The Woman on the Beast Read online

  “Here we are, Queen Mystery. You see that Chinese guy getting out of his car? That’s who you spill your coffee in front of. That’s who you go home with. That’s whose computer stuff you put in your big rich lady purse when he falls asleep.”

  “Got it, Great Wizard. This will be easy. Tiny dicks are so easy to suck. It’s like a Tootsie Roll Pop. Three licks and you’re done.”

  She could remember hooker jokes. Good for her.

  “Here’s your purse. Now go order a coffee and get to spillin’! Just make sure to spill it only on your dress and not his computer. You can’t say ‘where is the nearest sink’ anymore because he’ll just point to the bathroom. If that coffee has time to set, you’ll NEVER get it out. You need to know how to find the closest laundry mat, now.”

  “YES SIR!”

  She gave him a military salute with the wrong hand that landed below her chin as she grabbed the gigantic rich lady purse. Then she grabbed a bottle of pills out of her usual filthy pink purse and quickly chunked it in her slick new rich lady hand bag.

  “There. Just gotta put a few supplies in this thing and we’re good to go.”

  “Supplies? What you got there, Mom?”

  “I never leave home without a bottle of roofies, son. Even if he falls asleep, some men are light sleepers. ANYTHING can wake them up.”

  “Ha! Good call. Even I didn’t think of that. I thought people couldn’t get roofies anymore.”

  “People can get anything in Applewood.”

  Sometimes Mommy really does know best.

  Here she comes, nerd. She may not look like the Treasure Trolls you’re used to screwing, but she’s the biggest Treasure Troll of all.

  THE SECRET SHOVEL

  Motivated by an extreme amount of horniness, Daphne racked her brain day and night to think of a way to get out of the sister zone. It was funny the way sexual starvation really pushed her to think outside the box.

  Finally one day she thought she might have stumbled upon a good idea – a shovel that might just be big enough to dig her way out of the sister zone. Gymnastics.

  Gymnastics was one of those things that no man wanted to watch on T.V., but every man wanted to watch in the bedroom.

  Even Haiku didn’t know that before her complete rebellion in high school, she had taken gymnastics her entire life. Her white collar parents wanted her to be good at gymnastics so she could make the cheerleading team and be popular. That popularity would ensure she got in a good sorority full of rich pretty girls when she got to college.

  The rest of the country didn’t get it, but sororities and fraternities were the South’s way of continuing to segregate the rich from the poor. Her parents knew that the fraternities full of rich, handsome boys only socialized with the sororities full of rich, pretty girls. That way, even if she was too stupid to finish college, it wouldn’t matter. She could just marry a rich man.

  The plan didn’t work because she hated learning and didn’t want to go college, but she was hoping all the gymnastics training would finally pay off.

  Haiku had been too busy with his NASA conference calls to put up his fighting cage, leaving her the empty gymnasium to show off her tricks.

  She put on her favorite super thin Nike tank top – the one that was so transparent her nipples were shamelessly poking through. She conveniently forgot to put on a sports bra. She had tight white gymnast shorts – the kind that could give anyone a camel toe.

  She borrowed Sam’s Bose speakers and hooked them up to her ipad.

  She purposely pulled her hair into a high ponytail to create that I’m-not-even-trying-to-be-hot girl next door look.

  She turned up Aerials by System of the Down as loud as the speakers would let her. Since she never exercised, the extremely loud music echoing off the cathedral ceilings would at least pique their curiosity enough to see what the Hell she was up to.

  It worked.

  As they entered the gymnasium with confused looks on their faces, she took off running, threw her body into a round-off, then back handspring, then back layout. After landing, she immediately thrust forward into a perfect aerial and then landed in a split – a horizontal split, not a vertical one. It was the type of split that no one could do unless the muscles in their inner thighs could stretch like bubblegum.

  Jaws open, the brothers were finally speechless.

  Daphne looked up and pretended to be startled.

  She scampered up and turned the music down.

  “I’m sorry y’all. Was my music too loud?”

  Haiku stared in disbelief.

  “That was badass. Why didn’t you ever tell me you could do that?”

  “Oh that? Why does it matter? What? Would you have proposed marriage if you knew?”

  “Probably. My childhood dream was always to end up with a gymnast.”

  What a shallow-ass dream. He was no Martin Luther King, Jr. That was for sure.

  Now Daphne’s blood was boiling.

  “So, if you knew I was a gymnast, you would have been having sex with me for the last two months instead of treating me like a sister? Is that what you’re saying, Haiku? We used to date, you know. Then, all the sudden, you treat me like your best pal. Was that your nice way of dumping me? What? Were you too pussy to just tell me you lost interest? Oh the fearless Haiku, but too chicken shit to just say it to my face!”

  Haiku’s face turned red. He looked uncomfortable. She’d never seen him look uncomfortable before, which only verified that he was too chicken shit to dump a girl.

  “Daphne, can we please talk about this later?”

  “LATER?”

  Now her hands were on her hips, bitch style.

  Sam was just laughing at the whole thing.

  Ha! Finally Haiku is scared of something. A GIRL!

  “Daphne, that’s not it.”

  “Well then what is, Haiku?” Her tone went up an entire octave and now she was practically a fire-breathing dragon.

  “Please don’t make me say this now.”

  “What? You don’t want to embarrass me in front of Sam? Well I don’t give a shit. Admit it, Haiku. You’re just not attracted to me anymore. Just SAY IT!”

  Haiku had never NOT wanted to say something so badly in his entire life, but she was pushing his buttons by calling him chicken shit in front of his brother.

  Smoke was practically coming out of his ears when he finally yelled some extremely unexpected words.

  “BECAUSE WE’RE BOTH IN LOVE WITH YOU! THAT’S WHY!”

  Now Daphne’s jaw dropped open and Sam turned red.

  “I’m not in love with your girl, bro. Why would you think that? I would never hit on your girlfriend.”

  “Sure, Sam. You made her chicken noodle soup every day when she had the flu. You joined a search party for her even though we both know you don’t give a shit about two boys you don’t know. You stand up straighter when she walks in the room, like a bird puffing out its feathers for mating season. You take a shit at the opposite end of the house from her without caring that THAT is MY bathroom! Make ME smell your shit, but HIDE it from Daphne.”

  “So I’m a nice guy. Shoot me why don’t cha?”

  “I’m not mad, Sam. I just never had a brother, and now I do. I don’t want a girl to come between us. That’s all.”

  It was the most sensitive thing Haiku had ever said. Daphne felt like such an ass. She knew it was time for her own skeleton to come out of the closet.

  “Well, I have my own dirty secret to tell. I’m in love with both of you.”

  Now the color drained from the brothers’ faces.

  “Whoaaaaaa,” said Sam, “I didn’t see THAT coming.”

  Neither did Haiku.

  “Yeah, right. You’re just horny,” Haiku accused, completely offending Sam.

  “What are you saying, bro? She could never fall in love with me because I’m not as awesome as you?”

  Daphne stepped in between them before things got ugly.

  “That’s not true, H
aiku. Well, it’s half true. I am SUPER horny, but still, I really am in love with you both … just in different ways. You both are extremely hot and loveable, just completely different.”

  Separate but equal? Neither brother liked the sound of that one. Haiku had no choice but to draw a line in the sand.

  “Look you horny freak. I don’t want to see my brother’s dick EVER. So if you’re getting reverse Mormon on us here, you can forget about it.”

  “I’m with you on that one, bro.”

  “But I thought you were The Magician, Haiku. I thought you were the king of thinking outside the box. What’s so wrong with a rotation?”

  Both of their faces crinkled in disgust.

  Sam spoke up with his usual coarse humor.

  “My brother’s sloppy seconds. Yummy,” he drawled sarcastically.

  Haiku nodded his head in agreement. “You’re completely delusional, Daphne.”

  But Daphne didn’t give up so easily on her own dreams.

  “So we take a week off in between … uh … sessions.”

  Haiku rolled his eyes.

  “My God, Daphne! How long have you been masterminding this genius plan, you horny little freak?”

  “That’s right, Haiku. I’m a horny, sweaty little freak with the hots for you both. I want to do gymnastics and have wild sex. I take that back. I want to do gymnastics WHILE having wild sex. You can redefine the speed of light but you can’t come up with a plan to make everyone happen.”

  Haiku narrowed his slants.

  He didn’t appreciate being challenged.

  “O.K. Ms. Horny Sweaty Freak, how about seven whole days in between ‘sessions’ in which you give your word that you will both flush AND purge thoroughly. You keep a log all year. You pinky swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and at the end of the year you tell us who is REALLY the best lover.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh come on, bro. Think this through. You can’t embarrass yourself like that. I’m like a modern James Bond. All women return for seconds. You may be smarter, but better in the sac? Don’t embarrass yourself, bro.”

  “I bet the Bugatti I win.”

  That shut everybody up.

  Daphne couldn’t believe how serious it was getting.

  The Bugatti? Really?

  “AND, my entire ancient Samurai sword collection that pre-dates the birth of Christ.”

  Sam racked his brain to come up with his own super cocky bargaining chip.

  “I bet this house – the house I grew up in my entire life, and is ALL I have left of my parents. AND, I bet my Amy Winehouse bong with her lipstick still on it. It was $20,000 at a private auction in Italy. You can be the first to wipe the lipstick off.”

  Daphne always wondered why there was a bong on the top shelf of his mothers locked curio cabinet full of swan figurines. Turns out she didn’t collect rabbits, but swans. The bong on the top shelf was no more out of place than anything else in the house, and so she assumed Sam’s mom just got stoned before she decorated. That would have certainly explained some of her design choices.

  “So THAT’S why there’s a bong in the swan display! I was wondering if your mom smoked pot before she decorated.”

  “I keep it under lock and key, to preserve the lipstick – the bright RED lipstick straight from her sexy mouth. AND, I’ll throw in my naked lady shot glasses from Amsterdam as a bonus.”

  It was no Bugatti, but nevertheless, the gauntlet had been thrown.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Sam. You’re only going to end up homeless and bongless AND extremely embarrassed and we all know it. Save yourself the shame, my poor blonde brother.”

  “I don’t think so, bro. I’m pretty sure that YOU are the one who is going to end up embarrassed AND Bugattiless.”

  Daphne furrowed her brow. Bongless? Bugattiless? These were not even words. She was quickly catching on to the fact her cool idea no longer had anything to do with HER. As usual, the two brothers had made it into a high-stakes competition that was ALL ABOUT THEM. Ordinarily she would have put her foot down and slammed both their stupid egos, but she was just too horny to care anymore.

  “Sounds like a plan, guys. Who’s first?”

  THE NERD IN THE PAC-MAN SHIRT

  Hachiro Tanaka had a long day as usual. He knew he would also have a long night as usual. Every day was the same.

  He stopped by Starbucks because in his opinion their coffee had the strongest beans. He couldn't finish any work at Starbucks because his job was too top secret for a coffee shop, but it was a necessary stop. Normally, he got the super size, black, no sugar, no crème coffee, and then got the Hell outta there, but his stomach growled painfully that day since he’d been forced to work through lunch.

  “Gimme a ham and Swiss panini.”

  He deserved to sit down and eat a damn sandwich for a second.

  As usual, they were slow, but at least the panini was hot.

  And speaking of hot …

  As he took a seat by the window the prettiest lady he’d ever seen walked through the door.

  Normally Hachiro was too tired to notice women, but that babe gave him what he referred to as insta-bone.

  He tried not to stare, but it was difficult.

  She’d probably just come off a movie set or from a modeling job.

  She was the type of chick the douche bag CEO took to the employee Christmas party to make a five second appearance with before driving off in the Porsche to go have sex all night long.

  A woman like her wouldn’t have given him the time of day and he knew it.

  Still, he found it hard not to stare.

  The hot chick was only at the counter for a minute before she turned around carrying only a giant cup of coffee. It seemed she was having trouble with the lid and she was trying to force it over the top of the cup while walking.

  Always a bad idea, Cinderella.

  He assumed she’d leave since she had only ordered a coffee and didn’t have a computer, but instead she walked in his direction toward the window seats while still fumbling with the top.

  Just go get another top, Toots. Every now and then a lid is just defective.

  She wouldn’t give up, though, and it led to her downfall when she pushed the lid so hard the gigantic cup slid out of her hand and created a coffee tidal wave that nearly soaked the entire front of her dress.

  Saw that coming from a mile away.

  He quickly bounced over to the napkin bar to help her out followed by three other guys with the same idea. But Hachiro beat them to the punch.

  “Here. I got you some napkins. That has gotta burn.”

  She frantically wiped as if she still had some hope of salvaging the dress.

  Girls that pretty weren’t your typical rocket scientists.

  “Awww … thank you,” she drawled. “You are soooo sweet.”

  Wow! What an accent!

  “I take it you’re from the South?”

  “Mississippi.”

  “Long way from home.”

  “I know. I was trying to visit my sister in San Francisco. Then I got lost. I tried to call her for help, but I lost my phone, too and her number was programmed in it. I swear I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached.”

  What a dingbat.

  “Just offering, but I live right down the road if you need somewhere to change and clean up.”

  The Starbucks bathroom was the Taj Mahal of all bathrooms and they both knew it, so if she said ‘O.K.,’ he knew she must be at least a little interested.

  “Really? That would be a life saver. I was supposed to be at her house hours ago, but now that I’m lost, it looks like I’ll have to get a hotel until I can figure out how to get in touch with her. I had her email, but even that’s in my dang phone.”

  Dang?

  He’d only heard dang on the movie Joe Dirt. He didn’t realize southerners really said that.

  How adorable.

  “Well princess, you’re welcome to crash on the
couch. I won’t touch you, Scout’s honor. I’m sure a lady like you is happily married, anyway.”

  “No, my husband is dead.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s O.K. He’s in a better place now,” she drawled.

  Hachiro couldn’t understand why people from the South said that. How did they know? What place? It technically made absolutely no sense.

  “And thank you. I’d be so grateful for a place to crash. I didn’t want to have to get a hotel just to take a nap.”

  Hachiro knew how it felt to need a nap.

  “Let me just grab a bag for this sandwich and we’ll get out of here so you can dry up.”

  “You know what? While you’re doing that, I’ll run out to my car and grab a change of clothes. No sense taking two cars when you live right down the road.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  She quickly rushed out and sprinted across the parking lot like a complete lunatic covered in coffee.

  “Duck! Hurry!” she shouted as she swung open the door to the rental car, “He’s coming back out any second. I’m just getting a change of clothes and we’re taking his car to his apartment.”

  Damn. Ten minutes? He had to hand it to her, she was a professional.

  Keeping his head low, Atticus whispered, “I’ll be right behind you parked on the street somewhere. So do your thang, Ma, and as soon as you come out the door, I’ll be waiting.”

  “O.K. I’m off,” she whispered back as she snatched a sleazy yellow tank dress out of her suitcase.

  It was a hooker dress, but since her coffee dress had been her only classy outfit, she’d just have to come up with a good explanation.

  She slammed the door just as Hachiro exited Starbucks looking around.

  Did she escape?

  “Here I am!” she called out.

  He grinned, displaying crooked misshapen teeth.

  It seemed every now and then a little guy did catch a lucky break.

  Clutching the dress in her fist, she walked alongside him to the Prius where he opened the door for her.

  “What a gentleman,” she drawled flirtatiously.

  “I try.”

  Hachiro went as fast as he could in a Prius. He knew soaking wet clothes were no fun.