The muted muzak version of my sharona by the Knack enveloped him as the doors closed. He pinched the bridge of his nose in aggravation as the elevator silently floated up to the private floor. The worse part was that this was exactly why he hadn’t waved off the bizarre request when she’d made it.
Even as he’d downplayed the possibility of anything running amok or afoul. He’d felt the look she’d given him embedded in her words and had acquiesced. Just in case. “And here the fuck we are,” he muttered to himself. “Without her even-”
Doors pinged open directly into the plush suite and he stepped out, barely smiling yet nodding to all as he made his way through the festivities to the sprawling slash of windows that overlooked a blacked out Bunker Hill below.
The Host who always had to have the most caught sight of him across the way and motioned to the mixologist for a second set-up of the Macallan Sour with an Oloroso sherry float he’d made for him. Chuck wagged his finger as the barman grabbed the exquisitely crafted 1926 Macallan held on reserve for the Host and pointed to the 15 year old double cask, single malt scotch instead as good enough, as well as a slightly more downmarket, appropriate pairing of sherry, out of respect for artistry inherent in the design of the featured cocktail and in deference to his personal estimation of the palate in question.
The Host clocked him like the thief in the temple he saw him as while he waited, no matter the moves made by him to signal to the contrary.
The after-a hard day’s work party ambled along inside the temporary tabernacle the Host base-camped in, and he watched people run up and warmly hug the man he took full credit for having made, whether that was a valid estimation or not.
The twinge of covert stinginess and narcissistic envy always at play on the outskirts of his thoughts whenever he came into view since they’d amicably parted ways wrapped around him like an anaconda, slowly asphyxiating any actual affability out of him.
“Sir,” he turned around woodenly, stacked the two drinks atop one another then strode up to him confidently.
He felt him coming without looking back. Par for the course. He’d make this quick.
“OH look! You made it!”the host barked gregariously. The entire party buzzed happily around the reunion.
“The man of the hour!”he continued warmly as he extended his free hand in order to pull him into a hug. “Look at this guy!”he chortled, “could finally tear yourself away from all the work you’re cheating on me with…”
He looked down at the host’s hand then back at his face.
” What?? You’re not gonna just leave me hanging , are ya big guy‐”
The polite conversation in the room ebbed as the host’s hand was dismissively waved away.
“Why won’t you leave her alone?” he asked.
The party skid to an abrupt stop.
“She’s planning on telling everyone I fucked my fucking goddaughter when she was fucking 14!” he barked defensively.
“Did you?”he asked dryly.
Everyone in the room cloyingly commiserating with him due to payroll froze. He blinked in momentary shock, glared at him then snarled, indignantly “what did you just-?-What?!I-”
” Did you FUCK your goddaughter?”he asked again, plainly.
He raked his hand roughly through his greasy, over-dyed hair he never washed unless it was contractually stipulated with nicotine stained fingers gnawed to the quick, pacing himself. The Host quietly looked down, then exploded.
“How in the fuck- you fucking cocksucker- This is what you finally fucking show up here for?! This is what -how can you even-!? You grace us with your presence to Ask me that shit?!” he raged.
He ignored the bad theatrics. “Whether she was 14, 15… however old she is now… DID you… fuck her? I know you fucked her mom back in the-”
“Mary and I Never -fucking- Fuck you, man!” the Host sputtered indignantly.
“See how easily That rolled off your tongue? I didn’t fuck …Mary and I Never-!” he laughed darkly as the Host’s face twisted in rage, “Only… that’s a lie. You did fuck her mom, Mary. You told me yourself. Way back. Blackout after fucking blackout, you said. So fucked up you had no clue if it were good or bad, so you did again and again…They don’t know.” he motioned to those present by fiscal decree, “You pay them enough not to, anyway- but I fucking remember all the shit you pretend you don’t fucking recall whenever it’s convenient! You’ve kept me around long enough-”
The Host stared at him as if he’d gone fucking apeshit. He would have turned in on himself if he could have in the silence that followed the outburst. Three Day’s Grace never too late echoed softly in the background.
“It’s the elephant in the fucking room, dude,” he shrugged, exhausted, and gazed out the hotel window. Downtown seemed like a movie set abandoned at the end of day, below.
“No! No- what room?! Nobody was even- You literally just rolled up in here and brought all that up into this place, man! Right here! Right Now!- This room was-” The Host paused, exasperated. “You don’t even get it! …see- She- She just-” the Host angrily stuttered.
“Angel,” he said softly. In clarification.
He pointed across the canyon strung up between the two towers in the dark. His eyes lingered on a beautiful, lithe, peaceable black woman sitting cross-legged on the floor in a kimono and her underwear in front of windows high up enough to not need curtains to close.
She was happily hunched over a laptop she’d balanced on a makeshift table, with two dogs that looked like miniature luck dragons tucked into her lap wrestling for supremacy with one another and affection from her whenever her fingers paused over her keys.
The Host’s head roughly swiveled away from the windows in outrage at even hearing her name, veins bulging. He shut his eyes melodramatically as images of every house the man before him had ever purchased solely because of working for him in the shadows flashed angrily in front of them on the inside of his lids. Before he could erupt the guy the Host felt had betrayed him with every breath since setting eyes on her said the forbidden name again.
“Angel.” he barked softly. “her name is Angel-” he motioned across the way at her as he snapped her name again and again.
“The name of the woman you’ve literally made a show of holing up in a high rise hotel across on Bunker Hill to… what? Mock? Leer at? Spy on? Lumber around like you’re exhibiting some semblance of power over by literally looking down on her? That’s Angel, dude. An-juhl-” he mouthed as he signed her name in case he wanted to play deaf. The host glared back at him, momentarily speechless.
“The name of the woman you are literally throwing this,” he motioned around at the room of trapped, passively payrolled, mute people, “lurid little watch party to angrily glower at…is Angel.” he muttered.
The Host’s team shifted awkwardly in their seats as the Host blinked in confusion at the man he had never really bothered to actually get to know over the years because he’d simply been so good at shadowing him that it’d never crossed his Lilliputian mind to do so. None of this fire was any revelation to any of them at all, though.
He barked her name again.
“Let me see if I can translate it to match your stunted fucking vocabulary on the subject- The name of the fucking bitch you keep bringing in people to fuck with is named fucking Angel-”
“Francis, come on, man. Don’t – It’s not going to do any-” was muttered from somewhere along the edge of the now deathly silent palatial suite.
On thinly veiled threats of financial excommunication the woman’s actual name hadn’t been uttered around the spoiled man-child at the center of the vindictive storm Francis had marched straight into in years. And in this economy? Collusion with whatever nonsense the one who signed checks got up to off in the cut was a course of action most passively signed onto simply to keep being able to pay the bills.
Francis had diversified and divested from most of the dank, dark energy afoot in the room a few seasons ago in silence. And he would never be forgiven for how loudly it had rung out to those left behind who had been in the know.
“Fuck is wrong with you, man? What happened to you? Why are you even here-?” Francis asked the Host pointedly.
“She’s going to publicly accuse me-“
“She is not going to fucking- for fuck’s sake, man! No one could pay her to mention your name, Chuck. Not even by the word. And she’s a fucking writer- she literally gets paid by the word! She could make bank off you to the fucking high hills if she was the kind of chick you Still are hell-bent on casting her as-” Francis snapped.
“I have my sources!”the Host yelped defensively. “She’s gonna fucking slander me for-”
Francis narrowed his eyes and clenched his perfect jaw. “She’s gonna slander You?! You literally had some fat bitch write a romance novel about your pipe-dream regarding her coming out here in search of you-” Francis crowed, “Knowing full well she came in search of that crazy guitar genius with the big wild eyes that kinda look like hers-”
“Shut the fuck up!” Chuck roared. “ohh! Like she didn’t-”
“Ask you for a job until she found out your “company” hadn’t even bothered to have a real fucking address at the-You’re- you’ve been being a fucking idiot for a long time, bro-”
The Host rolled his eyes over the call-out. “You’re just going to erase that she even was into to me-”
“ME???? YOU Did!” Francis yelped, laughing. “-And that’s what’s got you so fucked in the head- You have No one to blame on God’s green earth for that fumble other than yourself!” he cackled abusively.
“And you know she won’t write about you, or out you, or whatever the sick victim fantasy loop you’re running regarding her this week is! You know how fucking crazy you sound considering what you have done to her trying to get her mad enough To do it-”
Two burly guys bloomed up out of nowhere and grabbed The Host as he lunged frantically at Francis, the drinks stacked in his hand sloshing upon impact.
“NO! NO,DUDE! THAT’S NOT WHAT’S GOT ME SO FUCKED IN THE HEAD ! IT’S FUCKING YOU, BRO! WHY WON’T I LEAVE HER THE FUCK ALONE?? ME? WHAT AM I DOING HERE¿ HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!! What the fuck are You doing here, bro???! Huh?! I know why I’m here! We allll know why I’m here! I’M HERE BECAUSE OF YOU, GUY! We’re alL here because of you! Your ass, guy!! You’re not supposed to be in this fucking place either yet here you fucking are!What the fuck! What the actual fuck?!”
“You can’t get mad for her smelling your shit on that gig you set up to fucking entrap her, Chuck-” Francis sighed.
“The fuck I can’t! The fuck I can’t! And I’M not! I’m NOT mad- At THAT, dude!” the Host roared. “And- and fuck you for accusing me of-”
Spittle from his unhinged mouth full of defiantly unfixed teeth landed on both Francis and the double-thick windowpane beside him as he chomped at the scenery he’d pulled into place to vehemently glare across the way at his unbothered target from within.
“And So what!! I’m fucking crazy!” he roared, lost in the adrenaline of the scene spinning out of him as he drained one of the glasses in hand, bent down and sat it on the floor. “And I pay you fucking people enough- including Your still getting residuals because of me ass- for that to be a nonissue!! Get off me! I’m fine! I’m fuckin-”
The Host shook the two guys off of him as Francis stood there nonplussed, more disgusted by Chuck’s saliva on his shoulders and sliding down the soundproof glass next to him than anything else.
The Host whipped around and rammed a stinky nicotine stained finger in the ruddy face of one of dudes restraining him. “And I don’t Pay you to Fucking touch me! I pay you to tell me what they’re up to- you’re why we’re all here too!” he roared.
“How in the fuck?!” he groaned, “Dude! We’re fucking stopping you for your own Good! For fucks sake, man …you’re fucking obsessed!” the big guy roared. “And for what?! For fucking what? No- you know what? I don’t even care anymore what dumb-assed explanation you’re gonna come up with this time to justify pressing me again and again over either one of them.” He let him go in a huff.
“You wanna talk about what you pay me “to dime them out”, you sick, meddling, fucking addict? It’s always been a pittance! It’s never been fucking enough for what you put me through, ya fuckin tightwad! I didn’t even tell you for the money! I told you because I feel fucking bad for you! For who you used to fucking be in my eyes before you started acting like a fucking crackhead over this chick that everybody knows you didn’t even fucking ‘like’ until she liked Him- No! Nevermind! Clearly you can’t even handle unpacking THAT shit right now! Ya know what? Fuck this abusive shit-I’m fucking out!” Sal yelled, took a sheath of bills out of his wallet and flung it at the Host, “…and for the record? Fuck your money!” He stormed off.
The bank of elevators gaped open like three mechanical, shocked mouths waiting for him that Joe Jackson’s is she really going out with him wafted out of like clarifying smoke. He was trailed by the clutch of folks present who’d felt they’d done their time and were wise enough to see where the night was going to take his gruff exit as their cue.
“Leave her alone, Chuck.” Francis growled as his eyes followed Sal in the wake of him having finally snapped out of it. “…Make this stupid- assed, sick shin-dig your fucking going away party from doing this ridiculous bullshit.”
“& if I don’t?” The Host sneered as he drained the last drink and tossed the mostly empty glass on the plush carpet. He leaned against the window, pat himself down, pulled out a crumpled pack of French old man cigarettes and lit one on the no smoking floor. Scowling, he took a drag that devoured more than half of it to calm his nerves.
“Are you even Fucking her yet, Francis?” the Host snapped derisively. “Because this?” he motioned emphatically around them, “This is a LOT of fucking pregaming for some pussy, even for your Ooh~ I’m violently shy” fake ass. Talking about me being across the way- your ass is just as mental as I am-” he let out a ribbon of smoke and raised his wispy, fading, perpetually shedding brows sardonically.
“I know exactly where you are! You’re stationed just a few floors down, just slightly to the left, if she ever looks up from her little rhapsodies– Does she even officially know you’re here? Does she have any idea where you are? Or is she just sitting over there, all happy-go-lucky with the pups, trusting she’s safe, typing away on fucking feels, sending you sweet missives between scenes when she comes up for air, or teasing your ass with ‘telepathy,’ or whatever the fuck is up with- like you’re fucking special or-Like you’re the only one she telepaths too-” Chuck huffed.
Francis smiled wryly. “Yeah, I’m here…but the difference is…she Asked me to be here, Chuck.” Francis said smoothly. Everyone still present winced at The Host flinching from the direct hit.
“Near her. Just in case.” he murmured, “ Not even just because she smelt your unwashed junk hovering behind the gig up request from jump, ya dumb fuck.”
“Then why’d she’d take it?! Huh!” the Host huffed. “If she knew it was me and she’s soooo scared of me- why accept the- She doesn’t even really like you, dude!” the Host declared emphatically. “She’s just scared of-”
“Not one person you’ve spoke to trying to dig up dirt about her has Ever said she’s scared of you, Chuck.” Francis snarked. “Even her supposedly sworn enemies have warned you to leave her the fuck alone, but you can’t! Your ego is that fucking bruised, and your guilt over what’s the real root of this shit goes long.”
Francis pulled out a pack of cinnamon Pur and casually popped the birch gum into his mouth. “It’s her fucking side gig, for one. That you’re trying to fuck up after blacklisting her in here just gave her more time to write. Besides…Ya read everything else she writes me… you know she took it because she likes Gehry. And she lived around the block from here during the plague… watched these gorgeous towers go up… you being the stupid conduit trying to set her up pales in comparison to what she already had going on in her for this zone. And- I mean… Look at ya, Chuck.” Francis chuckled darkly. “Look at the spectacle you’re making of yourself, guy. Over her. What are you gonna do? Lean against the glass when everyone finally goes home and jerk off onto the window glowering at her peaceably curled up in bed across the way to blot her out, with that harpy of yours swearing up and down she’s into it?” he snickered.
“OH! She’s not scared of me.. but she asked you to be here?! Which is it dude?!” Chuck spat as he let out another ribbon of smoke.
“Two things can be true at the same time,” Francis said as he blew a cinnamon bubble, antagonizing the Host.
“And how is Sarah feeling about all that, huh? Your willingness to just-” the Host sneered, trying not to be triggered by Francis’s languid lip-smacking. “ Show up ~ and fucking be here in case she needs to break glass because of me or whatever?”
“Call her into HR and ask her yourself. You’re certainly paying her enough to fuck me to gain that kind of confidence from her-”
Gasps peppered the outskirts of the room by those shocked by the admission as folds of bills passed hands between those who’d always bet that Francis had known the technical foul afoot in all of that shit just under the surface.
“Yet you have no problem fucking her,” Chick hissed.
“A pro’s a pro, especially when it comes to a blow. Better you foot the bill for the cost of that shit than me, ya cuck. I wouldn’t pay for it. Never have, remember? You still making her report back to you how many times I let her do it?” Francis smiled like little baby jesus. “Like you’re clocking my stamina, or virility, or whatever to measure your diminishing…returns…against? …ya sick fuck-”
“Ah! So romantic! Chivalrous, even! A true troubadour you are, Lancelot! Pounding a bought and paid for Pro, and still having the audacity to fucking stand here like you’re some sort of Pristine Prince, even as you try to patrol my behavior for the fucking pure love of An-”
Chuck grimaced in disdain over the taste of almost having uttered her name in real time by mistake. “Yet here we are-” the Host murmured, the gig all but up.
“Look, you fucking pedantic, chinless, show-pony-ing, repugnant Pedophile-” Francis snarled, “Pardon me, hebephiliac... Do whatever your fucking job has you down here doing and leave her happy ass…alone-”
“Or what?” the Host barked. “WHAT are You gonna do to me? Please enlighten me in front of all these witnesses.”
“This little messy soiree you made a mandatory work meeting just officially crossed the line. Your manipulative bullshit is now fucking workplace coercion, ya dumb fuck-”
“You’ve made them witness you filming yourself leering at a bitch they know you effectively tried to blacklist in this town after she walked away in disgust from your coddled, cowardly bullshit. A bitch on record as having washed her hands of you before all this she’s gonna slander me shit you’ve literally pulled out of your gaping ass! You’ve fucking strung up Everyone here with your sick little voyeuristic revenge porn fantasies. At the least they all can triple the rate your ass is paying them to be present.”
A murmur of beleaguered comprehension crackled in the room.
“That’s fucking Extortion! You’re telling my fucking people- the team you used to be the king of-to fucking Extort me?!”
Francis looked around at those who remained in utter amazement. “FUCKING EXTORT HIM!” Francis roared. “Whatever he’s working up to finding the balls to Do to her -ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HER IMPLICATES EVERY FUCKING ONE OF YOU HERE! You’re all fucking complicit now!”
“They want to be here!” the Host yelled. “They are fine right where they are! You’re the only defector! Only You wanna be over there!” he sneered at Francis accusingly.
“NOBODY WANTS TO BE HERE!” someone yelped from the back.
“What the- Fuck is wrong with you?!”
He looked around at the exhausted people he’d known and loved for years trying to not buckle under the Host’s lecherous demise as Til Tuesday’s voices carry wafted overhead from the once again open elevator doors. A few more captives dribbled off, weary, not one of them looking forward to the aftermath of this on set tomorrow.
“You think they’re not quietly following my fucking lead and diversifying their options ASAP? Why? Because you’re fucking crazy now, Chuck. You’ve lost the fucking thread… and you’re gonna fuck everybody up with your freaking out over here fantasizing about somehow being able to intimidate that fucking ANGEL-“
“STOP SAYING HER FUCKING NAME TO ME, YOU ARROGANT, IGNORANT PRICK!-”
“ That fucking ANGEL IS GONNA TURN YOU into THE COPS EVERY TIME THAT KID YOU RUINED TRIES TO MAKE A FUCKING MOVE away from you to wander off and go HEAL HERSELF!” Francis yelled, finally saying the quiet part out loud.
“It’s you! All of this is your doing! And it’s your fucking Victim haunting your head! You keep trying to rage at Angel-”
The Host snapped. He lunged at Francis and pinned him to the window with his forearm. “I told you to stop saying her fucking name! You know it fucking triggers me!!” the Host’s team raced in and tried to separate the two men.
Francis suddenly smiled like a child. “Dude, … I like literally taught you that move-” he murmured campily, just like the old times.
The wise ones fled, running towards the bank of elevators in a panic as the shower of “aws” erupted, then shifted to screams of shock, horror and dismay that drowned out the sheer bleating yelps of pain the Host convulsed with as he crumpled in spasms onto the floor.
“You’re done forcing them to be your flying monkeys! You’re done fucking harassing Angel-!” Francis whispered as he loomed above him. “It fucking stops tonight.”
“Don’t you fucking say that cunt’s name in my presence ever again!” the Host screeched, boiling over as he writhed in pain on the floor as if he’d been punctured. He dragged himself away from Francis like a vampire dragging itself away from a sun beam. The dregs at the fucked up watch party burst into chaos around them trying to exit.
Francis bent down. “And I’m going to break you on every fucking fissure I had to professionally catalog across all these years to make you look good if you don’t stop. Starting with that there knee,” he whispered as he kicked it. The Host caterwauled in pain.
“No ‘or,’ either. Just… One… freak… accident… per old injury… at a …motherfucking…time.” His lush mouth pulled into a fleshy, garish grin that made his chiseled jaw jut out handsomely. His crazy platinum colored eyes flashed like they were liquid. “Per injury, not per infraction on your part. Pacing your punishment piecemeal is no longer a fucking option after tonight-”
The Host rolled around on the floor pitifully enraged as Francis leaned into his darkness and rambled on.
“And then… I am going to let those I’ve told about you covertly harassing her go to the press… in just the way you keep trying to make her do, when she could give a flying fuck about you or your arrangement with the now grown woman you groomed with parental permission since she was a tween, Chuck…” Francis whispered, relishing watching the color drain from the Host’s face like the lanced boil on the ballsac of humanity he’d chosen to become via all of this.
“They’re going to tell everyone that you are indeed fucking your goddaughter, or you at least did one more time recently, against her fucking will, with the help of that sorry excuse for a woman you keep around. I know she didn’t come up with that, too. Your sick ass sic’d her on her- And you are NOT bringing Angel into this fucking tempest your ass kicked up – Do you understand me?”
The Host glared balefully up at Francis.
“And then… I’m going to fucking fuck her, Chuck. If she even wants me after I scrape off all of this shit. You know how fickle she can be after she gets over a guy’s fucking nonsense and sees him for what he really is-intimately.” Francis smirked.
“FUCK YOU, FRANCIS! Fucking Fuck you!” the Host roared, curled up in the fetal position on the floor.
“Nah. Heart of hearts? I’m kinda aged out of the sexual barrels you like shooting in. By a good four decades! Besides, if I did Angel might lose her crazy-assed affectionate interest in my ass,” Francis purred. “She’d still love me though. For some reason she’s weird like that, Chuck-” Francis shrugged. “With me, anyway. Lucky me, or Grace of God, I guess,” he chuckled and started walking away.
“Fuck you, man! Fuck you!” the Host cried out. “Ohh! You’re a big guy now, Huh?! Some kind of fucking SAVIOR? YOU’RE RIDING HERE DOING THIS DUMB WHITE HORSE RIDING SHIT LIKE YOU’RE SOME FUCKING KIND OF PRINCE?! FUCK YOU! OH, You wanna dime me out too for banging my GROWN, NON-BLOOD RELATED goddaughter!? Go ahead! Try it! I’ll say your ass is fucking lying! That you’re trying to get me back for‐for something!- BESIDES- She’ll never say I DID anything wrong! Then! Then you’ll look like a fool!” Chuck raged against the tide fully turning.
“But YOU will know you did, Chuck.” Francis said bluntly. “For the rest of your life, you’re going to have to live with what the fuck You did- Nothing else you do is going to amount to anything, no amount of money you make is going to wash the taste of that kid tormenting you out of-”
“Money?! Everything you have is mine, asshole! You fucking exist solely because of me! You’d be rotting somewhere if I-Your ass only has the fucking clothes on your back due- due to working for me!” the Host ranted on.
“And everything you’re Actually known for is mine, so we’re even-” Francis said softly. “I don’t work for you anymore, Chuck,” he sang out.
“Fuck you! Like you haven’t done dumb shit that I know about! You’re so fucking perfect! Everybody just loves good old Frank Francis, don’t they!!?? I’ll remember something fucked up you did, I’m sure!! I mean yeah, you never bought the escorts but ya had no fucking problem playing with the ones I provided, now did you?! That’s Something, guy! You were always ready to rage and roll around in it once it was procured! Your nose isn’t clean! You’re dirty too! Don’t think I forgot that shit! My footing the bill doesn’t absolve you for fucking happily going along for the fucking ride, ya Fuck!”
Chuck’s voice hitched in his throat like he was actually about to cry for real for the first time in literal ages. “And So what? I succumbed to fucking free pizza, offered in-house! She wanted it!!” the Host called out lasciviously. “Now! Now and …then too! She was just like her mom! I never saw it coming, until I did! It wasn’t even my fault… but she totally dug it! Ask- ask her yourself! then too…” he finished with a whimper, realizing in shock what he’d just fully admitted. The largest clutch left in attendance moved away in horrified, silent shock over the actual admission.
“Hey! Where are you guys going?! Hey!! Don’t you walk away from me, you fucking assholes! You’re not going to all just leave me here! Are you?! You’re still on the clock-!” the Host screamed.
“You’re all just users, anyway!” he roared. “Just like him! None of you were ever here for me! You used me! You were just here for my fucking Money! Because I fucking paid you to be here! You knew! You allll fucking knew!!” he screeched. “ Fucking extorting me all along!! Fuck all of you! Assholes! Every single one of you! You’re fired! You’re all fucking fired!!”
The unnerved crowd that waited in front of the bank of elevators parted so their contorted parasitic Host could see the backside of Francis that had triggered all this twisted natural selection in the first place.
True to his name, Chuck hacked up a bit of bile when Francis looked over his shoulder at him and smiled, free.
The garishness of the man’s obvious mirth was like a dash of ice water in the face of the Host as the elevator doors pinged open and Roxette’s must have been love boomed out. Something inside his brain ruptured as the depth of meaning in the man’s sick smile dawned on him.
“Oh my fucking God, Bro!!- Bro! Don’t you- don’t you fucking DARE!” the Host hissed and clawed his way towards the cluster of employees trying to escape who were still technically on the clock. “You- you better not! Don’t fucking do it! DON’T FUCKING GO OVER THERE, MAN!!”
Chuck whinnied as he rocked onto his back, deflated and defeated “Bro-”he gasped, brain broken by the thought of it. “ Don’t you fucking dare Go over there! Come on! Come the fuck on!!! FRANCIS! FRANCIS-I BETTER NOT LOOK OVER there later tonight & fucking See you!!”
Chuck Arthur cried out like he’d been shot, and was bleeding out on the floor. “You won’t be the death of me this lifetime, Frank Lancelot! I’ll fucking kill you! You fucking sonafa- When I get up from here you’re dead! I’ll bring them in to handle you just the way I did him!! You’re a dead man, Frank! You’re fucking-”
Suddenly the Host froze as a cold tingle of awareness overtook him. He swiveled himself around on the floor. “Wait a- what- the- Who- who’s filming this?! Where’s the fucking camera!? Who the fuck- You know I can feel the fucking lenses on me-!!! The Fuck!”
The dude affectionately called both Land’s End and the Lawnmower Man, depending on which business end of his you ran up on stood up from his crouched position and saved the footage as the elevator doors closed.
“I don’t even wanna know, man-” Francis muttered.
“To each their own in rebalancing this bullshit shit-” the Lawnmower Man muttered back.
“Think he’s gonna sleep it off and be on time in the-” a guy in the back of the lift asked.
“The one thing you can count on with his ass besides bullshit IS that-” a blond in the back of the lift tittered as the door opened on her hotel room floor. “It just keeps getting worse with him, day by fucking day-” she sighed, signing off from the madness as she made her way to her room.
The feed cut off.
“What the fuck did I just watch?” The detectives whispered amongst themselves, pissed at losing another one of the greats. There was no going back from what they’d seen and heard.
“It’s the fucking end times, man ! These fucks are out-chere dropping like flies!” a sergeant snapped.
“OH, how the mighty have fallen-i really liked him in… in what was that‐ you know the one where-” the cop snapped his fingers trying to jog his memory.
“What are we going to do, boys?”
They looked back at the two way mirror behind them. The androgynous, hooded figure on the far side of it sat stoically, waiting.
Her lawyer was let in and sat down beside her. Two detectives walked out of one door and into the room as another pressed record on the other side of the mirror.
©AngelBrynner 2025
Discover more from The MAG. Globalboho.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.