Some Enchanted Girlfriend by Donna Lamb 17. Take Over I came to moments later, sitting on the floor, propped against the wall, still naked–legs spread wide as if I were posing for a publicity shot from a Wendy Splendid movie.

I hadn’t been completely out, I knew that Harlette had rushed through the unlocked door and screamed again when she saw Mr. Styx. Things faded a bit after that but I could hear Muffins and Harlette talking.

At first, I didn’t know what they might be saying and I imagined that they were talking about me. Since Muffins called me Connie and Harlette called me Kate and Mr. Styx called me, “Hhhrhhh...” it must have been a strange conversation, even for an imaginary one that probably never happened.

After I bumped my head against the wall a few times and finally got a clear channel, I didn’t know who they were talking about. “I think you scared him,” said Muffins. Him?

“I scared him? What did he do to the boss lady?” Harlette asked, her liquidy voice making splashes on a few rocks. “Is he gone?”

I decided they must mean Mr. Styx, who appeared not to be dead but only mostly dead.

They were in the kitchen alcove, talking, just a yard or so from my bare naked feet. They didn’t seem to realize I could hear and see them.

Muffins scampered down the hall to look. “He went back to bed,” she reported.

Harlette stood near the sink, a tall woman in a pale green, tailored leather skirt suit with a combo of the blackest hair and whitest skin I’d ever seen in Southern California. She had large, green, slightly slanted eyes, a tad too much chin and nose, long legs and a small waist–a nice slim figure without my abbondanzas. She fairly dripped with jewelry and oozed sex. After opening and closing her mouth several times, she finally said, “She’s sleeping with him?”

“No, no,” said Muffins. “Well, she was but....” The kitten scampered back and paused in front of me to peer into my face. “You awake?”

I made a noise and waggled my feet. I seemed to lack the coherent intelligence to form an actual reply.

Harlette asked, “What the foghorn was that thing in the hallway? It kept muttering something about sucking on my wheelbarrows or something.”

Muffins shrugged, which isn’t easy if you have teensy-weensy kitten shoulders. “The ghost of some sex addict from Hollywood, I think. Probably died of autoerotic asphyxiation while watching one of Wendy’s movies so he’s doomed to keep looking for her to finish his cumming and going. You want to help me get her up?”

Harlette towered over me. “How long has she been running around naked?” she asked.

I wanted to tell her that with tits like these, you don’t do any running and especially not naked. A person could get a contusion that way.

“Since last night when the excrement hit the aficionado,” said Muffins.

“That was her?” Harlette carefully squatted down on her heels and looked me right in the face. “What were you trying to do?” she asked. “You lit up the whole city, and twice more this morning, Kate.”

I tried to lick my lips but my tongue was stuck to the back of my teeth. My mouth felt as if it needed a “Fresh Tar” warning sign like city construction crews put up on a street fifteen feet before you get the crap all over your car.

Muffins joined Harlette. “The problem is, that’s not Kate.”

I made feeble motions with my hands and tried to get some moisture going in my mouth. I felt stale and dehydrated, like the onion salt cheap steakhouses leave on your table. Oh, fuck, I’ve got mummy rot from Mr. Styx touching me, I thought.

Harlette examined me. “Button nose, blue eyes, blonde haystack hair, slutty overbite, Christmas Day Parade tits; this isn’t Kate?”

“Use your third eye,” said Muffins.

The remark about the slutty overbite stung. I tried to glare at Harlette but she gave a good impression of staring at me with both eyes closed. “She is Kate,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain. When she opened her eyes I had the weirdest impression I could see a third eye looking out of them from the back of her head.

“She is and she isn’t,” said Muffins. “She’s mostly Kate but there’s someone else mixed in there and she doesn’t remember who she is, exactly.”

“‘M okay,” I managed to croak.

“Get her some water,” said the cat. “Old Willie’s touch seems to have parched her some.”

Willie, I thought. I know that name. Mr. Styx’s first name was Willie? The Right Honorable Mr. Willard T. Styx, Esquire? Willard? Why Willard and not William?

Harlette ended up bringing me two glasses of water which I gulped down quickly. “I would have thought you could cross a desert, just living on the nourishment in your humps,” she commented. That smooth, bubbly voice could actually be irritating, I decided.

“Ogen,” said Harlette, in the middle of me drinking the second glass. “If she’s only mostly Kate, where’s the rest of her and who else is in her body?”

“Hell’s Best Bitters! I don’t know!” said the little cat. She paused to wash a paw and rub it on her eyebrows to get her coolth back.

I remembered that Ogen was Muffins’ spirit name. Yay, me.

“And what happened to you?” Harlette went on, talking to the cat. “Yesterday you were an old grey tom with one ear and today you’re a cute little calico kitten. It’s an improvement but surely not voluntary.”

“Can we get her vertical and talking some sense before I go into the details of what I think happened? That way I won’t have to repeat things,” said Ogen/Muffins.

“Well, I think I can get her vertical, at least,” said Harlette. Her face had a perpetual expression of cool amusement built in, and that voice–I decided I could learn to dislike her quite easily, acolyte or no.

She scolded me, “What are you doing without your boots and corset and jewelry? You’re letting all that power from all those men watching you screw the co-pilot go to waste!”

“You’re my acolyte,” I said. She’d called me boss lady earlier so acolyte had to be a subordinate position.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “You’re supposed to be teaching me to grok sex magic and how to use it to become rich and famous so I can open a bookstore–pardon me, a book shop–on the beach and ride around the boardwalk in a little go-cart. Sound familiar?”

I suddenly remembered what acolyte meant, a ceremonial assistant. Someone who lit candles and carried the altar cloths in a church or temple. Helped the priest get dressed. Or did similar things for a magician. It could also mean someone who did such things for a teacher, as a student of mysteries.

I smiled at her. Holding up one middle finger I said, “Grok this, snarky.”

She laughed and I liked her better for it.