Fire in the Hole

  Clarice Glitch.

  Such an unusual last name. He smiled, got her information, and waited until she was gone to take a moment to cyber stalk her. As it turned out, she was Dove’s little sister. She needed a simple antibiotic, and he wondered the whole time he was filling the drug whether he should say something about Dove. It would be a breach of ethics, and in the end, he just told her to have a great day and made sure to staple her bag shut.

  Dove’s sister was his customer. Very interesting. He at least had something to tell Dove if he got an opportunity to talk to her again.

  Flower woke up and fed TBiS. The cat did her trick again, this time without any prompting from Flower. So she still had all ten words to try to make Duke understand how wrong he was. Or she could use them to tell Dove what a whore she was. Flower had to carefully weigh the positives and the negatives as she got dressed. After picking out another pair of ripped jeans and a too-tight T-shirt, she was ready and looked at her reflection in her broken mirror. Her new look scared her now that her anger was at a simmer instead of a full, rolling boil. Her make up still looked good enough to leave on and her new hairstyle was a little messy but it worked.

  Saying good-bye to an old comfort was hard. When she made her way to the living space, she knew she had to address the mess. She couldn’t let TBiS hurt herself on all the broken things. Flower found her household rake and started making piles. Luckily the dumpster out back was free for the residents to fill up anytime they wanted.

  Flower used a broom and a few pails. She pointedly ignored Duke’s apartment—the door was closed, anyway. She used her pain to clean. By the time she was done, she was able to confidently open the bedroom door for TBiS and let her scoot around.

  It was nice to open the blinds and see the sun. Maybe getting pissed at Duke and Dove was the best thing to happen to her in years.

  As Dove got dressed, Duke made her giggle despite herself. She had to talk to Flower, that was a given. She needed to Facetime Shannon and see how she and Preston had made out in Disney. She cooked some eggs, and she and Duke settled into a very comfortable silence while they ate and he sketched.

  Dove let him be for a while before she took a peek at his drawing. It was an elaborate dick.

  “Nice.”

  “This? This is the prototype. Remember the Ballssiere®? Turns out, after we removed the power tool, some national men’s undergarment producers were very interested. But Mr. Anastasia and I don’t want to rest on our haunches. I think we need a line of products to support that. But this…” He tapped on the pad with his pen. “This you inspired this morning.”

  “Congrats on the interest! But, I inspired you to draw dick pics?” She collected their plates. It was like any other day, except he’d sucked on her clitoris an hour ago. She blushed. Her vagina throbbed.

  “No. When I put your panties on my gorgeous meat pillar, I realized I could come out with home products. Dick shaped. This would be a coat hanger. We’re going to need to get some plaster and make a mold of the pants monster. Maybe we can get celebrity endorsements? You could have various guys’ dicks act like a coat rack.”

  Dove should have said that he needed to spend less time thinking about dicks, but instead she added to his product line. “Well, if it’s going to be a rack… it could have boobs?”

  Duke set his drawing down like she had just discovered the world was flat. “You gorgeous genius! Of course! A rack of racks. And we could have vagina remote control holders. And, and…”

  “Computer mice shaped like vaginas?”

  “And men could use them when looking at….informational articles. This is amazing.” Duke took the plates from her hands and set them down before twirling her around. “We can be like the Martha Stewarts of genital home decor. Instead of Interiors we can be XXX-teriors!”

  Dove started laughing as he tickled her.

  “We’re going to be millionaires!” he shouted and hooted.

  They searched do-it-yourself molds on the Internet while wondering aloud about their body hair and its effect on the prototypes. After they’d made a list for Save-Mart, Dove began to fret.

  Duke figured it out immediately. “Listen, you can avoid him or talk to him. I’ll be with you. We can be a team now. And we do good work.”

  She nodded, considering her options. Duke was certainly fun. And he seemed genuine. And he was great in bed. All good things.

  But she was pretty sure he didn’t have a job, and that concerned her. She hated to be shallow but she needed to think about money now that her part time job had ended and her bills were stacking up. Her father had always pitched in, but he’d been dropping hints about baby birds and nests into almost every conversation they had lately, so she was thinking his help would be tapering off as soon as she went back to school to finish her degree, finally. But the talk about this crazy home accessory business had her excited.

  But, too much thinking was truly not encouraged when the goal at the end of the day might be encasing their privates in plaster.

  Duke pulled on his sneakers.

  “We’re going? I’m not sure. What if people figure out what we’re buying? We don’t have a great history of doing things to our privates.”

  “I love how you call them privates. Seriously.” He stood and held out his hand to her. “Time to realize you’re the general and the privates listen to you, not the other way around.”

  “Okay. I guess I’m doing this with you. Right now.” Dove took his hand and they tried to close the door while Steve the Cat watched them leave with huge eyes. He preferred the door open a crack so he could get out. “Fine. Have it your way. You are a fuzzy terror.” Dove left her door open.

  On their way out of the apartment building, they ran into gorgeous Flower doing her gorgeousness proud. She looked from Duke to Dove and back again. Dove held her breath.

  Flower spoke, and Dove counted. “It’s okay. I hope you’re happy.”

  “What? Really?”

  Flower nodded, using the rest of her words to warn Dove. “Just don’t hurt him.”

  Dove went to Flower with open arms, looking for a hug, but Flower conveyed that it was far too soon for that by gently pushing her away.

  Duke smiled at Flower’s blessing. “You’re a good egg, Flower. Thanks.”

  Flower bowed her head like she was receiving a knighthood.

  They left the apartment and were talking happily about how thrilled they were Flower was understanding when they realized she was walking behind them. She got in the backseat of Dove’s car, and Dove and Duke just shrugged and got in, too. Duke held up a fist and Flower bumped it with hers.

  Dove drove them the rest of the way to Save-Mart, talking to Duke about the best type of lotions she thought they might need while he did some auxiliary research on his phone.

  The buckets and other materials would be in Save-Mart. Flower followed at a close distance. Something about the molds had caught her attention. When she appeared in the plumbing aisle with a toy cat and flopped its legs at Dove and Duke, they realized she was thinking of making legs via the casting method for TBiS.

  Dove didn’t think the mold would support the cat’s weight, but Flower didn’t seem to care, buying exactly what Dove and Duke bought. Dove tried to catch a glimpse of Johnson, but the pharmacy was closed for lunch. The sight of his place of work and all the drama and heart-soaring moments that accompanied her brain’s recognition of the spot made her feel sad.

  Dating Johnson had felt so very right. And then it had felt so wrong. Maybe his perfectness only lived in her perception of him. She focused so much on his physical beauty that she needed to experience the fact that he was far from perfect before she could see past the pretty. Maybe she had to date Johnson to see that Duke was spectacular.

  She got separated from Duke and Flower and found herself looking at vaginal itch cream. A man cleared his throat behind her. She stepped to the left to give him a clear view of the creams when he touched her elbow.

  S
he startled and turned around. “Johnson!”

  “Yeah, sorry to surprise you. Were you looking for me? Do you need any help with the vaginal cream?” His voice was too loud.

  Now was her chance to tell him she was with Duke. She hoped he would be as understanding as Flower seemed to be.

  “Um, I’m happy with the cream I already have. In my apartment building. Even though new cream would be nice, I think I need to use my old cream.” She was going for metaphors. She only wished they were in a different aisle.

  He gave her a sad smile. “Well, this vaginal cream thanks you for the relationship we did have. And hopes you’re happy with your apartment cream.”

  He understood her, finally. Dove decided to go for a hug, which he willingly accepted. As they parted, she patted him on both his shoulders. He stepped back a bit to give her space to get around him.

  “Hey, by the way, I think your sister dropped by this morning. Same last name. Clarice?” He seemed to want to keep talking, even though the conversation had reached its natural end.

  “That was probably her. Can’t imagine there are too many girls with that name.” Dove backed up a little. Johnson was just so pretty.

  Indecision crossed his face, and he added, “I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her. That’s really confidential.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me, Johnson.” She took another step backward. “Is it okay if I still use this pharmacy? Would it be too weird for us now that I’m using a different cream?”

  He pondered for a few seconds. “I hope you do. It would be great to keep in touch. You have my Twitter?”

  “I do. I will. I feel like we could still be friends, and I trust you with medical needs. You know your stuff.” She took another step toward the main aisle.

  “That means a lot. And I’d be honored to take care of any prescription needs you may have in the future. Or any advice on over-the-counter stuff, as well.” Johnson added, taking a step backward himself.

  “Great. Have a good day.” Dove finally made it to the larger aisle and waved once more.

  She was really, really picking Duke over this guy. It was all very wow.

  She found Flower and then Duke, and they checked out, Duke insisting they keep the receipts for a tax write-off.

  When they got back to the apartment building, Flower went upstairs on her own and Duke waved Dove into his apartment.

  “I ran into Johnson at Save-mart.” She set the bags down on his couch.

  “Is that so?” He began tapping his foot and clenching his fists.

  “I told him that I hoped we could remain friends. But it was over.” Dove waited to see relief hit Duke.

  “We’re friends now? It’s over?” He paced.

  “No. No. Johnson and I are friends, maybe. But we aren’t dating.”

  He stopped and turned to her, miscommunication finally clearing from the air.

  “Because of you. And the fact that I’m crazy about you.” Dove bit her lip.

  “I am so crazy about you too.” He closed the distance between them, pulling her to him and giving her a deep kiss.

  They made out, laughed and then made out some more. When they tried to sit on the couch, Duke seemed to remember they had another plan.

  “So, we’ll do my junk first, right? Because I wouldn’t want to hurt your special garden. Plus, I already have a boner.” Duke let her go and pushed his door to the hallway closed. Before Dove had even a chance to unpack the bags, Duke had his pants off.

  “Seriously?” She grabbed the plaster, read the beginning of the directions from the Internet, and twirled her hair in a bun before mixing the concoction together. “We have to make the plaster before we can try and make silicone casts as well. Then we can just pour the silicone into the molds of our sex parts. Dove mixed the powder with the gallons of milk they had bought. She sloshed the muddy plaster batter until it reached the tippy top of the buckets that were sitting on the tarp they’d bought. Duke squatted low and dipped his man business in. She decided to use the waiting time by getting on her knees and placing one breast in each of her boob sized serving bowls. Soon enough, she noticed that the lightweight plaster was getting very chilly.

  “It’s cold! Shit! It’s too cold! We’re losing him! We are losing him!”

  Duke obviously didn’t want a cast of his cold, shriveled-up dick, so he tried to stand, and his eyes widened and the veins in his neck tensed. “It’s locked up in there.”

  Dove tried to stand to help him but the bowls she was working became a strapless, bandless bra. She had two bowls on her chest. She tried pulling one off, but it seemed to make the plaster angry, and the hold grew firmer.

  “I’m having the same problem. They’re stuck tight.” Dove wiggled her chest in his direction. The lightweight plaster seemed to be getting heavier as it dried.

  “We forgot about the lotion. We needed to put on the lotion!” He looked panicked. “The quick-drying plaster was a poor choice.” Dove hunch-walked over to Duke, and he pulled on her boob bowls as she tried yanking on his crotch one. “Oh my God, we’re going to have to go to the ER or the hardware store to get this stuff drilled off us.”

  Dove’s brain scrambled. At her last ER trip, Mrs. Duffington embarrassed the shit out of her and Johnson wanted to be her boyfriend, anyway…she didn’t want to go back. Not with Duke. Not again.

  “Okay, so the lotion would have been like greasing up a cake mold, and that’s why cakes get stuck. We need a spatula.” She let go of his bucket and hunch-walked to the kitchen, because she was the only one who could. The bowls seemed to be getting heavier.

  “Why is this lightweight stuff getting so heavy?” She opened the drawers and commenced looking for promising kitchen tools.

  Duke grabbed the directions while remaining in a pantless sumo stance. “Says here that this brand of plaster should not be used on skin. And also, it gets heavy if combined with milk.”

  “Shit.” Dove was almost completely bent over by the time she returned with a spatula and a wooden spoon. “I must have grabbed the wrong stuff.”

  “I just wish this plaster had stayed warm. Now my flagpole has retracted and the mold won’t be flattering.”

  Dove tried to lift the plaster away from her skin with the spatula. It was slow going. “We are not going to be able to use these molds. We’ll be lucky if they don’t have to amputate.”

  Duke’s eyes went wild. He tried to stomp his feet but only managed to look like a crab having a temper tantrum. “Maybe Vaseline. Get some Vaseline. We can reverse grease it, a little at a time. And not to panic you, but the tip of my dick is starting to feel like it has pins and needles. Which reminds me of what I’ve heard about frostbite.”

  Dove’s heavy breast bowls required her to carry them at this point –while she utilized the motion of an inchworm to crawl to the bathroom. After shouted directions from Duke as to where his Vaseline was kept, she made her way slowly out and set her breast bowls on his coffee table. “These are getting heavy. They’re going to crush my ribs.”

  “Keep your bowls toward the floor and you should be good.” Dove was taking advice from a man with his bits and pieces mummified in a bucket. He started rubbing himself down with the Vaseline and then adding a scraping motion from the kitchen tool, making horrible faces as Dove could hear what sounded like angry plucking of the tiniest banjo.

  “What is that?”

  “That’s the noise the stubble crotch hair makes as I cut through it with this.” He held up the spatula.

  Dove looked closely at Duke’s position. Absolutely everything that evolution had caused humans to grow hair between their legs was dipped below plaster level. She was crack side, so she couldn’t see his painful progress.

  “How far have you gotten?” She tried to lean around to catch a glimpse.

  He grunted. “Not far. Oh damn it. Not far.”

  Dove needed to get over to help him. She set her super heavy breast bowls down and had to use her legs to scoot forward, fro
g style to get to the front of him.

  The little bit of skin he had freed was very, very red.

  “You might be allergic.” She stuck her finger in the Vaseline and started massaging it into the juncture between his skin and the plaster.

  “Don’t! Oh God, stop. You’re making him bigger, and there’s no room!” Duke pushed her hand away. “Thank you, but no. Oh my hell, he is going to die in this plaster.”

  Dove was wildly uncomfortable, but Duke’s varying erection size was getting dangerous. At least her pert nipples seemed to be staying that way.

  “We’re going to have to call 911.” Dove pulled her phone from her pocket.

  “Really? This will be the third time I’ve been to the ER about my dick. I think they’re going to start to wonder.” Duke was chipping away at himself with the spatula, cursing after every down swipe.

  “I think they would start to wonder if you didn’t bring your penis to the ER on the regular. You’ve got a lot of surface area in there, buddy.” Dove put her hand on his knee but thought better of it and took her hand away, not wanting him to get more or less aroused. “I mean, your butt crack is almost fully submerged.”

  Duke shook his head and then grabbed fistfuls of his head hair. After a moment, he nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this. I’ve got a five o’clock shadow on a few of the more tender parts.”

  Dove called 911 and with help from Duke, put their mortifying situation into words and gave them the address. She ended the call and put the phone in her back pocket. Now her challenge was to make her way over to the door and unlock it.

  Duke protested halfway through that her scootching was turning him on. She had to yell at him to close his eyes.

  “I can still hear it! Damn this imagination and your tight lady lumps!”