Cheerio!" Ms. Dewey addressed Marcus and me. "Now, why don't you two bugger off to make good on your taco salad promise. After that, come see me to claim the chest you so painfully earned." She trailed off into sinister laughter as she turned her back to us and walked away. "If you thought I'd give it to you just for penalty kicks or all that tosh, you must be on the piss. Pip pip!"
If TK hadn't been dying, I might have put more energy into protesting the bait-and-switch that Ms. Dewey had just pulled. However, I had more pressing matters to tend to. I didn't wait for the soldiers to file out after her. Using Bronson as a pole, I vaulted my way up onto the killing stage.
"TK! TK!" I ran to her. There was a lot of blood on the planked floor, and I slipped in my mad rush. "Fuck!" I cursed my luck as I ended up face first in an excess of her steadily pooling bodily fluids.
"P...Puh...Puh-ressssss..." she tried to speak.
"Shhhh. Hush, TK. Don't try to talk. Let me get you down," I looked around angrily for the slave girls that knew how to work these shackles. "Fuck these things!" I said angrily after a minute of futilely fooling with them.
"Ay, like dis," Koochy had climbed up next to me by now and effortlessly unlocked one of the iron cuffs on TK's wrist. All of her weight fell heavily on her only remaining bound wrist and this caused her shoulder to dislocate with a loud pop.
"Ugghh!" she moaned, without enough strength to sound the cry her pain deserved.
"Koochy!" I chided him.
"Ay, mane! I jes be tryin' ta he'p!," he took a step back and looked at TK with a "daaaamn gurl" expression on his face.
"Daammmn gurl," he shook his head.
"Looks bad, doesn't it?" I commented.
"Naw, now she look like she big enough to take on Big Kooch's big kooch! Her ass want me so bad her guts 'bouta be all up ova me! Unnnghh!" he explained, chuckling.
"Fuck you, Marcus. That's not funny." I rolled my eyes. "Help me get her down from here."
Between the two of us, we managed to pull TK down from the netted torture structure. Aoas' mobile sarcophagus hummed up quietly beside us. We laid TK on the ground and regarded her pitifully.
"Come on," I motivated Marcus. "Let's get her back into the ship."
After a brief period of physical exertion, we had gently deposited TK's badly wounded body in the GMS-KJH86. I petted her hair softly as she slept. It had taken her less than a week to heal from being completely crushed and flung about like a rag doll. I had no idea how long it would take her to regenerate her digestive system, reproductive organs and pelvic area.
"Uh, Preston," Alphonso's voice reached me from the cockpit. "You better come take a look at this."
"What is it?" I joined him. Koochy was looking out the windshield as well.
The crowd of soccer hooligans was still outside, and not looking at all sated.
"Ta-co sal-ad! Ta-co sal-ad! Ta-co sal-ad!" came their indomitable chanting.
"Fuck, they're persistent," I remarked.
"Hongry bitches gotta eat!" Koochy explained. "Ay, TK done done yo part fo yo lazy ass, P. Now, watch me get mines!"
Koochy climbed back atop the penalty kick structure and used it as a makeshift stage.
"Ay! Ay y'all!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Amazingly, the crowd responded by quieting down. "I know y'all be some hongry niggas!" he continued. "Break yo' se'ves ta tha Taco Bell!"
The taco salad chant went up again, but this time more as a cheer. Koochy and I followed the parade into the heart of New London, where the towering corporation we owned was looming, waiting.
***
"Whachu mean you ain't got no damn workers?" Koochy demanded of the Executive Executor, angrily. Spittle flew from his large, tubular lips and glistened on the face of his victim. "What tha fuck kinda shit show you runnin' here, son?"
The young man with slicked back business-style hair trembled, visibly frightened by the visual assault that was Koochy and me.
"It-it... it w-was t-the p-puh-protests, s-sir!" he stammered. "M-muh-minimum wage w-went up h-huh-higher than m-my s-sss-salary! The s-stock w-was t-tuh-tuh-t-tuh-t-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-"
"Spit it out!" I shouted, exasperated by this tiresome mess.
"It was t-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-t-tuh," he tried and failed again.
Koochy slapped him in the face, hard.
"Don't you fuckin' stutter at me! You so scurred, my ass ashamed fo' you! Man up, sucka!" he grabbed him by the shoulders and shook the young executive.
"B-buh-buh-t, I h-huh-have a st-stuh-stutter," the poor young man pleaded.
"Oh for chris'sake," I covered my eyes with my palms.
"So, yo' ass cain't speak, yo' ass cain't manage, yo' ass ain't sho' ain't turnin' a profit..." he counted the deficiencies on his finger tips. "Remind me why yo' ass workin' fo' us?"
"I duh-duh-don't. Muh-miss Dewey n-n-a-nuh-nuh-nuh-nationalized the b-buh-business!" he smirked.
"Don't you get all smug on me you speech impediment havin' mouth clown!" Koochy smacked him again. "Yo' ass is fired! Oh, you still here? Yo' ass is fired again, motha fucka! Get tha fuck out!"
"Y-yuh-you can't f-fuh-fire m-muh-me," he crossed his arms.
I pulled Koochy aside.
"We need a new plan," I told him. "They're going to kill us if we don't deliver on the taco salads you promised! Argh! Why did I let you talk me into this in the first place? I should've just called in a miracle and said 'fuck it!'"
"Whachu talkin' 'bout, Willis? I ain't said shit. I say we fight those football headed motha fuckas," Koochy clenched his fists.
"I don't like our odds. It's us versus the whole city," I realized we had switched roles as I spoke what had been his advice just hours ago.
"Damn, P! Ain't you good fo' nothin'? Ain't you got like a whole shitload of jive ass tribes and shit? Son, you 'posed to be a damn god or somethin' ya know what I'm sayin'?" he yelled back at me, clearly frustrated.
"Hmmm..." I stroked my bearded chin. Maybe he was right. I did have the twelve tribes of Boojina at my disposal. Surely the
y could be of some use.
"I don't know that they would be good in a fight," I told him after a moment of contemplation. "They haven't eaten in days. They'd probably fall over if a stiff wind blew. It would be a massacre."
"Ay, I got it. Check dis," Koochy's face lit up. "Put dem bitches ta work!"
"What?"
"Ay, yeah! Yeah, dis some shit righ'chere!" he became more excited about his idea as he explained it to me. "Dey hongry and shit, right?"
"Right..."
"Dey cold and homeless and shit, right?"
"Right..."
"And our bidness fixin' ta go tits up 'cause minimum wage so high, right?"
"I don't get it," I admitted.
"P! Tell yo' boys ta work fo' dis here Taco Bell!" he revealed.
"What?"
"Tell yo' boys ta work fo' dis here Taco Bell, son!" he repeated himself word for word, but much more slowly this time. "Dey goan make dem damn taco salads!"
"They're not going to want to work at Taco Bell. Are you high?"
"Who give a shit what dey want? You dey god! Command dey asses!" Koochy softened his voice significantly. "Yo, it's good for dem, mane. Dey need some jobs. How you 'posed ta feed dem all? Wit' yo' fucked up backfiring ass miracles?"
"Hmmmm..." I again stroked my immense beard.
It was my turn to have an idea.
"Maybe I could also use this to bargain with Ms. Dewey for the scroll," I told him. "I'll trade her the promise of a veritable nation of fast food employees in exchange for my holy manuscript."
Marcus' jaw dropped and his eyes got immense.
"Damn, P! Dat's da smartest shit you eva said," he shook his head in disbelief. "Maybe you is a god!"
I turned to the terrified executive, who had not moved an inch since I pulled Marcus away.
"Tell Ms. Dewey I want a meeting," I told him with steel in my tone.
"H-huh-how am I s-suh-suh-suh-suh-suh-supp-suppuh-suppuh-supposed to d-duh-duh-do that?" he struggled.
"What? I don't know. Fucking carrier pigeon? Figure it out! Aren't you an executive?" I demanded.
The young man attempted no further speech and instead scurried off to do our bidding.
