The DHI Autistic Book Club
Shadow Dream Girl
by Bennet “The Sage” White
Chapter 10: HOLY FUCKING HELL!!!
protected by Fair Use, bitch
*side note: I didn't make it clear in the last chapter that Stan fully witnessed the mystery woman. So, unless Stan is a part of the delusion, Lisa at this point, is real.
Back to the show.
Ian goes to the club.
Anxiety ensues.
Of course, Ian had no intention of dancing, drinking, or merriment.
That's our Spoony. Except the alcohol part, but actually, he's the kind of fucker that wouldn't drink around people. Just on web cam, or in his dark lonely places.
Hugging his legs to his chest, with his knees smothering his chin and mouth, Ian froze where he sat, listening to the cynical Greek chorus in his head.
“Greek chorus” Calm down, Bennet.
A dumb sentence about the people entering the club as Ian, no joke, is balled up on a park bench across the club...
They carried themselves as graceful runway models, seemingly able to slice through the air like sailing yachts through placid waters.
Pages of Ian comparing himself to the pretty people and how he will never be like one of them, and a thesis on the town people in general There is nothing of interest or insightful here.
Uh... a bus appears, and Ian debates whether to get on it and go home, or to take his one-shot. He enters the club instead.
Then a few paragraphs on... sigh... how he doesn't need an ID because he doesn't look young anymore. Then a few paragraphs describing the club and the people through the lens of this crazy person who like PUR makes everything about himself, and his anxiety.
Their faces seemed to meld with one another; where one ended and the other began was impossible to determine, made all the more hopeless as their bodies writhed and spasmed in time to the music. Swallowed by the unthinking mass of humanity, Ian couldn't tell if he was coming or going.
That's just a snippet. It goes on and on.
Finally, Lisa.
Wearing a red, slinky cocktail dress, a loose black shawl around her bare shoulders, curving around to tuck itself between the crooks of her elbows, she looked ravishing. Her hair had been drawn back, styled and teased to make every strand look like an angel's wing, and her lips had been drawn in with a shade of fiery-red lipstick. Smoky eye-shadow made her already wide and watery eyes mesmerizing to behold;
She hugs him and gives him a peck on the cheek. Her friends are a married couple and a hot brunette.
Lisa's jaw dropped as their drinks were raised, “Oh shit, you're about two drinks behind all of us, Ian! Come on, let's get you caught up. What are you drinking?”
In truth, he had never drank a drop of anything stronger than soda in his entire life, his medication made sure of that, and the prospect of starting tonight, of all nights, made him sweat.
“I dunno if I should. I don't exactly have cab fare.”
If Lisa couldn't figure out he was broke by him working at a video rental store, he just confirmed it.
WHY IS SHE INTERESTED IN HIM?????? Bennet! Reall women don't work this way!
She asks him what he wants, and he runs through names of drinks but not knowing what they are he's afraid to name something too fruity.
What if he ordered something that they all scoffed at: something either too fruity and child-like, or something that only thickheaded frat boys would consider swilling?
He gets two manly whiskeys.
RIVETING!!!
The group asks about Ian's job- for a few pages.
“So!” Ian punched the air with his voice, “How do you all know Lisa?!”
“I met her in college! We both majored in English!” Blondie yelled, “We've been friends ever since!”
“And I used to date her!” Earrings [the brunette] chimed forcing Ian to double-take, “She and I've been going off and on for a couple years now!”
There it is.
If a grenade had gone off in front of Ian, he still couldn't have been more stunned than hearing the information that had been launched at him like a salvo. He would have had an easier time believing that Lisa was actually Chinese.
From the slutty girl who no-shame flaunted renting porn at your store? Really?
“Hold on!” Ian spun toward Lisa in his seat, perhaps a little too suddenly as Lisa jumped back in surprise, “I thought you said you weren't a lesbian!”
Ian immediately regretted the accusation, and winced just as it escaped his mouth. He didn't want to come off as aggressive, by any means, and started wondering if there was a better way to phrase himself, besides not talking about it in the first place. To his relief, Lisa had not instantly slapped him across the face or spit in his eye as he expected.
“I'm bisexual! I like men and women!” Lisa pushed Ian's shoulder again, “You know people can like both, right!?”
Yup.
Actually, I'm more surprised this kind of horseshit didn't come in earlier.
“Hold on!” Earrings chimed in, leaning closer to Lisa, “Why were you talking about that in the first place!?”
“Oh, I rented a porno at the store! He helped me pick it out!” Lisa screamed her explanation, [she screamed it because of the loud music if you were wondering- pibbs] seemingly unaffected by the notion of anyone else outside the table hearing it, “I thought it'd be fun, and I was right!”
“Never change, Lisa!” Earrings smiled through her exclamation, leaning over the table toward her to plant a passionate kiss on her lips.
No, do. Change everything about your degenerate lifestyle, you whore.
Sitting between the two women, Ian didn't know where else to look but toward them, mouths glued together and tongues slipping back and forth, massaging each other.
“Enjoyed the show?!” Lisa asked, turning her attention to Ian, who felt jittery enough to make coffee nervous.
“...make coffee nervous.” LOL, ok, that was actually funny.
How many times did Ian have to swallow to find the right words to say? What could he say? Other than babble like a lunatic, nothing seemed to enter his mind. Nothing witty, nothing observant, just a gurgling sound that approximated human speech.
To his eternal gratitude, his hapless and clueless act seemed to tickle Lisa, “See?! I told you he was funny!”
Laughing loud enough for the entire bar to hear, Lisa placed a comforting hand on Ian's shoulder,
Laughing loud enough for the entire bar to hear?
Ian asks again why she had said she wasn't a lesbian. Her reply, was because she didn't want him to think she was. Yup. A typical deceitful, lying whore.
IAN, RUN!
The bartender brings him his whiskeys. Why did this take so long. If the bartender isn't too busy to talk to you, then they usually just pour them right up. Whatever. Ian'
He drinks. Hellfire on his throat, He croaks the word, “smooth.” They giggle. Lisa notes he must not drink often-
FUCK”S SAKE! What am I doing? I don't care. You don't care. I'll just skim through to the end, only noting anything happening or an especially egregious dumb sentence.
She holds his hand. He spazzes in his head.
So, ewwww, Lisa takes the second shot into her mouth...
Lisa reaching for the back of his head, where she let her fingers run through his long, dirty-blonde hair. Before Ian could realize what she was about to do, Lisa had pulled him in toward her, pressing her lips up against his, and letting the whiskey run from her mouth.
They tongue each other. How did he not choke during this?
Then stupid, stupid dialog.
“Oh my God, Lisa!” Blondie's chastisement had nearly soured the mood, “You just met this guy!”
“So what!? He's cute!” Lisa bantered back, sticking her chin out to punctuate her point. It was almost too much for Ian to bare.
“Should I be jealous, Lisa?!” Earrings' voice was tinged with the kind of tone that suggested she had been kidding, but not really. “Oh shush! You'll always be my number one girl!”
What are the odds we are headed to a three-way?
Bennet writes woman about on par with peeRod.
She drags his ass out onto the dance floor. She reassures him she doesn't know how to dance either, but to just move and have fun.
A lot of references to the whiskey burn in his throat. This seems important for some reason.
While they are writhing on the dance floor, Ian asks again why she said she wasn't a lesbian. Because she finds him, and I quote, “absolutely irresistible.”
Ian's breaths had grown shallow, and his heart raced to the beat of the deafening music, “What?! Me?!”
“Yes, you! Why not you?!” Lisa screamed, eyes lit with a passion that shot bolts through Ian's skull,
“You're everything I need! I want to be yours, Ian! I want you to own me!”
It was here that I stopped reading this garbage for a few hours..
Ian couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Me neither, nigga.
Even as she took his hand to put it to ther throat, pinching it to tighten his grip around her neck.
What the...
“I've been looking for a man like you, Ian! Make me your bitch!” Lisa screamed through clenched teeth and snarled lips, forcing his other hand between her legs.
No. Bennet... just no.
Convulsing and shuddering, Ian could feel her through her panties. His fingers touched a white-hot recess that felt like he was running his hand through fine satin sheets that were lit on fire. He wanted to pull his arms away, but her grip was too strong, and his wrists began to sear where her hands had restrained him.
“What?! I just-I just met you!” Ian hollered through the fire that kept creeping down his throat and the stench of his own cooking flesh. Sweat began pouring down his body in sheets, soaking his clothes and leaving his body dried up. He could feel his mouth becoming like a sandpaper tinderbox for the whiskey fire in his gullet.
WHAT IN THE EVER FUCKING HELL AM I READING???!!
“Who gives a shit!?” Lisa's lyrical voice grew deeper, and guttural. She pulled Ian closer, guiding his hands toward her full breasts, pushing them in and forcing his hands to squeeze, “I'm your slave! Use me!” This wasn't right, this can't be right. Even with her breasts in his hands, and even being able to make out the softness of her body, the pain was all-encompassing. Summoning every ounce of will he had, he tried to pull his hands away, but her grip remained tight around his wrists. The dance floor continued to fill with people, crowding the two further and further. The heat of the club continued to rise, the music had become indecipherable in its head-splitting volume. “You want me to suck your cock?! You want to fuck my lesbian lover?! I'll convert her for you! You could own both of us! Please, tell me what you want to do to me!” Biting her lip and drawing blood, Lisa spread herself to gyrate her pelvis onto Ian's leg, dry-humping him to a beat that he couldn't distinguish anymore.
I... I have nothing to say.
“You can even quit your job and live off me! I'll whore myself out for you! Just tell me that you own me like the little slut you've always wanted!” Panic had gripped Ian's mind, and it forced his attention on anything that wasn't Lisa, but no matter where he turned, all he could see were the bodies crashing and flaring up against him, keeping him where he stood, keeping him within arms reach of Lisa, and knowing there was nowhere to go, Ian had no choice but to try and force himself off her, tearing away his hands from her breasts, which shot free in streams of red and a color that Ian couldn't make out, bringing his now freed hands in front of him to see that her breasts were still clutched in his fingers, along with her dress and at least half of the skin of her torso, which forced him to look back up to see a still dancing and gyrating ghoul in front of him, draped in the tatters of a torn dress and a massive hole within its chest that grew, consuming the healthy skin and turning it ashen gray, exposing bone and gore that spilled onto the ground...
Oh. He fell asleep didn't he. The ghoul dances, its heat sears him, he bursts into flames, Everybody dances around him like he's some kind of bonfire.
He wakes up on the floor of Millie's Video Rental. Stan welcomes him back to the land of the living. Ian asks if they had done this before. Stan doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
A fire burning.” Ian grumbled, “All I can remember is a fire, and I can't remember anything after that.”
Stan just tells him to snap out of it. They still have a few hours of work left.
Stan stood with his side toward Ian, “You had a rough time, I get it. But you can't clock out just yet.”
Ian loosely shook his head, unable to process Stan's indifference. “I don't understand. Why?”
“Don't you remember?” Stan asked. "It's Tuesday."
Waaa! Waaa!
End of chapter.
Well. At least something happened.
