It's still here!

---

Blame Erin (and Lainie) for this one
Blue Moon

by Donna Lamb

 
"Joel, let me in, it's dark out here."

Joel took a peek through the curtain. He thought he'd recognized the voice.

"Joel!"

He turned on the porch light to be sure. "Is that you, Richard?" Joel asked.

"Yeah, now let me in."

"Fat chance, you b-b-backstabber!" he snarled, checking to make sure the door was double locked. Joel tended to stutter when he got emotional.

"Ah, Joel, don't be like that. It's cold and it's dark out here."

"After what you did, you expect m-m-me to let you in? You've got some nerve!"

"Look it's my apartment, too. Now open this door and let me in!"

"How was your date?" Joel asked through the door. He pulled a wad of tissue out of the box and wiped his eyes and nose with it; he'd cried for hours when he'd discovered what Richard -- his best friend, Richard -- had done.

"Ah, Joel," Richard said in that sorrowful voice parents use when telling a kid that whatever the kid wants isn't good for you. "She wasn't any good for you, Joel. I took the bullet for you."

"You b-b-b-bozo! You took my car and m-my girl and now you took m-my b-b-bullet, too?" Joel screamed at him.

Richard paused before answering. "Now, guy, that didn't even make sense. Let me in and we can talk about it like reasonable people."

Joel took several deep slow breaths. "The first date I've had with an actual girl in a blue moon and you went and stole it from me! And you think I'm going to let you b-b-back in?"

"There's something seriously wrong with that girl, Joel. I couldn't let you do it."

"What? She agreed to go on a date with me, so there's something wrong with her? It's not one a.m. yet, what are you doing back so soon? I didn't have time to put out the b-b-bear trap I'd planned on!"

"She ran out on me, guy. Did the old powder her nose and took a powder schtick. After eating some powerful expensive lobster and drinking some ferocious expensive liquor, I might add."

"You didn't go to bed with her?" Joel asked.

"I didn't even get a good night handshake, guy. She stiffed me. That Sophie Drake is some seriously weird chick, dude. I took a two hundred dollar hit on the old Mastercard and she ran out on me. I am so bummed."

Joel laughed. "Richard, you are such a dick."

"I know man, now let me in."

Leaning the baseball bat against the couch, Joel undid the locks.

Richard rushed in, heading for the bathroom. "Hey thanks man, I got to get rid of some of this wine I rented."

Following the white noise of relief, Joel wandered down the hall after him.

"Ahhhh!" Richard sighed. "White wine looks the same coming out as it does going in."

Joel leaned on the doorjamb. "You really had a miserable time?"

"Totally," Richard said. "Oh, I won't lie to you, she's a total fox and she's really built! You should have seen her in that skimpy, little, red velvet dress ... ."

Joel glanced back toward the baseball bat.

"But she's seriously got some screws loose. You know what she talked about? Torture through the ages. Like how it's made a big come back because of the political situation. Creepy." He zipped himself back up.

"Well," Joel said, "she is a dental hygienist." That's where he'd met her, going in to get his teeth cleaned. All that up close intimacy had overcome his shyness and after his appointment, he'd asked her for a date.

Richard laughed and washed his hands. They wandered on into the kitchen where Joel had been brewing a pot of chamomile tea. He poured them each a cup and said, "I'm still kind of steamed at you."

"I did you a favor," Richard said, blowing on the tea.

"Well, don't do me any f-f-favors."

"Hey, you know that thing you said about a blue moon? She mentioned that, too. Seems it is a blue moon tonight, second full moon in the same month."

"That can't happen too often. Like me getting a date, it's got to be rare," said Joel.

"Uh huh, well, I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, for either of us," said Richard. "I'd much rather be sleeping with a beautiful chick tonight than with you."

"So you would have slept with her?"

"Uh, yeah. She was crazy but, you know, pussy is pussy."

"You b-b-big liar!" Joel's anger came back in a rush. "You said you were doing me a favor! Some f-f-f-friend!"

"Ah, don't be like that, Joel! She would have just broken your heart."

"But you wanted to sleep with her! Don't p-pretend you're all-truistic or something!"

"Well, of course, I wish I were going to sleep with a beautiful girl tonight! Don't you?"

Joel sighed. "Yeah, more than just about anything."

-=-=-=-=-=-

Outside in the big stretch Hummer, the woman calling herself Sophie Drake looked up. She smiled. ""A Blue Moon on Strangefellows Day, that doesn't happen too often. You'd think they could be a little more creative with a wish on such a special night."

The rental limo driver's license read "Bill C. Bubb" and a trick of the moonlight seemed to show horns in the picture, but everyone knows how bad drivers' license photos can be.

The woman in the red velvet cocktail dress laughed. "Take us home, William. These boys make it just too easy to warp their simple wish."

The driver put the monster vehicle in gear, chanting, "Go directly to Hell, go directly to Hell. Do not pass God. Do not collect two souls."

Sophie sighed. "Well, at least not tonight."

From the house, as the Devil in Drag's limo drove away, a high-pitched feminine scream split the peaceful night.

---

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Blue Moon
2.1-2.5

by Donna Lamb

 

Richard Alexander came running out of his room when he heard Joel scream. "What is it? What? What?"

Joel Messenger pushed the bathroom door closed right in Richard's face. "It's gone!"

"Huh? What's gone?"

"M-m-my ..." Joel couldn't say it.

"Good grief, guy! It can't be that bad!" He tried to push the door open. "Did you drop your watch in the toilet?" Joel's weight or foot or something seemed to be blocking the door.

"No! Go away! You can't come in!" The seldom used inside latch on the door clicked into place, locking the door -- unless someone got a butter knife from the kitchen.

Richard stepped back from the door and stared at it. Joel had never acted like this before. A bit of a sensitive, over-emotional, geek but not really a flake, Richard reflected. And this behavior definitely qualified as flakey. The poor mook was crying on the other side of the door. "Hey, little buddy," Richard said in his best Skipper voice, "maybe I can help?"

"You stay away from me!" Joel sobbed.

"Holy shit!" said Richard, awed by Joel's vehemence.

"Stay away!"

"Okay, okay." Richard backed away from the door, subconsciously giving Joel more room. "I'll be in my room waiting if...if you want to talk sense." He could still hear Joel sobbing on the other side of the door. Baffled, he retreated to his own room. I'd better stay up, he decided, in case he wants to talk about it. I never thought he'd be this upset about me taking his date.

Joel's pants lay in a pile on the floor, topped off with underpants and polo shirt. Naked, Joel stood in front of the mirror on the back of the bathroom door and stared at the girl in the mirror. She had Joel's close-cropped, ginger-blond hair, green-gray eyes, and the same basic features -- with just a bit more delicacy in the chin, nose and eyebrows. Her small, neat ears lay close to her head, just like Joel's. Her shoulders were square and narrow, her neck slender; neither quite right for Joel. Her torso tapered to a slender waist and supported a pair of small breasts with big nipples with dark womanly areolas.

Breasts. Joel said it out loud, "B-b-breasts. I shouldn't have b-b-b-boobs." Cupping one cookie-like titty in a delicate hand, Joel looked further down the mirror's image where hips widened to complete a slender hourglass. A patch of curly blond fur disappeared into the cleft between two pale thighs. Joel's other hand dropped to the joining and felt around, feeling nothing but soft fleshy lips concealing a narrow cleft, slightly moist.

"P-p-pussy!" said Joel. "I've got a p-p-pu-pudenda!" She shuddered and jerked her hand away from the discovery.

She stared at herself for a moment, unable to believe her eyes. She turned to look around the room, as if to see if someone was playing a trick on her. But she was alone. She looked back at the mirror -- alone with a pretty girl in the looking glass.

"How? How could this happen?" She put her hand back to her groin. "My dinkle is gone. What happened to my dinkle?"

* * *

Outside, the wind from the desert mountains blew down the inner valleys through the passes and into the city, hot as the breath of some ancient baby-eating oven-god. Not six weeks since Christmas and the thermometer would probably peak at ninety-five sometime the next afternoon. The local gringos call this hot winter wind "the Santa Ana," thinking it's named for the nearby city and one of the mountain passes. But they're misinformed; in Spanish it's called "la Santana," the Devil.

In the kitchen, Richard took a slug of a cold boutique-brewery beer straight from a longneck to get the gritty taste of the wind out of his mouth. His sinuses always hurt when the desert wind blew; he hated it but he didn't complain about it. Life in Los Angeles had its compensations for a handsome young man getting paid to drive a big car, sometimes carrying famous people but more often just teenagers on a date. Most of the time, the weather lived up to its hype and when it didn't, well, at least it wasn't raining. Richard didn't like rain; since he drove for a living he knew that no one in L.A. knew how to drive in the rain.

He debated watching television on the big screen in the living room but he could still hear Joel whimpering in the bathroom. He really hadn't expected it to hit the guy so hard. Joel was skinny and geeky but not really bad-looking; he probably didn't get dates because of a basic lack of self-confidence. Which having the first date you've gotten in months stolen by your roommate probably didn't help, Richard admitted to himself. How could he make it up to the poor guy?

Hey, he could get poor Joel another date. Maybe with one of the girls he knew? He wandered into his bedroom and booted up his ancient Gateway computer with the Holstein decals on the side. Who could he set up Joel with; it would probably have to be some girl who wasn't too mad at him, personally. Ouch, thought Richard, that narrows it right down. He was still searching through LiveJournal and MySpace pages looking for prospects who hadn't banned him from their webspace when Joel wandered in, looking lost and strangely appealing.

* * *

Joel had gotten dressed again in the regular clothes she'd left lying on the bathroom floor. They still fit, but oddly. The shirt seemed miles too big in the shoulders, with the seams hanging halfway down her upper arms and the ends of the too-wide sleeves flapping at her elbows. Putting the underpants back on would have made her cry again, and besides, they just would not accomodate her new wider butt. The once roomy jeans now fit like a second skin and she just could not get the waistband up properly; it hung on her hips inches below her waist which seemed to have migrated upward.

After discarding her male underpants in the hamper and moaning to herself, "I'm going to have to wear p-p-panties," she turned to look at herself in the mirror again. "I look like a girl wearing her b-b-boyfriend's clothes," she complained. The jeans seemed to emphasize her new curves and the ill-fitting polo shirt gave her a waifish air.

She waved a hand above her head, measuring herself against the door frame; her height seemed to be about the same, a fraction of an inch short of five-foot-eleven. But her legs looked longer and her arms shorter, her hips too wide and her eyes and mouth too big. Her small breasts hardly showed through the thick fabric of her shirt but she knew they were there; they'd reacted to the coarseness of the shirt pulled over them with tingly, shivery, not-unpleasant messages that went straight to somewhere Joel didn't want to think about.

She wiped at her mouth, even it looked wrong. Her eyes had red rims from crying and her nose shone red like a clown's from too vigorous wiping. Well, it would run when she cried; it always had and that hadn't changed. She sniffled and used another tissue which she discarded in the round little wastebasket by the bowl. Richard always missed though he could throw a beer can straight into the trashcan from clear across the kitchen. She sniffed again, deciding that Richard must have some connection with her predicament.

Before leaving the bathroom, she stepped briefly on the scales. "One twenty-nine?" she whispered, "I've lost almost forty p-p-pounds? It doesn't make any sense!" Just for a moment, her hand drifted to her newly flat crotch, contemplating that more emotional loss.

Distracted, and surely she had reason, she struggled with the bathroom door before remembering that she had locked it to keep Richard out. Thumbing the latch open she wandered left down the hall toward Richard's room after dithering a moment about going to her own room to fling herself across the bed and start wailing again. Maybe she should call her mother? Shuddering at that thought, she continued onto Richard's door and knocked lightly on the frame.

Richard looked up, smiling and looking not at all ashamed, which he ought to, thought Joel. "Hey, guy?" said Richard.

"My dinkle's gone," said Joel in a voice both higher than before and still somehow sounding husky.

"Sorry to hear that," said Richard, keeping his face serious. Cellphone? PDA? What the heck was a dinkle? he wondered. "Have you looked in the couch cushions?"

She shook her head. "No ,it's gone, and it's all your f-fault."

"Well, I haven't seen it," Richard protested. At least Joel didn't look angry at him, he thought, just sad. "Can you afford a new one?"

Joel frowned. She hadn't planned this conversation out and it wasn't going anywhere she expected. "What's a good thing to get drunk on if you don't want to be sick in the morning?" she asked suddenly.

Richard stared at his roommate. "You want to get drunk?"

Joel shrugged. "I don't know, it seems like a good idea."

"Well, it's not what you drink so much as how you drink and how much you drink if you don't want to be sick in the morning." Richard frowned. He didn't drink much himself since he made his living as a driver but he sure did his share of dealing with drunks. "The first thing to do if you want to drink is eat something."

"I'm not hungry," said Joel. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as if cold. "I just don't know what to do."

"What's this about?" Richard asked. Subconsciously he had noticed the changes in his geeky roomie but consciously put them down to Joel's peculiar behavior. Joel had always seemed a trifle effeminate to Richard's macho sensibilities but on the night of the Blue Moon appeared fruitier than usual. "Is this still about Sylvia?" he asked.

"Sophia. You took my girl and my dinkle," Joel accused. "That wasn't nice."

"I never touched your dinkle!" Richard protested, tacitly admitting his theft of Joel's date. "What the hell is a dinkle anyway?"

Joel suddenly giggled, perhaps hysterically, covering her mouth with the heel of her hand. The new girl still suffered from the psychic shock of her discovery or perhaps after effects from the devil-worked transformation itself. Besides, a lot of words for the male member started with the difficult sounds called labials that tended to trigger Joel's slight stutter. So she had been using the childhood word her mother had used when she had found out Joel couldn't say pee-pee or wee-wee. And Joel didn't really know that it wasn't a commonly used word since it wasn't something that had come up in conversation very often -- so to speak.

Richard stared at her. On one level he felt a sudden, very disturbing attraction to his slender roommate and so on a more conscious level he began to get defensively angry. "Cut it out, Joel. She was a real witch and you're better off without her." Actually, Sophia Drake had been the Devil in Drag, going about the world on Strangefellows Day and granting troublemaking wishes under the Blue Moon.

"You don't know what a dinkle is, Mr. Dinkle Alexander?" Joel asked, still giggling. She dropped one hand to her own crotch and pointed with the other at Richard's groin. "Mine's gone, all gone. Now I've got a w-w-winkie."

"Holy shit!" Richard said, the obvious pun on the most common casual version of his first name occurring to him. He hated to be called Dick but something about Joel's manner and words told him that his roomie didn't intend a simple punning insult. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Joel leaned forward, trying to scowl. "My dinkle is gone, Mr. Dick." She stretched her shirt tight across her chest. "I've got titties. I'm a girl and it must b-be your fault 'cause it sure isn't m-mine!"

"You what?" said Richard, staring at Joel's chest. "What are you doing, man? Is this a joke?"

"No, damn it. It's not a joke!" Joel snatched the edge of her shirt and pulled it up to her throat displaying her barely-b-cup boobies to her roommate. "Now do you b-b-believe me, M-mister Dickhead?"

Richard stared for a moment then reached a hand out. Joel dodged backward and jerked her shirt down. "B-b-bastard! Don't touch me, you p-p-pervert!" she said, feeling absurd and alarmed at the same time.

Staring some more, Richard noted Joel's slimmer, hairless arms; more delicate face, wide hips; narrow waist. "Vodka," he said. "We need vodka."

Joel nodded. "Lots and lots."

* * *

They decided to eat HotPockets before, or while, drinking. Joel put three of the panzerotti on a cookie sheet, one cheese-and-sun-dried-tomato for her and two ham-and-turkey-club for him. Richard mixed a pitcher of weak screwdrivers while she worked at the oven.

She's a girl, he kept thinking. How could that happen? Has she always been a girl? But no, he'd seen Joel naked or nearly so often enough over the last two or three years to be certain. Plus, they'd been in college together years ago and had shared a room there after Richard got cut from the wrestling team for not having enough killer instinct. It had taken him four years of high school and two of college to find out he didn't really like hurting people. Should have gone out for baseball, he thought, trying to distract himself from thinking about Joel naked. The flash of breasts she'd shown him earlier seemed burned into his brain.

He took a drink from the pitcher then poured each of them a tall glass over ice.

Joel smiled at him when he handed the drink to her and his dick got hard immediately. Down boy, he scolded mentally, that's Joel. But his wolf-mind wasn't having any of that, it smelled girl and tried to put the charm in gear. "Here you go," he said, resisting his impulse. "Not too sweet, not too strong." Inanity might be the best defense.

Joel sipped. "Mmm. Good. I don't drink much. Well, you know that." Lame, she thought, then, Well, what do I care? She couldn't figure out why looking at Richard made her nervous now; or rather, she didn't want to figure it out. She couldn't possibly be attracted to him, she just knew that.

"How do you think this happened?" he asked at the same time that she announced, "I'm not at all attracted to you."

She took another drink.

He stared at her for a moment.

"You made a wish," she said. "It's a Blue Moon, maybe someone was listening?"

He didn't remember making a wish but he said, "That can't be it. Wishes don't get granted by magical fairies listening at the windows, not anymore. If they ever did. We are not characters in a Disney movie."

She giggled and took another sip of the juice and vodka. Did I just giggle like a girl? she wondered. She took another sip.

Richard turned away and sat at the kitchen table so Joel couldn't see the tent in his pants. She's flirting with me. No, she's not, Joel doesn't know how to flirt. I don't want Joel to be flirting with me. He took a sip. "I don't remember making a wish," he said.

She half-closed one eye, thinking. "You said, 'I wish I were going to sleep with a b-beautiful girl tonight!'" She blinked rapidly, took another drink and glared at him. "Then I turned into a girl, so it's all your fault!"

"I didn't say that!"

"Yes, you did!"

"No," said Richard. "I said, "Wouldn't you like to sleep with a beautiful girl tonight?' I think." He frowned, wondering just what he had said.

She shook her head, not looking at him, wondering if he'd somehow made her drink more potent because the world seemed to be getting that bright but fuzzy edge that goes with the first level of being drunk. If I start talking loud, I know I'm in trouble, she told herself. "Do you think I'm beautiful?" she asked, louder than she intended.

Richard knew he looked most like Charlie Sheen when he tried to keep cool after a girl made a pass at him. This had good points and bad points. At his most-Charlie, he knew it could never be wrong, no matter how outlandish the circumstances, to tell a girl that you thought her beautiful. Especially, he realized, if it were true.

"Yes," he said, with a small, confident smile. "Yes, you're beautiful."

Joel drained the rest of her drink and burst into tears.

Richard stared at her. The oven timer dinged. He got up to retrieve the HotPockets while Joel got a tissue to wipe her face.

"I just don't know what's happened to me," she said. "I didn't want this to happen. It's like a bad movie, or a dream." Her expression changed. "That's it, I'm dreaming! I m-must be dreaming!"

Shaking his head, Richard scooped steaming Italianate pasties onto plastic plates. He pointed at the cheese-and-tomato one Joel had chosen for herself. "Take a bite of that," he said.

"I'll burn my mouth!"

"Then you're not dreaming, are you? One, you know it would burn your mouth, and two, it really would."

Joel sniffled.

When he used to pout like that, I wanted to smack him. Now when she does it, I want to kiss her, thought Richard. He broke off a corner of one of the pasties with his fingers to let the inside cool faster. Joel used a fork to chop hers into small pieces, same as she had done the last time they'd eaten this. Richard watched her. "Maybe you'll be happier this way," he mused aloud.

"I will not! My dinkle is gone, I liked having a dinkle!"

"That's -- disturbing."

"Huh? Why?"

"Well, you're using a cutesy word to talk about your penis that you don't have anymore. You're a beautiful girl who doesn't need her own penis because she certainly can have the use of almost any guy's --dinkle-- she cares to borrow. It's either disturbing or hilarious and if I start laughing, I'm sure you'll cry again."

"Pour me another screwdriver and maybe I can laugh, too," said Joel. She pushed her empty glass towards him and reached for the bottle of sweet green Tabasco on the table.

Richard drained his glass and refilled both from the pitcher. "This may be hitting you harder than you might think?"

She shook several drops over her shredded HotPocket and after a moment of thought, added six or eight more to her drink. Richard shuddered. "You talking about the vodka or my being turned into a girl by your stupid w-w-wish? Either way, I think I'm doing p-pretty good. Hic."

Richard rolled his eyes but took a moment to consider the shadows under her cheekbones and the graceful curve of her neck as she tilted her head and examined the lifted glass to see what the green sauce had done to the color of the orange liquid.

"Think it needs m-more Tabasco?"

"God, no."

She took a sip of the concoction and moaned with pleasure, sending thrills to parts of Richard he had wisely concealed again by sitting at the table.

"So what happens if I w-won't sleep with you tonight? I think your w-w-wish will turn you into a girl, too!" Joel took a forkful of cheese-and-tomato pastie crumble and nibbled fragments off the load with her sharp little teeth.

Richard suppressed a groan. "I don't think so," he said. He took a man-size bite of his first HotPocket, savoring the simple ham, turkey and cheese. He didn't like strong spices in his food, the despair of his Mexican-born grandmother.

They both chewed for a moment.

"But if I won't sleep with you, the w-w-wish will have to turn you into a girl, too, in order to come true." She grinned at him. She took another healthy swig of her Tabasco-tainted screwdriver.

He grinned back, pointing with a piece of pastie at her glass. "If you drink all of that, you will sleep with me."

She opened her mouth to counter his argument. "Hic," she said.

Blue Moon
- 3.1-3.6 -

by Donna Lamb

Richard laughed, knowing that now it would more likely make Joel mad than tearful. Mad would be okay. "You are going to sleep with me if you drink much more."

She glared at him, then waved the screwdriver glass in a toast. “You bet your dinkle on it?” She tried to look fierce but managed only tear-stained defiance. Richard was not unmoved, though still confused by his feelings for this new Joel.

“Sure,” he said. He tipped his glass up, drained it and motioned her to do the same. She did and he smiled as he split the remainder of the pitcher between their empty glasses. He’d dated other skinny girls and inexperienced drinkers; each nine ounce glass of juice held about one shot of vodka. Nearly three shots would be enough to get her just past tipsy and half-way to really drunk.

He felt only a tiny bit guilty; she really needed this lesson. Even with the beer earlier and a cocktail on his aborted date, he might have too much alcohol in his body to drive legally but he would be far from drunk. Body mass, male enzymes in his stomach, and experience all tilted in his favor.

She looked up at him and burped. Then giggled.

“Oh so ladylike,” he said. Richard knew that such behavior by a woman came across as sexual aggression more often than that. He also knew that Joel had no idea how such a dynamic worked.

“I should give a shit,” she said, taking care to enunciate. “Even if I sleep with you, we ain’t having sex. ‘Cause I’m changing b-back in the m-morning.”

“Okay.”

She peered at him across the table. “Okay? Okay on me changing back or on not having sex?”

“Either. Both.”

She wagged a finger at him. “You don’t think I can do it!”

“Which? Changing back or having sex?”

“F-f-fuck sex,” she muttered and burped or hiccoughed again. “I know I’m changing b-back f-first thing in the m-m-m-mañana.”

He started on his second HotPocket. She’d forgotten hers and he didn’t remind her. The less food in her tummy, the quicker the liquor would hit her, the faster he could get her into bed. “How do you know that?”

“P-pure logic,” she said. She looked pleased that he had asked. “If this were p-permanent then it’d be unlikely that I’m the only p-p-person it ever happened to. And if it had ever hap-happened b-before then I’d have heard of it, and I haven’t. Ip-ip-hic-so factotum.”

“Ipse dixit,” he said.

She frowned. “Did you call me a tipsy ditz chick?”

“Not yet. But there’s a website out there by people who’ve had just this sort of thing happen to them.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“Nope. Several of them. Several websites, must be hundreds of people. Maybe thousands.”

“For real?”

“Maybe not. One thing these people all report is that they have a hard time convincing anyone they’re telling the truth.”

“Oh, b-b-bullwinkle! You’re just trying to scare me!”

He grinned. “Is it working?”

She nodded then giggled. “Scared the p-p-Pringles right off me.”

“Pringles?”

She closed one eye and looked at him. “I can’t say p-p-penis.”

He laughed more than that deserved and she dissolved into such helpless giggles she almost fell out of the chair. He stood up and helped her to stand. “You need to go to bed before you end up sleeping on the floor,” he told her.

“Are we going to sleep together?”

“Yes,” he said. H e steered her gently out of the kitchen and into the hall.

“B-but I don’t w-wanna!” Joel giggled and hiccoughed, trying to pull her fingers out of Richard’s grip.

“Tough,” he said. “I’m fond of my Pringles right where they are.”

* * *

Richard led Joel to her own room.

“Hey, this is m-my b-b-bed.” It didn’t look like a woman’s room: Full size bed with a wagon-wheel-motif brown coverlet, similar curtains, both donated by Joel’s mom. Ochre walls with framed photos taken from high places around the city, Joel’s sometime hobby. A political poster featuring Barry Aronhaus, Joel’s boss, state representative for a mixed district of urban non-voters and suburban conservatives. A desk holding two computers and assorted electronic detritus. A cheap chest of drawers with neat family pictures on top, a younger, male Joel in a graduation gown standing between a proud older couple who looked more like grandparents than parents. A Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar. It looked like the lair of a neat, even fussy, essentially nerdy young bachelor, which it was.

“Yup, it’s your bed, your room. Just lay down with your clothes on and I’ll throw the coverlet over you.”

She crawled carefully into the middle of the bed, still wearing the jeans and polo shirt that she’d put back on in the bathroom, her feet bare. He pulled the coverlet loose on one side and stretched it over her then kicked off his shoes and lay down beside her on the top sheet. “See? We’ll just sleep? No sex.” Not this time, he promised to himself.

They lay face to face. The kitchen light shone obliquely through the open door. Her eyes are green, thought Richard. I always thought they were blue, I guess. Maybe they changed. She sure has long eyelashes for a blonde. I wonder what she’d look like with long hair and maybe a little make-up. This is so weird, she’s Joel but she isn’t.

Joel struggled to get an arm free from the covers, wiping at her forehead with it. “If we sleep together, then am I going to be stuck – like this?”

“I think so,” he said, not sure that sleeping had anything to do with it. “Don’t worry about it, there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do. If you slept alone, you’d still be sleeping with a beautiful girl.”

She sighed then looked at him sideways. The light left his face in shadows but she knew his features very well. Dark brown curly hair, brown eyes with a hazel disk around the pupil. She’d always noticed such things, being a photographer, even if her specialty was cityscapes. “You’re kinda cute, yourself,” she said. One eye drifted slowly closed in what might have been a wink.

He raised up and looked at her. She’s more than cute, he told himself. No make-up and she’s been crying for hours and she still looks like a fashion model.

She closed the other eye and continued. “And if you tell me I said that to-tomorrow, I’ll kick you right in the b-b-b-Bullwinkles.” She rolled away from him slightly, to lie on her back.

“I’m sure you would. Now go to sleep,” he murmured. But Joel’s breath already came in the soft and low rhythms of exhausted, slightly anesthetized sleep. Richard relaxed a bit and almost drifted off.

Outside, the Blue Moon sailed down the sky toward the end of night. Richard roused himself and sat up, looking down at his suddenly beautiful–and suddenly female–roommate. He shook his head, hardly believing it. One side of her face gilded in the light from the kitchen, the other side silvered by moonlight through the window, she looked strange – like some creature fallen from the sky.

Sitting up, he murmured what might have been a prayer, “Jesus, God, help me.” He looked back at Joel. “She’s going to need someone to protect her.” Then he crossed himself the way his grandmother had taught him, adding, “Mary, help me,” since the problem involved a woman. Hardly anyone would have believed Richard to be a praying man, sometimes he didn’t believe it himself. But he’d found that in times that troubled his mind or his soul, praying helped. He didn’t have to believe in it; it just worked.

He spent more long moments contemplating the problems the new Joel might have. How would her mother react, her father had died sometime ago? How about her job doing data-entry, filing and correspondence in the office of the slightly conservative Aronhaus? Clothes, make-up, identification? She would need him, she would need a friend. He prayed again, visited the necessity and stretched out beside her on the bed once more.

Feeling better, he soon dropped off to sleep himself, and dreamed of taking his little sisters, twins named Ashley Sean and Sean Ashley, to Disneyland six years ago when they were twelve. Only this time in his dream, Joel rode the scary rides with him, screaming in his ear, his arms around her and hers around him. Both of them safe and happy.

* * *

Hell hath no fury like a demonic drag queen in a serious snit. Sophie Drake spit out the ice from the limo’s mini-bar that she’d been sucking. She couldn’t get it at home without a long trip down to the ninth circle but she was disgusted with the latest turn of events in the little tragicomedy she had initiated. “Mortals always cheat,”she told her driver. She snapped off the plasma screen monitor she’d been watching her latest project on

Bill C. Bubb nodded. “Nil fidelis in viro est,” he said in Hell’s bad Latin. Somehow he’d changed out of his stiffly formal chauffeur’s uniform into a more working class uniform, complete with Yankees baseball cap. They’re not known as the damned’s Yankees for nothing.

“Shut up, I have to think.” She’d changed clothes,too. Wearing a deep lilac bikini-style lingerie set, she had become the Devil with the Blue Dress Off.

She smiled. “You know, you’re right. Men are never faithful, and this particular man has broken more hearts than a one-handed dishwasher has broken crockery. He deserves a little sauce for the gander.” She laughed. An evil laugh, but that probably goes without saying. “This is going to be such fun,” she cooed.

She flicked the monitor back on and considered what she might do. She couldn’t touch Richard now but Joel had expressed a wish too. And Strangefellows Day wouldn’t be over for another nineteen hours. She could tweak Joel’s appearance, push all of Richard’s buttons; he liked them busty; maybe a pair of 38DDs? She’d made a lazy mistake, letting Joel’s genetics control most of her appearance. Except for height, Joel looked pretty much like what she might have looked like if she’d been born female. And Richard seemed unlikely to fall for a girl with unimpressive measurements like 35-23-34. Willowy didn’t make it in most men’s fantasies.

Ah well, one had to indulge all the vices now and then and it had been sloth’s turn. To hell with that, she’d make his roomie into the sort of confection Richard couldn’t resist. Lust always made a good handle on men. She reached out, twisting reality in the way badly made wishes allowed her to do. Nothing happened. Had that lapsed Catholic’s faith been strong enough to block her from messing with Joel on the basis of some vague protection he’d appealed for?

Her head snapped up. “Why are we slowing?”

“Hitchhiker.”

“On the road to Hell?” She looked out the window. “Damn it, it’s a clarence! Run over the good-intentioned busybody!”

Thump! The extended sedan rocked heavily; the clarence had some bulk, a one-time-bouncer doing a little moonlighting, ex-purgatorius, perhaps.

Knowing the angel hadn’t really been hurt, Sophie screamed out the limo’s window. “Pride goeth before a fall, buddy! You just wanted to gloat!”

Slightly cheered up, she considered her Blue Moon project again. “Hmm. He wants to be able to protect her? Maybe I can arrange things that she needs more protection?” Cackling happily, the Devil in Drag got back to work. “If I do this right, I can break both their hearts and get them to hate each other. Love! What a crock!”

“Sic qua res, nil bonum venis,” said Bill. Just to prove his point, perhaps, he had on a Dallas Cowboys warm-up jacket to go with the Yankees cap.

“You better believe it, Bubb. Nothing good ever came from romance!”

* * *

Joel woke up first,perhaps because of her new smaller bladder and shorter urethra. Squirming a bit,she became aware of a heavy weight lying across her middle, pinning her arm to her side. A similar weight seemed to confine her knees, perhaps a good thing at the moment. Moaning in discomfort, she tried to push her way free but the effort snapped her awake when she felt something stiff and sort of rubbery pushing against her butt.

The sun wouldn’t be up for some time yet, but rosy winter dawn light washed through a north-facing window on the last day of January. She blinked, trying to wake up. Several realizations flooded her consciousness at roughly the same time:

She needed to pee.
She had a headache.
Someone was lying half on top of her.
The room seemed curiously empty, though the bed was full.
The bedclothes were missing.
She was nude.
She had tits.
She remembered turning into a girl last night.
Somehow, it was all Richard’s fault.
Richard was the person lying on top of her.
And that was his dinkle pressing into her back.

Naturally, she screamed. Well, first she screamed – and then she bit Richard on the tricep, just above his elbow on the outside part of his arm. Just as naturally, he screamed, dreaming perhaps, that a malfunctioning roller coaster had ripped his arm off.

More screaming and shouting followed, with some hitting and pinching by Joel on handy parts of Richard’s anatomy until poor Richard fell off the far side of the bed and Joel escaped out of the bedroom, down the hall and into the only room in the apartment with an interior lock: the bathroom.

From the safety of the floor, Richard considered pulling himself under the bed in case Joel came back with the intent of kicking him. While still only half awake, he’d done nothing but try to protect vulnerable areas and push himself away from his enraged roomie. “Ow,” he said.

The fall had definitely woke him up and now he noticed the curious echoic quality of the room. From down the hall he heard Joel’s continuing, crying, screaming and cursing, interrupted now and then by her difficulty with words beginning with p, b, m, w, f or v.

“You b-b-bozo! You dick! W-w-what did you do to me? Where’s my stuff? M-my clothes! You b-b-better not have f-f-f-f-f–screwed around! OH! SHIT!” She got a bit quieter. Then in a small voice she said, “I think I p-p-p–w-w-w–tinkled on the floor.”

At this moment in time, Richard decided it would be wisest not to take any notice of his good friend who, after all, had reason to be upset. He sat up to look around. Someone had stripped the room, as if Joel had moved out months ago. The framed photos and calendar were gone, though the political poster of Barry Aronhaus remained. The personal items from the top of the chest of drawers, the computer stuff from the desk, even the bedclothes and curtains had disappeared.

Joel’s voice came down the hall. “None of m-my stuff is in here either, my toothbrush, my razor, m-mouthwash, shampoo, all gone. Even my dirty clothes from the hamper are gone! Richard you evil b-b-b-bastard!”

Knowing he had had nothing to do with the disappearance of Joel’s stuff, Richard, still dressed from last night, checked the drawers and the closet in Joel’s room. Nothing left but a few hangers, some scraps of paper in the desk and the shiny extension tube from some old vacuum cleaner that had been in the room when they had moved into the apartment years ago.

“I’m gonna kick your ass, Richard,” Joel wailed. “why were w-w-we naked? What did you do to m-m-me? Am I p-p-pregnant?”

Wincing a little, Richard eased out into the yard behind the duplex. Joel being locked in the bathroom had driven Richard to expedient solutions before. Still got mine, he thought with a little relief and a lot of satisfaction. Careful that no one could see him in the semi-dark, he pissed on a cedar bush near the walkway around the carport.

While he was so close he checked. Only the long, sleek Lincoln limo he’d driven home from work yesterday occupied the open structure. Joel’s Corolla sedan should have been parked on the driveway in front of the carport where Richard had parked it after borrowing it to go on Joel’s date. Nothing.

Even outside, Richard could clearly hear Joel’s tirade. “Except for the noise and the naked chick in the bathroom, you’d never know the poor guy had existed,” he said out loud.

Something occurred to him and he went inside to his own bedroom to check. As he passed the bathroom door, Joel screamed, “Richard! Are you out there?”

“Yes, I’m checking for stuff.” A few other things were probably missing, some of the kitchen stuff had belonged to Joel but so had the couch and it was still there.

“Have you got any clothes that m-might fit me?” Joel asked in a small voice. From the sound of it, she might be leaning on the bathroom door.

In his own bedroom, Richard shouted back. “I’m looking. One of my girlfriends left a suitcase behind once.” He’d tried to get it back to her but she wouldn’t answer his calls. He pulled it down from the top shelf of his closet, a small lavender-and-gray-paisley case of the size called a weekender.

“Oh God,” moaned Joel. “Girl’s clothes! I can’t w-wear girl’s clothes.”

“Face it, Jo-babe,” said Richard, putting the suitcase in the hallway, “you’re a chick now. If you don’t dress like a chick, people are going to figure you for a lesbo.” He went to the kitchen hell-drawer for a screwdriver to pop the lock on the suitcase with.

“Don’t call me that!”

“What? Lesbo?”

“No, Jo-b-babe. I’m not one of your b-b-babes.”

“Joel is a silly name for a girl.” He looked in the suitcase; women’s toiletries, undies, tees and shorts. All the clothes smelled of old body odors and mildew. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Okay.” Joel obviously struggled not to sob. “You can call me Joe.”

“Jo?” said Richard. In the bottom of the suitcase, he found a plastic bag and pulled it out.

“Yes, okay, Joe.”

“Or maybe Joey?” suggested Richard. “It’s only one letter different.” He unrolled and unzipped the clear plastic bag. It held that ultimate modern female article of clothing, the little black dress made of wrinkle-free, miracle knit. Richard shook it out, “Might be a little short,” he said.

“You think Joe is too short? I guess Joey is okay, too. Well, no,it isn’t b-b-but….”

Something fell out of the dress when Richard shook it: A pair of lacy black panties. Richard smiled. “I found something for you to wear.”

Joel, or Joey, said nothing for a moment. Then she whimpered in a very small voice, “It’s a dress, isn’t it?”

* * *

Richard took the dirty clothes to the washing machine in the little building out back shared with the other half of the duplex. Joel, or Jo, or Joey, dragged the rest of the suitcase into the bathroom and re-locked the door.

The black dress lay across the top of the suitcase and the black, lace panties lay atop the dress. Jo handled everything as if it might be infested with radioactive lice. She put the dress on a spare hanger and laid the panties on the stack of towels behind the toilet.

Everything that wasn’t in a plastic bag smelled like gym socks filled with dirty kitty litter. One plastic bag turned out to contain brand new bathroom needs like they keep in the travel aisle of the drugstore. Miniature soaps, tiny shampoo bottles, a folding toothbrush still in the blister pack, Well, it’s something, thought Jo.

Another bag held a pair of soft folding shoes, flats. Jo made a face. Reluctantly, she also salvaged the bag of makeup supplies and then unlocked the door, pushed the redolent valise back into the hall and locked the door again. “Put this thing out for the raccoons,” she called to Richard.

“You want some breakfast?” he asked.

Jo looked at herself in the mirror, then at the dress, then back at the door. “W-what time is it?”

“Almost seven,” said Richard.

“I have to be at w-work at eight.W-will you drive me?”

“You’re going to work? Like… as a girl?”

“W-what else can I do? I need my job and somebody took all my stuff,” she tried not to start crying again.

“Well.” In the kitchen, Richard scratched his head. “Well, you gotta eat. Toast, egg and coffee? You’ve got time if you don’t dawdle.”

“And you’ll get me some more clothes?”

‘Yeah, yeah. But you could call in sick. Does that stuff even fit?”

“I haven’t….”

“Well, hurry it up if you want to go to work. Women always take too long in the bathroom.” Richard grinned as he got out bread, eggs and coffee.

“Oh!” squealed Jo. “F-f-f-screw you, Richard!” She heard him laugh. He’s having fun! Somehow, she was still sure this was Richard’s fault but just how, she couldn’t quite work out.

She looked in the mirror again. Her short shaggy do looked like a boy’s cut but nothing else about her was at all mannish. She sighed and tried on the panties, snuggling the lacy thong into place. “Wow,” she said out loud.

She stared at herself in the mirror, wearing just panties made her seem more – sexy. She snatched up the dress and pulled it over her head like a tee-shirt. It settled against her curves as if coming home. She looked in the mirror again. “The dress doesn’t f-fit!” she shouted.

“Probably too short, huh?” Richard shouted back. “You’re four or five inches taller than Melissa. Miranda? Whoever she was.”

“Way too short,” complained Jo. In truth, the skirt managed to be a micro-mini but not much more.

“Let me see.” Richard dished out over-medium eggs and well-done wheat toast. “Soup's on.”

Jo unlocked the door and padded out into the hall, pausing at the door to the kitchen. “Um?” she said.

Richard looked. He whistled then he said, “Sit down and eat, Jo. You look good.”

“I do?” She walked slowly to the breakfast table.

“Your hair is a disaster and you’ve got no makeup on but those legs!” He poured coffee for both of them.

She glanced down.

“Sit, eat,” said Richard.”Keep your knees together, you slut.”

She glared at him.

“I’m teasing,” said Richard, “but, really, keep your knees together or other people will be saying it.”

She sat, carefully. “I’m starved,” she said. “And you’re a Dick, Richard.”

“I know, ain’t I lucky?”

* * *

Richard shook his head. “That dress is a small, you may be tall but you’re a teeny-tiny girl.”

“Don’t say that!” Jo protested. She’d retrieved the black flats from the bathroom and put them on. They seemed very flimsy but all of her own shoes were missing. The soles felt paper thin as she tried walking in them.

“What? Teeny-tiny?” Richard knew perfectly well what Jo objected to.

She glared at him, knowing that he knew and that he knew that she knew he knew. “I lost almost forty p-pounds! Besides all my stuff!”

“The shoes fit?”

“I guess, they seem pretty cheap, like they’re going to f-fall apart.”

“Melinda’s emergency pair, I guess. Like the dress. They’re a size eight, I looked.”

“Guess my feet shrank, too. I used to w-wear a nine.”

“I don’t think men’s and women’s shoes are measured the same. A women’s eight is smaller than a men’s eight.”

“How do you know that?”

“Three sisters and forty-leven girlfriends.”

“Mmph!”

Richard grinned. “You’re cute when you pout like that.”

“I am not!” Jo paused. “I am?”

He shrugged. “You can’t help it. By the way, you look younger, too. Like nineteen maybe, no way you look twenty-six.”

“M-my ID is gone, too. Oh! F-f-fudge b-brownies!”

Richard laughed, not helping. He handed her something black.

“W-what’s this?”

“Purse, you’ll need one. Found it in the back of my closet. I stuck some money in it, too.”

The tiny black clutch held some tissues, cosmetics, pens and twelve dollars in cash. Jo tried holding it in one hand and then the other. “Thanks, I guess. What’s wrong w-with p-p-pockets?” She debated removing the cosmetics but instead just snapped it closed.

“Dresses with pockets are for gardening grandmas.“ He looked at her critically. “You should have shaved and worn hose.”

“Shave?” She rubbed the smoothness of her cheek then followed Richard’s gaze down. “M-my legs?”

“Pits, too, probably. No time now, but this is your first day at work, you want to make a good impression. I dunno if you can wear the hose without shaving. Oh, shit. Those hose were for Merrilee, you’re too tall. So, no help for it.”

Jo looked and felt relieved. “I’ve worked there for four years, since B-barry won the seat. Nobody is going to expect me to shave my legs.”

Richard shook his head. “How do you think they’re going to react to you showing up with tits and wearing a dress?”

“P-probably not good at first. B-but they can’t run the p-place without m-me. No one else knows computers. They’ll have to let me keep m-my job.” Jo looked convinced.

Richard did not. “If you’re that sure, call in sick and we can shop for clothes.”

The idea of taking time to buy some pants that fit tempted Jo but she shook her head. “No. Tomorrow is payday. I gotta go in, and – and prove I’m still m-m-me.”

“To who?”

She looked away from him. “Can w-we please just go?”

Richard looked her over again. “Jo-baby, they’re not going to believe you’re you.”

“Don’t I look like m-me?”

“Well, you look more like you than my sister’s look like me, I suppose. But that’s a measure of what a wuss Joel was.”

“W-wuss!” Jo felt her lip tremble. “B-but I know everything about that office, they’ll have to b-believe I’m me! W-w-wuss?”

“Yes, Jo. But that’s okay now, you’re supposed to be a bit wussy – you’re a girl, it’s allowed.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Say what?”

“W-w-w-w-girl! I’m not a girl, I just look like one!”

“Right.” Richard decided that the way to handle this was to give her exactly what she wanted. “Okay, let’s go. I’ll drop you off at the office, then do some shopping for you. I’ve got a fare at eleven and probably Patch will have something else for me in the afternoon. I guess, you can take the bus home if I can’t make it in time. Huh?”

“B-b-bus?”

“Let’s go. I wanna show you how to get in and out of a limo wearing a dress before you get downtown and cause a riot with a beaver shot.”

“B-b-b-b-b-b-” But Richard pulled her through the hall and out to the carport before Jo could say Castor canadiensis.

Blue Moon 4.1-4.5

by Donna Lamb

 
 

Richard opened the back left door of the big black stretch limo for Jo. "Remember, sit down backwards into the seat then lift your feet inside. And keep your knees together."

Jo balked. "Pull out to the driveway and I'll get in on the right, I w-want to ride up front with you."

"Nope," said Richard. "You're way too distracting sitting beside me. Pretty girls I'm not dating go in the back."

She stared at him. He'd said it with such a straight face. "B-b-b-b-..."

"That's right, butt first." He grinned.

Richard had a nice grin, Jo noticed, distracted. He looks so fucking sincere. But it's all an act, he's a rogue and a wolf and a -- a lothario! she told herself. Jo seldom stuttered when not talking out loud. Still, his wide, white grin in his tanned face made her nervous. Clutching her purse tight, she turned around and tried to sit in the limo backward without looking.

Richard offered a hand to steady her but she ignored him -- and missed the seat, landing with a jar on the door sill. "Ow," she complained.

"You've got some padding back there, it didn't hurt that bad." Reflexively, Richard rubbed his arm where Jo had bit him earlier. He didn't blame her for that; he'd been bitten by panicked women before. But it had made it easier to watch Jo miss the seat and land on her ass.

"How do you know?" Without really thinking about it, she put up a hand for him to help her up -- it was an awkward position for anyone and she had remembered to keep her knees together, making it more awkward.

"Let's try that again," said Richard. "Look back as you turn around so you know where the seat is; hold your purse in your right hand behind you to feel for the seat and smooth your skirt under you. You don't really need to with a tight knit dress like that, but you don't want it to ride up, either. If there's a guy holding the door for you, let him hold your other hand to brace you."

"W-why?" She scowled at him. Except to Richard it looked more like a pout.

"It's the polite thing to do, and believe me, sometimes you'll need it. Like if you're wearing heels or it's raining or both, or a long dress or all three."

Jo landed in the seat with a thump, glaring at Richard."You talk too m-m-much. You're distracting me." And he hadn't stopped grinning, his dark eyes sparkling.

"Lift your legs in," he said.

"Let go my hand!" She shook her hand loose and lifted both feet into the car.

Smiling, Richard shut the door. Then immediately opened it again, sticking out his hand.

"What are you doing? I'm in, let's just go."

He shook his head. "You need practice getting out too; we're going to do this three times, at least." He smiled, softening his expression a bit to show that he understood her reluctance. "Take my hand, brace yourself and do everything in reverse. Lift your feet out, shift your weight forward then I'll give you just a bit of help getting your feet under you while you keep your skirt from riding up with your other hand."

It went smoothly enough, though Jo felt oddly breathless to find herself standing in front of Richard still holding hands. "Let go," she whispered.

He did, nodded, pretended to swing the door closed then opened it again. He waved at the interior.

Jo sighed and tried the process again. This time, Richard kept his instructions terse. "Look back. Take my hand. Smooth your skirt. Sit back. LIft your feet. Smile at me as I let your hand go."

Jo smiled, it felt like the right thing to do, though she couldn't have said why. She also blushed.

Richard thought she looked charming, slightly flustered and oh, so vulnerable. If she wasn't Joel, he told himself.

They did it twice more and the last time, Richard said nothing except to ask, "Comfy?" before closing the door.

"Yes, thanks," Jo said, smiling.

Richard got in the driver's seat, started up and backed the big Lincoln out carefully.

Jo sat back in the seat, sighing, feeling very odd about everything. Without really thinking about it, she muttered mostly to herself, "I w-wish this all were a little easier."

Richard slammed on the brakes and shouted, "Jo!" But too late -- she'd already said it.

* * *

"While it has become traditional recently to refer to agents of celestial being with my assignment as 'Clarence,' my name is actually Theodosius." The prim gentleman sharing the backseat of the hellish taxi with the personage calling herself Sophie Drake nodded politely.

"Well, TED," Sophie drawled. "You're nothing but a damned hitchhiker."

Still smiling, the angel nodded again. "This vehicle travels toward Hell, in that sense, we are damned."

"I don't appreciate you insinuating yourself into my transportation; didn't running over you convey a tiny bit of animosity?"

"Oh yes, I got the 'message''." He put the quotes around the word with his fingers, a mannerism that annoyed Sophie when used by others toward her. She'd invented the gesture in the sixteenth century to prick that insufferable poet, Willy Shaxsper.

"She made another wish, she's my plaything and you can't do anything about it." Sophie stuck her tongue out. It really was forked but the clarence ignored that.

"Not necessarily," said the angel. "I've a commission signed by Mary and Her Son to protect this Messenger person as much as I can but we can negotiate the exact terms of what you can do to her in regards her latest wish."

"It's still Strangefellows Day in her time zone! I can do whatever I want to her!"

"You know that isn't so, uh, Sophia."

The Devil in Drag blustered some more but finally gave in. "All right, it's not worth missing playing with my other toys this day to argue with you. What are your terms, Angelman?"

"It is the position of my Superior, that you have to abide strictly by the words of the wish. And since she phrased her desire in the proper subjunctive, that you cannot alter the past this time. We think you cheated on that first wish; the man, Richard also used the subjunctive and you should not have altered the past."

Sophie smiled."I didn't at first, and I only altered time as far back as last Strangefellows Day in my second intervention, just two months." She laughed. "The poor booby hasn't discovered what I did yet."

The clarence waggled a finger at her. "No more of that. Your justification for the second intervention violated several rules; Joel did not actually make a wish in simply agreeing with Richard's and you changed time. It is the position of my Principal that what is done is done and what is undone is undone, so no more mucking about with time."

She glared at him. "You were a lawyer in life?"

"A solicitor," he said.

"You're supposed to be one of mine, you back-stabbing shyster!"

Ted, for so his friends actually did address him, tut-tutted the Devil to her face. Angel-ified English barristers do not quail in front of opponents no matter how powerful. "It is our position," he went on, "that Jo's wish can be bent only a little, and that only in terms long agreed between us; to wit, if an unclear word or phrase has been used, you may define that word or phrase to your liking.

"Hmm. The twit said, 'I w-wish this all were a little easier.'" The Devil in Drag mimicked Jo's voice perfectly, including the stutter.

"Yes, well, as unwise as it may have been," he pronounced 'been' to rhyme with the vegetable and not the clock, "the only unclear reference in her wish is just exactly what she meant by 'this all.'"

Sophie smiled. "So I can define those two words to suit me?"

Ted winced. "Yes. But you cannot alter her consciousness of who she is, only her body parts and environment and no playing with the Wayback Machine."

She shrugged, thinking. "I can live with that."

Ted stared at her a moment. "We expect you to try to cheat, you know."

"Of course." She nodded. "That's the fun of these contests. Cheating within the rules."

Jo's clarence sighed. "May I ask what you're going to do? What do you intend to treat the words as meaning?"

Sophie grinned. "I think when she said 'this all' she meant 'my virtue.'"

"High five, boss," said the driver, holding his hand up above the seat back. Sophie cackled and slapped the blunt-fingered hand of her henchman, Bill Z. Bubb.

Ted looked appalled. "That's diabolical," he said.

"Why thank you, clarence," Sophie purred. "High five." She held up her hand again.

"No," said Ted, crossing his arms and looking so terribly stiff upper lip about it.

* * *

"W-what?" Jo asked.

Richard had stopped the limo in the driveway to get out, open the back door and stand there staring at her. "You don't look any different," he said after a bit.

"Should I?"

"I dunno, just don't make anymore wishes. Oh, and scoot over to the other side before you buckle up. That way you can get out on the sidewalk side when we get there and not risk stopping traffic." He closed the rear door, got back behind the wheel and buckled up, watching Jo in the mirror.

She slid across the seat a bit awkwardly, unsure of how to hold the mini-skirt down at the same time. She finally just grabbed the hem in front and pulled on it as she slid, then ran her hand under her butt when she'd settled in place. Snapping her belt closed, she said, "I'm all b-buckled in, Richard."

"Ay,caramba," said Richard. Keeping an eye on her while she struggled with the mini had been worth it.

"Do you really think I could?" she asked.

"Could what?"

"Stop traffic?"

"Sure. Those legs are a sigalert waiting to happen." He backed out onto the street, turning the big awkward car west.

"Are you going the wrong w-way?" Jo asked. She looked down at her legs. They did look nice. The idea of maybe dozens of men staring at her intrigued and frightened her at the same time.

"Hey, who's the driver here?" Minutes later, they both had hot coffees from the drive-thru Starbucks and were headed north to the 134 to take the 210 to Monrovia. Going against the flow of traffic, city center to suburbs meant that even on a Thursday, the busiest commute of the week, they made good time.

"Why don't you call and see if anyone's there yet? Find out if they're expecting you," Richard suggested.

"I don't have my cell phone," Jo pointed out. "All of m-my stuff disappeared, remember?"

Richard pressed a button on the dash, opening a compartment in front of Jo. "Use the carphone," he suggested.

"It's a real ph-f-fone," squeaked Jo, staring at the old-fashioned handset and receiver in the little cabinet.

"No, it just looks like one. Go ahead, call in." He didn't say it aloud but silently he added, See if they even know who you are.

Jo dialed, frowning in concentration.

"Bueno?" someone answered.

"Oops, wrong number." Jo redialed, the tip of her tongue appearing at the side of her mouth. "No answer," she told Richard after eight rings.

"Waddaya mean no answer, you've got an answering service, don't you?"

"Uh huh." Jo tried again. The phone dial seemed like an alien thing, the numbers in her mind slippery creatures.

"Hello?" someone said.

"Is this Assemblyman Aronhaus's office?" Jo asked.

"No." Click.

Richard could see her in the mirror; she looked about ready to cry. He almost stopped the car, right there on the freeway, to take her in his arms and comfort her. It would be so easy. He gritted his teeth.

Jo sniffled. "I keep f-f-m-m-m-f-f-fucking up the number."

"Don't cry," he said. "What's the number? I'll have Patch dial for me." He put his hand on the button to call limo dispatch on the radio.

Jo said nothing for a moment. "All I can think of is, it's six on m-my speed dial."

Richard pushed the button and said, "Dispatch, this is L23," into the hands-free microphone in the steering wheel.

"What you doing up so early, Ricky?" asked a voice.

"Oh, hi, Carmen. Got a deadhead to Monrovia, favor for my roomie. Can you patch me into Assemblyman Aronhaus's office there? I don't have a number."

"You know you've got a pickup in Burbank at eleven?"

"Yeah, I'll make it."

Carmen didn't keep him waiting long. "Here's your number." Click.

Richard didn't have his headset on or the barrier between front and back raised; Jo could hear everything.

"Assemblyman Aronhaus's office. May I help you?"

"Yes," said Richard. "I'm trying to reach Joel Messenger, does he work there?"

"Of course I w-work there," Jo muttered in the back seat. She tugged on her skirt and squeezed her knees together, distracted by the sound of Richard's voice and the look of the back of his head where the hair was clipped short.

"I'm sorry," said the voice. "Mr. Messenger passed away in November. Can someone else help you?"

Richard broke the connection. Shit, he thought.

Jo made fish noises in the backseat then blurted, "B-b-but I'm not dead. I'm right here. Richard, tell her I'm not dead!"

* * *

With morning traffic, they wouldn't reach downtown Monrovia for another twenty minutes. Richard tried to ignore the sniffling girl in the passenger compartment of his limo and think about the situation.

How can this have even happened? People don't just change from weedy male nerd to slender fashion model in the bathroom. Not even once in a blue moon, it just doesn't happen. And yet it had. He couldn't deny that, his roommate Joel, neurotic computer geek with physique to match had turned into ginger blond bombshell Jo without gaining the slightest ounce of common sense while losing almost forty pounds of useless male flab.

He looked at her in the mirror again. Even with her eyes almost constantly red since she'd appeared last night, Jo remained one of the top ten women in looks he'd ever had in his limo; including fashion models, starlets and trophy wives. He'd always thought he liked curvier figures but Jo's shape seemed elegant and right. Just thinking about the glimpses he'd had of Jo naked and the times he'd touched her, even held her made him feel -- well, he wasn't sure how he felt.

Jo is Joel, and you can't be wanting to score on Joel, that just isn't right! he told himself. But how? How had it happened? Joel had blamed it on that careless wish last night but Jo had just made what looked like a more dangerous wish and apparently, nothing happened. And wishes don't really come true outside of Disney movies, Richard reminded himself.

So what had happened? Cosmic rays? Air pollution? Alien abduction? Richard thought briefly of a teevee movie he'd seen once where aliens came down and rebuilt humans for some horrific purpose -- but that seemed as unlikely as some invisible genie granting wishes. Hormone imbalance? Maybe Joel had always been a little bit female and -- but how could that happen in a matter of minutes and without any surgery to help things along?

He looked in the mirror again, checking on her. She was covering first one eye then the other and looking out the window. What the heck was that about? And why are we still going to Joel's job in Monrovia when the people there think he's dead? Better not think about that too hard, it would creep him out, he decided.

Looking out the window had to be safer than staring at Richard, Jo felt. She didn't think about it precisely because it seemed dangerous to even think about it. Much safer to experiment with why she had double vision, and that blurry, for everything much further away than six feet or so. "I think I'm going to need glasses," she said aloud.

Richard almost snorted coffee out his nose. He'd been playing with some mental images of Jo that put her remark in a whole different context.

"Maybe I can get contacts," she said. "Everything outside the car is sort of b-b-b-...." She trailed off, having caught sight of Richard's amber eyes in the rear view mirror. She felt the color rise in her face, the warmth spreading from somewhere inside her. She felt her nipples crinkle against the soft fabric of her dress. "Richard!" she squeaked.

"You okay?" She sighed and the sound of it reminded him of steam escaping from pressure. He tried to get a better look at her but their exit came up just then and he had to deal with driving.

"I think so," she said. She couldn't tell him what she'd just felt. "I'm not sure what happened but yeah, I'm okay." Actually, I know exactly what happened and it scares me, she admitted to herself. She squinted to try to read a street sign as they turned off the freeway, hoping to distract herself.

Aliens, thought Richard. Aliens or hormones. He glanced in the mirror again, analyzing her expression quickly; the unfocussed gaze, the lower lip parted, chin lifted. Why couldn't it be aliens?

* * *

Richard parked in the lot, leaped out and went around the car to open the door for Jo. She'd just gotten her belt open and looked up at him. Had her eyes been so green before? he wondered.

He held out his hand. "Remember the lessons?"

Jo nodded and put her hand in his. She felt the electricity of his touch but she tried to ignore it.

He helped her out and her awkward grace charmed him, not to mention the erect nipples visible against the little black dress. "Don't forget your purse," he reminded her.

She started to reach back into the car, across the seat, not complaining, though. She seemed a little dazed.

"Bend your knees, just a bit, but keep them together. Put one hand on the back of your skirt; with one this short, hold the hem. Squat a bit to keep your balance. If it's too far to reach, get back in to retrieve it," Richard instructed.

Her jaw dropped open and she stared at him. "How do you know so much about b-being a w-w-w-girl?"

"I'll get it," he said. She moved out of the way and let him retrieve the purse, taking it when he handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said.

"Years of girl watching," he said.

"W-what?"

"You asked how I knew what you should do."

"Oh. B-but I thought m-men just im-m-magined all girls naked?"

He grinned at her and she blushed, feeling some kind of heat passing between them. She took a step backward.

"Is that what you did?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "M-maybe? Sometimes." She looked around, squinted a bit, then pointed, "That's the of-f-fice. I gotta go to w-w-work."

"I'll go in with you."

"No! Go fi-find me some clothes."

"What if they don't know who you are? They think Joel is dead."

A little air seemed to leak out of her and her shoulders slumped. "W-w-wait out here. Okay, if I'm not back in f-fi-fif-twenty minutes, go on and shop for m-me and come b-back in an hour."

Richard didn't want to do that. He thought about insisting that he go along but suddenly Jo put a soft little hand on his arm.

"P-p-please, Richard?"

"Okay, okay," he said. He turned away and walked back around to the driver's side, standing where the open door shielded him a bit. I'm hot for my roomie, he thought. Jerry Springer, here we come. A bizarre little guitar riff played in his head, "Hot for roomie, hot for roomie!"

"Thanks," she said.

"Yeah."

Jo sighed and set off for the back door of the office building. Richard watched her walk away. Her hips didn't sway as much as some girls but she had a loose, long-legged style that seemed sexy to him just then. So slim, her short hair somehow making her look even taller. She reached the glass door, touched the wide horizontal handle.

"Jo!" he called suddenly.

She turned, looking back toward him, squinting a bit.

"Be careful," he said. "I'll wait here for you."

Jo smiled and waved at him. "I'll be okay, I'm just going in to w-work." She struggled a bit pushing the door open, surprised at its weight. She'd opened this door a thousand times, at least, and never noticed the mass.

Richard watched her disappear inside. She still doesn't believe this has happened, not really. He whistled a few bars of Walk Like an Egyptian then sat back inside the limo to think. She's not Joel anymore, Joel is dead. So who is she? And how do we find out if she doesn't know?

"Fucking aliens," he said out loud.

Blue Moon 5.1-5.5

by Donna Lamb

Jo went up to the third floor on the elevator then pushed open the door of the office where she had worked for the last four years. Her heart pounded in her ears, she felt pins and needles all over and she gasped for breath.

Sandra Tillotson, the blonde receptionist, sat at the front desk, smiling up at her. "May I help you?" she asked.

"Sandy, it's m-m-m...."

"Oh, Melody!" Sandy interrupted. "What did you do to your hair?" Reflexively, she fluffed her own hair. She frowned. "I don't think it suits you, hon. Makes you look too much like a boy."

"M-m-m-" Jo struggled to speak, stunned.

"Barry's not here," Sandy said helpfully.

Annoyed -- she hated it when people tried to finish her sentences -- Jo glanced at the desk on the right hand wall. It looked dusty (also a little blurry). Someone had turned it ninety degrees from the angle she remembered it being set at so that a person sitting there would be facing a wall instead of the room. Too, plastic dust covers hid all the equipment on top of the desk and in place of the large 17" monitor Joel had bought in December, the smaller lump under the dust cover indicated that no one had replaced the old 14" one. The half-partition marking off Joel's old workspace had also migrated to include one of Joel's file cabinets in Sandy's area.

"Do I w-w-w-" Jo began.

"Sure, you can wait for Barry. He should be here soon. Go on into his office if you like," said Sandy. She leaned forward, almost whispering, "Alison isn't here yet, either."

Jo glanced at the other desk in the front room, at the left end next to the door to the break and copy room. Alison Mohr, the office manager, didn't like extra people in the office. Jo wanted to bite her lip. She looked again at her own empty desk and struggled not to cry. "M-m-my...."

Sandy said, "We all miss your brother very much." She looked very solemn while she said it.

"M-my b-b-b-b-" babbled Jo, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She'd heard the expression, "someone walking on my grave" before but now she knew what it meant.

Sandy pointed at the door to the large corner office. "Go on in, hon. Is Barry expecting you?" The other smaller, inner office belonged to Laurence Dunveldt, the legislative assistant who traveled with Barry between Sacramento and Monrovia.

"N-no," said Jo, stuttering on a word she normally had no problem with. It had taken Joel six months to break Sandy of finishing his sentences and now.... Jo fled into Barry's private office to avoid screaming or crying. Joel's dead, I'm my own sister, and my name is Melody? Overwhelmed, she collapsed on the padded leather couch in front of the window.

After sitting for a several minutes trying to take it all in, she got up and sat behind Barry's desk to dial a number that she knew much better than the office number. After two rings, someone picked up.

"Messenger," said a familiar voice.

"M-mom?" Jo said.

"Melody, honey! Where are you? I've been worried sick!"

Before Jo -- or Melody -- could reply, the office door swung open and Barry Aronhaus rushed in with a briefcase in his hand. "For God's sake, Melody," he said, "what are you doing here? You're such a ditz!"

"Melody?" said the phone.

Six feet five of fifty-year-old, blond-but-slightly-balding, ex-quarterback strode across the room, blue eyes shining with alarm. Barry stepped around the desk, set down his briefcase, plucked the phone from Jo's hand and hung it up, practically all at once. "My wife's right behind me, sweetie," he said. Then he kissed her, with tongue, squeezed her ass in one large hand and hustled her toward a connecting door. "Hide in Larry's office till she's gone, would you, Cupcakes?"

He opened the door, patted her ass again and kissed her cheek, then pushed her through and shut and locked the door. Jo stood there, lips burning, breasts aching and with a peculiar warm, wet feeling in her crotch.

Larry, a slender older man entered his office and looked her over. "Barry's a son of a bitch, isn't he?" he said as if it were the beginning of a conversation he had had before. "I told him he couldn't keep his girlfriend and his wife in the same town. It's just asking for trouble."

* * *

Richard watched the tall redhead cross the parking lot with some interest. She'd let the big blond man off at the back door of the office building and driven the huge Mercedes SUV to park it in two parking spaces (it was that big) at the far end of the lot. Richard had taken the last oversize parking spot with the limo but he appreciated that she had gone far from the door before parking the German beast, thoughtfulness not often seen in the rich.

It also gave him more time to watch her walk. She had a long-legged style that actually made him think of Jo. Nearly the same height, taller in heels, slender but with more top and bottom than Jo, she wore her long hair in a thick red braid down the middle of her back. Richard enjoyed watching it swing. "Sweet mama," he said aloud since no one could hear him.

He'd just noted that she might be older than he had first thought -- maybe thirty-five or even forty, but that was no crime -- when it occurred to him that the big blond man had been Aronhaus. Without thinking about his sudden sense of urgency, he bolted from the limo and followed the redhead into the office building.

* * *

"Melody, isn't it? Do you need to sit down?" Larry asked.

Jo nodded and let herself be directed to the padded chair on the client side of the desk. "I don't w-w-w..." She paused, Larry waited patiently. "I don't w-work here?"

"No, dear, that would hardly be wise, do you think?"

She swallowed hard. What the hell is going on? she wanted to ask but restrained herself. "Did--did you know Joel?" she asked instead, wanting to find out what his co-workers thought of her former male self.

Larry nodded. "Very serious young man but he had a sense of humor."

I did? thought Jo.

"Of course," said Larry, "I'm a bit of a nerd, too. When he made a joke about growing tribbles to be made into toupees for bald starship captains, I knew what he was talking about."

Jo smiled, remembering. Larry and Joel had laughed about that one and the one about Klingon plastic wrap that couldn't be removed because after all, it wasn't called Kling-off.

Larry sighed. "I'm sorry you didn't get to know him."

Now what? thought Jo. If Joel was my brother, why wouldn't I know him?

* * *

"I'm not the only one that cheats, I see," said Sophie. She glared across at the seat at Ted the Clarence.

"You left her with no life, no existence in the world. It's not cheating to provide a minimal reality for her. And the memories of living people have not been changed back past the two month window you established, with one exception. And that one willingly, even prayerfully."

The Devil in Drag examined the life thread Ted indicated and snorted. "Well, that's no fun. Heartbreak into joy?"

Ted nodded. "Our stock in trade."

* * *

Richard caught up with the redhead in front of the elevators. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Once in the elevator he said, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but what is that scent you're wearing?" He knew enough not to call it a perfume.

She laughed. "Want some for your girlfriend? It's called 'Mille et Une', from France."

He whistled. "Expensive?"

She nodded. "Pretty much."

He grinned at her, "Oh well. But I'd go as high as one hundred dollars for a half ounce. Of perfume, that is."

She looked at him. "It's only seventy. That's some girlfriend."

Richard nodded, sighing. "Yeah, she is," he said.

The doors opened on the third floor. "She's a lucky girl," the redhead said.

He grinned again, holding the door for her. "Let's hope she thinks so."

He followed her down the hall, until she looked back.

"I'm going to Assemblyman Aronhaus's office," he explained.

"What a coincidence, I'm Cherie Aronhaus and so am I."

He nodded and moved ahead of her to hold the office door. "I'm Richard," he said.

* * *

Larry looked at Jo and frowned. "Did you have a purse?" he asked.

* * *

When Joel's lifeless body had been pulled from the wreckage of the old car she had given him when he moved to Hollywood, Beverly Messenger thought her life had ended. Two days after Thanksgiving and her heart had been torn to shreds, again. God, she had decided, had it in for her. Jonathan, her husband of thirty years had died before his sixtieth birthday, shortly after Joel's college graduation, at least he'd gotten to see that.

And he hadn't had to bury their son. Too many tragedies in too long a life.

Late-born, she'd been thirty-five -- long after Jonathan and she had given up -- they'd named the baby, Joel, "God is willing" it meant, the rabbi said. They'd been so happy with their little man. And years later, another miracle, another pregnancy, but that one had not gone well, a premature, still-born child they'd been told. Heartbreaking but they'd had Joel, such a good boy, bright, thoughtful, well-mannered. They named the little baby girl they never got to hold Miriam on the headstone, "bitterness," and went on.

Then Jonathan died, his heart just gave out, then Joel, God punish all drunk drivers, and all three of them lay under the grass in the Jewish part of a very nice cemetery in the Valley, one beside another with the open place for her between the baby and Jonathan. She'd known she would be going there soon herself, because what did she have to live for? No children, no grandchildren, her sister's kids never came to see her and Joanna living in San Francisco now, so far away, that Chinese gentleman she'd married after her Gregory died had taken her to be close to his family.

And then, just days after she'd buried Joel next to his father, a girl knocked on the door and said, "I think you might be my m-mother." And she looked so very like Joel with her blond hair and green eyes, and she even had the same stutter, though she was so skinny, and so tall for a girl, almost as tall as Joel. But Jonathan's people had all been tall.

There'd been a mixup at the hospital, two tiny babies in incubators, so fragile, and one of them died. But it had been the wrong one. And her name was Melody Jo Thierry, she'd grown up almost in the same neighborhood in the Valley but had gone to different schools. And her foster parents had died the same Thanksgiving weekend Joel had and she'd been injured, had to have her head shaved to operate on it which is why she wore a wig but her hair eventually came back in and it was blond with that ginger cast the same as Joel's.

She couldn't remember much of her life, because of her injury, she'd been knocked about in the wreck herself with a broken arm still in a cast till after New Year's. But in the hospital, she'd found out she couldn't be the daughter of the Thierrys, who had surely loved her like their own and maybe never knew, because she had the wrong blood type. They were A and O and she was type B, just like Joel and Jonathan, and Beverly, too for that matter.

And then they'd had the most wonderful month and a half, discovering each other, and falling in love as mother and daughter. But she wasn't Joel, she was a little wild and headstrong, and she'd gone out to find the brother she'd never known, find out about his life, meet his friends, visit the places he had worked. She hadn't come home to Beverly in days, though she had another home of her own, the Thierrys', since legally she was their daughter still, but she didn't answer the phone there nor her cellphone, for two days.

Then suddenly a call from a very worried and stressed sounding Melody Jo who'd called her Mom, just like she'd started doing that first night they had found each other. Her baby had called her and lifted a stone off Beverly's heart again. She'd call back. Melody was a good girl, if just a little wild. She'd call her mother back.

Beverly Messenger waited by the phone, trying not to worry. She had a child again, and hope someday of grandchildren. Sixty-one wasn't old, with luck and God willing, she might live to hold the babies of Melody's babies on her lap. The girl would call, she loved her mother and Beverly wouldn't think of losing her again.

* * *

"Good God," said the Devil in Drag.

"Exactly," said Ted Clarence.

* * *

Jo frowned. "M-my p-p-purse?"

Larry smiled at her, enjoying the expressiveness of her finely shaped eyebrows. I'd love to get her to pose for a portrait, he thought, even better a full-length nude ... down, boy. The walls of his office bore evidence of his hobby, black-and-white photographs of various subjects from cats to canyons, but no nudes.

He waited, watching Jo puzzle out where she might have left her purse, marveling at the clarity of her skin because he could tell she wore no make-up. And that hair color had to be natural, she'd been wearing a much blonder wig on her previous visits, he knew. He thought the short, re-growing hair had an endearing appeal, though if she looked any more vulnerable he'd probably go in and sock his boss in the jaw. I bet she's photogenic as hell, he thought, lusting to get her in front of a camera.

"M-m-maybe I left it in the car?" said Jo, pretty sure, in fact, that she had not done so.

Larry looked bemused. He went to the door to the outer office, opened it and called, "Sandra, did Miss Thierry have a purse when she came in?"

Miss Teary? thought Jo. Self-conscious, she wiped at the tear tracks she imagined on her face.

"Yes, sir," said Sandy. "She took it with her into Mr. Aronhaus's office." Sandy, seeing Jo sitting in front of Larry's desk, smiled and waved at her.

Jo waved back, like a four-year-old in the back seat, waving at passing cars. She still felt stunned and a bit stupid. I'm dead, but I'm not dead. I'm just a girl and people think I'm Barry's girlfriend?

Larry frowned. "Mrs. Aronhaus is with Barry now?"

"Uh, no."

"Then...?" He motioned toward the door to Barry's office.

Sandy got up quickly and headed for the door. She'd run interference of this sort before. "I didn't know she was coming in today."

Glancing toward the glass door to the hallway, Larry saw Richard reaching for the door to hold it open for Mrs. Aronhaus. "Stay here, I'll be back," he said to Jo and stepped into the outer office, closing the door behind him. "Cherie, how are you this morning?" he said, welcoming Mrs. Aronhaus and allowing Sandy time to slip into Barry's office.

"Oh, I'm fine," said Cherie, smiling back. "Barry and I have a beefuss meeting at nine, so I came along to make sure he doesn't forget. Oh, this is Richard. Richard are you coming in?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Richard wondering where Jo might be. "I brought a friend here earlier...."

"Oh, you're Melody's friend, Miss Thierry's friend?" asked Larry. Guy looks like a wolf, he thought, Barry wouldn't be happy.

"Uh, yes?" Mystery Melody? Melody Mystery? "I'm Joel's roommate? Didn't Joel work here?"

"Oh, yes, and we miss him terribly," said Larry. He smiled, not having to fake sincerety, Joel had been his friend. "So you're helping Melody find her brother?"

"Um," said Richard, confused. Wasn't Joel supposed to be dead? If so, why would anybody want to find him? A brief but vivid image of a zombie Joel saying, "B-b-b-brains!" attacked his mental processes, distracting him.

Cherie Aronhaus started around the desks toward the door to Barry's's office.

Larry tried to think of something to say to delay Cherie a moment or two longer. "Sandy's in there," he said.

"So?" Cherie hesitated, catching a whiff of some unstated message.

Richard stared at Cherie's butt, wondering what he'd been wondering about. Why does she look sort of like Jo to me?

* * *

Inside Larry's office, the connecting door opened. Barry Aronhaus stuck his head through, saw Jo and lobbed an easy one to her. She almost missed it, even though Barry's toss would have put it right in her lap. "Be more careful about leaving stuff in my office, sweetie," Barry chided. "My wife is coming in." Then he ducked through the door and re-locked it.

Jo stared after him, clutching the bag in one hand. What the hell? she thought. Jo had suffered repeated shocks, struggled with denial, and now felt -- insulted. She glanced down at herself; yes, she was still an attractive young woman who had just been called "Sweetie," by her -- or rather Joel's -- old boss. She still felt a few odd tingles from Barry's earlier manhandling of her, too -- and what was going on with that?

She began to get angry. One thing Joel had always detested was having his intelligence insulted. Whatever had happened to her, with Joel apparently considered dead for some time and some doppelganger with her new face running around -- getting into who knew what! -- whatever had happened, despite the traitorous arousal of her new body, she knew she didn't like being called "sweetie" the way Barry had said it.

"Who the hell does he think he is?" She railed at the closed and locked connecting door. "Kissing me! P-pinching me! I am not his -- girlfriend!" Standing suddenly, she marched to the door to the outer office and flung it open.

Barry had just opened the door to his office to let Sandy out and Cherie in. Richard had just said to Larry, "I thought her last name was Messenger, same as Joel's. Terry? How do you spell that?"

"Richard!" said Jo.

"Jo?" said Richard, turning to look.

Taking only a moment to glare at Barry, Jo stalked up to Richard, put her arms on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe a bit and kissed him on the mouth. "Let's go home," she said. After another scathing glance at Barry, she added, "Sweetie. Okay, huh?"

* * *

Richard got Jo out of there as quickly as he could; he'd picked up on the byplay but wasn't sure if it were Barry or Larry who'd been the target of Jo's vengeance-kiss. He suspected Barry because Larry had looked too tickled by it and Aronhaus had ducked back into his office.

But that kiss.

In the elevator, Jo and Richard looked sideways at each other. Jo had her arms crossed and her fisted hands tucked under each opposite elbow. Why did I kiss him? she railed at herself. She'd kept it to just a peck on the lips but she'd leaned against his body to do it, and that had had some totally unexpected implications -- not to mention sensations.

"Why did you kiss me?" Richard asked once they were in the parking lot.

Jo had kept her distance. She sighed, rubbed her forehead and didn't look at him. "B-barry p-pinched m-my b-b-b-butt and called me sweetie. And Larry thinks I'm B-barry's girlfriend! And just what the hell has been going on b-behind m-my b-back while I w-w-was dead?"

"While you were dead?" Richard stopped, squinched his eyes tightly closed and reopened them. Joel had seldom used a word like hell, but Jo had reason he supposed -- still that question stonkered him, momentarily. "You're pissed," he noted, reaching for the handle of the limo's back door.

"No, I'm sitting up front this time," said Jo. She pulled the other handle, the weight of the front door of the limo took her by surprise and Richard caught it easily from her. She glared at him.

"What? Doors are sometimes heavy, that's one reason guys open them for girls."

"W-well, I'm still p-pissed so don't expect much of a thank you." She repeated the earlier lesson Richard had given her and slipped inside as if she had been doing it for much longer than just an hour. She didn't really recognize that her talent for kinesthetic memory seemed much greater than Joel's had been.

"You're welcome," said Richard. He closed the door before she could answer and sped around the car to get in the driver's seat.

"Can I use the ph-phone?" Jo asked.

He showed her how to use the built-in driver's phone, surreptitiously leaving it in hands-free speaker mode. Jo dialed.

"Hello?"

"M-mom, it's me again," said Jo. "Sorry, I got interrupted earlier."

Richard boggled but said nothing.

"Oh, that's okay, dear. I hadn't heard from you in a couple of days, so you know how I am, I got a little worried." Beverly Messenger sounded happy.

Richard stared at Jo, then started the car and wheeled out of the lot, heading toward the freeway. He could drive and listen at the same time.

"I'm f-fine, mom. Richard's p-playing chauffeur for me." Unexpectedly, Jo giggled. At least, Jo didn't expect it.

Richard grinned and Jo's mom, Beverly, laughed. "Well, where are you, hon? Could you come by for lunch, maybe?" She sounded just as anxious as any mother asking a grown child to visit her.

Jo glanced at Richard. "Jo needs to do some shopping," Richard said out loud. Oh, shit, is she Jo or Melody? They were calling her Melody at the office, too. "Uh, and I've got a fare in Burbank at eleven, so if I left her in Town Center could you run up and get her?"

"Well, sure," said Beverly sounding anything but sure. "Doesn't Melody live in Burbank, off of Sunset, there?"

"Uh? What's the address?" Richard asked quickly.

"Go ahead and tell him, M-mom," said Jo, grateful for the finesse.

She turned out to have a good excuse for not attempting it. "544 Via Buena Vista," said Beverly. "Are you having trouble remembering things again, hon?" she asked.

Startled, Jo nodded, then said. "Uh, yeah." It would be just too convenient a claim since she, in fact, didn't remember the details of Melody's life at all. Maybe I've fallen into a parallel world? But Melody's mom sure sounds exactly like my mom. She looked sideways. And Richard is Richard, why am I the only one who's a different person?

"Poor baby, keep your sunglasses on so you don't get one of those headaches again. How about you give me a call later and I can come there or you can come here? I'd love to get another chance to drive your little Cooper." Mrs. Messenger's giggle sounded just like Jo's. "And Richard? You must be on your carphone; you call Melody, Jo?"

"Uh," said Richard."Well, she reminds me so much of--of Joel?" He looked at Jo, shrugged then mouthed, You've got a Cooper? She shrugged. From the console, he produced a spare pair of aviators and handed them to Jo.

"Sure, and it is her middle name," said Mom.

Jo giggled again, now if I just knew how to spell my last name. She tried on the sunglasses, pulling down the mirror on the visor to look at herself. The headache she'd seemed to be developing began to recede. She smiled at Richard, feeling an odd warmth. The shades looked -- sexy on her and now Richard had a pair on, too.

"Which do you prefer, hon? Melody or Jo?" asked Mom.

"Uh. W-well, Richard started calling me 'Jo' and I kind of like it." Another giggle tried to bubble up but she suppressed it. "At least I can say it."

"Well, then, I'll call you that, too. And you can always keep using 'Melody' professionally, I suppose," said Mom.

* * *

"You had to give her a Cooper?" groused Sophie.

"It's a turbo," said Ted. "The Thierrys' never actually had children but when they were offered the chance to posthumously spoil a daughter retroactively, they jumped at it. Now what's this 'profession' joker you just slipped into the pack?"

Sophie giggled, pleased with herself.

The game between Ted the Clarence and the Devil in Drag continues with the hearts of Richard and Jo as playing pieces....
 

Blue Moon 6.1-6.5

by Donna Lamb

 

 

Richard pulled the limo down the hill into the tree-shaded lane beside the three-story house on Via Buena Vista. Behind the house, the lane turned and widened into the apron of a two-car garage set well below the level of the street out front. The house and garage were both a pale shade of gray-blue with darker trim. The roof of the garage supported a second story deck for the upper floors of the house and there looked to be a narrow patio on the far side of the garage. A backyard full of fescue and blue grass continued down the hill, with a short steep portion eased by stone-inlaid steps, to a small building and a pool. Lemon trees shaded the lawn and an eight-foot high redwood fence covered in something leafy and green kept the neighbors out.

"Jo," said Richard. "I think you're rich." He opened the door and started around the limo to get hers.

Jo surprised both of them by bursting into tears when Richard opened the door. She hadn't even unfastened her belt. He stood there considering why she might be crying. "Too much?" he asked.

"Uh huh." Jo nodded, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hand. Richard tucked her sunglasses into her purse, handed it to her and pointed out the box of tissues set in the under dash. She used one to blow her nose. "I don't know why I have to cry about it, b-but three hours ago, I didn't even own any clothes! And if you say anything about hormones, I'll p-punch you in the b-b-gonads." She tried to get out without opening the seat belt and nearly submarined herself under the dash.

Richard didn't laugh but just gave her a hand to pull herself up then helped her out and shut the door. "Thanks," said Jo. She didn't let go of his hand for a moment, it felt good to hold on to someone. Besides, a mini-dress in January might be possible in California but it wasn't the warmest thing to be wearing. She had goosebumps on her arms. Richard retrieved a hip-length leather coat from the trunk and offered it. "Thanks," she said again, thinking he deserved more for being so -- thoughtful. He held the coat for her, she slipped it on and stuffed the small purse in one of the pockets.

Through windows beside the garage, they could see a long room, almost the width of the house, lined in bookcasess, with a pool table at one end, a big screen TV at the other and an upright piano between. "Family room," said Richard. "You play piano, don't you?" Somehow, they were holding hands again. Both pretended not to notice.

"A little. How do w-we get in? I don't have a key." She squeezed his hand a moment for reassurance. This is scaring the heck out of me, she thought. It's like a haunted house.

Richard didn't want to let her hand go either, though he couldn't exactly say why. Melody Jo somehow seemed more real than a girl named Jo who used to be his roommate, Joel. Still holding hands, they looked for the spare key they figured had to be there. Richard finally found it in a magnetic case on the hood above the light on the pool house. Jo giggled. "Good p-place to hide it," Jo said.

"I dunno, we found it, so could a burglar."

Walking back up to the house, Jo pulled her hand free from Richard's, blushing a bit. Richard pretended not to mind. He let her go up the little yard steps first, admiring her slender legs.

The key didn't open the pool house or the garage but did open the patio door to the family room. They tiptoed in, feeling like intruders. Jo flicked on lights; the back of the house, being on the north-facing slope of a canyon, didn't get much light from the winter sun. Richard opened the door to the garage. "I want to see the Cooper, if it's here."

"If it isn't do I report it stolen?" asked Jo.

Richard flicked more lights and laughed, then stood out of the way for Jo to see. In the nearer stall, just past two doors in a narrow hall, sat a nearly new Mini Cooper.

"It's p-pink!" Jo protested.

"It's got a white roof," said Richard.

"I didn't even know they came in p-pink!"

"You must have had it specially painted."

"I did not!"

"Well, Melody did. If you won't drive it, I will. It's got a turbo, too. That's not standard either."

"The thing on the hood?"

"Through the hood, yeah. You could get these with a supercharger from the factory but somebody put a turbo kit on instead."

"Turbocharger?"

"Yeah. You want me to explain the difference?"

"No," said Jo. "Let's look at the rest of the house." Not knowing about cars made her feel very girly just then, but after all, Richard drove for a living. "What time is it?"

"I've got about an hour," said Richard. Time enough to find the bedrooms, he didn't say.

The rest of the lower floor turned out to be a laundry room, a wine cellar, some storage and a small bedroom partly filled with the sort of junk that accumulates in such unused places. "Maid's room, maybe," said Richard.

Jo paused to flip up the keyboard cover on the piano and play a one-handed arpeggio. "Seems to be in tune,"she said, pleased. She flipped the cover back down. "Let's go upstairs, got to find some keys somewhere."

Richard flipped the cover back up, and standing there, played a familiar pounding chorus. He sang, "Goodness gracious! Great Balls of Fire!" Then he spun away from the piano and stopped, grinning at Jo.

She laughed. "You look more like Elvis than Little Richard."

"Little Richard? That's Jerry Lee Lewis!"

"Yes, but you're Richard. I forgot you said you used to be in a b-band."

He grinned at her. "You really think I look like Elvis?"

She moved her head in a gesture that meant never mind. "Why did you quit? That wasn't bad."

He flipped the keyboard cover back down. "Too much drugs in that scene, our lead guitarist O.D.'d."

"I'm sorry," she touched his arm. "I played in a band in high school, but mostly I did the tech stuff. We weren't very good."

"What did you play?"

"Uh, keyboards. You?"

"Drums, mostly, but keyboards or rhythm guitar when I sang." He looked back at the piano. "Keyboards, huh? So you're pretty good?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Let's see what's upstairs." She turned and started up the steps.

Richard followed, admiring the view. "I really do want to see your bedroom."

"M-melody's bedroom, you mean. Don't get any w-wild ideas." She reached behind her to tug her skirt down.

* * *

In a vehicle somewhere between Hell and Heaven, the Devil in Drag snarled, "Exotic dancer! Nude model!"

Ted the Clarence responded. "Classical pianist," he said, his voice calm.

"Oh, come on! Where's the opportunity for sin in that?"

"You're trying to arrange history, not opportunity. There'll be none of that."

Sophie chewed a fingernail, a bad habit she'd picked up back in Egypt.

"Can we compromise?" she suggested.

"A bargain with the devil? I think not."

"Oh, c'mon, Ted. You've won some points, how am I supposed to tempt them if I'm not allowed a few temptations?"

Ted sighed. "No more cheating," he warned.

"All right! Thanks, Clarence, you're a sweetie."

"Oh, barf!"

* * *

Upstairs, the level of the street, contained a living room, dining room and master bedroom, all with doors onto the wide deck. It also had a big modernized kitchen and a small, cluttered office. Jo booted up the computer in the office while Richard looked through the small pile of mail under the mail slot in the wall.

"The place seems pretty clean," he remarked.

"Um?" said Jo. "P-password." She tried a few things, including password. The sleeves of the leather coat Richard loaned her got in her way, so she pulled the coat off and draped it around her shoulders. The house wasn't warm but it wasn't cold either.

Richard looked at an envelope. "Apparently your last name is spelled, 'T-h-i-e-r-r-y'. Is that French?"

"Mais oui," said Jo. She typed that into the password box, too, then began picking things up and looking at the underside of the objects on the desk.

"I love it when you speak French," said Richard in a Raul Julia growl.

Jo suppressed a giggle, looked at him sideways then typed, "bluemoon" into the password box. It worked. "This is M-melody's dad's computer. He's ... he was an executive at Sony," she said after a bit.

"Pictures, Music or Electronics?"

"P-p-pictures," she said. "Columbia Properties Licensing Office, whatever that means. Looks like he dealt with, um, cable stations showing old m-movies."

"Cool. Explains the nice house." Richard put some envelopes in front of her. "You don't seem to have picked up your mail all week."

Jo rubbed her forehead. "M-m-merde," she said.

Richard laughed then looked concerned. "Your mom said you've been getting headaches."

"Yeah, right behind my eyes. Maybe we should try to find my glasses?" She stared at one object on the desk, a framed photograph of a tall, dark haired man with a woman on one arm and a teen-age girl in a cheerleading costume on the other. "Double shit," she muttered when she realized who the girl must be.

"Hey," said Richard, noticing where she was looking. "Is that you? You were a cheerleader?"

"M-m-melody, not m-me!"

"Still," said Richard. "Bet you --she-- was popular, so cute." He admired the picture, thinking, Oh yeah.

Jo frowned, remembering Joel's high school years. He'd been a pudgy kid before he suddenly shot up in the summer before his junior year. Shy, pimply, nerdy, his one taste of popularity had occurred when the neighborhood garage band he'd joined had won a band competition. Then he'd dropped out of the band, he remembered, and that had been that -- back to the obscurity of computer club and D&D on Friday nights.

"There's other pictures on the wall," Richard pointed out.

Jo looked. Melody wearing a bright blue, leather mini with a sparkly pink top, fronting at keyboards for a band that might have been the one Joel had played with except the kids had different, older faces and better, more expensive equipment. The drum had a logo, Melodie and Harmo-Noise. Another picture showed a younger Melody in Elizabethan costume. A pre-teen Melody in a tutu and one in a Brownie uniform. "Triple shit," said Jo, "I don't remember any of this stuff!"

They stared at one another a moment. "Yeah," said Richard, "do-doo-do-doo do-doo-do-doo."

"The w-w-worst of it," said Jo, trying not to cry again. "I know they loved her."

"Melody? Yeah." He pointed at a glass case against the wall, filled with the sort of memorabilia one collected during the life of a favored child. Award plaques, graduation pictures, odd little sculptures made by immature hands. "You even won a dance contest," Richard noted.

"I can't dance!"

"Who's the dude with the liplock on you?" asked Richard. A framed picture on top of a case showed a teen-age couple dressed for a prom, kissing; the girl, Melody, wore her long, ginger hair in a braid and her green gown matched her eyes; the boy wore a tux in a peculiar violet shade and stood an inch or so less than the girl in her heels.

"That's not m-m-me!" Jo protested again.

Richard stopped himself from pointing at another picture. "Let's go see what's in the kitchen," he suggested.

Jo got up from the desk and quickly left the room.

* * *

"Artifacts without substance, none of these things existed," Ted pointed out. "Melody never led a band or joined the cheer squad or went to a prom with a boy named Kevin. The past we created for her had nothing so dramatic in it that we would have had to change memories to accommodate."

Sophie nodded. "Paper trail only, records have been altered but no memories. People trust records more anyway. Well, this is like that, right? I just made a few mementos to back up the records."

Ted frowned, "You're up to something."

"Nil vulnero, nil turpis; in alveobolos, veritas," Bill Z. Bubb commented from the driver's seat.

"What? That's atrocious. Dog Latin, and bad dog Latin at that."

"In atrocite, veritas," said Sophie. She laughed.

"Bolos isn't Latin, it's Greek, and it doesn't mean ball, it means lump," Ted complained.

"Relevo, Theo," said Sophie, smirking.

"Oh, lighten up, yourself. You're trying to set up a gambit, I can smell it." He shook a finger at her. "How would you like to contemplate calendar reform, hm? Thirteen months of twenty-eight days each with an intercalary yule. No more Strangefellows Days, no more walkng the Earth in that - that costume!"

"Never happen," said Sophie quickly. "Mortals are a lot more contrary than that. Your precious free will and all; they like things messy."

"I'm watching you," said Ted the Clarence.

"Ohh, Ted!" she cooed.

* * *

"There's food in the fridge, I guess you've been living here," said Richard, holding the door open. "Salad stuff, Diet Coke, a cold roasted chicken from Von's, fruit yogurt, skim milk." He made a face. No beer, though the liquor cabinet in the dining room held single malt, premium vodka and various liqueurs and the wine cellar downstairs had several expensive looking bottles.

He retrieved two Diet Cokes and opened them, taking one to where Jo stood at the bottom of the stairs to the third floor. He handed her one of the cans and sipped his while she took a sizable gulp of hers. "You underage?" he asked.

She shrugged. "That graduation p-picture, the date was only two years ago. I thought about that." She frowned. "When I w-was six, when Joel was six, M-mom went to the hospital and the next week we b-buried a b-baby, a sister. I'd f-forgotten all about that."

"Wow?" He sipped at his drink some more, considering. "You think you're that sister now? Got raised by this Thierry couple, mixup in the hospital or something?"

She nodded. "It w-would make some sense. Mom must know? I think I'm nineteen then, maybe twenty. Or M-melody was. Do I look nineteen?" She turned to him self-consciously.

He nodded, smiling. "Or sixteen or twenty-five, you got classic bones, kid." He grinned. "And you're stalling cause you don't want to go up and see your bedroom."

She sighed. "M-m-melody's b-bedroom." But she started up the stairs. "I still can't f-figure out how this could happen. And I don't think it has anything to do with w-w-wishes, that's just stupid."

"Yeah? So what do you think happened?"

Jo stopped, turned and looked down at Richard, catching him looking up at her legs. She yanked at the hem of her skirt. "Remind me to let you go up stairs f-first from now on."

"Check," said Richard. He didn't seem embarrassed at all. I'm really starting to think of her as Joel's sister, I guess. She's sure not Joel anymore. "So you have a theory?"

She nodded, standing aside on the stair and motioning Richard to go ahead of her. "P-p-parallel w-worlds," she said. But Richard brushing past her on the stairwell made her feel strange, and then music began playing upstairs. "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" by Irving Berlin played on a very tinny sounding piano. It took them both a moment to realize it must be a cellphone.

Richard scrambled on up, opening the first door on the right at the top of the stairs. Jo followed him into the bedroom of a teen-age girl just turning into a woman. Eight stuffed animals crowded the large bed -- everything from an aardvark to a zebra, literally -- surrounding a big straw purse and matching hat. The ringing came from the purse. Richard retrieved it and handed it to Jo. A little woven pocket just inside the bag held a tiny pink phone.

Jo flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Is this Melody Thierry?" asked a male voice.

"W-who's calling?" Jo asked. Who knows me? Knows Melody? Someone from those pictures downstairs?

"Smart girl," said the voice. "This is Tom K. Harmon. I found a packet on my desk with a note to call Melody Thierry at this number."

"Uh," said Jo. "I'm M-melody Jo Thierry." She rolled her eyes as Richard grinned at her. Well, I am, apparently.

"I've got your glossies here but your resume is kind of thin. What's your natural hair color? Strawberry blond?"

"Sort of, darker though, m-more like ginger. Um, you're an agent?" Glossies? Pictures? At first, I thought he said glasses, and I do need to look for them. But the man on the phone went on.

"Oh, yeah, sugar. I'm not sure I need any more clients right now but you've got a good look in the photos. Camera likes you. Jeff Sherman took the pictures?"

"That's what it says, isn't it?" Jo guessed, trying not to sound smart ass about it. I don't know? Jeff Sherman? She thought she might have heard of him, somewhere.

"Sure, hey, look, can you get over here today? We could do lunch? Ha, ha. I could look you over, you look me over, decide if we want to do business." He sounded sincere -- and interested. Jo began to form a mental image of the man, tall, with a dark, brown mustache, receding hairline, Ray-Bans. Middle-aged but kind of -- cute? She tried to shake the image -- and the thought -- as soon as it occurred to her.

Richard began to get antsy hearing only half the conversation. He looked around the room, taking in the poster of Orlando Bloom as Legolas with a grin. An L-shaped desk in one corner held a computer and accessories. A corner-shaped glass-cabinet held various dolls and battered-looking, old, stuffed toy animals. A long vanity had three wigstands near one end with a shoulder-length golden blond wig, a page boy platinum and an extravagantly long auburn. The blond wig looked like natural hair. The top of the vanity held the usual feminine weaponry.

Jo bit her lip, making a decision. "Okay, M-mister Harmon. Uh? Three o'clock?" She looked at Richard who nodded; she frowned, he frowned and shook his head and raised his eyebrows. She nodded firmly. "Okay, uh, Tom -- and I usually go b-by Jo. Uh-huh. Thanks." She closed the phone and stared at it.

"You made an appointment to see an agent?" Richard asked.

"He called me!" Jo ran a hand through her hair, wondering what the glossies Tom had showed. My hair is so short.

"What kind of agent?"

Jo startled. "I didn't think to ask, but I guess, uh, m-modeling?" She waved a hand. "He had glossies and, and, I don't think acting. I m-mean, to b-b-be or not to b-b-be?" She shook her head. "Do you think I could do m-m-modeling? That's just standing around, uh, looking p-pretty." She blushed but she did know what she looked like.

Richard tried to be thoughtful and not smile at her naivete. "Almost any kind of agent needs glossies. How far are you prepared to go with this? I mean," he waved a hand, "this house? I think you're not hurting for money? Do you need a job?"

"I don't know," said Jo. "But that's what I was talking about on the stair. M-melody and I have switched p-places, like universes in stereo?" Richard looked blank so she tried the other phrase. "P-p-parallel w-worlds. I can't just go m-messing up her life. W-what if w-we switched b-back?"

"You think that's gonna happen?" Richard sounded skeptical.

"I don't know. B-but it m-might. I think it could? It happened once, why not again?" She waved the hand holding the phone; it rang just then, startling her into dropping it. With a bump and a bounce, it clattered under the bed. Jo put a hand to her mouth and squeaked.

Richard handed the phone to Jo after retrieving it from under the bed, noting that the hardwood floor seemed clean and free from dust bunnies. Maid service, probably. Still on his knees, he presented the phone to Jo with a flourish.

Frowning at him, Jo answered, "Hello?"

"Baby, that was brilliant! Totally defused Cherie before she even suspected a thing!" The big voice came through the tiny phone just fine.

"B-b-b-barry?" Jo squeaked again.

"You're the greatest, babe. Kiss, kiss." It was indeed Barry making osculations into his phone.

Jo sputtered. Richard reached for the phone thinking, How dare that bastard call her! Jo wouldn't let him have the phone though; moving, turning away and scowling -- either at him or Barry, he couldn't tell.

"I love you, too, baby," said Barry, mistaking the noises for more kisses. "But I've got to go, I'm at breakfast with Cherie and some other biddies. Meet you at nine tonight, at Wrangler Jill's, wear something, um, skimpilicious."

"B-b-b-b-b-b-b-!" said Jo, quite literally speechless.

"B'bye, baby-boo!" said Barry. He hung up, still clueless and self-satisfied, imagining Melody in a short dress like she had worn to the office only with heels and makeup, jewelry and smiles. Hot Damn. Melody reminded him of Cherie at that age, before he'd left his first wife. He turned the phone off again and slipped it into his pocket and smiling, went back to his current wife.

"Damn it!" Jo stabbed callback -- glaring at Richard this time, surely -- while she waited for it to ring. Richard watched in awe; Melody Jo angry was intriguing to see. Her eyes flashed green, her cheeks glowed and her movements had that abrupt grace of hunting cats. Wow, he thought, isn't she something?

"The party you are calling is unavailable," the phone said into Jo's ear. "If you'd like to leave a message, start speaking at the tone. Beep."

"Screw you, Aronhaus!" Jo shouted into the handset, then snapped the phone closed. She turned away from Richard and glared at the glass case full of babydolls, bears and bunnies.

"You know, " said Richard without thinking it all the way through, "it's possible that you have been. Screwing Aronhaus, I mean." He ducked when Jo turned around with the phone raised to throw at him.

"M-m-m-I'm not a slut!" she shouted. "Richard, you are a dick! A dickless dick-dildo of a dick!" She didn't throw the phone but suddenly spun back around, tossed the phone on the bed and bent down in front of the glass corner cabinet. "Dunny!" she said, pointing.

"What?" The dickless accusation had stung Richard's pride; he didn't think it fair, just or accurate. True, it had been stupid to speculate on whether Melody had bedded Barry Aronhaus. Especially out loud. Jo angry wasn't nearly as cute when she was angry at him. Still sexy though, he decided. But she's definitely wrong about the dickless thing. He looked at her ass sticking up in the air as she struggled with the latch of the cabinet. Definitely not dickless, oh no.

Jo opened the glass door and took out a bedraggled, stained, loose-limbed, plush rabbit about eighteen inches long, including ears. "Dunny!" she said again. "It's Dunny, I thought I lost him twenty years ago!" She stood, leaving the cabinet open, then sat on the bed, the happy-sad bunny in her lap.

"The rabbit?" said Richard, getting a clue. Dunny?

Jo nodded, stroking the soft fabric of the very old toy. She had a far away look for a moment. "I remember now, w-when the b-baby died, I told them she could have my Dunny to take with her to Heaven so she wouldn't be scared. And she kept him for me, and now I've got him b-back." She hugged the limp toy. "Thank you, sis."

* * *

Sophie snarled, "Is that the same damned rabbit?"

Ted smiled. "You'd better believe it. Miriam wanted Melody Jo to have it. So she wouldn't be scared. We retrieved it from the grave, cleaned it up so it's just like it was when Joel gave it away. The real Miriam, Jo's real little sister."

"And you accuse me of cheating," Sohie grumbled. But she had to admire the slickness of the trick.

"Heartbreak into joy, our stock in trade," said Ted with satisfaction.

* * *

"It's a m-message," said Jo. She had the expression of someone completely convinced by a new truth.

"What's a message?" Richard asked cautiously.

"Dunny is. He's a message from my sister." Jo sat on the edge of the bed and stroked the soft faux fur of the yellow-brown toy rabbit. "She's okay and she's happy and she doesn't need him anymore so she sent him back to me." Jo smiled up at Richard. "She didn't want me to be scared."

Richard stared at her. "Jo, that doesn't make much sense?"

"I don't care," said Jo. "It's not about m-making sense." She hugged the rabbit again and played with its loose limbs and floppy ears. "It's about things working out. I know why I gave Dunny to M-miriam and now I've got him back, so somebody sent him. I think it she did it. And he's a m-message only I could understand."

"Uh," said Richard. She does look all happy and relaxed now. "I guess. But, didn't they make thousands of those rabbits? I'm sure I've seen them before."

"B-but this is Dunny," said Jo. She turned one ankle of the bunny up to show a spot mended with dark brown thread in a curiously angular hourglass-like pattern. "See? And the ears are stitched with w-white thread where I chewed on them."

"Okay," said Richard, unconvinced but willing to concede. What kid wouldn't chew on the ears of a plush rabbit? "But why is the -- bunny a message?"

"You don't think everything that's happened to me is random, do you? That w-wouldn't m-make sense at all. Joel is dead and I'm alive and I've got every good reason to be scared out of m-my m-mind but Dunny here m-means that things are going to be okay. I'm supposed to b-be here, I b-bet." She turned to look at herself in the large lighted mirror over the vanity, leaning a bit closer to make the image less blurry. "M-maybe it's like Quantum Leap and I'm supposed to do something to m-make things right."

Richard opened his mouth but then closed it. Shut up, he told himself. Her ideas are just as good as yours on this because you really don't have any.

But she reminded him."You thought it might be a w-wish one of us m-made. M-maybe it w-was." She stopped to touch her short hair which at sometime had stopped looking like a boy's haircut and more like the sort of shearing that might have been done in an emergency room. A narrow swatch above her left ear seemed to have been shaved with six or eight weeks of slightly redder re-growth showing. She could feel a narrow ridge of scar tissue there and wondered what might have happened.

Richard made a decision. Pulling out his own cellphone, he speed-dialed his dispatch office. "I need to cancel my run this morning, Carmen, in fact, my whole shift for a couple of days," he said. He listened patiently while Carmen told him just why he couldn't do that. "Doesn't matter," he said into the phone."There's no way I can make a pickup at the airport and run all over the county today, a personal emergency has come up."

Jo knelt to replace the tea-colored rabbit in the glass case, remembering that she should keep her knees together. It didn't feel at all awkward to do so. "You stay here, Dunny," she said to the rabbit. "It'll b-be safer. I'm a b-big girl now and just knowing you're safe is enough. I'd look silly carrying you everywhere." She giggled as she re-latched the door of the case. Some of the other toys in there looked familiar, too. Later, she promised them.

"I don't care," Richard told Carmen. "Dock my pay, I'm taking at least two days off and you can fine me another day to hire someone else in my place. Uh-huh. Okay." He closed the phone, looking at Jo. "I may have to make that pickup at the airport, after all, then meet someone somewhere and trade vehicles, they need that bus." Bus being the word limo drivers at Richard's agency used for the oversize, stretched Lincolns and Mercedes they used.

"I'm sorry," Jo told Richard. "I didn't ask you to stay w-with m-me. But I appreciate it." Looking at Richard she did feel gratitude and something else -- something that made her lips tingle, and other parts of her, too. Confused, she turned away. He's so tall and good-looking, -- well, I knew that before. But it sure as heck is different now.

He could see her blush in the mirror and his guess as to why made him smile in a self-satisfied, testosterone-laced, but essentally confused way. "Don't worry about it. Some of the drivers pull worse stuff all the time. My job is safe." But maybe you're not, he added to himself. She looks less like Joel all the time.

"Can I ride along with you? I don't w-want to stay here alone right now." She didn't turn back to look at him. Too many things going on she didn't understand. If he looked at me and grinned like I've seen him grin at some women.... She avoided completing the thought.

"Sure," said Richard. "Maybe we can find you some black slacks and jacket with a white shirt. Then you'd look like a spare driver deadheading along, instead of..." He trailed off. His phone rang and he answered it.

Jo felt grateful for the idea of changing clothes, as a distraction. She began trying doors in the large bedroom. The first opened on a long room the blurry outlines of which seemed to contain electric pianos, computer desks, music stands and amplifiers. The second door opened on a dressing room with a luxury bath at one end and a walk-in closet at the other. Scattered across one counter, Jo discovered contact lens equipment -- packages of disposable lenses, solutions and such -- and on a funny little rack shaped like the face of a kitten, a pair of gold-framed glasses.

Jo tried them on then turned to look at her own reflections in the numerous mirrors. She hadn't really seen herself without some blurring and double vision so far. "Oh crap," she muttered when the full impact of her new looks soaked in. "I'm not just p-pretty, I'm dangerous!"

 

Blue Moon 7.0

by Donna Lamb

 

Richard stuck his head in, "Yeah, I need to head to the airport pretty quickly. Patch will send another driver to meet us with my car but Lorio has to come up from Torrance so the client at the airport may be ready to ride before he can get there." He paused. "Nice glasses."

Jo frowned at him. "I don't know how to w-wear contacts, so I don't have much choice."

"I wasn't kidding, they look nice. But you don't really need them unless you're driving or working on a computer, huh?"

"I guess so, though it's nice to actually see stuff without f-feeling like I need to squint." She pulled the glasses off and looked at him. "Anything further than arm's length is b-blurry and at ten feet or so, I start seeing double."

"Well, I guess you traded your twenty-twenty for that body," said Richard then ducked back through the door as she looked for something to throw at him. "Just kidding. Think you can find some black slacks and jacket and a white blouse in that warehouse?"

"I guess so. B-be good to get out of this short skirt," said Jo. "Do I have time for a quick shower?"

Richard, still on the other side of the door considered. "No. You're a girl now, there's no such thing as a quick shower for a girl."

"All right f-for you, Richard," she threatened but without conviction. Taking a shower had been a momentary impulse and she really did think she might dawdle to explore if she had the time. Now that she felt convinced she would probably be female for the rest of her life.... Wait. When did I decide that?

"Hey," Richard called through the door. "You've got a regular studio in here." He'd found the long room full of musical instruments and electronics.

"Later," she said. She found the light switch in the walk-in closet and began to search though the clothing, looking for some full-length black slacks and a jacket.

Richard explored the studio, finding the equipment to be mostly new, expensive and of high quality -- as far as he could tell, at any rate. A large studio-style soundboard with computer monitor and keyboard dominated one corner with cables snaking to various stations around the room. The walls and windows had been covered in some thick, but detachable sound-proofing and the ceiling rehung about a foot lower than the rest of the top floor. Sound could apparently be recorded and mixed both acoustically and electronically. Half a million dollars, at least, Richard guessed.

He sat at the drums and tapped out a thoughtful rhythm, feeling for the skill he'd once been proud of. He'd never been a stylist or a real professional but a good, amateur drummer who'd begun to make a living at it before his band self-destructed. He set a strong backbeat on the bass and played with the snare and cymbals like he might while warming up a crowd. And he smiled. After a bit he ventured into a drum solo, using the toms and cymbals. He'd left the door to the bedroom propped open in case Jo called him.

In the walk-in, Jo finally found a full-length pair of lightweight black trousers. Half a dozen pairs had either been too short or too heavy. "Oh, my gosh, I think these are silk," she said, awed. A short jacket on the next hanger proved to be the match for the slacks but she could find no simple white shirt. The plainest shirt, okay, it's a blouse, had pleats down the front and a lacy self-bow at the collar. It too seemed to be made of some silken fabric, one Joel had never encountered.

The silky, sensuality of the cloth gave Jo a peculiar thrill. She felt her nipples crinkle just running the blouse though her fingers. "Damn it! I'm going to have to w-wear a b-b-bra w-with this!" With perfect timing, Richard did a drum roll ending with a clash of cymbals in the other room. "Oh, b-be quiet," Jo said. "I've got to start some time, I guess."

* * *

Jo found a drawer full of bras in the drawers under the vanity in the dressing room. A colorful assortment of styles and fabrics simply confused her. "I've only got two tits, why do I need so m-many b-b-bras?" There didn't seem to be any plain white ones, the nearest she could find being white with pale yellow decorative lace. The cups seemed very soft, even plush. "P-p-padding? I guess it w-wouldn't hurt," she said. "I'm not exactly P-pam Anderson up top."

Giggling a little, she stripped off the little black dress and examined her reflection in the full-length tri-fold mirrors. "W-w-wow," she murmured. "There's not a lot of m-me but what's there is cherce." She stared for a bit, then frowned. "I'm not the least turned on looking at a naked girl, b-because it's m-m-me?" She turned, trying a pose or two, recognizing the sexiness of her image but apparently immune to the impact.

What if Richard could see me? she thought. Her nipples got instantly hard. Oh, crud, am I in trouble. And I'm definitely going to have to wear a bra.

In the studio, Richard stopped playing with the drums and looked at some of the other stuff in the room. He found a filing cabinet beside the sound board and opened it up. Mostly full of sheet music, a few bills, invoices, warranty papers and the like. The third drawer down, though seemed to be full of packets, nine-by-twelve manila envelopes, all stuffed to the same thickness. He pulled one out, noted a Burbank P.O. Box return address, opened the envelope and pulled out the contents to spread on the sound desk.

His eyes got very wide.

In the dressing room, Jo finally fastened the bra without putting it on, then pulled it down over her head like a t-shirt, putting her arms through the straps. It only worked because of the exceptionally stretchy material of the bra but she had tried three times to fasten it behind her while watching in a mirror and got it crooked, the wrong hooks in the wrong loops, every time.

She tugged and pushed at things until the bra seemed to fit. Not exactly the most comfortable thing in the world, she told herself, but at least my new body won't be trying to advertise while I'm wearing it. I'm just not ready to deal with this boy-girl thing until I get the girl thing sorted out.

The shirt went on next and she fumbled with the wrong-way buttons for a bit but that seemed like a simple matter of adjusting her perception of the problem. After realizing they were just backwards, the buttoning went more easily. The slacks went on smoothly, fitting tightly at the waist and falling like caresses over her new curves. Hoo boy! she told her reflection. You are so not a boy. She examined her rear elevation, "I don't think the p-pants make my b-butt look b-big, b-but I do think I've got a b-b-big b-b-b-butt," she said out loud. She giggled.

Noticing in the mirror that she hadn't tied the lace at her throat, she flipped it into a casual butterfly knot that looked elegant and efficient. Whoa? Where have I done that before? she wondered. She found a pair of silky white socks and some square-toed black half-boots with an inch-and-a-half heel that looked as if they had been bought just to go with the suit. The heels did not feel excessive or dangerous but very comfortable and ordinary. Most of the shoes in her closet had heels that high or higher.

Her reflection pleased her in several odd ways, but.... "M-my hair," she said aloud. The short not-blond, not-red, not-brown shag looked out of place with her elegant blouse, as if she'd been scalped in her sleep by a malicious kid brother. She remembered the wigs in the other room, picked up the jacket and left the dressing room.

Through the door into the studio she could see Richard peering at something on what might be a sound-mixing board. (And if it wasn't, why did she think it was?) "What are you looking at?" she asked, falling without effort into a graceful pose in the doorway.

Richard looked up. Did a momentary flash of guilt cross his face? "Nothing, really," he said."Just some sheet music your band might have been using?"

"I have a b-b-band?" Jo asked.

"Apparently." Richard shuffled some papers together and stuffed them into a large envelope that he tossed casually on top of a filing cabinet. "Wow," he said when he gave her a second look."You look fantastic, like you've been doing this for years."

Jo ran a hand through her hair, "Except for m-my hair?"

"Uh, well, yeah, that pretty much sucks," he agreed. "Too short and no style." He came towards her. "The glasses look okay, though, make you look more intelligent."

Jo scowled at him. "W-what? Not so m-much like a ditz?"

"Well, an intelligent ditz." He grinned, stopping in front of her.

"Except for the hair?"

"Except for the hair," he agreed again.

* * *

"I think you should wear the red one," said Richard. "Your natural hair color is red."

"Not that red," Jo objected. "And that's w-way too much hair." The fiery red wig had tresses that would almost reach her waist. "I'd trip over it or something. I like the short one."

"But that platinum color looks so fake," said Richard. "The other blonde would look better on you."

Jo sighed. The shoulder-length, curly, golden blonde wig did look the most natural. "Okay, okay. But, I really don't know how to p-put it on, so -- you know? -- it won't come off at the wrong time."

Richard picked the wig off the stand. "If it's made for you, it will fit well enough not to worry about that. Hey! I think this one is real hair." He handed it to Jo. "Now I read somewhere that you put it on the way a baseball player puts on his cap, front to back. See? There are tabs in the back to pull the band down with."

"I never saw a b-ballplayer p-p-put on a w-wig like that."

"Not a wig, a ball cap. And that's the way all the pros do it, out in the outfield. They send them to the minors to learn how," he said, keeping a straight face.

She stared at him for a moment, then at the wig, sighed and turned to the mirror. Putting her head down, she pulled the wig on, front to back then tossed her head to get the loose strands out of her face. A glamorous blonde with tousled hair looked back at her from the mirror.

"Take off your glasses and put them back on," Richard suggested.

Realizing what he meant, she did so, adjusting the fit of the wig around her ears. "Shoot!" she exclaimed. "When did my ears get p-p-pierced?" She felt of the holes with a finger, turning her head side to side.

Richard leaned close to look. "Sonoffa? I know they weren't pierced earlier, we both looked."

Jo took a deep breath, having Richard so close disturbed her in several non-linear ways. "I'm still changing? W-what else has happened?"

"Your tits look bigger," said Richard.

"It's just the way the shirt f-fits," said Jo, momentarily crossing her arms over her chest.

"You're wearing a bra?"

"Uh, yes." She blushed. "How could you tell?"

"That shirt is pretty translucent, I can see itty-bitty yellow roses." And I can't see your nipples, you naughty girl. He grinned.

"Darn it! Get away from me!" She uncrossed her arms and grabbed a brush from the vanity to mess with her hair.

Richard watched her fluff and arrange locks as if she'd been doing it for years.

"You're m-making me nervous," she complained, putting the brush down.

"It's a padded bra, isn't it?"

"Yes! M-most of mine are, that aren't like b-barely there at all. I've got like sixty of them." She pushed at him with both hands; his chest felt amazingly solid under her hands.

He yielded, stepping away. "Sixty bras? Maybe you have a fetish. Wanna try some make-up? Just a little lipstick, huh?"

Jo sighed. When he stepped back, she'd had to resist following him. Can I really smell him and does he really smell that good? "Huh?" she said.

"Lipstick," he repeated. "You need a bit, for some color in your face."

"Have you seen how m-many lipsticks I've got? It's like a giant Crayola b-box, I wouldn't know which one to p-p-pick."

"Another fetish, you're a kinky girl. Look in your purse, I bet you keep your favorite there." He snatched the big straw bag off the bed and passed it to her. It had a huge yellow, white and green daisy on one side, orange, yellow and blue on the other.

"I don't have a f-f-f...." She grabbed the purse and plunged her hand into it, coming up immediately with a gleaming golden tube. Opening it she twisted the color up to get a look. "I don't know how to do this," she said.

"Just try it," he said. "And oh, I think I found some of the photos you may have sent to that agent." That ought to distract her from thinking about how to put on lipstick.

She hesitated.

"Just put it on like chapstick," he said. He waited till she began her motion. "You look really good in a bikini," he said.

She put the lipstick on in three quick movements, blotted with a tissue from the vanity, and reapplied, looking in the mirror while she thought about things to hit Richard with. The brush still lay at hand but the purse was bigger and heavier. The rosy-coral lipstick went well with her hair, skin and eyes. "You're teasing m-me."

"I'm teasing you?" Richard said. "That's just so unfair."

She couldn't help it, she giggled. "P-poor Richard. It m-must b-be hard f-f-for you." Then she giggled twice as much when she realized what she'd said.

"You have no idea," Richard said with a cartoonish moan.

"Stop it!" said Jo. "What time is it? Do we have to go? Can I see these photos?" She dropped the lipstick into her bag and retrieved a tiny bottle. Still without thinking about it, she sprayed her wrists then wiped each wrist on her neck behind her ears in an essentially awkward but very feminine gesture, patting and fluffing her hair slightly at the same time.

Richard stared.

Jo started to put the spray bottle back. "What?" she asked.

"Is that Mille-something?"

Jo looked at the bottle and did a very cute double take. "Mille et Un Fleurs, it says. Did I just use this? How did you know what it w-was?"

"Fucking Barry," said Richard. He looked disgusted.

Jo dropped the little bottle back into her purse. "I hope the f-f-fuck not," she said.

* * *

Richard didn't hand her the manila envelope until they were in the limo on the way to the airport. "You f-found a bunch of these in the studio?" Jo asked.

"Yup, a whole file cabinet drawer full of them."

Jo put her big oversize purse in the floor and opened the envelope in her lap, pulling out about fifteen large photos. "Glossies," she said.

"Color glossies, mostly," added Richard.

The first three were headshots, one of Jo, or rather Melody, wearing the golden blonde wig she had just put on up in her room. One of the others showed her in the long red haired wig and the third showed her natural ginger-colored hair in a soft-textured tousle a bit shorter than the blonde wig. She had on makeup and jewelry in all of them and a big wide smile.

The next six showed her in an evening gown, a tennis skirt, a business suit, a sundress, a cheerleader outfit and a stage costume with a guitar, in various wigs and with her natural hair. "I m-must b-be a m-m-model," she said. In the next three she wore swimsuits, one a barely-there string bikini and in the last three she modeled lingerie. "Oh," she said quietly.

"I burned the nude ones," said Richard.

She looked at him and decided he was joking because he had such a completely serious expression. "M-moose chips, Richard," she said. "Why did you tell me these were sheet m-music at first?"

"Well, I did find lots of sheet music but I made you wait till we were in the car to look at these because you would have wanted to look at a lot more and there was lots of stuff in there and we didn't have the time."

"Okay, but I can tell when you're lying, you know." She tried to look smug.

"Oh? You never could before. What is it, feminine intuition?" Richard grinned and semaphored with his eyebrows.

"No. It's easier than that. When you lie your lips m-move." Jo kept a straight face and looked as serious as a doctor prescribing bed rest and daily enemas. Then she sudden grinned.

Richard laughed. "I should have been a politician, you're saying?"

"No, thank you. Already got one of those in m-my life." She shuddered, thinking of Barry Aronhaus's kiss. And then how she had kissed Richard in retaliation. And how she'd like to try that again. Just to see. If.... She tried to stop thinking of it.

"So," said Richard, helping without knowing it. "This Harmon guy has these pics of you, is he with a modeling agency?"

"I kind of hope so."

"Well, he might handle musical talent, I suppose, but the only photo of you with an instrument, it's a guitar. And you don't play the guitar regular."

Jo knew what he meant. She looked at her hands. "I've got short nails b-but no guitar calluses."

"Uh huh. So why would you pose with a guitar? Do you even play one?"

"I used to be able to strum a few chords. I wish we had had time to check that guy out on the 'net. I've got this terrible f-f-feeling what he does."

"What?" asked Richard.

"If it's not m-modeling then the only other thing that f-fits."

"Oh, shit," said Richard, realizing.

Jo nodded. "Escort service." She shivered but one part of her wondered, what would that be like?

* * *

They didn't say much else on the trip to the Burbank airport, and Richard slipped into the line of waiting limos with only a nod at the security guard. The poor man probably strained his neck doing a double take when he spotted Melody in the shotgun seat. She smiled and waved at him with just her fingers. The older man beamed and waved back.

"Are you flirting with Nacho the guard?" asked Richard.

"No," said Jo, "just being friendly."

"Uh huh, sure," Richard said.

Jo grinned at him. "Jealous?"

"Uh? I dunno. Maybe. I mean...." He trailed off, unable to think of a way to keep it light and funny. Something painful had pinged inside him. "He's old enough to be your grandfather," he finished.

"You are jealous," said Jo. "How 'b-bout that?" She giggled.

"Not of Nacho," said Richard. "But I...." He stopped himself, popped the trunk and got out to put the magnetic sign identifying his limo as "Paragon" on the roof. "Want the fare to be able to find us," he said as he got back in.

Neither of them said anything about what they had been talking about. At least, not out loud. They settled back in the seats and stared out at traffic and the lost-looking pedestrians one sees everywhere around airports.

Richard wondered, I can't be feeling serious about my old roomie just because he's now a gorgeousity. That's Joel, the guy who gets obsessive about which way the toilet paper turns on the roll. The one who got me a pigtail electric extension cord for my birthday. Okay, I needed that for the rotary drill I was using to polish the limo but that is a supergeeky birthday present.

He glanced sideways at her. She had a fingertip in her mouth, not chewing on her nail, just -- is she sucking on her finger? Jeez! Does she know what that does to a guy to watch that? What the heck is she thinking about?

Jo stared out the limo's windshield, not really seeing anything. This is the new me, she thought. Melody Jo Thierry, rich, spoiled, and -- beautiful. That's not ego, I know what I look like now. But who am I? What do I want to do with my life? She put a finger in her mouth, nibbling gently on the pad, not the cuticle. It was a gesture teachers and schoolmates had broken Joel of back in junior high but Melody Jo had continued to get away with it for years because she looked so darn cute with a finger in her mouth.

Richard is watching me, she realized. She stopped nibbling on her finger and just sucked on it a moment, thinking. What am I going to do with Richard? I know what my body wants to do -- and I'm starting to feel a lot less gay about it. I'm a girl, why shouldn't I jump his bone? Bones. She blushed.

She knows I'm watching, thought Richard, seeing her blush.

He knows I know he's watching, thought Jo.

Now what do we do?

The tap on the roof of the limo caught them both by surprise.

* * *

In a black limo on a the road to hell, Sophie glared at Ted who glared back.

"One of yours?" they both asked.

"Iynx, vos debeo mihi una ampulla de Coca," said Bill.

* * *

Richard and Jo both scrambled out of the car after the rap on the roof.

An enormous black man standing on the sidewalk in a fashionable London business suit (that must have cost more than the limo) looked down at Jo. He grinned through a mass of pockmarks and tribal scars and peered at her out of coke-bottle thick glasses. Not just tall or fat, he stood close to seven feet tall and probably weighed over five hundred pounds. He also carried two massive, ivory tipped canes, one of which he had just withdrawn from using to rap the limo roof.

"I am the delight of being to greet you, Miss Paragon," said the black man. "It is to have the graceful pleasure of naming me Rightly Revered Dar Gmunro. Service to you. To be venturing I am from my country home yclept Dnuro, a state of nation island by the Hornishness of Africa." He made a motion that looked a bit like a bow made by someone who did not bend in the middle.

Behind the oversize fare stood two redcaps, pushing a cart laden with black leather suitcases, brass appurtenanced trunks and odd-shaped containers without names. The air porters rolled their eyes and grinned wide enough to nearly match the expression of their patron. "Wanna help us put this junk inna trunk, Paragon?" one of them asked.

"Sure," said Richard, starting around the rear of the limo. "Jo, get the door for Mr. Monroe, will you?"

"Yes, sir," said Jo, a tiny bit awed by the size and majesty of their fare and confused by his syntactical gyrations. She moved to open both of the doors to the rear compartment, figuring the massive man would need the room.

"Gmunro," said the giant, looking at Richard. Then to Jo, "It is thou art naming to be called that Joe?"

"Uh, it's M-melody Jo, actually." She stood aside and Gmunro bent slightly to try to peer inside. No wonder they said they'd need the bus for this guy, Jo thought.

"Ah," he said after inspecting the space. "M-melody. A naming of beauty to be meeting music. Delightful am I to acquaint me unto thyself." Everything he said came out with such a rotund profundity that it took Jo a moment or more to work out the sense of it from the fractured syntax. "Verily and forsooth, art thou not a M-melody of Angels in a civitation of angels?" He waggled curly black eyebrows at her.

She shook her head, giggling and squeaking in embarrassment like some obscure British dessert. Mr. Gmunro beamed even wider as he attempted to negotiate the task of inserting his bulk into the backseat of the limo. The problem seemed to be that the limo sat on the tarmac some six inches below the level of the sidewalk and this height differential required an inconsiderate amount of bending by the man-mammoth.

"Oh, dear," said Jo.

"To be regretted I am, should have I not engorged to be fed myself on a troop of monkeys," said Mr. Gmuno. He said this in a sad and lugubrious tone, as if officiating at a state funeral.

Jo couldn't work that one out at all, not being sure whether Mr. Gmunro desired to damn himself to be eaten by simians or regretted having devoured an entire troop of little beasts at his last meal. She stood transfixed by the contemplation of sheer unbending girth, trying not to giggle. Did they bring him here in a cargo plane? Jo wondered. Maybe we need a derrick to get him in and out?

Dar Gmunro, Rightly Revered, leaned on his canes with an air of fatalism, as if this sort of indignity were his usual lot and things would eventually work out. "Miss M-Melody Jo Paragon, to have thy contentment may be greater pleasingness to this Gmunro at lunch?"

"Uh," said Jo.

"Not the cuisine's nativeness unto my spaceful abandon, endeavor to be introduced in my person to own thy liking," he said.

"You w-want to eat local f-food? Sir?" Jo guessed.

He nodded like a mountain casting a benediction. "In its various entirety, to the great orifice of one poor ensample, to wit, this carcase before thy beauteous envelope."

Jo had great difficulty suppressing an explosion of mirth while blushing. "Hamburgers, p-pizza, b-burritos?"

"Bring the plethoras, those ravening fishes, my peckishness has not to be situated since engrossing the South Atlantic River," said the huge man. His enormous belly growled an agreement.

"Oh, dear," said Jo. That almost made sense. "Richard, M-mr. G'm-munro says he hasn't eaten in hours."

Richard, who'd been involved in stowing the luggage looked up, surprised to see the huge African gentleman still standing beside the limo. Well, at least he hasn't turned the car over trying to get in.

One of the porters mumbled, "Careful he don't eat that blonde."

"I will, if he don't want her," offered the other. They traded porterish leers.

Glaring, Richard dismissed them after giving each a tip for helping load the trunk. "What's the problem?" he asked Jo, stepping around to the passenger side of the big vehicle. Guh-gug guh-jub! I didn't know they had walruses in Africa! He tried not to stare but up close the guy was overwhelming.

"Must I be to chastise and Atkinsize to the insertion of the estimable?" asked Gmunro.

Jo made little cappuchino machine noises while Richard took in his fare's great girth and the immobility implied by the two canes. He'd driven a limo for five years and he'd seen a lot but never anyone with Mr. Gmunro's set of problems. At least, he seems to understand English, even if you couldn't really say he's speaking it. "I can move the car, so you don't have so far to bend over to get in, sir," he said after a bit.

"To the devotion of sanctified raisins, Mr. Paragon. Thanks be," said Mr. Gmunro. He stepped backward, using his canes to steady himself. People on the walkway went wide around him, though several stopped to stare at a respectful distance. He beamed at the crowd with the same ferocious good cheer he'd shown to Jo. One child, his hand tightly clasped in his mother's burst into tears and the little family hurried away, their retreat guarded by the apprehensive father. "Ah, splendiferous Bank of the River Bur, where encounters to one might such Angels," he said beaming at Jo.

Shaking her head and grinning, she helped Richard close the passenger side doors. "I'll w-wait with Mr. G'm-munro," she said.

"Okay," said Richard dashing around to the driver's side. By backing and filling, he would be able to move the limo away from the curb to give the giant more maneuvering room.

"It'll just be a m-minute, sir," said Jo as Mr. Gmunro moved forward to stand beside her.

He nodded, looking down at her with an avuncular kindness. "In which gleeful propinquity dost thou to contemplate thy third wish?" he asked.

Blue Moon 8.0

by Donna Lamb

 

"What do you m-mean?" Jo asked.

Mr. Gmunro beamed at her through his thick glasses. "To making thyself desired, the first and to making rich, the second." He wagged a finger the size of a salami at her. "Mistakenly, in fairies with tails, the third wish for certain tradition is to be happy, not wise."

"W-w-wishes?" Oh God, Richard was right?

"Moon wishes," said the giant. "Thou must not to be wishing for happiness. In my island, peoples are saying, 'Is happy to be dead.'"

With some attendant honking from other vehicles, Richard backed the big limo about eight feet, pulled forward about twenty and turned in his seat to back up again. Before he got the limo moving though, a tiny Subaru darted out of the stream and pulled into the opening.

"I didn't w-wish to be b-beautiful, or rich," Jo protested. "How do you know these things, M-mr. G'm-munro?"

The big man watched with interest as Richard began backing up anyway, engaging the oversize bumper of the Lincoln with the headlights and grill of the smaller car. The driver of the Subaru leaned out and began cursing. Gmunro turned toward Jo and replied to her question. "Is my Rightly Revered office to be Sorceror Supreme of my state, the Isle of Dnuro. Eyes more old than mine have seen Truth to be blinded, Justice a mawkish trollop, and Divine Benefice a jest without hand to clap in the forest."

"So..." Jo trailed off, trying to work out the meaning of what the African wizard had said.

The Subaru driver popped out of his car and ran forward, shouting. Richard powered down his window. "I'm going to back-up now," he said to the other driver. "If I move six inches I will total your piece-of-shit Japanese Beetle and probably not even scratch the bumper on this tank."

"I'll sue your company!" screamed the other driver.

Richard had put the Paragon sign back in the trunk with the luggage, nothing else obvious identified the company that owned the limo. He shrugged, pointing at Gmunro. "That's my boss. He's got diplomatic immunity 'cause he's the King of an oil rich African country. He won't care if I wreck your car as long as I get him to lunch on time."

The Subaru driver looked toward Gmunro, boggling just at the size of the man. Gmunro, smiled, shifted his grip on one of the canes, holding it like a spear. He pretended to take aim at the little car, saying loudly without shouting, "Are you to desire that feeling of fortunate, infidel?"

Jo looked around, confused. She hadn't been able to hear the exchange between Richard and the other driver and Gmunro's bizarre interruption derailed her completely. The big man laughed like a five point temblor dropping boulders onto Pacific Coast Highway while the Subaru driver raced back to get his car out of Richard's way.

With the limo now parked five feet from the curb, Richard hopped out and started around the car. Jo dithered, wanting to question Gmunro about what he knew and how he knew it and wanting Richard as backup before she began. She reached for the sleeve of the big man's coat. Richard moved to open the rear passenger doors.

Still laughing, the Rightly Revered Sorceror Supreme stepped off the six-inch curbing and staggered. One ivory-tipped cane flailed inches from Richard's face, the other stabbed into the pavement, barely missing Jo's foot while his elbow struck her shoulder hard enough to stagger her.

"Jo!" Richard yelped, jumping forward to catch her around the waist before she also tripped on the curb or the cane.

Startled, she looked up into his face, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. "I'm okay, Richard." He smiled at her, his eyes soft and she licked her lips. Then they both turned to see if their charge had left a crater where he fell.

Catching himself on both canes, Gmunro rested a moment from the exertion. "Softly, softly, mes jeunes," he murmured. "Apologies by the myria for a clumsy elephant with numberful enemies." He grinned. "And maybe one fresh noodle, proprietating yon barking cockroach vanished now these several tocks."

Richard laughed, still holding Jo. "You convinced him, sir. He'll think twice about trying to bully someone out of his weight class from now on."

Jo wanted to protest Richard's reference to weight but she went unheard, both men laughing loudly enough to drown her out. Besides, Richard's arm still around her waist made a great distraction.

"Thou slimmest flower of M-melody, art not maimed by this bovine Falstaff to staggering drunkenly in the realm of beauty?"

"Oh, no," said Jo. "I'm okay." She smiled at both of them and they beamed back at her so brightly she had to giggle. With Richard's face only inches away, a thought insinuated itself into her consciousness. No, she told herself, I will not kiss him. Mr. M'gunro might want one, too. I mean, G'munro. And I just won't. Yet.

Mr. Gmunro managed to enter the limousine's passenger compartment without further incident, other than a creaking grumble from the suspension.

After helping close the doors, Jo finally remembered. "Richard! He said something about w-w-wishes? That we'd used two and to b-be careful w-with the last one." She frowned. "At least, I think that's w-what he said."

"Huh? Mr. Mungroe?"

"Him," she nodded at their passenger. "He said we'd used one for b-b-b-," she blushed, "looks and one for m-m-loot and not to let the f-f-fairies.... Oh, I don't know!"

"Wow," said Richard. "I was right about the wishing?"

Jo rolled her eyes. "W-well, statistically you have to b-be right some of the time, don't you?"

Richard grinned, gave her a peck on the forehead and a pat on the ass, "Get in and we'll talk to him about it on the way to find a drive-thru." He started around the vehicle and stopped at the driver's door, looking back at her.

Jo still stood there, her mouth open, one hand on her mouth and one out of sight but with her elbow cocked like she had it resting on her butt. Uh oh, thought Richard. What did I just do?

* * *

"Aren't we supposed to meet your mom for lunch?" Richard asked, hoping to distract Jo from whatever thought had so astonished her.

"Uh?" said Jo. "Sort of?" She licked her lips and started to open the door of the limo. "Do you think w-we could get Mr. G'm-munro to the food court at the mall? And if we did, where w-would he sit?" She swung the door open.

Richard grinned. "Point. How about we go to Tommy's? Can't get much more authentic L.A. food than that. You call your mom to meet us and I'll call Patch to send the new driver there? Or to the park around the corner?"

Jo nodded. "Okay. B-but, Richard..." She looked at him wistfully. When she had his attention, she went on. "Are all m-men such terrible kissers as you and B-barry?" Smirking, she got in the car.

Richard got in, too, figuring himself lucky to just get zinged. Thank God she's not mad about it. Note to self, don't pat Jo on the popo until she's all over this.

Mr. Gmunro in the back seat chuckled like a malfunctioning escalator contemplating eating a few pedestrians -- or maybe that was his stomach.

* * *

"What's a damn wizard from Africa doing in Los Angeles?" Sophie complained.

"The Quest for Heartburn?" suggested Ted, shuddering a bit.

"What? Tommy's is good food -- chiliburgers, hot dogs, tamales. Helluva place to eat." She grinned.

"You said it. L.A. is just not a food town."

"Hey! Wanna go to Chicago for some ribs? I know this place on State Street...." Sophie's mouth was already watering.

"No. It's Friday. How about Majorca for some fresh caught fish and that great brown bread they bake on stones?"

"Ooo! I like that idea. It's late there though, but just in time for a supper in the moonlight." She batted her eyes at Ted.

"Don't make me lose my appetite, my dear, or you'll be opening the wine by yourself."

"We'll go to Crocodile Pete's in Ponsa, it's run by a Brit with the most exquisite, if small, cellar."

"Santa Ponsa, you mean."

"Don't be tiresome. Are we on?"

"I suppose. Yes, of course. I'm already there," said Ted. And he vanished.

Sophie smiled, snapped her fingers and two Devils in Drag shared the blood-red upholstery. "You know what to do," she said in stereo and both of her disappeared in a wink.

Whistling, "I get my kicks on Route 66," Bill C. Bubb took the I-40 exit from the Highway to Hell in Barstow and headed for Chicago. He knew a place on the South Side that beat State Street ribs all to Hell and back.

* * *

"Mom, how m-many chiliburgers you want?" Jo asked.

The voice on the phone answered, "Just one, dear, with a little paper of extra pickles and a lemonade."

"Okay, Mom, we'll meet you in the p-park with everything."

"Don't forget the extra napkins, never leave Tommy's without more napkins than you think you need."

Jo grinned. She might have changed but her mom was still Mom. "Sure, we'll get a ton. We're gonna need them, w-wait till you meet Richard's fare, Mr. G'm-munro."

"I'm sure he's nice. How about Richard? Is he as scrumptious as he looks?" asked with a maternal giggle.

Jo giggled back. "Tell you later. See you soon." After goodbyes she closed the phone and turned to their passenger in the back seat.

Richard was still on the horn to Patch, arranging for the extra driver to meet them in the park with Richard's car. "Yeah, it's out of gas but I wasn't expecting anyone else to have to drive it. Have him put five in and I'll pay him back. And ask him to call me direct so I can get his order for Tommy's. Yeah. No, I'm not coming to the barn with a sack of cb's. You're near the one on Beverly, send someone out to get your own."

"Mr. G'm-munro, how many burgers do you want? They're about this big." Jo made motions with her hands while leaning over the seat back.

"A dozen, and half as many of the annointed tamales," said the big man in as clear a statement as he had ever made in her hearing. He beamed at Jo through his thick glasses, the hideous scars on his cheeks making a friendly wreath around his smiling mouth.

"Anything to drink?"

"Lagoons of beer, suitably containerized."

"Uh, they don't have b-beer, just soft drinks."

"Beer of the American root then, a gallon or twain should quench me. Two gallons, the American ones to diminish are to amelioration." He looked content.

"Okay," said Jo and turned around to find Richard looking sideways at how her slacks had pulled tight across her butt. "W-watch the road," she warned him but she smiled. What am I gonna do with the guy? Even my mom thinks he's scrumptious. I just don't think I'm ready to let things get serious. And do I sound sufficiently girly? Good grief!

She buckled herself back in, still smiling.

"You look happy," said Richard. "All it took was that toy bunny to change your attitude?"

"I guess," she said. "Dunny was just a signal, from whoever is w-watching, and from m-my sister. Everything's going to b-be okay and I'm right where I'm supposed to b-be."

"You... if you have a third wish, you could use it to change back?" he suggested.

"I don't think that w-would be a good idea," said Jo. "And to b-be honest, I'm not sure I'd do it if I knew it w-was safe to w-wish it. I'm getting used to the idea of b-being a girl." She blushed.

Richard looked away,making a turn in the big limo. "San Fernando," he said. "I'm glad."

"Glad?"

"I'm glad you like being a girl. I liked Joel but...I like you better this way." He grinned at her. "But then I would, wouldn't I?"

"Don't be a Dick, Richard. This is Tommy's," she said. "We're here."

* * *

Jo and Richard sat on a bench facing the double open doors of the limo. Mr. Dar Gmunro could see them and they him -- which was a sight to see. Chiliburger after chiliburger simply disappeared, some in three bites, some in four. Occasionally, the big man paused to slurp root beer from a plastic cup, or even more alarming, a tamale from its paper wrapper.

"Arr," said Richard, doing a creditable Captain of the Frying Dutchman, "'Tis no man. 'Tis a remorseless eating machine."

Jo almost snorked soda out of her nose trying not to giggle. "Richard! Don't offend him, he's got stuff he can tell us."

"Yeah, like how the heck he ever got into an airplane."

"Not that. M-maybe he didn't use an airplane." She grinned at Richard's expression. "He's a w-wizard, he knows about w-w-wishes."

"There's your mom. Go take her the food and I'll talk to Mt. Guh-Moon-Row."

Jo wanted to ask Richard why he was being such a Dick -- again -- but changed her mind. She headed toward the familiar Mom-mobile, carrying her own drink, Mom's food and drink in a paper tray, and her big straw purse.

Richard watched her go then got up to sit in the open door frame of the limo's passenger compartment.

"You are studying Oliver Hardly to being human, one ferruginous day?" asked Gmunro.

"I guess," said Richard, not turning to watch his fare finish the last three burgers. "Jo says you know something about what happened to her."

"Some azimuth things, yes. Not all horizons are blue, not all pavementings to Rome are leading, I know what I know that I know I am knowing."

"Did you swallow a fortune cookie factory? The way you talk gives me a headache right between the eyes." Richard pointed to the area.

"A crosshairs is not just ill-tempestuous rabbit; your head hurts because evil is intended toward you."

"Huh?" Richard did look around at the unusual clarity of the statement, not just its meaning. "Who? What?"

"You think just every Dick at Tommy's gets three hairy wishes?" The fat man waggled a fat finger at Richard. "You are Shining Defender, yours to protect Beloved Angel. Die for her if you have to." He sighed. "But also, you can hurt her that no one else may do. You see?"

"No," said Richard.

"The last wish, she must be to be the maker of it, not you. Not even to save her can you take her wish. But she must to make her own before midnight. But not too soon. Time is ripe like a peach, early it is hard, late it is worthless and rotten but in that time when the fruit is golden, then can no one wish a sweeter wish."

"Huh?" Richard tried to keep a slight whimper out of his voice. Somehow Jo was in danger, he'd known it already, sensed it. But what sort of danger, where from, and what could he do about it?

Gmunro licked his lips, savoring the last chili-and-onion-covered steamed tamale. "Impossible as a fruit fly to be carrying these morsels to my island home, but peaches we have abbondanzas of them," he said, sounding wistful.

"Wait, wait. There's a third wish to make, Jo has to wish it, not me, and, and...?" Richard took a deep breath. "What's she supposed to wish for?"

The fat wizard put a finger beside his nose. "Moonlit secrets of truth, bright omens of clear red wine mornings, mountains to stub one's toes on, midges to drink up oceans...."

"Look! If you don't know, just say so!"

"I know," said Gmunro. "Betimes, the knowing of a thing is to become the careless unmaking of it." The scars on his face had never looked more ominous as he frowned at Richard.

"Damnit! How will we know?"

"When the stone is hard, when the moon is golden, then the peach is ripeness."

"That's no help, old man," said Richard between his teeth.

"'Tis more light than you will find in a coal mine, lest you light a fateful match. More wind than you need is a gale, more sand doesn't make a better tuna sandwich, and a fish big enough to swallow you is a whale."

"Ar!" Richard made a gesture.

Gmunro nodded. "Tis veracity in pantaloons, I am a remorseless prophesying wizard. Not without pity, not without pity. Remorse I lack because I do the thing rightly, fearlessly, sans merci, sans anodyne. But not without pity." He put a big fat hand on Richard's shoulder. "Defend her, Defender."

* * *

Jo pointed with an elbow, her hands being full. "There's an empty table w-with some nice sun, Mom."

"Good, it's a bit nippy in the shade. Warm for January, though. How are you, Melody? Or Jo?"

"I'm fine, M-mom. And I do prefer Jo." She bent her knees a bit to kiss the older woman's cheek. Well, Joel would have, too. It's not super-girly to kiss your mom. Her glasses slipped, and she squinched her nose a bit to keep them from sliding off her rather short nose. "Mom? A little help?"

A quick forefinger maternally applied with accompanying chuckle solved that problem. "I'm so glad to see you looking well, Jo. When you first came to the house, you looked so pale, and that headdress they gave you to cover where they'd shaved your head, not very becoming." She tilted her head. "The wig is nice, blonde suits you. Didn't you use it in some of the publicity photos you had taken?"

"Uh, yeah? Maybe I can ask her about those; publicity for what?

"Who's that nice boy Richard talking to?"

"Mr. G'm-munro, Richard's fare. B-but there's another driver coming to take over the limo and Richard is going to take the w-weekend off, uh, to, to drive for m-me." Whew. "Since I'm still having headaches."

"Is that the only reason? I mean, he's awfully cute -- where's he sleeping? That's an awfully big house to sleep in alone?"

"M-mom!" Jo looked shocked.

"Oh, now don't tell me you haven't already slept with him, dear. I can tell, hon, your old Mom wasn't born yesterday." Another maternal chuckle made Jo turn pink. "He's obviously very interested -- and very interesting. I mean, you've shared a bed, surely?"

Jo very much wanted to say, Don't call me Shirley; anything to distract her Mom from this subject. But she had the habit of truthfulness and her earlier near fib about why Richard was taking the weekend off still bothered her. "W-well, uh, yeah," she admitted. "W-we slept together last night -- b-but nothing happened!" How do you explain something like this to your Mom who thinks you're your own long lost sister?

"Oh dear! I hope you don't intend to die a virgin like poor Joel."

"M-mom!" Jo squeaked. Well, I didn't do it on purpose!

"Now, dear, I don't mean to shock you but I've decided I want grandkids. Joel was too shy to do a good job of it; just like his father, he needed a woman to take charge of things." She sighed. "Joel never found anyone, but just look at that specimen of manhood over there." They both looked at Richard who had just stood up and turned to face Mr. Gmunro. "That dark hair, those eyes, he's even got dimples. And doesn't that physique just do something to your insides?"

Jo sighed. Well, yes, it does and that's what I'm afraid of. But am I making the same mistake I made as Joel? Aloud she said, "Grandchildren, M-mom? I m-mean, uh, I've only-- he's only known m-me a short time. Talking about, uh, kids has got to b-be...." Besides, there's the idea of getting pregnant to deal with! Yesterday I was a guy!

"Honey, I've lost Joel and I thought I'd lost you for years and then you came back. No one knows how long they've got to enjoy what they've got and, and I'd like to be around to enjoy seeing your kids grow up."

Jo stared at her. That Mom wanted grandkids seemed reasonable, in a way, but that she should be expected to provide them, out of her own body, had been an idea she hadn't considered when Dunny had calmed her earlier fears of having suddenly turned female. She tried to picture herself pregnant, having a baby, Doesn't that hurt, like a lot?

"You won't know real joy, Melody, Jo, honey, until you hold your own babies close to you and feel the love you have for them."

Richard waved at them suddenly, starting over. "Lorio's getting off the freeway, he'll be here in a few minutes. Hi, Mrs. Messenger." Holy shit, did she just wink at me? Nah, couldn't be, he decided. Jo's mom wouldn't wink at me.

"Richard," the older woman purred. "You'll be very nice to Jo? She tells me you're going to be her driver for a few days? Throw this stuff away for me, would you, Jo, dear?" She whispered to Richard, after Jo had left with the wrappers and empty cups, "You saw her house? She's rich you know? And I know she likes you."

Amazed, Richard stared at her. "Uh, Mrs. Messenger, Jo and I are friends, first, for Joel's sake. I mean...." He trailed off. I'm not fooling either of us, I'd boff Jo in a minute and her mom knows it. And I think Jo does too, she has to. It's disturbing though when her mom smirks at me like that.

Jo took the trash and headed toward the trash can, also wondering if she'd seen her mother wink at Richard. What the heck? I know I'm probably going to do it sooner or later -- but I think I should, uh, find out if I'm on the pill first. She blushed. Or make sure he uses protection -- even if Mom does want grandkids. But the idea of what she and Richard would have to do to need such protection derailed her thinking for a moment. Glad I'm wearing a padded bra, she thought just as a bright red Mustang pulled into the space near the limo.

A shorter, skinnier Richard-clone got out of the Mustang and turned toward her. "Hey! What's a hot girl like you doing alone in the park?" said the man, smiling at her.

"Lorio! Get the heck over here and stop trying to molest my new boss," Richard called out.

* * *

In Majorca, at a quiet table at Crocodile Pete's, Sophie giggled while Ted poured the wine.

"Something funny?" he asked.

"Well, yes, but it hasn't happened yet," she purred. "Good, huh?" she sipped.

Ted nodded. "You were right about the wine, it's very good. So's this sole but how can you eat that calamari-stuff?"

Sophie smiled. "Tentacles are a speciality of mine."

* * * /p>

"Where to, Boss Lady?" Richard asked when they were finally alone together in the Mustang.

"I w-want to go home, to M-melody's house and find out what this agent is about."

"Sounds good. Did you watch how your mom avoided meeting old man-mountain? That was a bit odd."

"Yeah," said Jo. "M-mom wasn't exactly acting like herself in other w-ways, either."

Richard considered this while wheeling out of the park and back onto Glenoaks. "Maybe, well, she's probably treating you a bit different because you're her daughter now. Parents tend to be more protective of daughters."

"Trust m-me, that's not it," said Jo.

Richard laughed though he couldn't have said why, just something in the way Jo had said that.

Startled, Jo smiled. She decided she liked to hear Richard laugh. "And I still want a shower, I wonder if I'm going to need lessons...." Jo trailed off, realizing she was being ogled by two boys in a junky old TransAm pacing the Mustang.

Richard's mind was occupied with wondering what sort of lessons Jo might need in the shower when his cellphone went off. "Uh, hello?" he answered using the handsfree.

"Richard?" said a breathy voice.

"Uh, Zoe?"

"Uh, huh. I called and they said at Paramount that you were off tonight, so is our date on?" The breathiness turned into an interrogatory whimper at the end of that.

"Uh, they got it wrong, Z. I'm working a private driving job tonight, all weekend really."

"Bastard," said the voice without heat. Jo stared at the speaker, Richard glanced over at her and shrugged. The voice continued. "Listen Dickipoo, I'm so hot needing you that I'm using my vibrator at noon."

Which explains the buzzing in the background, thought Jo. Something about the noise set up an uncomfortable internal itch for Jo, too. She squirmed in the seat a bit. The forgotten boys in the TransAm noticed.

"Uh, not now, Zoe. Boss in the car, bye." Richard closed the connection and flipped the switch to turn the phone link off. "Sorry about that, Jo. Just an ex-girlfriend who -- who can't seem to get the idea that it's over." As of now, Richard added mentally.

They pulled to a stop at a light and someone honked a horn. They both looked right to see the boys in the TransAm waving their arms at Jo. The driver had the windows down and shouted, "Hey, Babe-a-tricity! What's my number?"

Jo frowned turning to Richard. "How the heck w-would I know his number?"

Richard scowled then made a sudden abrupt and illegal left turn against the light onto Olive. How the heck do I explain that he's asking how far back he is in the line? "Morons," he said out loud. That'll do.A speeding Beemer honked at them as they cleared the intersection and Jo squeaked in surprise. God, I love it when she makes that noise.

The sudden evasive action distracted Jo from requesting more explanation. She had another problem to think about. How do I ask him to spend the night? And if I do ask him what is he gonna think? Well, I know what he's going to think but how do I handle that? No, that's not what I meant! she told her unruly imagination.

Richard looked for potholes so he could take sudden evasive action again. Damn Burbank Streets and Structures Department, why couldn't this be West Hollywood where they have potholes with submarines in the bottom? I wonder if I can invite myself to stay the night?

The cellphone rang again. Richard answered without thinking about it. "Hello?" he said then stared at the switch he knew he'd flicked to off just moments ago.

"Oh, Dickenstein, are you hard for me? I'm so wet for you?" Richard hit the off switch on the phone without even hanging up. "Heh? Heh? I wonder who that was?" he said to Jo with a sickly grin.

"Sounded like B-bridget," said Jo. "You know, the little b-blonde with the p-plastic knockers and the rose tattoo on her b-b-b-ass?" Jo picked up the phone, disconnected the handsfree speaker and removed the battery.

"Good thinking," said Richard. "I don't know how it got turned on again."

"Seems like things do get turned on around you, b-by accident?" Jo smiled and threw the battery out the window.

"Hey!"

"I'll b-buy you a new one," said Jo. "I can afford it, but if you got one m-more call from a b-bimbo ex-girlfriend this w-weekend on my time, I'd have to f-f-f-f-can you." She gave him a stern look.

He laughed. "Okay, okay. But how'd you know she had a rose tattoo?"

"Like either of you w-wore any clothes at all that w-weekend? She streaked m-me in my room twice." Jo frowned. "Are all of your girlfriends so...unh? Slutty?"

Richard shrugged. "Saves time," he said. Then he winked at her and showed his dimples.

Jo blushed and giggled. How did he do that? she asked herself, realizing that she had just forgiven him for being a Dick -- again. I'm gonna have to watch that. She sighed. "Oh, Dickie, what am I gonna do w-with you?"

"I've got some ideas."

"I b-bet."

He turned on Sunset and made the immediate quick turn onto Via Buena Vista, provoking another squeak from Jo. He grinned.

"You did that deliberately!"

"And people say blondes are slow on the uptake." He laughed.

"This is a w-wig! I'm a redhead." But she laughed too.

"Not hardly, strawberry blonde at most."

"It's more ginger!"

With another sudden turn, and another squeak from Jo, he turned into the Thierry driveway, down the lane and parked it on the apron in front of the garage. "So, are you more Ginger? Or more Mary Ann?"

She grinned at him. "I don't know, yet, Gilligan."

They sat for a moment, looking at each other, neither making a move to open a door.

"Are we..." Richard began.

"I w-w-want..." Jo started.

"You first," said Richard.

Jo took a deep breath.

Blue Moon 9.0

by Donna Lamb

 

"Care for another glass of wine, clarence?" asked Sophie. She smiled at him as if she'd been dining on canary instead of octopus.

"No, thanks," said Ted. "We'd better get back to business before your doppelganger gets up to more mischief."

She sniffed, disappointed that he hadn't been fooled by her distraction. "You've got so many manacles on me here, I had to try something."

Ted tried to quirk one eyebrow but he'd never been able to manage that Spockian feat even when alive and sober; both went up. "I'd think you'd enjoy manacles a bit too much for them to be useful."

She snickered. "For a clarence, you're not bad. Never met one with much of a sense of humor before."

"Could be you're a teensy bit pissed, as they say these days in Jolly Old," he said.

"Helps one to enjoy some things more. And you're looking a bit under the owl yourself."

"Under the owl? Never heard that one." He thought for a moment, considering the known habits of owls when disturbed or frightened. "Ah." He nodded. "Shit-faced, you mean. Which brings us to the important question of the evening."

"Which is?" Sophie asked, peering over her glass as she teased out one last drop of Crocodile Pete's truly excellent after-dinner sherry.

"Who's driving?" asked Ted. For a minor miracle, he kept his face perfectly straight just long enough that she cracked up first.

* * *

In the shower, Jo let the warm spray play across her body. She'd washed her short hair with some very expensive shampoo and had used some of the foam in other places. So weird, she thought.

The internet insured that she wasn't completely ignorant of the female body, even if Joel had led a sheltered, if not better called, deprived existence. Breasts are really soft, like pillows. I thought they'd be more, I dunno, rubbery? Her nipples crinkled lazily in the warm stream when she played with them gently. Her thoughts turned immediately to Richard.

She dropped a hand to her crotch. Good thing I sent Richard back to the apartment for some of his stuff. Her fingers found the spot she'd known existed, further down and back than she'd expected, though. "W-w-wow?" she said aloud. Then she gasped. Then she wondered if her knees would hold her up. She leaned against the wall of the shower, just in case. Damn good thing I got Richard out of the house before I tried this, she thought.

* * *

Richard didn't think so. Jo had suggested that he go to his apartment for some of his things in order to stay the night -- if not the weekend. That definitely went on the plus side; on the other hand, he didn't like missing the opportunity to -- to help, he decided -- to help with Jo's shower. After all, she's never done it before, she might slip and fall, he thought. Then laughed at himself.

He could hotfoot it to West Hollywood, pick up some clothes and toilet stuff and be back in less than an hour, even with the early traffic of a Friday afternoon. He decided he'd also better make a stop at a drugstore for some fresh -- supplies.

She's Jo. She's a girl and she's hot for me. She is not Joel, that's entirely beside the point, he told himself. Then why do I feel like I'm being a Dick by planning to pick up more condoms?

He almost didn't see the speeding black Jaguar coming up behind him to pass on the wrong side just as he reached his exit. Slower reflexes or less experience would surely have resulted in a sideswipe collision, at the very least. The two vehicles almost bumped mirrors except the Mustang's sat higher than the ones on the Jag; that they didn't even touch seemed like -- magic.

"Squeak!" said Richard, still thinking about Jo. He took the next exit down and looped back toward Melrose, annoyed but not alarmed by the close call.

* * *

"Regular bitch on wheels," commented Ted. He looked sleepy but sounded alert.

"I wasn't going to hurt him, you meddling clarence," said Sophie.

"Oh probably not. A few paint scratches, some flirtation to keep his temperature up -- do you think he really needs that? -- and a delay." He looked at her over the table in Crocodile Pete's. "Why delay him?"

Sophie bared her teeth in a sharky smile but said nothing.

* * *

Jo sat at the computer desk in her "studio" wearing nothing but a robe and panties, still warm and relaxed from her shower. If guys knew about that, they'd all want to be girls, she thought. She giggled out loud, booted the computer up and then surfed to Google to look up Tom K. Harmon, Hollywood agent.

After a bit of squinting, she remembered her glasses and went to retrieve them from the nose of the ceramic kitty in the bathroom. "Stupid glasses," she muttered. "Must have got w-weak eyes from Dad." Back at the computer, she quickly found a website for Tom K. Harmon, Talent Associates at the address in Century City she'd got on the phone. And yes, he did handle models, as well as actors, comedians, musicians and even writers. It wasn't a little hole in the wall place but a big office with dozens of agents and hundreds of clients, some of them well-known because there was a list.

But she still didn't know for sure what Melody had sent her portfolio to this agency for. Sucking on a fingertip, she considered. It had to be modeling or Harmon would have mentioned having or needing an audio or video sample. And her appointment as with Harmon himself, namesake of the whole company.

She rolled her eyes. "Well, if I b-blow it, Richard can always support me by driving a cab." She giggled and went back into the bathroom to the oversize walk-in closet to decide what she should wear. That's when she heard the first noises downstairs.

"Richard?" she called out. Silence. She shrugged and pulled out a short, poufy dress in some glittery peachy fabric and held it up. "Nah," she said."I ain't that girly yet." She giggled again and started to pull out another dress. Why do I think I really should wear a dress to this? she wondered.

The new noise sounded like someone trying to open a door by kicking it. She pulled her robe close around her and pushed her glasses back up on her nose. "Richard?" she called again.

No answer.

She went to the door to the bathroom and listened. Someone moving around downstairs. Saying nothing this time, she closed and locked the bathroom door after retrieving her purse and cellphone from the bedroom. She found he speed dial button assigned to 911 and poised her thumb over the button then turned out the lights in the bathroom.

* * *

Finding the back door of Jo's house standing open when he got back surprised Richard. He'd brought the smaller of his two suitcases, plus his good suit in a garment bag and a briefcase full of some of his old sheet music but he left all that in the Mustang while he investigated.

Anybody inside had surely heard the big V-8 arrive so Richard abandoned stealth in favor of speed. Running through the door, he made a quick check of the rooms on the lowest floor and started up the stairs, calling "Jo! Melody Jo!" all the while.

The second floor door to the street level front yard stood open, too. Richard felt sure it hadn't been so when he had driven down the lane to the parking apron in the back. He made a quick loop through the open rooms of the first floor, still calling for Jo, then dashed out the front door and paused on the wide, cut-stone front porch. Down the street, beyond the curve of the road, he heard a car engine surge then fade as if someone had driven away.

"Son of a bitch!!" he yelped. Turning quickly, he ran inside and started up the stairs, shouting, "Jo!" as loudly as he could.

Jo emerged from the bedroom, holding a cellphone like a weapon, just as he reached the first step.

"Jo!" he shouted.

"Richard!" she shouted back. Her robe fell open at that moment revealing that she had nothing but panties on underneath. Squeaking in dismay, she turned and ran back into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Richard stopped running on the fifth step from the top. He stood there a moment then said, "Damn," quietly. Louder, he called out, "Jo? You okay?" Can't believe how good she looked.

"Yes," came the voice from the room beyond the door. "I'm getting dressed. Can you check the rest of the house, p-p-please?"

"Uh, sure," Richard said. Jo, naked. Jo, getting dressed. Um.

He checked the studio, including the closet there. The third door on the upper floor proved to be another bedroom suite, smaller, with its own bathroom and walk-in. Richard made a note to bring his stuff up and dump it there.

Moving quickly, he checked all the other rooms on the lower floors, including closets, and discovered en route two security panels. A large one hidden behind a wooden decorative panel in the office on the middle floor and a smaller satellite inside the big glass door off the patio on the lower floor. A third panel he found in the garage.

All of the switches on the security panels were set to off, neutral or some other inoperable position. "Shit," said Richard. Probably ten thousand dollars in security here and none of it was on. I should have been looking for it. He stared at the main panel by the desk in the front room office. I've no idea how to set this up. Jo and I are going to a hotel tonight.

He went back to the Mustang, locked it with his stuff still inside then checked the pool building, spotting another probable security panel there, locked in a metal cabinet. Also a locked small gate in the back fence opened onto the brushy bottom of the ravine. Get someone out here to cut this stuff before fire season, he told himself, making another mental note.

He went back to the house and locked everything he could find to lock; though the side door on the bottom floor looked damaged, it still locked. Then he climbed two flights of stairs and knocked on Jo's door. "Land shark!" he called and heard a satisfying squeak.

Jo opened the door wearing an above-the-knee cream-colored dress of some soft drapey knit, off-white hose, bone-colored, buckled half-boots with three-inch wedge heels and several natural wood bracelets on each wrist.

"Wow," said Richard.

"Don't gawp," she ordered, poking him in the middle. "You didn't f-find anyone?"

"No, ma'am," he said. "Nothing except the door to the laundry room damaged. Did you know there's a dumbwaiter in there that goes up to the kitchen?" Jo shook her head. "Nothing taken I could tell, but for all I know your dad's collection of Faberge eggs is missing."

She narrowed her eyes but decided he must be kidding. "Should we call the p-police?"

Richard sighed. "Jo, you're a girl now; being brave is not your department. You should have called the police, or me, as soon as you heard something -- you did hear something?"

"Um," she nodded. "That's p-p-sexist, you know."

He grinned. "Don't care. Call next time. And we've got to get your security system turned back on, probably repaired, too."

"I've got a security system?" she asked then waved away the explanation. "But should we call the p-p-p-cops? Now?"

Richard considered. "Let's find the number for your security people and ask them, and maybe they can get over here and fix things today. 'Cause otherwise, well, I didn't bring my stuff in 'cause we're not going to spend a night here until the burglar stuff works."

Jo chewed a fingertip. "W-we're not going back to the apartment. Those locks are m-made of ice cream."

Richard smiled. Jo looks like a tall vanilla malt with a cherry on top. God, we're in her bedroom. With a bed. What are we talking about? "We'll get a hotel room."

She cocked her head and looked at him sideways. "Room? Suite."

"Sweet," he agreed.

* * *

Her nearly effortless wardrobe savvy had surprised Jo. She knew what would look good with her shape and coloring without thinking too much about it. In fact, thinking too much made it harder to do. She almost felt like she'd managed a female wardrobe all her life. "Well," she muttered, "I did w-w-wish for things to be easier and this is almost exactly what I m-meant." After a moment, she added, "I think."

She picked out more jewelry, a necklace of wooden beads with green and blue stones separating them, earrings of wooden half-hoops and a belt that matched the necklace but with golden beads also to match the buckle on her shoes. "Almost too easy," she muttered. "I ought to be f-freaking out."

She dusted her face with some glitter powder after doing her eyes in cream, gold and silver with green eyeliner. Coral lipstick finished things off and she chose the long red wig and settled it in place. "Now I need a b-bag," she said. She found a soft leather bag with wooden beads and a narrow strap that went perfectly with her ensemble. She loaded it up with a selection of things from her big old straw bag. "Straw in January? What w-was I thinking?"

She stared at herself in the mirror when she finished, turning this way and that, striking a few poses. "Richard is going to leap out of his socks," she decided. She smiled at her reflection. "Teach him to snicker when he m-makes me squeaky."

* * *

Downstairs, Richard had finally reached Secure Response of Burbank, who had promised to have a tech out to assess damage within half an hour. "If your system was off, this won't be included in the service contract."

"Uh, yeah, figures," said Richard. "Just get someone over here soonest, we're leaving for an appointment in less than an hour." He intended to leave forty-five minutes early to get crosstown in the mid-afternoon Friday rush. "Oh, how will we know if someone shows up that they're from you're company?"

"Always ask for two forms of ID and look for the SRB truck, sir."

"Okay, good." He hung up and started up the stairs, hoping Jo had gotten dressed and he wouldn't have to think of something else to distract him. Then he stopped, ran out to his car and brought in the satchel of sheet music he'd fetched from the apartment.

Jo met him on the landing. "Did you call the cops?" she asked.

He stared at her for a long moment. This is not Joel. This is not my geeky roomie. This is a fox who knows it. "Like the red hair," he said out loud.

She giggled. "Thought you w-would." She tossed her head, letting the fiery curls caress her shoulders. "Cops?" she asked again.

He nodded. "Not much to tell them, they said it wasn't hardly worth it to try for prints or tool marks. I called security, too and they're coming over to fix the door and turn everything back on. But ceck your phone to see if you have a speed dial for them, SRB or Security or Secure Response. I want you to use it the next time something like this happens." He looked stern.

Jo didn't argue. She recognized her vulnerability and acknowledged it to Richard. "Okay," she said, trying to look meek.

Richard restrained an impulse to take her in his arms and tell her it would be okay. Too cute, jeez! When did she learn that look?

She gave him a look from among the red curls falling around her face while she checked the phone. "Yep. Speed dial f-f-five." Uh-oh, she thought seeing his expression. Need a distraction. "What's in the case?"

He looked down at his hand to see what he was carrying."Oh, yeah. Uh, sheet music, from my old band."

She gestured at the studio, he opened the door for her and let her go in first. That's a nicer thing than it looks like, she thought, having doors opened for you.

They spread the music out on a bench. "This isn't p-p-printed sheet m-music," Jo said after looking at several pieces.

"Sure it is," said Richard. "I printed it out on the school printer." He grinned.

Jo looked closer. "You did the arrangements for the b-band?"

"Uh, yeah. I, uh, wrote some, too."

She pulled a piece out and looked it over. "You wrote this? The lyrics, too?"

"Uh, huh." Richard looked embarrassed.

She examined the piece, humming a tune. Richard looked at her, startled. "You can sight read?"

"Apparently," she took the sheets over to the keyboard, turning things on. She handed him one of the copies. "You wanna do the drums and v-vocals?"

"Uh?" He looked stunned.

"You sing tenor?" she asked.

He nodded, taking the seat at the drums.

They warmed up a bit then Jo said, "Gimme a b-beat, you don't have a tempo m-marked."

He gave her a steady, sha-boom-a-bop-a-boom till she fell into the rhythm. He played, elaborating the beat with the cymbal and toms. They ran through a couple of verses. Jo's fingers danced on the keys, playing the music he'd written years ago with the electronic stops set for piano and muted brass. Whoa, I didn't write that, he thought as Jo improvised a key change and added a second bass line.

She paused to stretch her fingers and swing her hair back, he kept time on the snare, admiring her.

"Rock b-beat with a country sound," she said."That right?"

He nodded.

She pointed at him. "Sing it!" she ordered.

He sang:

Walk with me, for a little while
It's a lonesome road I've chosen
Talk to me, give me a smile,
It's been too long since
Friendly words were spoken.

Never thought I'd be alone so long
Never thought of hearts a-breaking
Never thought of singing a lonesome song
Never thought of not seeing you
Back when I chose the road I've taken.

Jo nodded, waving for him to continue.

Walk awhile in my lonesome shoes,
Maybe you can hear them squeaking
Sing a few bars of my lonesome blues
Tell me goodbye at the lonesome gate
I'll leave some love in your keeping.

Maybe sometime I'll be back this way
Can't any promises be making
Another lonesome night, another lonesome day,
Another lonesome mile I've walked
On this lonesome road I've taken.

She waved him to be quiet, working the key change, she'd tried out. Then she sang, words that were almost the ones he'd written but words he hadn't heard before:

Never thought I'd be seeing you go
Never thought I'd ask you to be staying
Don't want to be missing you so
Take off your lonesome shoes
We've got some plans to be making.

Let's walk together, for a little while
It's a lonesome road we're taking
Talk to me, give me a smile,
It's been too long since
Loving words were spoken.

A raised finger from Jo and a key change back. Richard sang:

Walk awhile in my lonesome shoes,
Maybe you can hear them squeaking
Sing a few bars of my lonesome blues
Tell me goodbye at the lonesome gate
I'll leave some love in your keeping.

Jo's coda was better than the one he'd written, with a change of time and key and a change back; he followed the rhythm easily, it seemed so natural, finishing on the unexpected but inevitable tonic chord.

In the sudden silence, they heard the doorbell ringing.

* * *

Richard went down to deal with the security company while Jo messed around in the studio. That was amazing, she thought. If sex is any better than music, that would explain a lot about how people act.

Some instinct or habit leftover from Melody's hypothetical existence led her to check to see if she had sweated during the impromptu performance. Nope, still dry. I'll spritz before we leave and I'm good. And if that had been more exciting, I might need to change my shorts. Panties. Wait ... yeah, it happens with girls, too, just different. She giggled, glad no one could see her or read her mind.

Going over to the sound board, she checked to see if their session had recorded since she hadn't taken time to really set it up but had simply switched on recording at the keyboard mini-console just before Richard started singing. The tape in the deck looked about half used, so she rewound, held one headphone carefully to one ear and listened.

"Crud," she said out loud after a minute. She hadn't thought to tell Richard to sing into the mike and he was barely audible. Unless he was on the other track. Nope, even in mono playback, no Richard. In fact, when she looked at the drum station, she saw the voice mike turned against the wall.

The music didn't sound bad, though. She played with some ideas in her head, deciding that as a band, they were a bit thin. "More p-piano, less synth on the keyboard; add some guitars. Horn? Maybe."

Her own voice came on, startling her. She'd sung into the mike and her vocals came through very well. Entranced, she listened -- she hadn't yet heard her own voice since the transformation. When the recording reached Richard's indistinct last verse, she shut it off, her fingers trembling a bit. "I'm p-pretty good for just m-messing around. And no stuttering." She'd run into that phenomenon as Joel, the stuttering didn't happen while singing or reciting memorized lines in a play.

She'd heard Richard's voice live; a warm, expressive tenor, a little thin on the high end, that just might need training and experience to be professional. Joel had had a similar voice, in fact, except that he had had training; because singing and reciting had helped his stuttering, he'd tried to get at least one semester course in each year of college. But performing had always nearly paralyzed him.

Jo, on the other hand, felt an excited anticipation at the thought of letting the voice she'd just heard loose on a stage with people -- and audience -- listening. She suppressed a giggle while fluffing her hair, or rather, her wig.

"M-maybe we can form a b-band for real?" She looked around at all the equipment, "M-maybe I already have a b-band?"

She went to the computer on the sound board to see if it held any information on past band members.

Richard came in holding a clipboard, "You need to sign this, Jo," he said. "I don't think they know you're only nineteen, but I want these guys to fix stuff without having to call your lawyer."

"Ah," she said, looking up. "Actually, they'd want the trustee at the b-bank, I think. His name is in the computer downstairs." But she signed. Melody Jo Thierry -- with a tiny heart over the i, and the m and j looking like hearts, too.

Richard held the clipboard, just looking at her for a moment.

"What?" she asked.

"Did you remember that about the trustee? Or?"

"Um, I remembered it from when I w-was looking around down there earlier, yeah?" She frowned. "I think. B-but w-wouldn't that be the logical p-place to f-f-find it?"

"I guess," said Richard. "Look at your signature."

She looked at the paper. "Oh, God." She looked back up at him, "W-well? I w-was a cheerleader, y'know? F-fershur?" She grinned.

"If it doesn't bother you, it doesn't bother me." He shrugged. "There any of Joel still in there?"

"Uh huh," she said. "I'm m-me. What? You want me to go b-back to telling you it's all your f-fault? Hey, you know we sounded pretty good?" She popped the tape out and showed it to him. "Except the drummer forgot to sing into the m-mike."

He stared at her again. "No one told the drummer we were recording. Damn. You know you did sound good and...hey!" He pointed at the big schoolhouse-style clock on the wall, "We've got to get going in ten minutes. Uh, I'm having them do a complete check of everything, but they can't really fix the door before tomorrow, probably. We can come back here after seeing the agent and pick up what we need -- are you listening?"

Jo had switched everything in the studio off and headed through the door to her bedroom. "Going to go p-powder my nose, I'll be ready."

"Are you really?" he asked.

"What?" she paused in the door.

"Going to powder your nose?"

She giggled. "If it needs it, yeah, that, too. Go. M-meet you downstairs."

He went -- after watching her disappear into the bedroom.

* * *

The security man did a very neat double-take as Jo trotted down the stairs from the upper floor calling, "Richard? Richard?" He looked up once from the panel full of wiring he'd had open, then looked back and up again.

Jo noticed the reaction and enjoyed it. Her fiery red wig seemed to glow, the waist-length curls swinging around her. Her beige, brown and cream ensemble set off her peach complexion against the red hair in a way that could only be called illuminating. She'd spent the last several minutes moving things she thought she might need into the absolutely perfect purse: brown and cream leather with a wide orange stripe that matched her wig. But she worried that Richard had got annoyed waiting for her.

"He's -- uh -- he's downstairs, Miss -- uh -- Miss Thierry?" The technician flashed her a nervous smile. Even though he did a lot of work in the homes of the beautiful people, something about Jo unnerved him. He felt so under dressed in his typical Southern California winter clothing, tan pants, white shirt and green windbreaker. It seemed like he should have worn a suit or at least have had a tie on.

Jo paused at the bottom of the stairs from the upper floor, "Thank you," she said smiling at him. Oh, my, he blushes. She rushed on down the next set of stairs, making the turn on the wood-floored landing as if she always trotted down steps wearing three-inch heels. She didn't giggle til she reached the lowest floor. He's old enough to be my dad, she thought.

Through the big windows, she saw Richard sitting in the Mustang. When he saw her, he got out and went to open the door for her, showing his dimples in a big smile. I guess he isn't mad, after all. Probably used to his girlfriends keeping him waiting. God, could he be any better looking? That thought almost stopped her.

Richard opened the door and stood aside, "Got everything?" he asked in a cheerful voice.

"Uh, huh?" she managed to say, trying not to think about kissing him.

"Uh, huh?" Richard grinned. "You don't sound so positive about it. Where are your glasses?" I should kiss her, he thought. Damn it, she's not Joel.

They paused for a moment in the door, their faces inches apart.

"In my p-p-purse," she whispered. Jo felt a wanting inside her completely outside Joel's experience. Even with her heels, Richard towered over her -- well, he always had -- but she'd never known that his masculine strength had a palpable force to it. If I touch him, we're going immediately back upstairs, she thought. Move, Jo, before you turn to jelly.

"Good," said Richard. What the hell were we talking about? How can she smell so damn good? How can she pick out something to wear like that after less than a day? If I kiss her, will we ever get to this appointment? "Where are your glasses?" Green eyes with golden sparkles, magic eyes.

"In m-my p-p-p-purse," she repeated.

After another moment, they both felt the need to breathe.

Richard stepped back, Jo stepped through the door and Richard closed it behind her then strode around the car to hold the already open right hand door. "We have to go, traffic is unpredictable this time of day."

She felt his eyes on her legs as she crossed the concrete apron, heels making a hollow tocking sound. He looked up into her face just before she would have felt annoyed at her legs getting all his attention. Something hot and bubbly burst inside her and ran down to her new female parts under the short skirt when she brushed his arm. "You're not m-mad about me taking so long?" she asked to distract her from her own sensations.

He laughed deep in his throat. If she looked any better, smelled any better, sounded any -- sexier, I would have choked to death on that laugh. "Nah. All girls take longer than they think they will."

She giggled, taking his hand to steady her as she seated herself in the car, as graceful as if she were dancing. His hand felt cool and rough against hers, hard and strong.

Her fingers are so soft, her hands so small, thought Richard. Jo's hands were well proportioned for a woman her height, longer than average, in fact, but slender.

They let their hands drop, not letting go but allowing gravity to pull them apart. Richard shut the door and raced around the car. Inside, Jo gulped in air and wondered if she might have inherited a weak heart with Melody's weak eyes. Richard took a deep breath before opening the door and sliding in.

"Where's your glasses?" he asked.

"In m-my p-p-purse," she answered.

Richard pulled the door closed and started the engine. He looked at her. She patted her purse. He backed up the long driveway so suddenly, she made a squeaking noise in alarm.

She tried to frown at him for making her squeak but he showed his dimples and she forgave him. How does he do that? she wondered.

I love it when she makes that noise and then pouts at me, thought Richard. He put the car in gear and away they went.

 

Blue Moon 10.0

by Donna Lamb

 

Richard drove like un coureur du Tour de France sans drogue: he was losing the race. He changed lanes mechanically, he ignored opportunities to surge ahead; he might as well have been a typical commuter who had left his mind locked in his desk at work.

Jo gave him a couple of concerned looks but she said nothing. I wonder if he's thinking about me? Oh, isn't that a lovely bit of self-centeredness to discover about oneself? Looking for some way to distract her attention from Richard, she pulled down the sun-visor in the Mustang to look into the mirror attached to the back. Oh, now this is vain, too. God, I'm so-o-o shallow! She giggled out loud.

Richard glanced at her, showed his dimples in a reflexive smile and went back to his deep concentration on whatever weighty problem had engaged his thinking.

"Are we going to b-be on time?" Jo asked after a bit more poking along.

"Sure," said Richard. He accelerated around several pokey sedans, cut through the opening between a gas truck and a cement mixer to reach a clear lane and ran the late amber light at La Cienega. Jo bit back a squeak. Richard said, "We really had plenty of time, but you never let a girl know that."

Jo's mouth flew open, Richard looked at her sideways and winked.

She sighed, realizing she had been had. "What were you thinking about b-back there?"

"Us. You," he said.

Jo felt a glow. "Really?"

"Yeah,"said Richard. "This looks like it's the real deal, a rest-of-your-life sort of thing. You're Melody Jo now and you're a real person with a real place in the world."

Jo blinked, suddenly unsure if she wanted Richard to be thinking of her in such terms.

"You're beautiful, you're rich and you're talented. I just have to wonder...." He didn't finish, suddenly having to take evasive action to avoid eating the rear bumper of a BMW convertible driven by a plastic-looking blonde who had fishtailed her beemer through the eye of a camel.

Jo did squeak that time and Richard cursed. The moment had passed.

* * *

"Rather evil bit of buggery that," remarked Ted.

"You should know," said Sophie, with a smirk.

He looked at her down a long, British nose. "I meant, you're playing a devious game, folding your strategy back, egging them on then cooling them off."

"Ew, cold folded eggs," said Sophie.

"Whatever," he said. "You're losing this one old girl, and you know it."

"If hearts were not trump, I would have."

He stared at her. "Hearts are trump? But that's why you are losing. Love conquers all, you know."

She smiled. "I'm counting on it."

* * *

Jo and Richard reached the entrance to the parking garage under the building holding the offices of Tom K. Harmon, Talent Associates before they managed to get back the discussion they'd been on the edge of starting.

They rode up in the big glass elevator together. Jo bubbled with excitement, smiling and even giggling a bit. Richard looked glum.

"I don't understand why you didn't want to come up with m-me," said Jo.

"This is your thing, Melody's thing. The only reason I'm coming along for is to watch out for you. Make sure no one tries to take advantage of you."

"Hey," said Jo. "I'm underage, I can't legally sign a contract unless a judge says so."

"Well, some kinds of contract. But neither of us is a lawyer, so we don't want to depend on that." He took back the suit jacket he had loaned Jo in the frigid depths of the parking garage. Putting it on, he smiled a bit on finding it warm and smelling faintly of Un Mille et Une Fleurs, Jo's perfume.

The bell bonged and the elevator doors opened on a small foyer with a set of large glass doors labeled, "Tom K. Harmon, Talent Associates." A short hallway led off the foyer lined with doors, presumably to other offices on the same floor.

Richard pushed open the big glass door for Jo then followed her in. She went immediately to the reception desk and announced herself. "M-melody Jo Thierry and my manager, Richard Alexander, to see M-mr. Harmon." Richard managed not to trip on his jaw when she said that.

The receptionist, a decorative California blonde, made nice and invited them to sit, "for just a few minutes," while Mr. Harmon finished with another client. Jo took a seat in the area opposite the reception desk that had been decorated like an upscale family room, complete with a big screen HDTV, a chess table and a coffee bar.

Richard stood in front of her, blocking the receptionist's view and speaking in a low voice. "Since when am I your manager?"

She grinned. "Since I hired you five seconds ago, manager-chauffeur-bodyguard. Pays, uh, five thousand more a year than you're m-making now."

He stared at her. "Jo!"

"Please?" she looked at him with her big green eyes pleading.

"Jo!" he protested. "Ah, Jo! I can't be your manager, no, no. That would mean I signed contracts for you, did the negotiations." Those eyes, that almost-trembling lip. "I can't do that, I'm just a gear-head, driver..."

"And songwriter, and drummer in our b-band," she put in.

He held a hand up. "Please, Jo. No. We.... Just, no."

She pouted.

God, if she were still Joel, I'd smack him, thought Richard. "Personal assistant," he said, yielding a little ground.

She beamed at him and he had to smile back. "Jo, you're dangerous."

Giggling, she reached for his hand. "Shake, but you know, you just cost yourself that extra f-five thousand a year."

He took her hand gently and shook. "We'll talk about that later. But managers get a salary plus a percentage." He grinned, showing his dimples.

She pulled on his arm. "Sit," she said. "How big a p-percentage? And how m-much do agents get?"

He sighed. "We should have talked this over before. Agents get ten or fifteen percent, usually fifteen, sometimes more; managers, it varies a lot, depending." He sat beside her, turning so she had to let go of his hand.

"See? You know this stuff. How do you know this?"

"Uh, dating models, starlets, singers, you know." He shrugged. "Listening to them gripe about agents, managers, directors, photographers, producers, clients. Their hairdressers, mothers, dentists..."

She looked thoughtful. "Who knew you listened to them?" she said.

He laughed.

The receptionist called them, "Mr. Harmon will see you now." She started around the desk toward an inner door.

Richard stood and offered his hand to Jo. She took it, squeezed it, and stood. They followed the receptionist through the door into the inner offices, both of them still tingling a bit from that last contact.

* * *

Tom K. Harmon didn't look quite like Melody had pictured him. For one thing, she hadn't pictured him wearing braces on his legs or having that hollow-cheeked boniness in his face that often marks the victims of chronic wasting diseases or spinal injuries. Otherwise, he looked rather like the actor, Willem Dafoe, with less hair.

He stood in the middle of a long piece of green plastic turf holding a putter in both hands, bent over slightly to take a shot at the shallow cup set into the artificial putting green.

Richard held a finger up to keep Jo from speaking while Harmon tapped the ball which rolled to the lip of the cup, paused and rolled back slowly. Harmon sighed and looked up, "Hi there? You-all play golf?" he asked, smiling. His pleasant tenor held no hint of his disability but just a slight southwestern flavor, probably from somewhere between Tulsa and Bakersfield.

"No, sir," said Richard. "I caddied a lot when I was a kid, out in San Fernando, but I've never played regular."

Jo shook her head, red curls swinging. "Just m-miniature, sir. Never touch the hard stuff." She smiled, making her eyes twinkle.

Harmon laughed. "Well, I'm Tom Harmon. You must be Melody Thierry, Gil and Judy's daughter." He stuck out his right hand while dropping the putter onto the green.

Jo started slightly; she'd seen her "parents'" names at the house but hadn't heard anyone refer to them as if they were friends before. "You knew m-my folks, sir?" she asked.

He winced. "Call me, Tom. 'Sir' was my father." He grinned. "But, sure, I knew your dad. We both started at CBS back when Perry Como was hot. Well, maybe not quite that long ago. Sorry to hear about what happened." He meant the Noember car accident in which the Thierrys were killed.

Jo smiled but something inside seemed broken; she had no memories of Gil and Judy Thierry.

Harmon turned toward Richard who stuck out his hand. "I'm Richard Alexander," the younger man said. They shook hands. "I'm Jo's friend, sort of helping her out."

"Pleased to meet you both," said Tom.

Jo put in, "Richard is kind of looking out for m-me, these days."

"I see," said Tom. "And you prefer to be called Jo, right?"

She nodded, confessing, "I have trouble saying that first name."

Tom waved them all toward a sort of conversation pit in the wide office. A couch and several upholstered chairs surrounded a long table that sat a bit higher than a coffee table but lower than a desk. The center of the table held recessed electrical and electronic connectors. A tray holding a coffee decanter with cups and additives sat at one end.

After they had settled with steaming cups, Harmon said, "I'm having lunch brought in, just sandwiches. What will you-all have? My treat. The Sandwitchery downstairs does a bang-up job on pastrami or tuna salad or whatever you like."

"I'll have a fruit cup, if I may, sir, Tom," said Jo. "We ate at about eleven."

"Um," Richard felt uncomfortable eating Tom's food at what should have been Jo's meeting. On the other hand, he discovered he actually felt hungry. "Roast beef on a toasted bagel? No onions, just mayo and tomato. If that's okay?"

"Sure," said Tom. "This makes it a business lunch and I get to take mine off my taxes, too." He grinned and said something into a cellphone he'd brought over from his desk. "Ten minutes," he said when he had disconnected. "Now, we should talk about the packet you sent me." He fiddled with the joints on his leg braces, easing them so he could bend his knees.

Jo looked blank for a second. Richard stepped in. "Jo's had some memory problems since the accident. It's getting better all the time but honestly, sir, she doesn't remember what she sent you."

Harmon blinked. "Well, it wasn't much and maybe you didn't send it yourself, Jo." He picked up a folded letter from the table and extended it to Jo. "This came with the packet of glossies. I think you should read it."

Fingers trembling, Jo opened the letter and held it where Richard could read over her shoulder without thinking about it. Not wearing her glasses, she had to hold the paper a bit close, causing Richard to lean nearer.

Dear Tom,

These pictures are of my daughter, Melody Jo. She wants to be in show business so bad she dreams about it. She's very talented in music and as you can see, she takes a good picture. She's a bit shy because she stutters except when she's singing or acting in a play. I thought I'd send these to you for a recommendation on an agent for her who'd be willing to take on a new client with a pretty skinny professional resume.

My golf game has suffered since you don't play at Burbank anymore. All that fiddling you do getting ready to make a shot is just such a wonderful distraction for when I need a little nooje to get a better lie, myself. Ha.

Judy says you and Gloria have to come over, should come over for steaks. I reminded her that you aren't married to Gloria anymore and that might be awkward but she didn't feel that would make that much difference. You know Judy, can't conceive of anyone no longer wanting to be friends with someone. Loyal as a hound, that woman, don't tell her I said so. Hee.

Call me when you get this, we'll arrange a get-to, just us. Then we can include Judy and whoever you want to bring for those steaks, later.

Give Melody a look, please, and a thunk. It'd mean a lot to her, and to me and Judy.

Keep your putter up and your harbles dry.

Your friend,
Gil Thierry

When Jo began to sob, Richard put an arm around her.

"Sorry, sorry," said Jo. She wiped her eyes with a tissue from her purse.

"That's okay, but now I'm confused," said Tom. "I don't think you sent the packet but I only got it earlier this week. Gil must have left it with someone else to deliver it."

Richard looked up. "Not mailed?"

Tom shook his head. "Nope. Hand-delivered right to my desk." He shrugged. "I've got no explanation and I guess I don't need one." He looked thoughtful, glancing down at another paper in his hand.

"You okay?" Richard asked Jo.

She nodded. "I'm all right. Just caught me b-by surprise."

Richard gave her a hug about the shoulders and she dropped her hand onto his knee where he covered it with his own.

"I made some notes," said Tom. "Gil says you're musically talented, do you sing, play instruments? What instruments?"

"Keyboards, m-mostly," said Jo. "And sing."

"She used to have her own band," Richard offered.

"What kind of music?" Tom asked.

"P-pop, country, rock," said Jo. "Richard is my drummer. Writes songs, too." She added, smiling at him.

"Have you ever cut a demo?"

"I think so," she answered. Tom blinked. "B-but I'd like to do a new one," Jo went on. "I don't have m-my old b-band." No idea who Melody's band was.

"How about modeling? Have you done any modeling?" Tom tapped the stack of glossies. "These are quite good. You could probably have a comfortable career as a model. Top end fashion modeling and nude modeling pay the best, but there's always work for someone who looks good on camera. Catalogs, conventions, commercials."

Jo glanced at Richard. Some small corner of her new self seemed intrigued by the mention of nude modeling, as if she were discovering an exhibitionistic streak in her makeup. Richard showed his dimples, exactly as if he could read her mind. "I think I'd p-prefer something like music. Doing, instead of b-being?" she said.

He nodded. "You're not just doing this because your dad suggested it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. I think I've always wanted to p-perform." She and Richard exchanged looks, again; bemused and surprised.

Tom looked interested. "Real performers work hard," he said. "Just an observation, not an admonition."

"I can w-work hard. My folks," Melody's folks but Dunny made they're mine, too, "left me a house and some money, but I need to do something w-with my life. Music means a lot to m-me."

"Okay," said Tom. "If you wanted to model, I could probably get you some small jobs pretty quickly, but music is a whole 'nother thing. Let me tell you what you're going to need to have for me to get you into some small clubs to start out with."

Lunch came and disappeared, along with some delicious Italian sodas and designer waters. Tom discussed hiring band members, making demos, copyrighting music and operating a website, all as part of a music career.

"I won't be able to take your account," he warned. "I've too many high-maintenance, high-return clients to eat up my time besides being CEO of the company but I've got a hungry young agent who should be perfect for you." He used his phones to quickly set up a meeting with the young woman, named Andie Moore, for later that evening. "She's got a project you might be interested in," he added.

Jo pulled her glasses out to take notes. Grinning at her, Tom pulled his out, too. "Silly to be vain about these when I'm wearing all this iron," he slapped his leg braces. "But there you are."

"I've got contacts," Jo explained. "But I haven't worn them since the accident."

"Can't wear them myself, allergies make me rub my eyes too often," said Tom.

Near the end of the session, Tom fetched a split of champagne from a refrigerator hidden in his credenza. He poured them each a half-full flute and toasted. "To Gil and Judy," he said, simply.

Richard didn't mention that Jo was under age. Four ounces of champagne isn't going to hurt her, he thought.

Half an hour later, Richard held the door of the Mustang open for Jo in the chilly underground garage. She slipped inside, glad that he'd loaned her his coat again. Out on the street, a wind blew in from the ocean bringing damp cold air direct from the Bering Sea; at least it felt that way on Jo's bare legs. "B-b-brrr?" she said as Richard got in on the other side.

He grinned at her. "I'll have it warmed up soon, keep the coat on for now."

"I'm so c-c-cold. D-do g-girls get c-colder than b-b-b-m-m-m-g-guys?"

"Our muscles keep us warm," said Richard. He idled the engine a bit, adjusting the heating vents.

"Nyah!" said Jo, sticking her tongue out at him. "Ow! I b-bit m-my t-t-tongue!"

"Serves you right," he said, showing a dimple. "You're stuttering on practically every word and your teeth sound like Buddy Rich doing a castanet solo."

She giggled. "T-turn on the heater."

"It's on. This is a Ford, takes a while to warm up."

She looked at him sideways. "Mmm," she said. "M-m-me, too."

He laughed and she blushed pink, though she couldn't have said why. He put the Mustang in gear and wheeled out of the parking garage, making the turn onto the Avenue. "You want to go home and change into something warmer before we meet this Moore chick?" he asked.

"Nah, I'm tough," she said. "Um?" Richard made a left onto Santa Monica, catching her leaning wrong. "Hamlet's the other way?"

"We got time, I thought I'd take us down by the water. Besides, it's the one on Sepulveda."

"There's m-more than one Hamlet? Hooda thunkit?" She warmed her hands in the now toasty blast from the car's heater. She looked at Richard for a long moment.

"What?" he asked.

"You're not taking m-me to see the submarine races, are you?" she asked.

"Uh, no." He showed all of his dimples.

"Too b-bad," she sighed. "I've never seen'em."

* * *

Richard sideslipped the evening traffic somehow, ending up in a turnout on HIghway 1 between Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. The ocean stretched out in front of them -- except for the Channel Islands -- empty for thousands of miles. The wind off the water had cleared the air and the sun set in a sky almost more green than blue with purple and gold streamers far to the north and south like curtains pulling back from a show.

Jo watched, awed by the spectacle and aching inside from some feelings she didn't know how to name. I want Richard to hold me, she said to herself, wondering at the thought. I want to kiss him again, have him kiss me back. I'm so damned confused.

Goddam bucket seats, thought Richard.

The sun kissed the water, melting a little at the bottom to spread gold along the horizon. The sky deepened, a turquoise fading to indigo in their peripheral vision.

Jo reached across the central console. Richard took her hand, something he'd done with countless dates before but never with the thrill he felt now for such a simple contact. Jo took a deep breath, trying to think of what to say.

The sun sank into the golden lake it had made of the Pacific. Half-gone, it changed from gold to orange, then orange to red.

They watched, not saying anything. Richard squeezed Jo's hand and she thought her heart would burst if she didn't say something.

The dwindling sun turned orange again, then brilliant gold in a blue-blue sky,then intensely hot yellow like a glimpse of happiness. Finally, the last fingernail edge, thinner than hope, turned a perfect emerald green for less than a heartbeat, then exploded larger than the vanished edge of the sun, flooding the world for that moment with a verdant light that made the sea into grass and their skin into bronze.

Jo gasped.

The sun and its green ghost disappeared, leaving a rosy glow in a deep lavender sky.

Richard squeezed her hand and smiled at her.

"You knew it w-was going to do that?" she asked. Her wide eyes seemed to remember the miracle, green with gold flecks.

"I thought it might happen," he said."It's called the green flash. You can only see it if the sky is completely clear to the horizon, no mist or dust."

"W-wow," said Jo. "I've lived near here all my life and I never even heard of it b-before."

"I've seen it three times, four now. Once from an airplane."

She looked back at the sky. "You spend a lot of time at the b-beach."

He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back, feeling shy again. "The weather has to be right and you have to remember to look for it." He smiled and pulled gently on her hand. She started to lean towards him, heart racing.

The sudden honking made her squeak.

Blue Moon 11.0

by Donna Lamb

Lyrics by Erin Halfelven

.

Andie Moore laughed. Her nearly purple lips opened wide and her pearly teeth showed when she laughed. "Oh, God! It was someone's driveway?" She laughed again. The deep, black leather chairs in the Hamlet Restaurant Bar made a wonderful background for her royal blue dress, her big kelly green beads, her blue-blue eyes and her fuchsia hair.

Richard nodded, laughing, too. "Yeah, I've been stopping there for years to watch the water and never noticed that the pavement went right over the edge of the cliff -- cause it isn't a cliff, it's just a really steep driveway down to a garage you can't see at all unless you're right up on the edge. So the owner honked at us and Jo made a noise like a Pomeranian pup that's been squeezed."

Jo tried to laugh, and most people would have thought she had succeeded. Richard gave her a curious look but she smiled back at him.

Andie laughed again, running fingers through her punkishly short hair. Her long, painted nails matched her hair and each had a gold decal in shapes from a charm bracelet centered on it.

She wears false eyelashes, noted Jo. She's got to be at least thirty, or thirty-five. "Ho, ho," Jo said aloud. Why do I care?

Andie carefully wiped her eyes. "That's so rich. Tom said you guys were good people but he didn't warn me you were funny." She winked at Jo. "This guy is a keeper, huh?"

Jo pretended to think about it."Well, he's p-pretty -- good at drums," she conceded which set Andie off again.

"You guys have known each other a long time, I can tell," said Andie, still smiling. "That can be good if you're going to perform together but it can be poison, too. Guess, you'll have to find out which." She picked up her wine cooler and took a big sip. "But if you aren't hungry yet, why don't we go see some people make music?"

Richard looked at Jo. "Okay," she said.

* * *

In another bar, they listened to the smoky tones of a saxophone played by a light-skinned black man with graying hair and freckles. He wore a shiny black suit with a slightly old fashioned look and a red bow-tie. The horn sang of pain and desertion and through it all, a bit of hope peeked through.

"His name is Ay-Ron, spelled a-r-o-n, Jones, but most people call him Lemon-Eater," Andie communicated in a whispered shout.

Jo suppressed a bark of laughter and traded a grin with Richard. The horn player's expression did look like he'd been eating lemons.

Jones stepped back and a man who looked like a caricature of a hippie burnout case stepped forward with an electric guitar. Unlike Aron, he had no expression that could be seen, though a fu-manchu moustache gave him a slighlty sinister look. A tie-dyed bandanna held his long scraggly hair back from his forehead. He wore a Grateful Dead t-shirt and a pair of urban camouflage cargo sorts with bony shins visible. His fingers flew, a driving intricate beat played on just a guitar with a dancing melody flawlessly threaded through it. Standing behind him, a thin woman with a round face backed his beat on a battered bass guitar.

Richard leaned over and shouted into Andie's ear. "Should we know this guy?"

Andie nodded. "They're Paul and Kylie Benny, session musicians that are pretty well known in some places. He's usually called 'Bugs'."

"Bugs B-benny?" said Jo.

"What?" shouted Andie.

"Never m-mind," shouted Jo.

"That's right," Andie shouted, grinning. "Bugs Benny."

The small band moved to another tune, Kylie changing to a rhythm guitar and Jones taking up the bass.

Andie pointed at the back and side of the little stage. "They've got your instruments, you wanna sit in?"

Richard shook his head. "I haven't played regular in months, I'll embarrass myself."

But Jo had already started for the stage.

* * *

"I'm Jo," she said as she climbed the steps on the stage.

The black man, Aron, or Lemon-eater, smiled shyly. Paul, or Bugs, nodded. Kylie mimed saying hello and pointed at her ears. She moved closer to Jo and asked in a voice loud enough to be heard. "Are you our new drummer?"

"Uh, no, I'm keyboards," said Jo. She could play the drums, she knew but she wanted Richard up on stage, too. And if she had to admit it, she wanted him away from Andie Moore. With the lights of the stage in her eyes, she couldn't see them but she peered in his general direction and motioned for Richard to join her.

Kylie waved at the keyboard set-up and Jo moved that way. She realized there was a fourth person on the tiny stage, a large man bending over a sound board behind a black net scrim. He pointed at the keyboard and made a switching motion with his hand. Dressed all in black, behind the screen, Jo realized that the audience couldn't see him. She nodded and flipped the switches on the keyboard set up, a Yamaha with two sets of keys and numerous rockers. Nice rig, she thought, but not as good as mine.

She brought the keys into the music of the band with care, following the guitar lead into a version of Desperado. Bugs came in with the lyrics as soon as Jo had established the melody line and brought it back to the top. His scratchy tenor sounded rough but true and he eased back on the intricacy of his picking while he sang. Jo picked up the missing drums with synth and worried about what Andie and Richard were doing. Kylie looked at her and grinned.

In the audience, Andie whisper-shouted to Richard, "You should be up there, they need drums."

Richard watched Jo in amazement, she looked like a pro. "I'm just an amateur drummer, Andie."

"You've played in front of an audience before?"

"Well, yeah."

"So how's this different?"

"Those guys are good. Bugs is crazy-good."

Andie nodded, "That's the real reason they call him Bugs. And Lemon Jones is the sweetest bass player, horn man you'll find this side of Kansas City who doesn't have a million dollar contract."

Richard nodded, he believed it. Jones looked as if he were eating lemons, even while playing the bass, but he was good.

"Their drummer just went to jail," Andie added. "And their keyboard man decided to try to pass the bar again."

Richard looked to see if she were kidding. She looked serious.

"Richard," she said, "your girlfriend needs you, don't be a Dick."

Smiling as he remembered Jo using that very same phrase, Richard started for the stage. The band had finished with the Eagles and seemed to be ready to take a break. The stage lights dimmed and the sound faded; applause broke out in the audience but not everyone had been paying attention.

Richard felt relieved, maybe he could escape without having to perform. But probably not. I'm only doing this for you, Jo, he thought. His hands weren't actually shaking, it only felt as if they were.

"Bout time," said Jo, looking happy to see him. "Guys, this is Richard, this great drummer I found under a rock. Well, he's not a very great drummer but it wasn't a b-big ol' rock, anyway. He'll do."

Richard laughed, showing his dimples. Kylie giggled and Aron smiled. Bugs's lips quirked up a bit. Richard took his seat behind the drums and began playing with the snare with the brush, ticking the back beats on the rim.

The man behind the screen announced into a hidden mike, "Ten minutes, folks. Be sure to get your drinking hand validated at the bar. We'll save your seats, so don't worry about that." A few people laughed.

Jo looked at him, "Andie told us everyone else's name, I'm Jo Thierry and this is Richard Alexander. Are you with the band or the bar?"

"Arnie Roberts, humble roadie, always ignored until the yelling starts," he said emerging from behind the screen to offer his hand to Richard and then to Jo. A big man, though not in Gmunro's unique class, he had a pleasant announcer's baritone, soft hands, and a deprecating smile.

"Great!" Jo bubbled. "So we've got a whole b-band now. What do we call ourselves?"

"Pizen," said Lemon-eater.

"Odds Against," mumbled Bugs.

"Survivors," said Kylie. "I thought we picked Survivors?"

Arnie pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. "I'm still partial to Yellow Brick Toad, myself."

* * *

After some discussion, they settled on a song selection for their second set. They planned nothing too strenuous while they worked into working together. First up, Lemon played bass and sang "Soul Man," with Kylie picking up a trumpet from the floor and Jo fattening the horn sound with synth. Richard's drums got better as he forgot his nervousness about playing with real professionals in front of a paying audience. Bugs played lead and he and Richard did backing vocals for Lemon who danced with his bass guitar like he'd invented the idea.

Next, Jo sang a well-known country ballad in the high, sweet soprano she'd used before. Bugs nodded and Lemon smiled. Kylie joined in on the chorus, a light but pleasant second soprano supporting Jo's sound. Richard made a few errors but never lost the beat. Jo was almost as easy to drum for as Lemon, both had the knack of perfect time and cued the drum changes with movements the audience never noticed.

The band found the groove when Bugs sang an old Dylan tune, his scratchy tenor well-suited to the job. Kylie and Bugs swapped the lead back and forth as Bugs sang; for the last verse, they passed it to Jo's electric piano. Richard surprised himself with how well he did on the drums, earning a smile from Jo and a nod from Bugs himself. That guy is a crazy guitar god and he thinks I'm okay on drums, thought Richard. Cool!

With Lemon and Kylie on their horns, Richard sang 'Ring of Fire" in his lowest comfortable key. He felt good and Jo went nuts on the keys, taking the lead away from Bugs then stopping play during the choruses to clap her hands and spin around before coming back in. She had her stops set for honky-tonk piano and the five of them jazzed the hell out of the June Carter tune. The crowd loved it. Jo grinned like a lunatic and winked at Richard.

The planned set had two guitar solos for Bugs to show his chops and the first one was next. Richard relaxed, happier than he had any right to be and drenched with sweat. Arnie had a baby spot on Bugs with the rest of them in semi-darkness; the guitarist would get his break next. Richard didn't recognize the tune, a bluesy, slow rocker with intricate fingerwork around some melancholy chords. Kylie had called it "Why Not?" He saw Jo miming to Kylie, "Did Bugs write this?" The other woman nodded, pointing at Bugs then herself, "We did."

Jo looked over at Richard and mouthed a "W-wow!" Richard grinned, showing his dimples. What kind of luck was it to find such a talented band that needed keyboards and drums just now? Jo has Heaven's own luck, he thought. He considered. Or Hell's, he decided.

But Jo mimed something else. "What?" he shrugged back at her. "Lonesome Shoes," she mouthed. Then she pulled Lemon and Kylie behind Arnie's screen for a one minute conference before Richard had got his head around the idea that she intended for them to do his song. With professionals. In front of a paying audience. That hadn't been in the set they'd talked about.

And I thought I was sweating before, Richard said to himself. He wiped his hands on his pants, afraid that if he had to drum right away the sticks would fly across the stage like arcane missiles in an Asian martial arts flick. Ninja drummer. Wish I knew how to disappear.

* * *

Ted the Clarence enjoyed few things more than good blues guitar. He even smiled at Sophie, sitting across from him. The two supernaturals shared a booth near the back of the bar, sipping Gentleman Jack; neat for her, on the rocks with a lime twist for him.

Sophie wanted to feel annoyed at Ted, This is my music, she wanted to tell him. She'd never admit it to anyone but herself but Bugs Benny was one of the ones that had got away. Come to think of it, so was Lemon-Eater Jones. And Kylie. And Arnie Roberts was an old soul, recycled again and again, slipping through her clutches with ease, every time.

Should have had a whiskey sour, she thought. I don't believe in bad omens. I'm a bad omen, myself. I don't need to believe because I know. And I know why. She smiled at Ted, gritting her teeth.

Ted smiled and smiled, keeping time with the music by tapping his fingers against the back of his other hand.

* * *

Richard played with the drums, stalling for everyone else to find their places after Bugs's solo. Lemon looked thoughtfully over at Richard. Jo lead the audience in applause while Bugs bowed out to go back stage, to piss and drink cool water. He looked like he seemed always to look, a burned-out hippie needing a place to sleep, but Richard saw the deep sweat stains under his arms and the tremble in his knees. How old is God? he wondered.

Kylie took up a guitar and Lemon his sax. Jo attacked the keys with a too-fast version of the melody line from "Lonesome Shoes", playing six beats to Richard's four. I can't sing to that, he thought. I never even thought of playing it like that.

Jo broke tempo, falling back to four-four time. Kylie came in with the rhythm and a little bit of picking and Lemon took the lead, playing the melody line like he'd invented it. Jo harmonized, changing her stops to sound like a mandolin and a baritone sax. She looked at Richard.

Here goes, thought Richard. Then just before his cue came around he mentally added, Jo, I love you.

* * *

An instrumental verse for Lemon to stunt on got added to "Lonesome Shoes" between Richard's first part and Jo's. The crowd clapped when the song ended and they seemed to mean it. Richard glowed with confused pride and Jo beamed at him.

Bugs entered, snatched up his axe and did a reprise of the melody, picking the hell out of the tune in 4/4 while Lemon simultaneously blew a whole 'nother version in a syncopated time. Richard kept up a simple snare brush on the backbeat, not daring to venture into that maelstrom. They finished that section with Jo coming in, playing her arrangement uptempo in a different key, the minor intervals converted to major, stops set to piano and something like the Man in the Moon's fiddle.

It sounds like heartbreak turned to joy, thought Richard. He came in on the last six measures, a drum crescendo like he'd never played before ending with a crashing silence as the wail of Lemon's horn and the trill of the eerie fiddle faded together.

The whole bar came to their feet, clapping."You're all crazy," said Richard, aloud. No one heard him but Lemon and Jo were grinning in his direction and Arnie leaned out of the booth to give them all a thumbs-up.

Jo and Kylie sang John Denver's "Country Roads" next to cool the crowd down. Then Lemon sang Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" followed by Bugs's doing a simple and very mellow "Ramblin' Man", the old Hank Williams tune with Bugs singing in his scratchy growl and Lemon backing on bass.

Jo's turn. They'd talked about this in the break and planned on her doing something by Elton John, lots of nice keying, maybe even Elton's version of "Pinball Wizard" by the Who. But Jo seemed to playing something else. Richard and the rest of the band recognized it as Bugs and Kylie's "Why Not", just as Jo began to sing.

I know why the mockingbird sings
Because of you
Because of you.

I know why the moon is blue
Because of you
Because of you.

I know who plays with my heartstrings
It must be you
It must be you.

And paints my world in a different hue
It must be you
It must be you.

Why did my life seem to turn around,
Why can't I sing about anything but you?
Who lifted me up when I was down?
And why, oh why must the moon be blue?

The whole band played an instrumental verse, Bugs leading while Jo made her keyboard sob. Richard's mouth kept dropping open but he stayed on the beat, a simple rhythm with stick on snare and middle tom and brush on the ride.

Bugs cued Jo and Richard caught the uptempo as her piano came back in. Crossing over, he used the brush on the snare and the stick to kiss the hihat. Jo sang:

I know why love leaves tearstains
Because of you
Because of you.

I know why the moon is blue
Because of you
Because of you.

I know what happiness brings
From loving you
From loving you.

What I know, I know, I know is true
From loving you
From loving you.

Oh, pick me up and turn me around
I can't believe I ever looked down
Or thought I knew why the moon is blue
When I've got your love and loving you.
And loving you.

Richard followed Bugs out on the final coda then Jo sang a capella:

I know why the moon is blue
Because of you
Because of you.

The crowd stayed silent for a measure then the clapping started. Richard noticed that Bugs and Lemon were clapping too. When did she write that? It's beautiful, thought Richard. So why do I feel guilty?

The crowd didn't make a sound for a long moment, then the clapping started and got very loud before fading into a buzz as the stage lights dimmed. Arnie's voice came from the makeshift soundbooth, only loud enough for the band to hear. "We've got to get out of here, Westside Storey is coming."

"What?" said Jo. "They can't do a m-musical on this tiny stage!"

Someone in the crowd called out. "Hey, don't leave. Do that last one again!"

"Encore!" someone else called.

Aron Jones began putting his instruments away, smiling as he did so. He didn't look like he ate lemons except when playing his horn.

"Westside Storey is Jamie Storey's band, we were just warming up the crowd for them from six thirty to eight," explained Kylie. "We've got our own gig starting at nine in Hollywood." She worked at packing away her guitar and trumpet in their cases, too. "Leave the keys and traps, they belong to Storey." Bugs simply slung his axe across his back.

The crowd had not gotten quiet.

"We want more of the girl singer," said someone.

"That's you," said Richard to Jo, smiling.

"Sing 'I know why,' again, girlie!" someone shouted.

Someone else took up the call. "I know why! I know why!" Several more voices joined in.

"Jo?" Arnie's voice came out of the booth. "Bugs?" He sounded a little scared. They all looked out at the crowd and got a little frightened. A lot of people looked happy but some of them were getting very loud.

"I know why! I know why!"

Richard settled back behind the drums again. "Over here, Jo. Not at the keys -- when you finish, we're getting out of here quick!" He pushed his voice mike up for her to use. "Bugs, Lemon, Kylie, get your stuff off the stage, to your van or whatever. Arnie?"

"I know why! I know why!"

"Yeah!" said Arnie. Then over the announcement system, "Just quiet down folks and Melody Jo will sing." The shouting began to die away.

Bugs looked stubborn. "It's my tune, Charlie," he said to Richard. Jo smirked but shook her head.

"You got to get Kylie away, only one of us needs to stay with Jo and that's me," said Richard.

"She don't stay, just me, and my ax," said Bugs.

"I know why! I know why!" The crowd seemed to get louder while the band bickered.

Kylie grabbed a handful of Bugs's arm hair and yanked.

"Jay-Zuss! yelped the old hippie, stopping the motion he'd begun to unslung his guitar. "Woman!" He tried to turn to face her but she'd also grabbed his belt from behind.

Richard winced but Jo giggled as Kylie pushed Bugs off stage, "You don't want me to snatch you bald, old man!" she warned.

Lemon-Eater staggered off behind them, carrying his guitar and saxophone cases, with Kylie's trumpet case tucked under an arm. "Git when the gittin' is good," he said to Richard. "Don't dawdle, McDonald."

Jo eyed Richard behind the safety of the trap set. "I'm going to remember that m-move," she said, smiling. "Charlie McDonald." She grinned.

Richard showed his dimples. He began a snare beat, tick-sha-sha-tang! on the hi-hat. Four enormous bouncers moved between the low stage and the crowd, saying politely, "Please sit down. Please sit down." They didn't touch anyone but they loomed over people a lot.

"Thirty seconds," said Arnie on the announcer. "If it's not quiet in thirty seconds we're leaving. Now get quiet out there." The crowd began to go back to their seats, the ones who had seats, when the people in front sat down as urged by the bouncers. The shouting died away.

"Oh, good, she's going to sing," a woman in the crowd said. Several people shushed her.

They're waiting for me. For my song. Jo smiled at the crowd.

Some people clapped. The bouncers glared and loomed. A guitar riff, unmistakably Bugs, came from the speakers then died away. Jo and Richard looked around but Arnie signaled that it had been tape not live. "Ladies and gentlemen, Melody Jo and 'I know why!'" announced Arnie.

Jo took the mike and walked to center stage as the lights came up. The crowd clapped then stopped when Arnie rippled the spots across them.

Richard beat an intro. Bugs's guitar came from the speakers again.

Jo sang:

I know why the honeybee stings
Because of you
Because of you.

I know why the sky is blue
Because of you
Because of you.

I know what loneliness brings
From loving you
From loving you.

I know why the moon is blue,
From loving you
From loving you.

Why can't I turn my life around?
Why can't I sing about anyone but you?
Why did you lift me up to cast me down?
And why, oh why must the moon be blue?

Arnie faded out the guitar and Richard played only the ride with a soft brush and the snare on the backbeat. Jo sang with nothing but rhythm for backing. Her face glowed in the spot, her eyes as green as emeralds.

I know why my heart can sing
Because of you
Because of you.

I know why the moon is blue
Because of you
Because of you.

I know what happiness brings
By loving you
By loving you.

What I know, I hope, I know is true
By loving you
By loving you.

You picked me up and turned me around!
Was I afraid I'd always be down?
Or thought I knew why the moon is blue
When I've got your love ... and loving you.
And loving you.

Richard stopped drumming and came around the trapset to put his arms around her. Jo sang.

I know why the moon is blue
From loving you

From ...

Loving ...

You!

She turned in his arms and put her face up. They kissed, just as Arnie crashed the stage lights, leaving only the peanut lights and the exit lamps. Richard picked Jo up bodily and sprinted out the side of the stage. Jo squeaked. Arnie dawdled only long enough to pop two tapes out of the sound deck and made his way out fairly quickly for such a bulky guy.

"Good luck!" he called to the bouncers.

They couldn't hear him over the noise of the crowd, clapping.

In the back hall, near the kitchens, he met a tall blond with a David Crosby 'stache and mutton chops, coming in. "Crowd's warmed up, may be a teensy bit over-heated, Jamie," he said in warning. Then he squeezed past and out the door.

Bugs had the van waiting, wide door open. He climbed in. He could hear the sound of the crowd still. "I Know Why! I Know Why!" they were shouting.

Richard and Jo wheeled up in a red Mustang. "Where we going?" asked Richard.

Arnie climbed into the van, "Hollywood!" he shouted. Bugs revved the engine. "Wrangler Jill's!"

"Where?" Richard yelled.

Arnie waved. "Follow us!" He shut the door of the van. Bugs popped the clutch and the ten-year-old vehicle lurched onto the street, Richard and Jo following.

Richard turned to Jo, smiling, remembering the Kiss. "I guess we follow them. But why did you sing different words the second time?"

Jo touched her lips, remembering. She smiled. "I forgot what I sang the f-first time."

Richard glanced at her, startled. "You were making it up as you went along?"

"Uh huh," said Jo. "It seemed like a good idea." She considered."It w-worked, didn't it?"

Richard shook his head, still smiling. The Mustang followed the old van toward the rendezvous in Hollywood.

Blue Moon 12.0

by Donna Lamb

.

"Where w-we going?" Jo asked. She looked out the window of the Mustang at the passing lights. Los Angeles in winter, late January, is just about as green as it gets -- which isn't very. It didn't look like winter out there except to someone who'd grown up in the area.

Trees actually overhung this part of Santa Monica Boulevard, making it darker and the lights brighter by contrast. Jo had always liked winter, the cool days and nights chilly enough to wear a sweater. It rained in the winter, too, but not at the moment. The overhanging evergreen oaks and bare-limbed sycamores gave way to palm trees, a more authentic look for L.A., and Jo didn't think of them as inappropriate for winter. A wind made the palms wave and quiver; she imagined she could hear the rattle of the big stiff leaves against each other.

Richard finally replied to her question. "I don't know," he said. "Arnie said something about Hollywood."

It's been less than twenty hours since -- since I stopped being Joel. And less than eight since I really started being me, Jo thought. After I found Dunny and understood this is how it's supposed to be. Completely un-self-consciously, Jo squeezed her left breast with her right hand gently, then released it. She smiled. "You kissed m-me," she said.

"You needed kissing," said Richard. He glanced toward her then turned back to watching the taillights of the van containing the rest of the band.

"Oh, the Texas defense." Jo giggled.

"Yes'm," said Richard, in a Gary Cooper voice."It's the Code of the West." He grinned.

"I kind of liked it," said Jo.

"Glad to know I haven't lost the knack," said Richard. "Kind of, huh? Well, that was a number three; I'll try something stronger next time."

Jo blushed. Next time? "What m-makes you so sure ...."

"Because the moon is blue," he said, glancing at her.

She turned even redder. Good thing it's dark, she thought. "Damn your dimples," she said. "You're way too cute to stay m-mad at." Was he blushing now?

Richard laughed. Good thing it's dark, he thought.

"Richard," she said. "Dimples aside, what's going to happen to us?"

"Uh? We're going to play in the band?"

"B-besides that?"

He lifted each hand off the wheel in turn before putting them back at ten and two. "What -- uh -- what do you mean?"

Jo bit her lip. "I'm not sure. I'm kind of new at having a b-boyfriend."

Richard smiled. "I'm not sure what's going to happen -- with us. It's kind of a weird situation. I mean, just you and I -- not even counting the band. You were amazing up there tonight."

"Bugs is amazing. Why is a guy like that not already in a b-big name b-band?" Jo looked at her fingers. No point in building up calluses to play the guitar with Bugs around. "I'm pretty sure I've heard that guitar on some albums but I've never heard B-bugs name b-before."

Richard shrugged. "I got to thinking about that. I dunno, but Lemon-eater could probably write his own ticket, too. He's good, I just don't know blues as well as I know rock. But I wonder why I haven't heard of him before, either."

"W-weird. Like they came out of nowhere."

"Yeah," agreed Richard. "It's weird."

Jo stayed silent for a bit. "What happened to me is p-pretty w-weird, too," she said. She looked out the window on her side.

Two women stood on a street corner in the January chill. She'd seen such girls many times before but the impact of their predicament struck her differently now. What must it be like to live such a life? she wondered. She might have had sympathy for them before she became a woman but now she reached out, emotionally, trying to feel empathy. That could be me, she thought. What has to happen to you so that becomes a better choice than something else?

Richard struggled with his own empathic problem. What's this like for Jo? Yesterday, she was a guy. A dweeby guy who didn't really know how to relate to women. Now she's a beautiful, sexy woman who seems to know all the right moves without thinking about it. Instant -- well, I dunno?

"It's a little weird over here, too," he said out loud.

"You've had girlfriends b-before, though," said Jo, aware that she was teasing him a little. "Lots of them, sometimes several at the same time. I've seen how girls look at you -- and how you look b-back at them." Come to think of it, she thought, what am I going to do if Richard keeps on being -- Richard?

He smiled without looking away from the lights leading them deeper into Hollywood. "You're not just another girlfriend, Jo. I don't know how to say this. I don't want anything to hurt you, ever. Not even me, especially not me." I love you, Jo. I just can't say it aloud -- yet.

The van ahead turned into one of the rare downtown Los Angeles alleys; Richard followed. The lane went between some fashionable shops and trendy restaurants before the van eased into a parking spot behind a neon-decorated building a little larger than the others.

Jo tried to think about what Richard had just said but a glowing sign distracted her. "Wrangler Jill's? Where have I heard that name b-before?"

* * *

Wrangler Jill's, the bar, or club, occupied a rambling structure on a busy corner near the downtown edge of the Los Angeles area usually called Hollywood. Weathered gray boards covered the outside of the building, decorated here and there with Western artifacts like longhorns, rusty barbwire, hand water pumps, rifles, Indian headdresses, placer mining equipment, a buckboard on the roof, and a fort-like log palisade around the parking area -- plus lots and lots of neon. Too junky for true kitsch, the outer decor achieved a sort of pioneer funkiness that seemed to encourage the raucous crowd trying to get in the front doors. The loud, country rock music blaring from doors and outside speakers probably helped.

As one of the largest nightspots near but in L.A.'s downtown, Jill's attracted a very mixed clientele and while the evening's first band played country, almost any kind of pop music could be heard on any night, Thursday to Sunday, except rap. Jill disliked rap.

Jill, herself, (real name Allison Dill) often hosted the show. A flamboyant lesbian dressed in cowgirl chic, Jill stood over six feet tall in her Western boots with a cloud of frizzy blond hair spilling out of her Stetson down to her waist. Her braying alto introduced acts, chided patrons who weren't clapping or drinking or dancing, and generally added a cheerful, who-gives-a-shit-I-give-a-shit ambience to the goings-on.

The club had two dining rooms: one serving burgers, pizza and wings; the other, upstairs, offered steak, ribs and seafood. Food could also be served in either of the two long bars flanking the wide space in the middle of the building identified as "The Stomping Floor" on several signs. A balcony lounge called "The Loft" had one wall open to the dancefloor below. At the back end of the large space, light and sound equipment fenced off a low stage big enough for a fourteen-piece swing orchestra.

A few blocks away, the trendy shopping area of Melrose Avenue began and, not much further away, lay the duplex where Richard and Joel had lived for several years. I've never been in here, thought Jo. I thought it was a lesbian bar when I saw it in the daytime. So why do I think the name of the place is familiar?

She climbed out of the Mustang without waiting for Richard's help. They were working, it wouldn't have been appropriate, though she didn't think of why, she just did it.

Around back of the club where Bugs and Richard had parked the van and the Mustang, the building looked less like a cultural happening and more like any other large restaurant. Big dumpsters, wide unloading docks and the smell of spilled beer and food waste could have disillusioned anyone looking for Hollywood-glamor. Jo wrinkled her nose and looked across the car toward Richard.

"We don't have anything to carry so I'll help the guys lug stuff, you go in and find out where we set up," said Richard. Bugs had already opened the back of the van and Arnie the side. Kylie, carrying her guitar and trumpet cases wagged her head at Jo.

"Okay, see you inside," said Jo, already heading toward Kylie. The excitement of what might be a new career, something she'd only vaguely dreamed of as Joel, beckoned.

Kylie handed her the trumpet case. "If we're carrying instruments, the guy at the back door will let us in without hassle. And I need to go to the bathroom before we climb back on a stage."

"Mmm, m-me, too." A women's bathroom in a nightclub? Well, everybody's gotta go sometime, thought Jo. And it doesn't even seem odd anymore.

Sure enough, the bored guard at the back door looked only at their chests and asses as they passed him and just grunted at Kylie's cheerful, "Heyo!" She snorted once they were both inside, "Guess he likes skinny broads, huh?"

Jo had to laugh. Kylie's round face didn't really go with her almost stick-thin body. Five or six inches shorter than Jo, Kylie couldn't have weighed even a hundred pounds. Including the instruments, the two of them wouldn't weigh much more than Lemon Jones.

Jo would have had to ask directions but Kylie knew right where to go, between the kitchens and down some stairs to a room actually painted green with two bathrooms opening off of it.

"Jo isn't it? You and Charlie an item or that just stagework?" Kylie asked after they had set the instrument cases down.

"Uh? I guess we're b-busy finding out?" Jo admitted.

"Huh." Kylie made a face. "Meaning he won't say one way or another. Men."

Jo giggled and nodded. They did what business needed doing and met back in front of the long mirror. Jo took comb, brush and makeup out of her purse and laid them out.

"You need foundation, girl. Those lights out there are hella bright," Kylie said. She pushed a tube toward Jo. "and you gotta use oil-base so it don't wash off with your sweat."

Jo nodded. "I didn't bring my own 'cause I thought we were just taking a m-meeting." Makes sense, she thought. She remembered tubes and bottles of professional makeup in her dressing room back home along with a handy-size case.

"Use lots," Kylie said. "People are going to be looking at the girl singer -- a bunch." She grinned. "Guess I'm demoted back to rhythm guitar."

"I'm -- I...." Jo didn't know how to reply to that.

"Bugs playing, you singing, Lemon taking in the slack, me and Arnie and your Charlie totin' wood and carryin' water -- we're going places, girl. What do you think of I-NO-Y for the new band name?" She spelled it, all caps with hyphens.

"Uh, I kinda like it," admitted Jo. "It rocks." She beamed, excitement bubbling up. "What did you call it b-before?"

Kylie grinned. "Blue Moon," she said. "Too corny, huh? Funny you sorta used the name in your song."

Jo only shook her head, wondering.

Kylie took another look in the mirror. "We're killah, Jo. Joey. Josephine!" She spun and opened the door to the green room before grabbing her ax.

"It's M-melody Jo, uh, actually." She picked up the trumpet case and followed the older woman out. It is, isn't it? Yes, it is.

* * *

The sound of the earlier band had permeated the whole building so when they stopped, Richard noticed immediately. It's sort of like when the surgeon stops carving off your frost-bitten toes, he thought. It doesn't sound quieter, just different. The other sensory assaults of a busy nightclub, the roar of the kitchen, the smell of the crowd, filled the absence of music with equal insistence.

"Now we can start moving our stuff on stage and Arnie can start wiring us in," said Bugs.

Richard nodded. He'd got familiar with the routine of setup in his previous stint with a band.

"Leave the big speakers. I'll check that no one has blown the ones Jill has built-in first," said Arnie. He picked up the portable sound board in one hand and the box of tools and cables in the other. "They went over, I'll go in and rag on their ass to get their stuff off stage." He meant the band that had just ended their set.

Bugs grunted. He passed a heavy amp out to Richard. Lemon gathered his instrument cases, bass guitar and two different saxophones and followed Arnie. "Your woman the hit of that last show, man. You guys got your own stuff?" he said over his shoulder.

Richard nodded, also heading for the door; the amp and the big case of breakables passed down by Bugs made enough for one trip. "Jo has a whole private studio. All I own is an old acoustic and a junior trap set at my folks." Thinking back on what Lemon had asked, he wondered, Is Jo my woman? He decided that thought deserved a grin.

The man at the door didn't stop them either, but he didn't check them out like he had the girls. "Knock'em on the head, McDonald," he said to Lemon.

"Yuh," agreed the black bassist. "Kick'em while they down."

"How'd he know my name?" Richard joked as they negotiated the hall between the kitchens.

Lemon laughed. "I call most everyone McDonald if I don't know their name, so it's like my second nickname, too. Don't happen that's your actual name?"

"Uh, no. I'm Richard Alexander." They followed Arnie's bulk up a small flight of stairs to the narrow backstage area where six men in gaucho costumes wrestled with their own gear. "You're Aron Jones. Bugs Benny. Arnie Roberts and, uh, Kylie's with Jo. Melody Jo Thierry."

"Uh, huh," said Aron. "Don't do no good to tell me yours, done flew out my head. I still don't know Bugs's right name and we been playing together for six months." He put his cases behind the soundboard Arnie had leaned against the wall.

Richard sat stuff down where indicated and he and Lemon started back. The gauchos mumbled greetings but Richard didn't catch any names and got quickly out of their way. Arnie stayed to watch their stuff and help the gauchos clear off.

"How come you guys ain't pulling down big bucks?" Richard asked. "You're damn good."

"Well, I tell you," Lemon began, "it's like the song said, "If it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all." He sighed. "Sixteen years ago, I killed a man in a bar fight. Did time for it, though I didn't mean to kill him. Friend of mine."

"Shit," said Richard without meaning to. One of the cooks in the "gourmet" side of the kitchen glared at him as they passed back out to the alley.

Jones continued. "Now Bugs been in and out of drug rehab so often they call a revolving door a 'Paul Benjamin' down at the County. Hell, that's his name -- Paul Benjamin." He grinned back at Richard. "Kylie's made a project of the poor man, keeping him straight for the last year or so."

"You lying about me again, sourpuss?" asked Bugs heading past them with the floor tom under one arm and the bags for the other toms looped by their ropes over his other. He had his own guitar on his back. "You and Jo Darling gonna stick with us, Charlie?" he asked Richard.

"I think so." Lemon and Richard grabbed up the last of the gear from the alley where Bugs had stacked it and followed. Bugs had already locked the van.

"You better," said Lemon, bringing up the rear. "Or you'll deal with Kylie. On the way over here, she talked us into naming the band 'I-NO-Y' after what your girl did to the bugman's tune."

"Her way of saying you're in," said Bugs, in front of Richard. "She sang that like I wrote the tune to her words. How long she had that song in her head?"

Richard gulped. "Uh, she made it up -- on the spot."

Bugs would have shrugged but the toms were too heavy. "You want in, you're in. And your girl is so in, she's into it."

My girl. What will Jo think of that? Richard wondered. "Uh, thanks. Been meaning to ask. Whose drum kit is this? Nice."

"These traps belonged to Gogie Luft, our last drummer. Got shot in the brisket out in Reseda last weekend. They say he ain't going to make it."

Richard mind boggled. George "Gogie" Luft had played drums for several soul and rock groups back in the seventies. Richard's dad owned the records. "I'm going to be beating on Gogie's drums?"

"Kit belongs to the band now, Gogie said so," Bugs told him.

Richard began to sweat.

Kylie and Jo appeared from some side stairs and followed the boys onto the stage to help set up. Richard whispered what he'd learned to Jo. Then he settled in behind Gogie's drum kit, stagefright grabbing at his heart. Or was that just leaning in so close to Jo? He watched her set up with the keys. I should have kissed her, he decided. After all, she's my girl.

While checking out the keyboards, two of them, Jo thought about how much she wanted to kiss Richard and how excited she felt. From an audience of about 60 in the Westside cantina, they were going to be playing in front of several hundred in a real night club. We're in a band, and life is so good!

Eventually, after sound checks, Arnie brought the stage lights up slowly. "Here they are folks," he announced on the wired-in speakers. "I-NO-Y! Starting off with their version of Beat the Devil!"

"Rock'em!" shouted Jo. A pink spot hit her. She brought in the electric piano, hot and sweet.

"Knock'em in the head!" yelled Richard, drumming like he wasn't scared spitless at all as a golden spot picked him out.

"Kick'em while they down!" Lemon added then blew a long wail on the baritone sax, weaving in and out of his blue spotlight, face puckered around his reed.

"Make damn sure they're dead!" screamed Kylie, bringing down the hammer on her bass as a green spot lit her up.

Bugs said nothing but his guitar chattered and cursed like a demon in a pot of boiling oil while his spot and all the rest turned red then white hot.

They rocked the crowd and the crowd rocked them back.

* * *

Arnie flashed the strobes.

"Mercy!" Lemon-Eater Jones growled. "Done got them Dancin' Blues!" Then he made his tenor sax wail.

Kylie sang:

Got them Dancin' Blues,
Can't shake 'em!
Low down Dancin' Blues!
Can't take 'em!

When your baby done you wrong,
When the work-a-day's too damn long!
Take your blues onto the dance floor
And dance till you ain't blue no more!

Got them Dancin' Blues,
Can't shake 'em!
Low down Dancin' Blues!
Can't take 'em!

Lemon paused for breath. "Mercy!" he howled and the sax howled too.

Richard sang:

Got them Drummin' Blues!
I can't beat 'em!
Low down Drummin' Blues!
Can't defeat 'em!

When your battles can't be won,
When you need a little fun,
Come on down to Wrangler Jill's
And beat your drums all to hell!

The others stopped playing and Richard beat a drum solo chorus like the ghost of Gogie Luft had possessed his sticks. What the hell am I doing? he wondered. The crowd roared their approval. I just am not that good, Richard thought. For the moment it didn't matter, the crowd thought he was.

Bugs ripped his verse out of the soul of his guitar and pounded it into the dancers with quick fingerings and a driving rhythm. It felt like good-time blues but sounded like pure rock and roll and it made every foot in the building want to move to the beat..

Lemon picked up his bass guitar and howled again. Kylie had switched to her trumpet and added a wail. Lemon sang:

Mercy! Done got them Dancin' Blues!
Done caught them Dancin' Blues!
Can't outrun 'em!
Got them Dancin' Blues!
Can't outgun 'em!

He paused while Richard and Bugs supplied machine gun sound effects and Jo provided bombs bursting in air. He danced with his guitar and sang:

When the light's out in yo' cell
When you feel like raisin' hell!
Take your ass to Wrangler Jill's
And make it ring just like a bell!

Done caught them Dancin' Blues!
Can't outrun 'em!
Got them Dancin' Blues!
Can't outgun 'em!

Again the machine guns cut him off and again he howled for mercy. Jo looked into the darkness where the crowd danced. Jo played with one hand on each set of keys, dancing with the rest of her body. She pretended to pick someone out in the flash of the strobes and sang to them:

Got them Lovin' Blues!
This times a bad 'un!
Got them Lovin' Blues!
You know you've had'em!

Took my heart and mashed it flat!
Might as well use a baseball bat!
Gonna dance my blues away!
Gonna dance the night to day!

Got them no 'count Lovin Blues!
Didn't choose 'em!
Got them lowdown Lovin Blues!
Can't lose 'em!

The crowd roared. The band played on, five choruses before the noise died down and Arnie doused the stage lights for the end of the first set on Lemon's last, "Mercy!"

* * *

At the bar in the Loft, Andie Moore grinned at Wrangler Jill. "Before you say anything, remember the bet. Tonight's wages against an extra thousand both nights if you want them to play tomorrow."

Jill shut her mouth and looked thoughtful. "What if I want them for Saturday, too?"

* * *

In the green room, Lemon chugged ice tea and Bugs poured a cold beer on his own head.

Kylie and Jo scribbled frantically on scraps of paper, planning the next set.

Richard looked wonderingly at the sticks he still held in his hands. "Thanks, Gogie," he whispered then stuck the tools of his new profession through a loop of his belt.

"Okay," Jo announced. "We're going to start the next set with the instrumental version of Why Not then Lonesome B-blues, then Grapevine, and then Kylie, Richard and I do Love Shack, followed by Lemon with the Too Drunk B-boogie...." She named a few more songs and took a deep breath, "And we finish the set w-with I-NO-Y."

Kylie shook her head. "Then Richard gets you off stage, Bugs takes the drums and Lemon and I do Jackson, to cool the crowd off. That way we keep them wanting to hear I-No-Y again instead of having to do an encore too early."

Richard stared at Bugs. He plays drums, too?

Lemon grinned. "We do a hell of a job on Jackson. Make 'em sit up and take notice; her so little and white and me so big and handsome. They want to climb on stage to get anyone, it'll be me." He laughed and they all smiled, knowing exactly what he meant.

"You think that's necessary?" Jo asked. Richard stepped close and they put an arm around each other.

"Better safe than sorry," said Bugs.

"We'll end the night with I-No-Y, too," said Kylie. "End our last set. That's our song," she waved a circle, "and we want them to come back to hear it again." Everyone nodded.

Arnie stumbled halfway down the steps, almost filling the little stairwell. He looked a bit pasty, his thin hair limp. "Andie's got us three nights here! With a raise!"

"You all right, man?" asked Lemon. "You have another heart attack, 'member we ain't got no insurance at all."

"I'm okay," said the big man. "Got my pills. This is better than working the big studios, anyway." He smiled. "They didn't want to take a chance on me dying in the middle of a set anymore. Screw 'em," he explained to Jo and Richard's questioning look. Turning awkwardly in the tight space, Arnie headed back up. "Gotta check the line to the left side, some kinda fuzz coming through over there."

Jo put her face up to be kissed and Richard kissed her. It didn't even seem that odd any more, to either of them.

* * *

The blond man had waited in the restaurant for his date for most of half an hour. Then he'd eaten, alone and annoyed. After eating, he'd wandered toward one of the dance bars, arriving just at the end of the first set. Pretty good band, he thought. A lean redhead looked him over and he winked.

She came closer, "Do I know you?" she asked.

"It's possible," he admitted. "And I'm sorry about last night."

She laughed and let him buy her a drink.

* * *

Barry Aronhaus enjoyed himself talking with the lithe young redhead. She represented a type he found attractive; slim but not muscular, a soft girlish form built to his scale. Both of his wives and most of his girlfriends had fit that mold.

"So, what do you do, Cyn?" he asked after they had drinks. She'd told him to call her 'Cyn' because 'Cynthia' sounded like someone in a novel and 'Cindy' like a sitcom character. He liked calling her Cyn; it seemed appropriate.

"This and that," she said. "Study some, party some, work as little as I can. How about you?"

No reason anyone outside his district should know him, especially someone as young as Cyn. "I'm a lawyer." He'd found that claiming to be a politician made some people suspicious but admitting to being a lawyer disarmed a lot of them. "Wanna see my teeth?" he asked. He grinned.

She laughed.

They moved closer so they could hear each other. The band had started playing again; an intricate rocker with a lonely melody almost hidden inside a driving rhythm. "Wanna dance?" he shouted.

She nodded.

A moving-letter marquee above the stage, like one of the "Silent Radio" things they used to have in banks before video got so cheap, announced the name of the band as "I-NO-Y" and the name of the song as, "Y NOT?" Cute. Above the marquee, several rear projection TV screens showed the crowd dancing or random scenes from old Western movies.

They moved out onto the dance floor. Barry prided himself on keeping in shape and following the latest dance fashions; they'd stand in the same place for a number of songs, hardly touching while they jerked their bodies in time to the music. Sooner or later, a slow number would come along and he could take her in his arms. She looked as if she would enjoy that as much as he did.

The marquee announced the band members in red LED lights that marched across and disappeared. Lead guitar: "Bugs" Benny. Bass and Sax: "Lemon Eater" Jones.

The band played with energy and more style than he would have expected from a club band on a Thursday night. They had an improvisational jazz feel with a hard-edged rocking sound. "These guys are good! Even if their names are crazy!" he shouted, motioning toward the stage.

"What?" she shouted back.

He shook his head, smiling. She shrugged and smiled.

The next one was a slow one and he took Cyn in his arms, a warm and lively bundle. They kissed, very hot for so early in the evening. Still, he reflected, not like his last girlfriend who had an innocent way of kissing while her body sent wanton signals right through him, direct to his libido. Just thinking of her improved the moment.

Cyn could almost be her doppelganger. Same height, same build, same green eyes, almost. But with red hair and a longer, toothier jaw. And a brasher more direct personality. He wondered why Melody had stood him up? He had called her cellphone several times earlier but she hadn't answered.

Actually, Cyn looked more like his wife, Barry decided. Red hair, a little fuller in the hips and bust than the virginal-looking Melody. Cherie had turned into the same sort of controlling witch as his first wife. Wanting to be with him every moment, wanting to run his calendar for him, do his expense reports. He decided not to think about his wife.

The slow song had brought them close and Cyn fitted her head against his shoulder, just tall enough in heels that he could kiss her with kranging his back. "Good song," he bellowed into her ear. He glanced at the marquee which read: "Lonsome Shoes" Vocals by Charlie McDonald and ...

Misspelled "Lonesome," he thought. When the girl singer came in on a couple of verses, something about her voice made him look up. Another Cherie-clone apparently, a tall, almost lanky, redhead sang and played behind a pair of keyboards.

They had somehow danced closer to the stage but he couldn't get a real good look at the girl singer. And he already had an armful of beautiful redhead. What's that old saying? A hand in the bush is worth more than a bird on the wing? He smiled at Cyn and she smiled back.

* * *

On stage, as "Lonesome Blues" ended, Jo made a beeline offstage and behind the curtain, looking toward the other band members with a rueful expression. Kylie made a tinkling noise with her high strings and grinned at Richard's odd look.

Lemon had grabbed his bass and went right into "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" while Kylie took over the keyboards. The crowd liked it, getting back into the lively tune after the slower song. Lemon singing tenor worked well on the number; he had a knack for sounding as if he'd invented the words himself. Bugs and Richard did the backing vocals.

Jo stayed gone for the whole number but re-appeared in time to take the keyboards back and sing close harmony with Kylie on "Love Shack." She'd ditched the red wig and stood there in her short blond hair, looking much cooler. Richard hammed up the Fred Schneider lyrics, covering a number of fluffs with wisecracks. Lemon, back on sax, almost lost his pucker when Richard ad-libbed, "Crescent moon? Wrong shack!"

* * *

Somehow Barry and Cyn had got separated in the crowd and the congressman-very-much-at-large found himself standing almost directly in front of the stage. He stood there, staring up, open-mouthed. "Melody?" he said, knowing she couldn't hear him. With the lights in her eyes, she couldn't see him either. He craned his neck to look at the moving words of the marquee. "Keybds: Melodie Terry" it read.

Someone pushed him. "Dance or get off the floor, old man!" someone else shouted at him.

Barry looked around for a way to get on stage but the lights and speakers made a very effective fence, besides the burly fellows holding up the wall at each end. He moved toward one of the bars, hoping to find a side door to the backstage area. He had to find out if that was really Melody and.... Well, he'd figure out more questions when he found out if she'd really joined a rock band in order to stand him up.

Back in the crowd, a tall redhead followed Barry's movements. She spared only a glance for the girl on the stage before making her way toward the same side Barry had picked.

* * *

A huge man blocked Barry's way. The mammoth being stood close to seven feet tall and supported his grandiose weight with two massive ivory-tipped canes. An island of quiet and space in the crowded bar surrounded the gargantuan figure.

Barry looked up and up into the serenely smiling countenance of Mr. Dar Gmunro. Thick spectacles magnified the pleasant brown eyes peering back at Barry from their nest of pockmarks and tribal scars. It took a moment for the smile to register. Automaton-like, Barry smiled back, a politician's reflex.

"You are to be addressing to yourself Mr. Bartholomew Aronhaus, Esquire? Yes?" asked the giant.

"Uh, yes," said Barry. How did this guy get in here? he wondered. Without causing a panic?

"I am to be having the honorableness of being known to many as the Rightly Revered Dar Gmunro, inconsequently the owner of a peach-covered small abode, humbly am I permitted to refer to as the Palace of Dnuro," said Gmunro. He tucked one thick cane under a tree-like arm and stuck out a hand the size of a hassock.

"No doubt. Pleased. I'm sure," Barry babbled, shaking hands with the man monster.

Gmunro didn't let go. "Into the near vicinity of my posterior approach, existence of a brambly portal may be discerned, happenstansively the objective seeking your benign self."

"Uh...?" It's like he swallowed a renegade congressional committee chair -- or the whole committee. "What?"

"Passage into, through, beyond this finistere progresses untoward that personage thou doth desire to intercourse wherewithal."

"Who?" Barry wanted to back away but couldn't, the enormous hand held his in that insidious way sofa cushions grip a TV remote. Intercourse? Is he talking about Melody?

"Powers that be restrain my estimable self from counseling your wormly being lest ye refrain from venturing to sing additive chorus with one who punted a coda to your punctissimo." Gmunro waggled a pair of eyebrows like funereal Caterpillar earth-movers.

"Yeah, well, it happens," said Barry. Always agree with madmen, then run like hell.

"There unto forthwith, I pronounce upon you an urge, a geas. Go, do, be. Or be not." The mountainous man stepped lightly aside, revealing a door bearing a sign that read, "Bar Employees Only." At the same time, he released Barry's hand from its prison.

Without saying a word to anyone, without looking around, Barry proceeded through the indicated door, disappearing into the poorly lit passage beyond.

Mr. Gmunro watched him go, apparently satisfied in some obscure way. Then he retrieved his cane from under his arm and addressed one of the bartenders. "Might I be to serving a wee drachma of the Glenmorangie?"

The bartender looked over the enormity of his client, considering. "You want a double?" he asked.

"The dux, an't please you," said Gmunro.

"Huh? Ducks?"

The professor of Latin studies on the end barstool chortled. "He wants a liter."

"Oh," said the bartender. "We only got it in fifths, 750 milliliters, you know?" He took the dusty bottle from a high shelf.

"Ah, 'tis not so deep as a church but 'twill serve." Gmunro nodded. The bottle and three hundred-dollar bills changed hands.

"The sea of Scotland engulfs me," the giant pronounced then gulped premium single malt right from the bottle in defiance of several codes of statute, propriety and common sense. "I grow appetitive," he murmured to himself. People near the bar gave him even more room.

A tall, red-haired woman approached the door Barry had recently used.

"Madame Erinye," Gmunro addressed her. She paused, glancing toward the huge figure looming in the dim corner of the room.

The big man produced a small black object, like a magician making a coin appear. "Is it that to be necessitating this you are forgetful?" he asked, offering her the device.

She took it and put it in her purse then followed Barry through the door. She seemed to be deep into a dazed sort of concentration, an urgent trance.

Gmunro watched her disappear into the backstage areas of Wrangler Jill's. He gusted a sigh like a warm southwester then turned toward the other bar patrons. "Be there any souls brave and intrepid a sufficiency to venture a bold excursion to Fatburger on behalf of my inconsequentialness? I am to desiring six double Fats with all they may endow and an equal profligacy of chili cheese steak fries."

Two people raised their hands. "Admiral Farragut be praised! Two of you will surpass the portage. Chili cheese are the very potency of American cuisine." He handed them a hundred dollar bill and waved two more at them. "Return forthwith and each of you shall enjoy the company of the Master of Lightnings."

"That don't sound safe," said one of the volunteers.

"He means Ben Franklin, idjit," said the other. "We'll be back in forty minutes, Your Honor."

Gmunro nodded benignly. After they left, he turned to look at the doorway he'd ushered Barry and Cherie Aronhous through. "Not without pity. Not without pity," he sighed.

When it happened, it all happened very quickly... Blue Moon 13.0

by Donna Lamb

.

Jo pulled Bugs aside before Lemon started the Too Drunk Boogie; Arnie covered the short break with a recorded piece. Jo disappeared again. Richard looked at Bugs who only whuffled into his mustache. Then the three guitars got together in the middle of the stage for some serious get-down, get-funky boogie rhythm.

Sounds like ZZ Top doing a concert from South Central, thought Richard. He drummed hard and steady, not much else being required; this being a nearly pure guitar number, at least to start.

Lemon danced with his guitar, a drunken stumbling rush from one side of the stage to another. A synthesized rhythm guitar took over while Kylie switched to trumpet. Richard looked for Jo but the twin keyboards in the other corner of the stage were still vacant. Is Arnie playing that in the booth?

Kylie wailed and growled on the trumpet, sounding like two horned animals quarreling. A phantom mandolin came in with a new melody line. Bugs multiplied his guitar, playing lead and rhythm both at once. Lemon switched to a driving bass beat and began to sing:

Got too drunk last night!
Got too drunk last night!
Me and my baby had a fight!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Still drunk this mornin'!
Still drunk this mornin'!
One of us gonna be leavin'!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Got drunk again t'very next night!
Got drunk again t'very next night!
Decided I needed another fight!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Had a fight wif mah bes' frien'
Too drunk boogie!
Had a fight wif mah bes' frien'
Too drunk boogie!
And one of us dead when it end!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Haul my ass to the city jail!
Haul my ass to the city jail!
My dead frien' can't make my bail!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

The trumpet wailed and the mandolin died. Bugs and Lemon stood in a vee and watched each other's faces while their guitars exploded and screamed with sound.

Holy Shit! thought Richard. Gogie Luft's sticks beat a rhythm Richard could never have dreamed of.

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

The judge he asked how'd you do it!
The judge he asked how'd you do it!
Tole him weren't nothing to it!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Hit him with a lef' and then a right!
Too drunk boogie!
Another lef' and another right!
Too drunk boogie!
Hit him wif' a chair and put out his light!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

The jury called it murder one
The jury called it murder one
Twenty-five to life is how that's done!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

My frien' is dead, what do I care?
My frien' is dead, what do I care?
They lock me up for sixteen year!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Find me a bridge and take my life!
Find me a bridge and take my life!
Or mebbe with a gun or mebbe a knife!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

But they let me out on my parole
Too drunk boogie!
And singin' this song has saved my soul!
Too drunk boogie!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

If you get drunk, don't you fight wit' yo baby!
Too drunk boogie!
That's the road to hell, I don't mean maybe.
Too drunk boogie!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

The crowd danced. Some of them howled the chorus. Lemon switched to his baritone sax and replayed the whole story as a duel between horns. Richard's forearms ached. Jo had come back and he hadn't noticed. She played hot piano on the white keyboard with one hand and faked a bass violin on the black keyboard with the other hand.

Bugs, Lemon and Kylie stopped suddenly. Richard and Jo kept playing while the others sang the chorus over and over. the crowd joined in, singing, dancing or just jumping up and down in place.

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Arnie cut the sound and lights on the stage and announced. "Five minute break, folks."

No one heard him but the band got off stage while the crowd kept shouting, jumping and dancing for more than a minute. The building rattled with the noise.

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Too drunk boogie!
Too drunk boogie!

Down in the green room, Lemon almost choked on his ice tea when Richard said, "I'm glad we don't have to follow those guys!"

Even Bugs laughed, which is what that whuffling into his mustache was, Richard noticed.

Jo came over to Richard. "Can I sit in your lap and you hold m-me? Just for a m-minute?" She looks so shy, a bit of Joel showing through, Richard though, a little amused.

"Sure," said Richard. He made a place and put his arms around her waist. "You're trembling!"

She lay her head on his shoulder and sighed. "I wrote another song I want to do."

"Is that why you're shaking?" he asked. Oh, that's where she's been disappearing to.

She shook her head.

He rubbed her arms then hugged her. Nothing of Joel now, just a frightened girl.

Jo hugged him back. "I think somebody w-walked across m-m-my grave."

The spooky thing is, Richard reflected, Joel is in a grave somewhere.

* * *

The band began the second half of their set in a unique way. Arnie passed out bongo-like drums from some store room. Kylie and Jo each got a pair of small drums. The guys each took a single larger drum, with Lemon's drum the biggest of all. The girl's drums were hand-played but the guys had a pair of African-style drum hammers. Each drum was tuned to a different note, making a semi-harmonic scale in the key of G.

"Just follow our lead," Lemon told Jo and Richard,. "Beat hell out of your drum, you'll catch on." He grinned. "Arnie's got a whistle track to play with us." The big sound man nodded, hunched over his decks and boards.

The lights came up and they drummed their way in a wedge from far upstage down nearly to the lights, beating fast and furious. When the whistle came in, actually a sopranino recorder pre-recorded by Lemon, Richard recognized the expected tune. Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al." He almost laughed aloud when Lemon began singing in a powerful and unexpected falsetto, sounding eerily like Simon himself -- on helium, maybe.

Jo and Richard quickly picked up the cues to hoot with Kylie and Bugs, the four of them like demented owls some mad scientist or shaman had tuned to the tonic chord. Jo did laugh, loudly and musically, each time Lemon turned to her and sang, "I can call you Betty!"

On the last verse, Lemon Eater sang in his natural baritone, perhaps from exhaustion -- falsetto is tough to do at volume. They played two extra instrumental verses, each drummer stopping as Arnie cut his or her spot. Then Lemon played another verse solo with only the "whistle" accompaniment -- getting extra notes by striking the sides of his drum. Sweat flew from his arms and ran into his face.

The crowd danced and laughed while they danced. Arnie cut the stagelights and looped the whistle for one more verse then brought the lights back up with everyone, except Lemon, in their regular places.

Kylie took up the next song, the Eagles' "Desperado", standing downstage playing rhythm with Bugs picking lead beside her. Jo did something on the keyboards with mandolins, banjos, harmonicas and faraway kettle drums while Richard beat steady and true. I could do my part of this one without waking up, he thought. His arms still ached from the unexpected weight of the drum hammers.

Lemon stood backstage in the hallway between the booth and the stage door, wiping sweat off his face, hair and arms with a ragged towel. "Damn! 'Betty' laughing at me almost bust me up!" he said aloud. Still chuckling, he looked around for a bottle of ice tea that he'd left on the banister only to find a pale-haired white man already drinking it.

"Hey, man," he said with mild reproach. The door and heavy curtains between them and the stage made it possible to talk without shouting.

"This yours?" asked Barry. "Sorry." He passed the last quarter bottle to Lemon who drained it in one gulp.

"Who you, man?" asked Lemon. "Friend of Jill's?"

Barry shook his head. "Friend of Melody's. She's onstage, right?"

"Melody?" Lemon considered. "Oh yeah, Melody Jo. Yeah, she's doing great. Gonna sing a new song she wrote next."

Barry looked around. "Where can I go to see and hear without going out front?"

"You could go into the booth, I guess. Be careful Arnie don't step on you, man." Lemon brushed his short Afro-styled hair with his fingers and started back onto the stage. He pointed toward the door to the sound booth out to Barry before disappearing.

Barry waited a few seconds, pulling on his lip. When the applause from out front washed in through the side corridors, he scratched on the sound booth door and slipped inside.

A few moments later, Cherie stumbled into the backstage landing after an unintentional detour through the kitchens. "Now where'd the bastard go?" she muttered.

* * *

Upstairs in the Cattle Call Supper Lounge, Sophie smiled around the last spicy Beijing drumlet. "Everyone in their places, curtains going up on the last act," she simpered.

Ted the Clarence scowled. "Don't act like you've scripted this; you've no more idea what's going to happen than they do."

The Devil in Drag laughed. "Your precious free will? I know a bit more than any one of them because I know what each of them knows. Plus 7000 years of studying human nature."

"Warping human nature, you mean." Ted looked glum. His angelic vision could see right through the walls down to where all the principals of the final act waited all unknowing of the drama in the moment. He didn't like the set up at all.

"Oh, come now!" Sophie sneered, enjoying the angel's discomfort. "You can't blame me for everything. The Crusades and the atom bomb weren't my ideas, you know."

"But you had something to do with the Sack of Constantinople and the Cold War!" protested Ted.

Sophie preened as if complimented. "Well, that monster shaman from DeNiro isn't mine either. And he's the one passed the maguffin to Cherie!" she pointed out.

"Pfah!" Ted snorted. He still thought Gmunro must be one of Sophie's agents.

* * *

In the booth, Arnie handed Barry a spare set of headphones. "Use these. Stand there by the door and don't touch nothing. I don't care if you're Jo's uncle and Richard's fiance -- don't move. If you get in my way, I'll send you through that door so fast you'll think I used a cannon."

Barry knew when to yield to experts. He took the headset and thanked Arnie for it, settling the padded earpieces in place, careful of his hair. "I'll just listen and watch the monitors."

"Do that," agreed Arnie.

* * *

Onstage, the lights came up, everyone in their places. The crowd applauded again. Under cover of the sound, Cherie slipped through the stage door and hid behind the curtains, directly behind Jo. In the darkness, she fumbled in her purse.

Jo felt nervous, excited. The new song felt right, the band felt right, even the way she felt about Richard seemed right. Amazing that it wasn't even 24 hours yet since the blue moon rose last night. And she'd soon be singing a new song she'd just written for the second time tonight. Cyndi Lauper was right, girls have a lot more fun, she misquoted giddily.

Lemon had come back on stage and given her the thumbs up. He'd be ready for her new song after one more. Good. They finished off "Desperado."

Bugs played a bridge, a sort of medley of old hits then segued into Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me". Richard sang lead and the others sang the response lines. Jo beamed over at her guy. He flubbed a line and sang skat till the tag. Oops! thought Jo.

Lemon shook his head when Richard signaled for him to take the lead. "Not my key," Jones mouthed. Bugs and Lemon did an instrumental chorus so Richard could get his cool back.

Richard soldiered on, avoiding looking at Jo dancing at the keys. Shoulda done Uptown Girl but I don't know the words as well, he thought. Next time. He tried to sing like he'd invented the song, a trick Lemon had that he admired. It meant he had to be completely in the moment and he couldn't think about the weirdness of the last twenty something hours.

Drumming while he sang meant no fancy stick work which was good, e wasn't good with fancy stick work. I'm in way over my head, he thought, not for the first time. When the rest of the band dropped out at the end of the last verse, he stopped too, as confused as if he had stepped off a curb in the dark. Jo saved it, coming in on the beat and singing the coda a capella. The crowd liked that.They played another verse, instrumental and the crowd liked that too.

* * *

In the booth, Arnie worried about the person he'd glimpsed hiding in the corner of the darkened stage. He debated hitting whoever it was with a spot but that would disrupt the show but what the heck was someone doing there? It looked like a girl, he thought, one of Lemon's honeys stalking him maybe? He brought the ambient lighting up a touch, trying to get another look. Then he patched the house phone into his speakers and rang security.

But Jo onstage was starting her new song and the woman crouched behind the stage curtains, only her feet visible on his monitor, didn't seem an immediate danger. Whispering into his mike, he told the bouncers to have someone on the stage door at the end of the next song. He'd cut the lights and play a tape that would clue Bugs, Kylie and Lemon in; he'd just have to hope Jo and Richard would get clued in by the Julie Brown song.

And then he had a stranger in his own booth, too. Another stalker? Looked kind of respectable but you could never tell. Sure is keeping an eye on Melody Jo. Arnie resolved to watch the guy, too.

Barry watched the monitors and listened on the headset. Melody's so beautiful, he thought, I never knew she had talent, too. He tried to get closer to the monitor but the big man glared him back.

* * *

Onstage, Jo played a bridge into her own tune, letting Kylie and Lemon find the harmonies. Richard beat a steady rhythm,smiling at her. Bugs did magic with the guitar, taking Jo's melody and making it larger, somehow. She stopped playing, stepped away from the keys and began to sing, holding her mike in both hands. In the booth, Arnie adjusted the amps and spots to highlight Jo and her song.

If I were your girlfriend
And you were my lover, too
Would I be able to depend
On knowing you'd be true?

If you were my boyfriend
And I loved you oh so true
Would you have another girlfriend
Or love me only, too?

How can I believe you?
When I see you look at them?
I'm not just another girlfriend.
'Cause I love only you.

That chorus really challenged her range. She let Bugs invent a bridge so she could get her breath back. She sneaked a glance at Richard who looked like someone had played bongos on his head with the drum hammers they had used earlier. Jo risked a smile in his direction.

Lemon had pulled a horn out of a bag. It looked like a fat, four-valved trumpet but with a wide deep bell and it sounded like someone had gilded the loneliest wind that ever blew. The hornman followed Jo's vocals with it when she began again on Bugs's cue.

I don't want to be your friend
If I'm not your only lover too.
If it can't be so then I'll put an end
To my plans on loving you.

I won't be another girlfriend
You make some promise to.
If you can't love me to the end
Then you and I are through!

How can I believe you?
When I see you look at them?
I'm not just another girlfriend.
'Cause I love only you.

Maybe she'd over-estimated herself, she could hit those notes but it took a lot out of her. The rest of the band came in with an instrumental verse, Richard blushing at the drums. Jo readied herself for another lung-bursting chorus.

* * *

In the booth, Barry ripped the earphones off, weeping. "She loves me," he cried. "She really loves me!"

Arnie stared at him but had things to do with the boards. With the music in his own headset, he hadn't really heard the man, anyway. "What?" he grumbled, manipulating the pots and switches to highlight Bugs and Lemon while Jo caught her breath.

Barry stumbled out into the hallway behind the stage. "She loves me," he repeated to a startled security man coming up from the other direction.

"Shut the door!" Arnie complained.

* * *

Jo sang the achingly high chorus again to a crescendo of sound from the band:

How can I believe you?
When I see you look at them?
I'm not just another girlfriend.
'Cause I love only you.

In the shadowed corner of the stage, Cherie struggled to get the curtain out of her way. "He doesn't need another girlfriend! He's got a wife!" she snarled.

No one heard her. The crowd erupted into a shattering cascade of applause, advancing on the stage with nothing but delight on their minds.

Things happened quickly.

Arnie cued up "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" and rippled the lights.

Bugs shouted, "She's done it again! Get'er off stage, Charlie!" He slung his guitar over his back and headed for the drums. Lemon and Kylie traded glances and Lemon went for his bass guitar, carelessly dropping the expensive double mellophone on its velvet carry bag.

Jo peered into the club dance floor, unsure of what she saw beyond the lights. The noise washed over her, they seemed to be shouting, "Girlfriend!" over and over.

"Wow?" she said, filled with wonder at the reaction.

Richard headed for her, calling out, "Jo! Jo!"

In the hall outside, Barry Aronhaus pushed past the confused security guard. "Sounds like a riot, we've got to get her off stage!" he yelled, used to seizing authority and using it. The guard yielded.

In the quiet corner where she had been hiding, Cherie finally shook free of the curtain and emerged, hair a bit disheveled, purse in one hand -- and a small black pistol in the other. She looked around, confused by the noise and lights.

In the booth, Arnie could see Cherie from his audience view monitor and it looked like ... he put a spot on her, a tall redhead dressed for business and carrying.... "Holy Cow! She really does have a gun!" He reached for the panic button....

Richard grabbed Jo, shouting something at her that she couldn't hear. The first of the crowd got forced into the barrier of speakers in front of the stage by the press of people behind them.

More bouncers came in from the wings to try to push the crowd back. "What the hell?" one of the big meaty men shouted to another who simply shrugged. Neither had ever seen such a crowd before.

Barry opened the stage door.

Cherie blinked in the spot light, staring at the gun in her hand. "Where did this come from?" she said aloud.

Richard scooped Jo into his arms and turned to head upstage.

Jo squeaked. "Where'd you come from?" she asked.

Richard grinned. "Pacoima!" he shouted. Jo laughed.

Arnie dithered a fraction of a second then hit the silent security alarm and turned off the spot on Cherie before the crowd saw her. His hands reached for other switches.

Lemon, Bugs and Kylie began to play, joining the Julie Brown song coming out of the speakers. They faced the crowd, marveling at what frenzy Jo had apparently inspired.

Richard and Jo, Barry and Cherie all met upstage near the stage door.

"Barry!" two women shouted but one of them added, "You sonoffabitch!"

"Cherie?" Barry shouted astonished. Seeing the gun, he reached for it. "Don't shoot!" he yelled.

"God help me!" Richard screamed. He tried to spin, Jo still in his arms. He tried to put his body between Jo and the gun. Now, he thought, I should make that wish now!

The single popping sound made by the small caliber automatic could hardly be heard in all the noise. No one but the five by the door and Arnie knew it for what it was. The security man tried to push past Barry. Cherie stared at the gun in her hand.

Richard felt himself tripping, falling. I'll land on top of Jo, he thought. She'll be safe. He tried to twist, just a little, to make sure it happened that way.

Jo screamed, bringing her hands up, reaching for Richard's face.

Richard opened his mouth to say something reassuring, to warn her they were going to fall. To tell her he loved her.

Arnie cut the stage lights and everything went dark.

* * *

The bullet entered the back of his neck, a little to the left of his spine; the impact first stunned the spinal nerves, temporarily paralyzing his legs. Still angling upwards and across, the tiny slug tore through his windpipe, shattered his right jawbone with a glancing blow and emerged from his face.

Richard fell on top of Jo as she tried to bring her hands up to stop the gout of blood, metal, bone and flesh that came out of his cheek. The right carotid artery severed, Richard lost consciousness before the impact of landing on Jo.

* * *

"Hello?" he said into the echoing emptiness. He remembered the moments before as only a flash of pain and a short darkness.

"Hello to be greeting your esteemed friendship," said a familiar booming voice.

"I...." Richard peered around. "Where am I? Mr. Gumro?" Not darkness but a grayness extended in all directions as far as Richard could see. Empty, featureless, nothingness.

"We are finding ourselves in that island between death and living, off the hornishness of Africa. Some call it Limbo, I call it Dnuro." said the voice. "I am living here for many of many years."

"This isn't real?"

"Ontology is not our proper subject, Defender. You did well, defending one you had taken into care. Now you are dying, having taken a great and honorable wound in that service."

"Oh," said Richard. "Jo is okay?" He felt no regret, only a mild anxiety that he had done the right thing correctly.

"Physically, she is unhurt except for a bruise or twain."

He could not weep, neither with sadness that he would not see Jo again nor with relief that he had saved her, or helped save her. There are no tears in Limbo there being no bodies to shed them. "What ... what happens next?" Emotions without bodies to feel them are hollow empty things hardly worth calling by that name.

"Now you wait for the dying. It won't be long. Regardless, be there no time for the measuring here."

"Oh."

"You did well, Defender," said the voice.

Richard would have shook his head if he still had a head to shake. "I didn't have time to do anything, I just turned away and got shot."

"You called for help," said the voice. "I heard you in my own ears."

"Was it enough?"

"It was a plentitude, a surfeit," the voice assured him. "Exactly the right amount is always too much."

"You confuse me."

The voice chuckled. "Clear meanings obscure hidden truths. The tangled jungle holds many paths to righteousness."

The grayness seemed to take on color and shape. "I hear someone calling my name," said Richard.

* * *

"Richard! Richard!" sobbed Jo. "I forgive you, just don't die!" She lay where they had fallen, his bloody head against her chest, the weight of his body on top of her. With her hands on his neck and cheek, she tried to stop the flow of blood which no longer spurted but simply flowed around her fingers. Quietly, without her noticing, life deserted the body she cherished in her arms.

Cherie still held the tiny gun. Barry held her hand in his, the security guard holding Barry's other arm. "The gun -- it just went off!" said Cherie.

"Don't say anything," Barry the lawyer advised.

Jo struggled to sit up without hurting Richard. She glared at the assemblyman and his wife. She said, "I wish to God you had shot me instead!"

* * *

"That was the third wish!" Ted the Clarence said, loud enough that everyone in the building should have heard him.

"Doesn't count, she made it to God, not me," said the Devil in Drag looking around the lounge. None of the other patrons were aware of the drama going on below nor the argument in Booth 13. She checked again, feeling a third supernatural presence but seeing no one.

Clarences seldom get angry but this one pounded the table with a fist. "If you grant two wishes, you have to grant three, it's in the Restrictions!" Ted's expression would have frightened the severed head of King Charles lying in its basket.

"She's still got over an hour to make her third wish!" insisted Sophie.

"If you won't grant this wish, yield it to me!"

Sophie shook her head, stubborn as Hell. "That's not a true wish, it's more of a prayer. I don't grant prayers!"

"Grant the wish!" screamed Ted.

"You said no more rewriting of time!"

"That was on the earlier two! This wish can only be granted by bending time! Grant the wish, bitch!" Ted thundered.

"It wasn't in the subjunctive mood!" Sophie grasped at a straw.

"Don't trifle with Heaven's mood! Grant the wish!"

"I can't!" Sophie admitted. "He's dead. Even by bending time, I can't bring back the dead! It's in the Restrictions!"

Ted smiled, a gotcha sort of smile. "He wasn't dead when she made the wish. You're in a box because you tried to stall. Now yield the wish to me."

"I don't have to," Sophie snarled. "If the subject makes a wish that can't be granted because of Restrictions, I can give them a replacement wish! She's got an hour, 'til midnight, to make another wish! One I can grant!"

Ted's smile widened. "You're going to trust to human selfishness to get you out of this?"

Sophie gave him a sharp look then smiled back. "I seldom lose that bet!"

"Very well," said Ted. "Either you yield to me, or choose to spend a thousand years granting no wishes, or...."

"Carry her soul off to a thousand years of torture?" she offered pleasantly.

"As you say," agreed Ted. "If you win."

They settled back into the cushions, smiling at each other. After a few moments, they ordered another round of drinks.

* * *

Outside, sirens approached.

In the booth, a weeping Arnie blasted the crowd with Roy Orbison, John Cougar Mellenkamp and The Rolling Stones. Only the exit lights burned steady, all the other lights in the building strobed at random intervals. Some of the crowd left, some of them kept dancing.

"Ain't never been a party like this!" someone shouted.

I-NO-Y gathered around Jo and Richard. Bugs wept like a little girl with a broken doll while Kylie held him and crooned softly. Lemon's face collapsed in a grimace painful to see.

Bouncers and club security made a wall around the band. Wrangler Jill in full cowgirl costume shouldered her way through her guards and knelt beside Jo, careless of the blood pooling around them. Andie collapsed against a wall, staring at Barry and Cherie, each being held by two security guards, one of whom had taken the gun from Cherie, handling it only with a glove.

"I'm an assemblyman," Barry protested.

"Shut up till the cops get here, you don't want your head broke," snarled Angelynne Foster, the six-foot-four inch former NFL guard holding his left arm.

Barry stared into her eyes, level with his own, and decided to shut up.

* * *

Richard stepped into the light. "Welcome, Defender," said a voice he thought he recognized. "Or should I am calling you 'Clarence'? Same self, this thing, to be truthsaying."

Blue Moon

by Donna Lamb
Lyrics by Erin Halfelven

The cops let Jill and Jo ride in the ambulance to the hospital where Richard was pronounced D.O.A. Sitting on a plastic chair in the emergency room with Jill holding her hands, Jo wept. “By all that’s merciful,” she prayed, “I wish I were the one who got shot instead of Richard.”

"That's not a wish!" howled Sophie.

"Of course it is, it's even in the subjunctive," said Ted. He sipped bad hospital coffee and looked around himself in the doctor's lounge. He'd once been a monk in a sixteenth century hospital and the advance in technology fascinated him.

"I still can't grant it," grumbled Sophie. "I can't bring Richard back to life and you know it. Nor can I conveniently have him be dead from some other cause since he's a Defender and under retro-active protection from extra-mundane causes of death." She stuck her tongue out at Ted, then sucked on the watery remains of the highball she'd carried from Wrangler Jill's. Her expression matched the ones that had made Lemon Eater Jones famous.

Ted smiled at her. "That's two you've failed to grant, third time's the charm, my lovely."

"Oh, stuff it," Sophie snarled. "She's still got half an hour to mess up the third wish."

"Your third try at a third wish, you mean. A red oak barbecue feast in Santa Maria says she doesn't," offered Ted, smiling over his coffee cup.

Sophie grimaced. "Petty side bet."

"Linguica sausage, tri-tip, pinquito beans. Win or lose, you get to eat in Santa Maria which you've been banned from doing for seventy-four years since you tricked that priest into barbecuing his own donkey."

"It was a joke! Okay, okay. Uh, that's not a square bet."

Ted beamed at her. "Either way we eat well, but you win, the ban is over, twenty-five years sooner than scheduled; you lose, the ban lasts another seventy-five years."

Sophie's mouth was already watering. Gluttony was one of her favorite sins. "Portuguese red wine?" she offered.

"And locally brewed beer," he nodded.

They wrapped thumbs across the rickety table and kissed their own elbows which supernatural beings can do without risk.

"Twenty-five minutes till midnight and the end of Oddfellows Day," commented Sophie.

Ted smiled slyly at her. "So it is, so it is."

* * *

In the emergency room, the tall ginger-haired woman sat beside Richard's gurney, holding his dead hand. "We never...." Jo said to Jill. "We ... m-might have...." She trailed off.

"You loved him," Jill said, not asking.

"I think so. How do you know? I don't think I'd ever been in love b-before." She patted Richard's sleeve. Her swollen eyes and nose had turned her beauty into a picture of heartbreak but she remained unaware of this effect.

Jill smiled. So young, she thought.

"We were ...going to write songs together. Live together. I can't ... I can't b-believe this. After everything that has happened, now, now ...." She trailed off. She sobbed once but her tears were gone, her throat raw from dehydration. "Last night I was so m-mad at him! I can't believe that."

A doctor came in, her face pinched with concern. "Um. Miss Thiery? The police are here. They need to see ... the body."

Jo gasped. Jill seized her in a hug, pulling her away from Richard's body.

* * *

"I can't watch this," Richard told the voice. "Jo is hurting, this isn't right." Unlike Limbo, there are tears in heaven because physical bodies are restored. In Richard's case, he looked much like he had while alive but wore a white linen suit with an ice-pink shirt and a blue and yellow Escher-fish-bird-print tie. He made a very stylish angel.

Wiping a tear from his eye, Richard turned away from the wide-screen plasma display in the family room of his new, ranch-style, heavenly mansion. The room looked empty but Richard knew the voice could hear him.

"If you to accept the position as for Clarence to Melody Jo, you may having to be watched such scenes," said the rumbly voice. "Sadness happens in mortal lives."

"I know," said Richard. "I've only been dead a few minutes here, let me get used to the idea." A Laz-E-Boy chair very much like one his father had owned occupied the proudest place in the handsomely decorated room. Richard flopped into the chair, an action that used to get him yelled at. "You know, Mr. Gumro, I just don't think I'm ready to be dead."

The voice chuckled. "Your own Clarence, Ted o'Mersey, am working on that."

Richard looked up, even though the voice seemed to come from everywhere. "What?"

"An unmade wish is like an unmade bed, a temptation."

"The wish I didn't make? But Jo ..." his voice caught in his throat. "Jo ... made that wish. The devil didn't grant it. Thank ... thank you."

The voice chuckled. "Oh, the G in Gmunro does not stand for God. This estimable person am only to being a Principality." The African giant entered the family room from the hall to the kitchen, munching an enormous Dagwood that seemed to include a slice of pumpkin pie in its layers. "When I grow up, being an entire country I am," he rumbled with amusement.

Richard laughed, surprising himself.

Gmunro didn't have his canes or his glasses but his scars and pockmarks still wreathed his enormous smile. "You not to meeting Himself until you permanent resident. You still on tourist visa." He shook a fat finger. "Not even green card!"

Richard had to laugh again. "You mean I'm an illegal alien in Heaven? Mi abuelita, my grandmother, would be so embarrassed!"

"Ho! Ho! Ho!" shouted Gmunro, like a big, black, Christmas elf.

Richard couldn't have believed he could laugh so much at such a time but Gmunro's chortles were infectious.

Gmunro straightened his face out. "Now three things you needing to know are:

"One, I going to tell you grandmother what you say. Ho, ho!

"Two, why you not to having deli mustard?" He waved the Dagwood. "This much better to be making deli mustard with." He took a bite and chewed with much enjoyment.

"Um, three?" Richard asked. Personally, yellow mustard was fine with him but he made a note to always have deli mustard, too -- for his friends.

Gmunro swallowed. "Three, Jo is to making third try at third wish. Got you temporary assignment as Clarence to help her making rightly." He eyed the much shrunken sandwich, choosing where to bite next.

Richard looked at the big screen where Jill still held Jo but now in the outer room of Emergency. The surviving members of I-NO-Y had arrived, too, Bugs still wearing his guitar on his back. Tom Harmon, Andie Moore and Beverly Messenger were also on their way, he knew, not pausing to consider how he knew such things. Further away but also coming were Richard's own parents and his sisters.

"She doing anything to having you back. Very dangerness. You take the job?"

"Yes," said Richard. "She's got to make some wish besides wanting to take the bullet for me."

Gmunro nodded benignly and took another bite of the Dagwood. Seeing Richard's expression, he offered the sandwich to the new Clarence.

"No thanks," said Richard smiling. "I wouldn't want to bite off more than I can chew."

"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" laughed Gmunro with his mouth full.

* * *

Jo wiped her eyes and pulled away from Wrangler Jill. What had been the comfort one woman offers another in distress seemed to be verging on something else. "Um?" said Jo, looking at Jill.

Jill smiled. "Sorry. I didn't think you bent both ways. Too bad for little old me." She called to another woman just entering the emergency room. "Andie come over here and console me."

Andie Moore came over to the pair and gave both quick hugs. "I'm so sorry, Jo. My dad told me how you had just lost your brother a few months ago."

"Your dad?" asked Jo, looking confused.

"Tom Harmon is my dad, we'd been putting this band together for you since the week after Christmas. Then Gogie got shot ... but you showed up with a drummer. And he gets shot...." She stopped talking and they all looked at each other, appalled at what had just occurred to them.

"It's..." said Jo.

"...just like..." said Jill.

"Spinal Tap!" gasped Andie.

They laughed in spite of themselves, but Jo's giggles quickly turned to sobs. "I'm sorry, sorry," she said. Pushing herself away from their embraces, she stumbled through the electric doors to the internal patio where a few lonely smokers sat in exile among the vending machines.

* * *

Richard stepped into the doctor's lounge, on his first assignment as a temporary Guardian Angel 3rd Class, Probationary, feeling more than a bit out of place. A young doctor stepped right through him when he paused to get his bearings. "That's going to take some getting used to," he muttered. He had another surprise coming, watching the young woman walk away. "Well, there's dead and there's dead, I guess," he said.

A burly man in bush ranger clothes sitting with a slender redhead wearing an evening gown waved him over. "Oi! Richard!"

Sophie Drake did a double take when she saw him. "What are you doing here?" she asked. She turned to Ted and demanded, "What's he doing here?"

Richard grabbed a chair from another table, noting that the chair both stayed where it was and came when he pulled it. Turning it around, he sat down on the chair, back to front, and flipped his Escher tie at Sophie. "Shoo! Shoo! Get away!" he said in a firm voice.

"He can't talk to me like that!" she protested to the English-born Clarence.

"He's -- he's -- he, he, he!" sputtered Ted, laughing.

"I'm afraid you might start humping my leg, is what he's trying to tell you," said Richard in a steady voice, looking directly into the emerald green eyes of the Devil in Drag.

Ted howled.

"Ho! Ho! Hee! Hee!" sneered Sophie. "Like I haven't heard that one before. What are you doing here?"

"I'm Jo's guardian angel," said Richard. He narrowed his eyes. "And I'm watching you for tricks. I hear you can do tricks."

Ted, still chuckling, pointed a thumb at Richard. "In the American vernacular -- he's pissed, old girl."

"I thought you were Jo's clarence," Sophie snapped.

"Nope. I'm his." Ted pointed at Richard again before taking another swallow of the really awful coffee served in the hospital lounge. "Glah!" he said. He looked into the cup."Forgot how bad this truly is."

"Ha!" Sophie laughed. "Have you also forgotten you got your client killed? Otherwise he wouldn't be here, because you have to be dead to be a clarence!"

Ted waggled a finger. "Ah, but to quote a famous movie, 'He's only mostly dead.' He won't be really dead until midnight if -- If! -- you refuse to let me grant Jo's third wish and take a thousand years of ..."

Sophie interrupted, "Or if his girlfriend makes a wish I can grant between now and midnight!"

"That's my job," said Richard. "To make sure she does. Otherwise my license to angel gets revoked." He started to rise.

"Jo's in the visitor's patio," said Ted.

"I know," said Richard, sitting back down. "I just came here to do this." He reached across the table, grabbed Sophie's chin in his left hand and slapped her across the face with his right -- hard! -- forehand and backhand. Then he stood and left the room, whistling the melody from "Why the Moon is Blue".

"You took that well," remarked Ted, peering once again into the evil depths of his coffee cup.

"Eh!" Sophie said. She rubbed a cheek. "I had it coming. Besides, I kind of like the kid." She conjured two more highball glasses, full ones, and passed one to Ted.

Ted smiled. "He's my hero, too. Cheers!" He drank.

"Mud in your eye," agreed Sophie.

* * *

In the emergency waiting room, Bugs had pulled his guitar around and began picking out a slow mournful version of "The Fool on the Hill."

"Gimme that thing," Lemon demanded. Bugs passed the guitar over, causing Kylie's eyes to widen.

"Never seen you do that before," she commented.

"Who gives a shit," Bugs muttered. Kylie patted his hand, knowing he was jonesing for a smoke. He'd been quit only six months and sometimes bit his fingers to stop the cravings. Stress brought them back with a vengeance.

"How you got this tuned, Ahab?" asked Lemon. "Oh, open-G. I can do this." He strummed a few chords then began singing softly:

We will meet again. Don't know where. Don't know when.
But we will meet again, some summer day.

"Sunny day," said Kylie, helpfully.

"Who singin' this?" asked Lemon. Pretty soon, everyone in the waiting room was -- quietly, mostly to themselves.

The optimistic beauty of the song struck Richard as he entered from the hall to the treatment rooms. His face twisted up like he'd bit into a lemon and he paused to get control of himself. Then he walked over to Lemon Eater and whispered in his ear. "Gogie's still alive. He's going to make it. I got it on the highest authority."

Lemon nodded, lifting his voice a little.

Richard turned and walked toward the electric-eye-operated door to the patio, glad that his sisters and parents had not yet arrived. He wondered vaguely if the door would open automatically for him or if he would have to walk through the glass and steel itself. The old-fashioned schoolhouse-type clock showed the time as ten to twelve.

* * *

The side of the little hidden patio that would get the most sun held a tiny garden. Jo kicked off her shoes and stepped onto the close-clipped rye grass between the rows of winter-blooming flowers. She shivered, even in Southern California, going barefoot in the winter is cold.

Looking up, she saw a tiny patch of sky holding only a moon that looked just as full as it had the previous night. The surrounding lights of Los Angeles washed out any stars and the moon showed yellow-orange from the downtown smog.

Three smokers drinking Pepsi and vending machine coffee and eating Cheez-Nips watched her, wondering if they'd ever seen her in a movie or something.

"What good are you?" Jo asked the moon. "I keep wishing and w-wishing and nothing happens. I want Richard back. That's all. I just want Richard b-back. I don't want to be a b-boy again or nothing else. I don't care if I never sing again, I just w-want Richard."

She sobbed, putting her hand over her mouth. "Is that too much to ask? I just w-want Richard b-back, if only long enough to say goodbye!"

Behind her, the automatic door opened and she heard Lemon singing and playing. The smokers turned to look but saw no one come through the door.

* * *

"That was a wish," said Sophie.

"And this is an argument," said Ted. "You know that wasn't a wish, you just want to argue."

"Okay, okay?" said Sophie. "But if it were a wish...." She stopped. "Well, he's already back, she just can't see him." She debated with herself whether granting such a wish would actually get her off the hook but she didn't see a pathway to damnation.

Richard's death had wounded Jo terribly but she remained far from the sort of grieving despair that would lead her to mortal sin. Seeing his ghost would not be likely to push her over the edge; she had achieved a remarkable degree of centering in just a few hours. She loved life and was not ready to quit it, despite the terrible loss she felt. "That damned rabbit," said Sophie.

"Who? Oh. Well, why worry about it? My boy isn't going to let her make any foolish wishes."

"How's he going to stop her?"

Ted considered. "Kiss her, I expect. It's what I'd do."

* * *

"Jo, can you see me?" Richard asked.

She hadn't even glanced in his direction when the electric door got out of his way.

He stepped closer. "Jo, can you hear me?"

She didn't respond, still standing in the tiny garden looking up at the moon.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Jo, can you feel me?"

She shivered, turning slightly. The closing door cut off Lemon's singing.

She turned as he pulled her towards him and she also stayed where she had stood. Like the chair, thought Richard, awed at the wonder of it.

"Richard!" she exclaimed. She embraced him in a hug, or her spirit did while her body stayed standing there looking up at the moon, eyes closed, lips moving in what might be a prayer.

They kissed in the moonlight, the angelic ghost and the living spirit.

* * *

"Oh, Barry," said Gmunro. "What to becoming of a man so blind to others? So deaf to spirit, so numb to love?" The big man, sans canes and eyeglasses, sat beside the assemblyman on a bench in the Hollywood Division police station. Policeman glanced at Barry from time to time but no one seemed to notice the African giant sitting beside him.

Barry held his head in his hands. "Is it my fault?" he whispered.

Gmunro pushed his lips out to consider. "Not the entire watermelon, no. I provided the seed, just a small .25 caliber seed, and Cherie to pulled the trigger. But were you not being of a compleat onager, who would be needful of the measure of a hero?"

Barry wept. "I'm so sorry, so sorry, for what happened. That boy is dead and Cherie may go to prison because of me."

"And if you not to learning the difference between lust and love, Barry, you are to going of Hell." Gmunro, sighed. "And then I will be failing my duty. But you not been going be my first failure as Guardian Angel in four hundred of years!" He wagged a fat, invisible finger at his client. "Nobody is to damnation on my wristwatch!"

* * *

In the golden moonlight, they kissed again. "Did you come back to say goodbye to m-me?" she whispered.

He shook his head, his spectral stubble brushing her spiritual cheek. "No. Let's not say good-bye, let's say 'We'll meet again,' like the song. Jo, I'm not going anywhere. I'll always be with you."

"B-but...."

He kissed her again. "I'll be here. You won't see me, but I'll be close by, watching over you."

"Am I dreaming?" she asked, snuggling into his embrace.

"Not exactly. I'm using some angelic power I don't understand yet to send you this vision. Because ... because you have to make another wish."

"But I've been wishing and w-wishing and nothing happens," she said.

"That's because ... well, you can't wish me back to life and that's what you were trying to do. But wishes come in threes, so you have till midnight to make your third wish."

"I can't ... I can't?" her eyes filled with tears.

He kissed her again. "Shh. Shh. Don't cry. I love you Jo. I always will. Now is that anything to cry about?"

She shook her head. "I never thought I'd fall in love with a m-man," whispered Jo. "And certainly not you." She giggled and sobbed at the same time.

Richard laughed out loud. "I think you were always meant to be Melody Jo. Some kind of mistake was made and now things are fixed and you're who you're supposed to be."

"Um m-maybe. But I'm not all me w-without you. We're a set. Haven't you felt that since I changed?" She snuggled her spirit into his angelic embrace.

"Yes, I did." Richard paused. "I'm not going to go away, I'll always be here for you. Just not like I am right now."

"You m-mean we can't do this -- a lot? Any time we w-want."

"You're not a nun, Jo. Too frequent contact with the spirit realm would cause you to lose your grip on the world you have to live in."

"What if...."

He put a finger on her lips. "Don't say it. Time heals, Jo. Now think about the wish you need to make. I can't tell you what to wish for but it has to be something that doesn't benefit just you and that harms -- no one. Otherwise the devil will be able to twist your wish."

"I -- The devil?"

"The devil is very real and she's evil," Richard said solemnly. That's why you have to follow rules very exactly."

"She?" Jo's spirit cocked her head and looked at Richard sideways.

"Never mind. Think about the wish, Jo. You have to get it right because we only get one more try. My first wish caused the problem and I'm sorry about that, then you made a wish and we only get one more."

Jo opened her mouth again but Richard kissed her into silence. "Not yet. Close your eyes and take at least a minute to think before you say anything."

Jo closed her spirit eyes. Moving gently, Richard slipped Jo's spirit back into her body because a spirit wish wouldn't necessarily be granted for her body. Jo could no longer see or hear him or feel his touch but he kissed her again, "Not goodbye, Jo. Just till we meet again."

He stepped away, watching Jo mumble prayers in the moonlight, trancelike but not asleep. It all depended on Jo now.

* * *

Not that he needed to breathe anyway, but Ted made a conscious effort not to hold his breath. "How about them Angels, eh? Think they helped themselves with those winter trades?"

Sophie looked at him sharply. "You're up to something, aren't you?"

"Who me?" Ted looked innocent then fanned a deck of cards in her face. "Pick a card, any card."

"What the hell is going on?" She slapped the cards away, they were all the Queen of Hearts.

"Wrong domain. It's two minutes to midnight and I don't want you to keep Jo from making another wish."

"I want her to make another wish, idiot. One I can grant, one I will grant and win both of our bets."

"Yeah, sure, and I'm Henry the VIII's seventh wife. Just call me Madam Tudor."

"Cretin. Fool. You're trying to distract me so I won't hear the wish. But I will hear it and I will grant it! Jo's soul will be mine."

"Right sure," agreed Ted. "So if you hear this wish you're going to do what?"

"I'm going to grant it! Damn you!" Then the devil saw the trap she'd fallen into. "Damn you, Clarence!" she screamed.

"Thrice sworn is thrice bound!" said Ted, triumphantly.

"Not yet!" The Devil in Drag stood up, knocking over the very real chair she'd been sitting in and startling everyone in the lounge. "She's still got to make the right wish! And she doesn't know what it is!"

* * *

In the garden, Jo stood alone. It all depended on her now.

Joel Messenger had delighted in puzzles. That sense of fun had drawn him to both music and programming, fields in which his talent for seeing interconnections and patterns enabled him to excel. First as Joel in the world of computers and abstract things called databases, then, at least for one day, as Jo in the world of music performance.

And now Jo realized she had a puzzle to work out and a deadline in which to do it. There had to be a way to get everything she wanted out of this situation involving sacred and profane magics. And she felt the secret lay in the number three. Turn that puzzle the right way and everything else had to fall into line and make a complete picture.

She stood, apparently alone in the moonlit garden, but around her spirits gathered. Joel's dead father stood there beside her right hand, spiritual tears running down his face. Mr. and Mrs. Thierry, Melody's retroactive adopted parents, stood behind her, beaming with pride and love. And on her left hand stood a little girl in a set of yellow bunny suit pajamas -- looking solemn but cute, and remarkably like a younger Jo. She took her big sister's hand in her own small one and waited for things to work out.

Richard still stood where he had been, right in front of Jo, looking into her face from inches away. He wanted to kiss her again but dared not take the chance on distracting her.

Behind him stood Mr. Dar Gmunro, an ancient and honorable spirit, the Principality of Limbo Dnuro, holder of the Office of Heavenly Provocateur, Father Confusor to Angelic Hosts, Sorceror Supreme and other offices arcane, divine and obscure. Most especially, obscure. His scars and pockmarks wreathed his smile, secure in the knowledge that Heaven always wins -- eventually.

* * *

Jo reasoned like this:

I have to make a third wish before midnight -- and Richard, or Richard's ghost, says it has to benefit more than just me and harm no one more than it harms me. How? What kind of wish would that be?

Everything started when Richard made a wish on the Blue Moon to sleep with a beautiful girl. So ... the devil, or whoever, (Jo wasn't sure she actually believed in the devil, except perhaps as a bug in the System.), granted that wish by changing me into my own sister who died at birth. There's some complications there that don't make sense but I'll ignore them until it seems to make a difference.

Later I made a wish that things would be easier and I started feeling more like myself and the devil, or whoever, (And Jo had a real problem imagining that some Satanic force arranged for her to find her own toy rabbit, Dunny, that had been buried with her sister.), granted that wish by giving me access to, to Melody Jo Thierry's life and I still don't quite understand that. Again, I'll have to ignore complications that don't seem to make sense, right away -- like Barry and his wife.

Then that weird guy, G'munro. He knew about the wishes. What did he say? First wish, Beauty. Second wish, Wealth. Which sort of fits -- but the mistake is to wish for Happiness third. No, he said "unwise," that it's Unwise to wish for Happiness third.

Jo knew what the third wish had to be.

* * *

"You're winning," said the Devil in Drag.

"I know," said Ted the Clarence, trying not to look smug.

"I might say your little con-job was almost diabolical."

Ted considered. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"I meant it as one," Sophie admitted. She made a face. "Do you think she'll figure out the rest of it?"

Ted grinned widely, showing ancient British teeth that had never known a dentist in life. "Count on it," he said.

Sophie groaned.

* * *

"I w-wish -- I wish we were all w-wise enough to know what we should do and just bold enough to do it," said Jo out loud. Spirits around her cheered.

Nothing noticeable happened, but Jo didn't stop there.

* * *

Sophie sighed and raised her highball glass. "Here's to Jo's long life, because it's the only way I, the Adversary, can grant wisdom."

Ted raised his glass, too. "And to everyone else involved in this affair's long life -- and growing wisdom."

"And boldness, I bet you didn't expect that part."

"Well, no. But she's already wise enough to not wish to be brave."

Sophie shook her head. "I can't do true bravery, that's part of character, overcoming fear -- but boldness is lack of fear. I can do that, I'm the Queen of Fear. That 'just' in there is a kicker, too. The girl's been sandbagging. That boy of yours is a heck of a Clarence, ain't he? Too bad you're out of a job now."

"Don't be too sure," said Ted.

"And Gmunro is Barry the Louse's Guardian? Never suspected that. Who's the redhead's Clarence?"

"The little girl in the bunny suit," said Ted, smiling.

Sophie rolled her eyes and tossed off the rest of her drink. "Damn it. Sandbagged all the way."

* * *

Jo didn't stop because she knew that behind every good puzzle is another deeper puzzle:

That was the third wish, counting from Richard's original. Wishes come in threes.

But that was only my second wish. I'm entitled to a third wish, myself, not counting Richard's.

But the devil can't grant the wish I want to make.

But I haven't been wishing to the devil.

She spoke aloud, fifteen seconds to midnight. "Third time redeems all! By Divine Justice, I claim my third wish! On the Honor of Heaven, I wish I were the only one hit by the bullet fired by Cherie in Wrangler Jill's earlier tonight."

* * *

"I'll take this one," said Ted.

"Be my guest," Sophie agreed. "I'm outta here."

* * *

The twenty-five caliber slug struck her high on the right side of her chest, shattering her collarbone. The bullet followed the broken bone along her shoulder finally lodging in the upper joint of her right arm.

Richard twisted and lunged with the impact, trying to keep her in his arms. He went down to his knees, then lay her on the floor and crouched over her, protecting her from another shot.

"Jo!" he screamed.

* * *

Epilog

Neither of them watched the local news broadcast on the small television suspended from the ceiling. The muted sound didn't attract their attention and for a long while neither said anything. Outside the window, the sun peeped over the mountains on one of those brilliant February mornings that people move to Los Angeles to enjoy. It would get up to eighty degrees F, later; a warm day with most of the smog blown out to sea on a rare east wind.

The silence continued, comfortable but with a hint of waiting. The room brightened. Finally, the man in the chair stirred.

He pulled an acoustic guitar from around his back, a habit he'd picked up from a friend. His fingers had gotten raw and sore from all the picking and playing he'd done in the days since the night of the blue moon but you can't bring a drum kit into a hospital room.

"I wrote a song for you," Richard told the slender figure in the hospital bed. "I'll just strum the chords, Bugs has a nice picking pattern for it but I'm not that good."

The simple progression, G, Em, C, D, lent itself to the melancholy verses and kept him well within his range.

I lie awake through lonely nights
Just trying to forget.
I should go out to the city lights
'Stead of staying home to fret.

 

I've closed the drapes and pulled the blind
'Cause I know we may be through
But something keeps you on my mind --
I'm not done with loving you.

 

Was I too young, my love too tender,
Why do these questions start?
When darkness falls I know I'll remember
The night you broke my heart.

 

The days go by like roadside signs
Asking don't I need some rest?
But the question that's still on my mind
Is did I fail some test?

 

And running through the lonely night
Down a track so straight and true
The answer is still clear and bright --
I'm not done with loving you.

 

Was I too young, my love too tender,
Why do these questions start?
When darkness falls I know I'll remember
The night you broke my heart.

"It'll sound prettier when you sing it," said Richard.

"What's it called?" Jo asked, her voice sleepy from the medication.

"The Night You Broke My Heart," he said.

"I didn't, did I?"

He sighed. "Well, yes, you did. You nearly did because you almost died. The bullet nicked an artery and you bled -- a lot." He looked uncomfortable; remembering the night of the shooting always gave him a lump in the throat and made him feel as if he had a case of double vision. If Angelynne Foster with her first aid training hadn't been nearby, Jo might have bled out before the paramedics arrived. Richard knew he would never have thought of using ice on a bullet wound to slow the bleeding.

She shook her head, a small movement because she had nearly fallen asleep while he sang. "I'm okay. I'll have to write some new verses 'cause the name of the song is 'I'm Not Done With Loving You'." She smiled up at him before closing her eyes.

The attendant and surgical nurses appeared in the doorway. He nodded at them and they released the brakes on Jo's bed to wheel her down to surgery again. The surgeons had got the bullet out the night of the shooting but they had to go back in to repair some of the damage done and keep her shoulder joint from being permanently frozen.

He got up to stand by the bed for a moment and the nurses paused long enough for him to gently place a kiss on Jo's cheek. The pre-surgery medication had taken full effect and she didn't stir but a small smile seemed to twitch at the corners of her mouth.

After the gurney and attendants had gone, Richard sat alone in the empty room, playing with chords in the early morning light. He imagined Jo's voice lifting the song above his pedestrian chords. He sang:

I lie awake through lonely nights
Just trying to forget.
I should go out to the city lights
'Stead of staying here to fret.

 

I've pulled the drapes and closed the blind
All day long and all night through
Something keeps you on my mind --
I'm not done with loving you.

 

Was I too young, my love too tender,
Why do these questions start?
When darkness falls I know I'll remember
The night you stole my heart.

 

The days go by like roadside signs
Asking don't I need some rest?
But the question that's still on my mind
Is did I fail some test?

 

And running through the lonely night
Down a track so straight and true
The answer is still clear and bright --
I'm not done with loving you.

 

Was I too young, my love too tender,
Why do these questions start?
When darkness falls I know I'll remember
The night you stole my heart.

Richard wiped his eyes and slung the guitar across his back again. "Arnie should have been here to record that, I'll never sing it that well again." He smiled. "But Jo will."

Something on the television caught his attention and he retrieved the remote from it's metal basket on the wall to turn the sound up.

Lemon Eater Jones looked out of the screen, smiling as if he'd just invented the blues. Some cheerful news-voice off camera asked, "What kind of music does your band play?"

Lemon looked thoughtful. "I guess you could say we put the fun back into funkabilly. We're part blues, part country, part rock and all par-tay. Music you gotta dance to that means something."

"You're getting some airplay with the tracks your sound man made the night of the shooting. You had any offers on a recording contract yet?"

"We're not considering any until Melody Jo is out of the hospital. Wouldn't be fair to anyone."

Richard smiled, knowing that all the offers they'd received had been contingent on Jo's recovery. Lemon had a nice way with spinning the facts.

"What about the name of the band? What's the reason for the unusual name"

"We call ourselves I-NO-Y, because believe me, all of us do."

"And Melody Terry was your lead singer?"

Lemon shook his head. "We all sing, we all write music, we all play three or four different instruments. Even our sound man plays keyboards and sings bass when we need him. Melody Jo is just sweeter and braver than the rest of us."

"What do you think of Assemblyman Aronhaus standing by his wife after the shooting?"

Lemon's lips twisted. "He should have stood in front of her."

"Is Melody going to be back with the band if she recovers the use of her arm?"

"She'll be back. Nothing stops that lady. A few weeks of rehab are just a good time to write more songs."

"What if she can't play the keyboards or guitar again?"

"She can play tambourine and I bet she can learn to play a wicked left-handed horn. Besides, she can sing the feathers off a nightingale and the wind off the mountain." Lemon wiped his eyes. "She'll be back, we'll be back. I-NO-Y. We all do."

Richard turned the sound off again, wiping his own eyes. Jo's mom, Beverly Messenger stood at the door. "I brought you some coffee."

He nodded, staking the cup from her with a murmured thanks.

"Jill and Andie are in the waiting room. Arnie, Bugs and Kylie are in the van in the parking lot, jamming with those kids from the club. Your mom and sisters are waiting to hear from you in the coffee shop."

"Lemon's on TV," said Richard. He nodded his head toward the set.

"That's a tape, I saw it last night. Lemon went up to see Gogie in the rest home in San Fernando. Said he couldn't stand to be nearby while they cut on Jo, afraid he might have to hurt someone."

Richard smiled. Lemon's tenderess, Arnie's multi-channel focus, Kylie's practicality and Bugs's hidden emotions had become as familiar to him in the last few days as the quirks of his own family.

Strange dreams had troubled all of the band the last few days, dreams in which Richard had taken the bullet instead of Jo. In all of the dreams, Jo had rescued Richard from death in some fantastic fashion. Bugs had dreamed she'd bargained her right arm away to Cerberus to get entrance to hell in order to retrieve Richard's soul.

They all recognized that the dreams were true in some way they didn't understand.

Richard and Jo's mom walked along the hospital corridor together.

"She's going to be okay," said Beverly.

"I know."

"She loves you."

He shook his head.

"She does."

"I know," said Richard. "And I love her. I know why I do, but why does she love me?"

Mrs. Messenger laughed. "Love isn't about reasons, Richard. It just is. No one knows why -- or needs to. If you're wise enough to recognize it and bold enough to seize it -- it's yours."

"They cheated. And that's my job!" said The Devil in Drag.
 

Green Sun

by Donna Lamb

 

Sophie Drake, the Devil in Drag, felt depressed. The picture of dejection, her shoulders slumped in her blue-green Paris original gown, her ankles turned under in their fashionable Italian pumps and she chewed on one of her elegant, New York manicured nails instead of the feast laid out in front of her.

Not even the excellent ribs from Mama Woods' Smoky Ribs and Chicken that Bill C. Bubb, her chauffeur, had fetched from South Chicago could cheer her up. Smelling the Delta-style sauce on tender Midwestern meat didn't even make her hungry. They sat on the concrete benches beside an abandoned Dairy Queen outside Perdition Falls, Wyoming. In one sort of record keeping, it had been almost two years since the debacle in Los Angeles, the cause of Sophie's depression. By another sort of reckoning, it had been No Time At All.

The demonic pair spoke mostly in the Dog Latin of Hell's Bad Catholics but, in English, the conversation went something like this:

"I lost the bet to that damnable clarence, Bill," she said, slumping across the stained and broken tiles. A clarence is hellish jargon for a low-ranking Guardian Angel.

"Too bad," her henchman said. Bubb tucked a white linen napkin he'd stolen from a London club into the bib of his denim overalls and pushed the straw hat back off his merely hypothetical forehead. Inserting a baby back rib into his froggy maw, he sucked the sweet-hot, juicy flesh down his gullet. Smiling like a trash compactor then, he crunched up the rib between his teeth and sucked the marrow out also before swallowing the splintery, pulpy, mass of bone. "R-r-ribs have r-r-roughage!" he announced in English since the joke would be meaningless in Latin, good or bad.

"I can tell you're all broken up by it," she said. She frowned at him, wrinkling her porcelain brow and squinting her turquoise eyes. She made a delicate moue with her blood-red mouth.

"Whajja bet?" Bubb asked, inhaling some Sour Milk and Carrot Slaw, one of Mama Woods' specialties.

"A thousand years of torment for that innocent Cinderella dweebette against a thousand years of granting wishes on Strangefellows Day," said Sophie. On Strangefellows Day, the third odd Thursday of any month, by previous arrangement Heaven had permitted the Devil in Drag to wander the Earth granting wishes, tempting souls and causing trouble.

"Sucker," said Bubb around an ear of buttered sweet corn. After gnawing off the kernels, he ate the cob, too. "That deck was stacked, Lady."

She nodded. "That's what rankles most, they cheated me. And that's my job!" She considered. "Cheating them, I mean."

Bill snickered, covering the sound of his amusement by shoveling in Louisiana barbecued beans with a mason's trowel. The little bits of mortar dislodged from his unusual tableware provided the demon with some not unpleasant alkaline crunchiness. "So now the clarence has to grant wishes?"

"No, you ignorant toadeater." And the bit of brisket Bubb had just picked up did, indeed, transform into a rather startled Bufo alvarius, the celebrated Colorado River Toad. Shrugging, the demonic driver popped the psychedelic amphibian into his mouth like a warty olive. "Well, he did grant one," Sophie admitted. "But the bet was, if I lost, I wouldn't grant any wishes on Strangefellows Day for a thousand years."

Bubb chewed twice, swallowed and burped up a Peter Max cartoon. "Starting when?" he asked, reaching for a drumstick.

"Starting...?" said Sophie. "Bill, you lovely old reprobate from the pit of Hell, I could kiss you!" The Queen of Air and Darkness ran her fingers through her long blond hair.

He considered, gnawing on the good but greasy chicken leg. "Wait'll the toad kicks in and you're on."

---

To be continued...?
 

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

 
The emerald dawn caught him by surprise...
 

Green Sun
Chapter 2

by Donna Lamb

 

The ultralite came up over the desert mesa just before dawn, skimming low but avoiding downdrafts from the cool walls of canyons and bluffs to preserve minimum altitude and save fuel. The hundred and ninety pounds of man and gear did not strain the capabilities of the little machine, nor did the extra ten kilos of cargo. Funny, Hobie Carson reflected, to think of my own weight in pounds and the stuff I'm hauling in metric. He chuckled.

He'd been doing this for months; drive to the rural airfield in southern Arizona, fly down to Mexico in the ultralite with money and come back with.... He didn't like to think about that part. The money was good though. Very good. His original price had been two thousand per trip but with success, he figured the risk climbed each time and he'd asked for more. They never balked. This little sortie would net him twelve thousand dollars minus the piddling amount for gas and parking his camper at the KOA.

The risks weren't piddling, though. Besides criminal charges if he were caught, Carson could get shot down by anyone of a number of government agencies, up to and including the National Guard who sometimes patrolled these desert areas in post-9/11 paranoia. Knowing that put a wonderful fine edge on life. Carson enjoyed the savor that risking his life gave him. It wasn't enough just to fly a tiny plane across a forbidding landscape, he reveled in the added danger of doing something illegal, taking additional risk.

The desert scrolled toward him like the scenery in a video game. Miles and miles, empty of any habitation and for the most part, unmarked by any evidence of human existence. Here and there he spotted the trail of a four-wheeler or a dirt bike or the even rarer water dumps of another sort of smuggler--coyotes, travelers in humanity itself, who would sneak people across the border into the USA for a fee. Often a larger fee than what Carson collected, and one that was paid by each of several immigrants--it might amount to ten times what the drug lords paid their little dragonfly.

And if the coyotes thought they might be caught, they abandoned their human cargo in the wasteland below--just as Carson had rigged his own payload for a quick cut away and drop. The difference being that twenty kilos of cocaine--or whatever the stuff was, Carson didn't actually know and didn't want to know--would not suffer and die of thirst in the Sonora Desert.

The desert, beautiful in the pre-dawn twilight at an altitude of less than three hundred feet could be deadly. Carson did not doubt that. Most of the weight of his gear, minus himself and his cargo, amounted to twelve one-liter bottles of water. The remaining items--clothes, helmet, goggles, navigation computer, radios, phones, toolkit, trail knife, medical supplies, sleeping bag and snacks--weighed less than twenty pounds. Other than the multi-purpose knife, a tool really, he carried no weapons. He hadn't been paid to die in defense of the shipment and if anyone tried to rob him, he would meekly hand it over if it ever came to that.

Sand and scrub stretched away for miles with here and there an arroyo or wash where a palo verde or mesquite tree might thrive on hidden water. Iconic fork-shaped saguaro cacti stuck prickly fingers into the pinkening sky. Off to the east, a spot of horizon brightened. The emerald dawn caught him by surprise; for a moment, Carson thought he might have got something on his goggles. It lasted less than two seconds but for that brief frame of time, the desert turned a marvelous shade of living green.

Stunned by the wonder in the sky, Carson did not see the juvenile redtail hawk rising from a hidden arroyo with its breakfast, a desert vole, in its claws. The bird did not see Carson either or did not expect the tiny aircraft to suddenly dive in the grip of a downdraft from the cool arroyo wall. The hawk struck the left wing of the ultralite, tearing through the plastic fabric and snapping three important structural wires before striking the rear boom and ripping off the elevator on that side.

Hawk, vole and Carson were all dead--but only Carson knew it.

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

Richard rubbed Jo's round little butt...
 

Green Sun
Chapter 3 - Spin Dizzy

by Donna Lamb

 

Jo Messenger ran her long fingers through her gingery-brown hair and bit her lip. Sometimes the music came like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky and sometimes it felt more like digging a badger out of a hole in a rainstorm with nothing but a dessert spoon. At least her hair had grown out to a decent length and she could stop wearing wigs on stage. Except taking her wig off in the middle of the next to last set had become something of a trademark--fans of I-NO-Y even referred to "blonde" songs and "redhead" songs, meaning whether she sang them with or without her wig.

After a year and a half since being shot in the shoulder, she still didn't have all the strength back in her right arm for extensive creative work on the keyboards. She found it easier to work out chords on a guitar where her right hand only had to strum. Hanging her Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar around her neck, she tried the lyric again:

"Tell me no secrets, I'll make no promises,
Let love's orphan in stillness die.
Tell me no secrets, Don't ask for promises,
And you know I won't need to lie."

"Bleah," she said. The second line still stunk like a big, wet dog lying on the dining room table. "This is going to be a 'b-blonde' song, I can tell." The cherry sunburst finish of the guitar matched the tones in her hair whether she wore her blonde wig or her natural locks but she generally played keyboards on stage. Only on slow ballads where Kylie Benjamin played trumpet did she pick up the rhythm guitar and play alongside Paul "Bugs" Benjamin, the band's authentic guitar-god and legendary sixties burn-out case.

Richard Alexander came into Jo's home studio from the hall with a caramel latte from Starbucks for her. He laughed. "Your problem is you're trying to write a cheatin' song. You don't have a disloyal bone in your body--it's no wonder you're having trouble." They kissed and Richard rubbed Jo's round little butt in her silken day shorts.

"Mmm," she said. "You think? M-maybe you should write it then." She grinned at him.

"Ouch," Richard said. "I think my, um, wandering days are over." He smiled at her, showing his dimples.

"Mmm, b-better be." She looked at him over the rim of her cup. Her slight stutter never affected her singing and had improved some over the months since she'd rejoined the band.

"Mmm," he said, still smiling. "You sure you want to wait till October to get married?" He sipped his own blueberry frappachino. Jo seldom drank icy drinks, preferring coffee, summer and winter, but a frozen fruity drink in July was Richard's idea of how to stay cool.

"We've got eight tour dates between now and Mom and Dad's anniversary; it's not that I want to wait, I just don't see how we've got time to get m-married any sooner. We've only got two more days here then we have to be in B-boston on Sunday." They'd planned on taking a week off from touring in late July when they'd drawn up the original schedule so Aron "Lemon-Eater" Jones, the band's bassist and hornman, could attend a family reunion in Cincinatti. But Jo's mom, Beverly Messenger, insisted on a month off from touring in order to plan a wedding. "We have to wait till October b-before we have time to do it."

Richard's dark eyes seemed to brim with tears like an anime character, "Wait till October? You mean.... We're not going to do it till October?" The pitch of his voice indicated just what he meant by it.

Jo giggled. She put her coffee down, swung her guitar out of the way and draped her arms around his neck. "Idiot," she said. Richard managed to set his own drink down while Jo enthusiastically nibbled on his lower lip. Then they kissed, long and deep. Jo ground her hips against his in the middle of the kiss, causing the guitar to thump him musically.

They came up for air. "So.... We're going to do it now?" Richard asked.

Jo picked up her coffee, "How about 'Let my love's orphan lonely die' for a second line?"

Richard closed one eye and peered at her. "You were thinking of songwriting while kissing me?"

She grinned. "It's only f-fair--I think about kissing you while I'm doing everything else."

* * *

An ultralite with half a wing gone still had plenty of lift but the impact with the hawk had wrecked or jammed all the controls except rudder and throttle and whatever attitude adjustment Carson could manage by shifting his weight. If he'd been flying "on the deck," under fifty feet, as he sometimes did, he'd have had no time to react or save himself. With only 300 feet below him and a cruising speed of thirty-five knots, he didn't have much time but he had some. Time enough but maybe not enough luck, he thought.

The severe yaw caused by the collision threatened to stall the plane so first he had to deal with that or fall sideways out of the air. He leaned his body weight into the yaw, steered the rudder out of it and goosed the throttle. The ailerons and elevators were not responding but the maneuver pulled the plane back into a mostly forward orientation, restoring lift. He eased the throttle back before the nose could pitch up.

Now the chaotic drag from the broken pieces flapping loosely on the left side of the little plane tried to pull him into a roll. He let the craft yaw again slightly, trying for a balance, but the unstable dynamics of the ruptured wing membrane and the missing elevator didn't allow for any sort of balance point--it took constant adjustment. Like juggling chainsaws and eggs at the same time, he thought.

One of the broken wire stays lashed him across the face, nearly blinding him--would have except for his goggles. He tasted blood running into his mouth from a cut across his nose. The lack of tension from the missing stays on the upright members of the plane's frame allowed a certain slackness in the lifting surfaces of the right wing, stealing lift and increasing drag. Nothing to worry about, he decided. I'll be dead before it matters.

He tried to look around for any sort of flat terrain without large rocks that he could aim for. The broken stay wire hit him in the mouth then struck the engine fairing and hung there, tangled somehow. Twenty-five feet from the desert floor, Carson over-corrected, starting a swift, irreversible clockwise yaw.

The little plane spun to the right, and simultaneously, rolled to the left. The right wing went through more than 270 degrees in two axes, struck the ground and pole-vaulted Carson and the engine, with the boom and tail assembly, over a pile of rocks and into a clump of prickly pear cactus. The plane landed boom-end first then toppled engine-down into the fat, beaver-tail leaves of the desert version of a fruit bush.

Not out of luck after all, thought Carson, just before he smelled gas.

* * *

Sophie Drake explained her plan to Bill C. Bubb again. "I'll serve my thousand years, Friday through Wednesday, every week for 1143 years. That makes a thousand years of days, none of which are Thursdays. The bet didn't specify when the thousand years began or ended or whether there were any gaps!"

Bill blinked. To his eyes, Sophie had green hair, orange eyes and palmate antlers like some sort of costumed elf. No, elk, not elf, he thought. "But Strangefellows Day only falls on Thursdays, and that only one to three times a year. It's exactly like not serving a thousand years at all."

Sophie nodded. "That's the beauty of it. Losing my bet won't interfere with my fun the least little bit."

The nodding antlers made Bill slightly apprehensive. He'd been gored by a moose once on a visit to the Upper Peninsula and thought that giant cervine ungulates should be confined to the walls above bar mirrors where they belonged, not roaming the wilds of Michigan without benefit of clergy or even a fishing license. "That's cheating," he said.

"Exactly!" agreed Sophie, looking pleased. "My premier especiality, even above tentacular dalliance with intent to engulf. Cheating is what I do best."

The shine off those antlers made Bill wince. "What are you going to do with all the extra Thursdays? The ones that aren't Strange? Fellows. Days?"

"Hadn't thought about it," said the Devil in Drag. She took out an assortment of fruit and began impaling peaches, pears and nectarines on the horny points of her antlers.

Bill decided that it presented him with a dilemma. One the one horn, his mouth was as dry as the Sonoran Desert and a juicy peach would go down very well. On the other antler, moose still gave him the willies. He licked his lips. "We could maybe look for more toads?" he suggested.

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

"Cerveza," Bruce read off the can.
"You're welcome," Arthur replied.
 

Green Sun
Chapter 4 Prickly Pair

by Donna Lamb

 

The driver of the black SUV stopped on the top of a ridge and shut off his engine. Twice in the last month Bruce Martin had heard the distant sound of a small engine in the same area. Not a motorcycle engine, it had a different resonance, with a poppity cadence that made him think of his grandmother's old electric sewing machine.

Or an ultralite airplane.

Not that a tiny airplane would be involved in the sort of activity he hoped to find; a plane meant dope smugglers, probably. For his part, he'd cheerfully throw every drug pusher and dope smuggler into prison for life but his purpose out on the Sonora Desert didn't include the sort of quixotic impulse that would lead him into a confrontation with drug lords or their henchmen. He'd just as soon avoid them if he could.

Originally, he'd come to the Southwest as part of a contingent of the Border Regulation Committee. The Regulators believed, and Bruce had been convinced, that the tide of illegal aliens in the United States would eventually cause a serious threat to the Republic. Over the months of Regulator activity, he'd learned that many of his comrades had agendas that involved power and money in ways that had caused him to lose faith in their common ideals.

He still had faith, he just no longer believed that they did. Too much of the donations sent to the BRC had simply disappeared with no proper accounting and nothing but excuses offered as to why the accounting would not, could not and even, should not be done. Then he'd met an Indian in a dusty border town. His truck needed a part, a fancy belt to keep the power steering working. The other guys in his Regulation Group had spent the waiting time in the only bar the tiny town had to offer.

Bruce had walked out to the old mining railway that had been the town's original reason for existing, just sight-seeing. Under a cottonwood tree there he'd found Arthur Bullrush, a Native American of the Apache Nation. Arther had a little camp made, with a rock circle, an itty-bitty fire and a large restaurant-style tin can filled with venison chili. Some of the best chili Bruce ever had.

And some good company, too. Bruce had been ex-Army and Arthur, ex-Marine, but they'd had things to talk about. Like their mutual service in the original Gulf War; they'd actually been within a few miles of each other in camps outside Kuwait City.

"New War nothing like Our War," Arthur had said.

"Shit no," Bruce had agreed. Then they'd dropped that subject, sensing a deeper argument lurking in the shoals of their budding friendship.

They had scooped up chili with handmade tortillas Arthur had got from a Mexican lady in town. They drank beer from tall cans, a brand with a Spanish name Bruce had never heard of. "Cerveza," Bruce had read off the can.

"You're welcome," Arthur had replied and they'd both laughed as if it were the funniest joke they'd ever heard.

They were both big men with work-hardened hands who knew how to live in the near-wild, how to hunt and fish and how to cook what they killed. Arthur had black hair and nearly black eyes buried in sun wrinkles. Bruce had grey eyes and the sort of dark brown hair that turns red after a lot of sun. They could talk about a thousand things, sports, women, cars, military service--but they left the politics alone. Almost.

They laughed and talked and ate and drank most of the day away. In the cool of the late afternoon, Arthur had finally asked, "So you're with this Regulator Crew?"

"Well, yeah," Bruce had admitted.

Arthur chuckled.

Bruce felt defensive for some reason. "S'funny?" he'd asked.

Arthur smiled. "Well, we've both proved our bona fides, we're patriots and we've got the discharge papers to prove it. Neither of us had the bad luck to collect a lollipop but we put our skins on the line and we both know why we did it."

Bruce nodded.

"But you got to see the situation from an Indian point of view. All this hoo-raw over a few illegal aliens is pretty funny to us. Ironical, even." He smiled.

And Bruce had smiled back.

That's all it took. A week later, he'd quit the Regulators, gotten their stuff out of his truck and filled the back of the big SUV with blankets, water bottles and food packs. Then he'd gone hunting, looking for people who were lost in the desert with no food, no water and no shelter. He didn't care which direction they were going, people could die out there without a little help. Two more weeks, he figured and he'd have erased the time he'd spent on what he thought of as an honest mistake--then he could go back to his job with a clear conscience and hopes of finding solutions to national problems that didn't sound like the plot of a second-rate musical comedy.

Still, he had no desire for trouble with any drug cowboys so he scanned the horizon again, looking for a small plane. That's when he smelled the smoke.

* * *

Hobie Carson collected more than a few stickers from the prickly pears getting himself out of the burning plane. That broken stay wire that had finally tangled in the engine fairing had apparently also carved a slice through the double-walled plastic fuel tank. Leaking gas had somehow caught fire and the dried undergrowth below the green part of the beaver-tailed cactus burned fiercely.

Carson managed to get out with the medical kit, three bottles of water, a bag of gorp and his satellite phone and utility knife. Also first and second degree burns on his face, arms and legs to go with the stickers.

"At least I didn't lose any money on that ballistic parachute I thought of buying," he told himself. "I got the plane down not much harder than it would have landed with a $4000 recovery system. It's toast but that really happened to it in mid-air." He watched the fire for a moment, sad because of losing a friend, his plane.

The morning sun already felt hot on his burns so he found some shade behind the rocks he'd narrowly missed landing among. There he dressed the cut on his nose and slathered burn ointment and sunscreen on his face, hands and shins, then used a pair of tweezers to extract the worst of the stickers. He drank an entire bottle of water while doing this, knowing that it is better to carry water internally than externally on the desert.

Directly north of him, he knew from his last navigation reading in the plane, lay the touristy "ghost" town of Christmas Diggings, Arizona. The other two bottles of water would be enough for an estimated fifteen mile hike but maybe not in the middle of the day. Better to walk as much as he could before the day turned blistering, find some shade to wait out the heat and finish his hike in the cool of the evening. On the last Thursday in July, it probably wouldn't really cool off till nearly dark but he could start walking again around six.

His utility knife had a compass in the handle so he did not doubt he could keep a course but he spent some time on the north side of the rocks, picking out distant landmarks in the line of hills.

He didn't use his satellite phone right away because he didn't want any rescuers nosing around the wreckage of the plane. Just before he'd finally lost control, he'd pulled the quick release on the smuggler's pouch and dropped a hypothetical fortune in contraband drugs onto the desert floor. Maybe his employers would want to come back and look for it.

His burns hurt, his nose ached, he still itched from the cactus thorns and somewhere, somehow, he'd banged his left knee on something. He hoped it didn't swell up and slow him down too much. He pushed himself to his feet, his back still against the cool rock.

He grumbled under his breath a bit before starting out on his hike. Out loud, he said something like, "I wish someone would come along in a four-wheel drive and save me from having to walk out of here."

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

Sophie glared. "You're saved. We saved you. What's'a matter, Hobie? You could at least be grateful and eat a damned hot dog!"
 

Green Sun
Chapter 5 Hot Diggety Toad

by Donna Lamb

 

No sooner had Carson made his wish for rescue than he heard the thrum of a large engine and a blood-red, antique Land Rover appeared around a nearby rocky knob. He stared. The canvas top of the old-style British 4x4 was down and a blonde wearing stagey makeup, long black opera gloves, a floppy rose-colored hat and a purplish evening gown stood in the passenger compartment. Carson didn't notice the driver at first, but when he did he saw what appeared to be a gorilla in a monkey suit--a tuxedo, that is.

"I must have hit my head," Carson murmured. "I wonder if I even got out of the fire alive?"

The apparition wheeled around the larger obstacles and over the smaller ones to come to a stop only a few feet away. "We're here, Hobie, darling," said the Devil in Drag. "You're saved!" She did something with her upraised arms, dipped, then stood straight and waved her arms again. She made crowd noises with her open mouth.

"Red hots, get'em while they're hot! Hotter'n hell!" called the ape. He stepped out of the car wearing a candy butcher's apron over his tux and a peculiar wide, wooden box on a rope around his neck. The box was filled with short cylindrical objects wrapped in waxed paper. Carson smelled hot dogs.

The Devil in Drag squealed, "Here it comes again!" She stood tall and waved her arms frantically, dipped again then stood and waved some more.

"You wanna hot dog, sonny? Just fifty cents, t'ree for a dollar!" the ape asked. Carson could see now that the beast had human arms and legs and a face that looked almost cartoony, like Alley Oop, rather than a real gorilla.

Carson shook his head. "I don't believe this," he said.

Bill C. Bubb, whom Carson had mistaken for a gorilla (a common error), turned to Sophie Drake and reported. "He don't want no wiener sandwich."

The Devil in Drag leaned on the top of the windscreen of the Rover. "You're saved. We saved you. What's'a matter, Hobie? You could at least be grateful and eat a damned hot dog!" she said.

Carson looked around. He noticed that neither Sophie, nor Bill, nor the Land Rover cast any shadow. In fact, none of them had any of the sort of surface shadows that an ordinary three-dimensional object has plenty of in direct sunlight. They looked two-dimensional, like painted cut-outs, even though Bubb was close enough that Carson could smell the barbecued toad on his breath.

"You're not real," said Carson, shaking his head again. "That car isn't real. You can't take me anywhere in it."

Sophie and Bill exchanged looks. "I blame television," said Sophie.

"Computer games," suggested Bubb.

The Devil in Drag made the universal hand sign for "What's the difference?" and glared at Carson. "Too smart to get into Hell's Chariot or even to eat a snack from Hell's Kitchen?"

"You're just an hallucination, him, too." Carson indicated Bubb. "And that car. Hallucinations. I must have hit my head."

"I'm an hallucination?" asked Sophie. She climbed out of the Rover, her gown dragging in the sand. She turned toward Bubb. "I'm an hallucination?"

Bubb shrugged. "It's possible," he said. "We have been smoking toads." He put a clawed finger in one ear and produced toilet plunger noises by moving it in and out.

Sophie made a rude ethnic gesture at him and turned back to Carson. "Well, Mr. I-Wish-Someone-Would-Save-Me--I've got news for you!" She pointed with an elegantly gloved hand. "That's not a car, it's a Land Rover!"

"I better stay here in the shade," said Carson. "I could get brain damage in this heat. I'll walk out tonight." He settled back against the rock pile, sitting down in the shade and wishing, silently, that he hadn't dropped his helmet into the fire accidentally. If he still had it, he could pull the goggles down and put the earplugs in. It might not keep hallucinations out but he felt like he needed the psychological distance wearing a helmet would provide. He tried not to think about the lack of shadows cast by the two demons--except, he didn't know they were demons.

"You call this hot?" asked Sophie. She looked at Bubb and he looked at her and they both laughed. Then they went into a conference. "You think he's got brain damage?" she asked.

"He could have," said Bill. He polished one horny fist in the palm of the other hand and grinned. The box of hot dogs had simply disappeared along with the butcher's apron.

Sophie nodded. "It's an idea." She looked over at Carson. "Hey, how about if we get another ride for you, you don't want to go to Hell with us?"

"Whatever," Carson muttered. He pulled his knees up against his chest, crossed his arms on them and put his head down. He didn't want to look at them or hear them either but putting his fingers in his ears seemed childish. Especially after what Bubb had done.

"Picky bastard," said Bill. "It's too hot for him, he doesn't like our, uh, vehicle, and he won't eat hot dogs."

"Maybe we'll give him a passion for eating fucking wieners," Sophie muttered. "Brain damage can do some funny things."

Bill grinned even wider than before, lolling a long tongue out like a dog. "Arf," he said.

Sophie smiled. "Stand up, Hobie! Your ride will be here in a few minutes and you need to be ready."

Carson ignored her, keeping his head down.

"He's a self-righteous sort in a big black truck, but a sucker for anyone helpless. So we've got to make you more appealing," she said.

Carson shivered, as if with a chill. The feeling rippled over him. Something had happened, something had changed. Maybe the universe....

"Those rags have got to go," said Sophie. "Naked and defenseless, gets the Lancelot-types every time. That junk, too, you won't need it."

Carson's clothes vanished, along with his shoes and all his equipment. They were just gone. He felt sandy rock under his naked bottom. He yelped. "What the hell?" and stood up, quickly.

Bubb smiled at him and panted like a cartoon bulldog. "What the Hell?" he repeated.

"Exactly," said Sophie. "Naked isn't enough. A naked man is just ridiculous. A naked woman is something else entirely."

It felt exactly as if Carson's private parts had just been turned inside out and tucked up inside. She screamed.

Sophie said, "And of course, a pretty girl is better than one who might as well be a guy. Especially if she's petite and blonde and stacked."

The new woman shrank several inches; her hips spread out; breasts appeared and grew larger as her waist diminished. Curly blonde hair fell to mid-thigh. Her face and skin changed too; the wounds and burns disappearing first and soft, fair, new skin spread to replace Carson's mildly hairy, masculine appearance. Carson screamed again, her voice climbing at least an octave.

Sophie made a few more changes; a large pouty mouth and long full lashes that were startlingly dark. Big, blue eyes. Pierced ears with cheap dangling earrings. A navel ring, too, and a trio of pink and blue butterflies tattooed on her pale left thigh. "She's obviously got only one purpose in life," said the Devil in Drag. She laughed. "I'll fix it so the poor thing doesn't have to shave anywhere, too."

"More tits," said Bill.

"More tits?" said Sophie. She closed one eye and looked at Bubb. "You're kind of a freaky son-of-a-bitch, ain't you? Two's not enough? What, three, five? Eleven?"

"No, no, just make them bigger. Like one of them strippers who've got tits bigger than their heads." He nodded, drooling a little.

"Oh," said Sophie. "Well, I suppose."

"No, no, no!" Carson screamed. She turned to run. She felt herself shrinking again and her breasts growing.

"Don't let her get away," said Bubb. He took a few steps after her.

"Where's she going to go? It's all desert out there." Sophie followed, not hurrying.

"Yeah, but a girl looks like her, she's got no business running. She could hurt herself."

"Oh, like you're concerned about that." Sophie snorted, delicately.

Bill shrugged. "Maybe she knows where we can find some more toads. It's what we came here for." His nostrils dilated and quivered. It's possible that his brain squirmed.

The Devil in Drag gestured and Carson tripped, falling to her hands and knees. She looked around, dazed. Her breasts hung well past her elbows--and she had a shadow. "It's real," she murmured. "I'm real!"

Sophie and Bill walked toward her, laughing. "After this, we'll go to Japan and have some fugu," Sophie told her driver.

He made a face, like someone who had just died of paralyzed respiration. She laughed.

Carson tried to stand but something seemed wrong with her feet. Her back hurt and she had somehow ended up kneeling on her hair. The demons loomed close. "Please, please," she whimpered. "What did I do?"

"Don't forget the brain damage," said Sophie.

"Right," said Bill C. Bubb, drawing back a large fist. "Don't let anyone cut your hair, it'll make you stupid," he told her.

"Well, more stupid," said Sophie.

Carson noticed claws in place of fingernails on Bubb's fist just before the daylight went out.

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

"How would you like to be a clarence? A green one?"
 

Green Sun
Chapter 6
Red Rod, Black Jack, Green Gray and a Boy Named Soo

by Donna Lamb

 

Ted o'Mersey enjoyed desk duty. As a former solicitor, it suited his soul to help keep the internal functioning of Heaven smooth. He even excelled at it, though he had also demonstrated a capacity for deviousness that made him a very effective field agent. He looked at the trim young man in the uniform of the US 10th Cavalry, circa 1898. "Corporal, it says here that you have another 428 years to spend in Purgatory." Ted quirked an eyebrow.

The young man did not flinch. "Yes, sir. I'm hoping for a work-release transfer."

Ted smiled. "I see your nickname among your mates was Red Rodney."

Corporal Rodney nodded. "There was another Rodney who was darker than me. He was Black Rod and I was Red."

"Because your hair is more brown than black and you've got freckles?"

"Yes, sir," said Rodney.

"Not because you were particularly bloodthirsty?"

"Sir, we were Buffalo Soldiers. It was a bloodthirsty business." He looked uneasy for a moment before he asked."Sir, I did want to know. The men I killed as part of my duty, Indians and Filipinos, mostly, a few white men in Cuba. Do those count against me? And, and, are any of them here?"

Ted frowned. "Deaths caused by soldiers in the line of duty are not usually counted as murder. So, yes, they count, but not so much and sometimes they count for, not against. It's complicated but fair, corporal. And a few of the men you killed are here in Heaven, but you're unlikely to meet them unless you go looking. Did that concern you?"

"A little sir," Rodney admitted.

"No worries, to borrow a phrase from Down Under." Ted smiled. "Would you be willing to work as a Guardian Angel? It's not as easy as it sounds."

"Sir, it would be an honor I had not hoped for."

"Hmm, mmm," said Ted. "I've got a recommendation from one of your commanding officers here."

The soldier looked briefly uncomfortable. "Which--uh, which one, sir."

"Jack Pershing," said Ted. "He says that you are a brave soldier who will do your duty and make him proud."

"Lt. Jack always was good to us. Is he here?" Rodney looked around.

Ted shook his head. "Jack is currently serving as a squadron leader in the Armies of Light on the far side of the Tomlinson Galaxy."

"He'd be good at that, sir," said Rodney.

Jack Pershing was good at that; and his Commanding Officer, Colonel Joseph, had already recommended breveting the cavalry captain to field rank. In his previous life, Jack had never worn oak leaves, jumping directly from bars to stars--some said by political pull. Ted didn't mention to Rodney that all of Jack's current troopers were former Red Sticks and Commancheros. Work-release programs were supposed to be designed to try the soul. Still, Jack looked as if he might be getting the first of his stars back before he turned 160, measured from his birth in 1861 Missouri.

Ted stamped the papers in front of him approved. "Welcome to the unit, Probationary Guardian Angel Third Class Rodney Clarence." He smiled. "You'll have to find out why your last name is so propitious; I'll give you a pass to the cinema later. I know you're familiar with the American Southwest, so we've made your first assignment there. I'm sure you will do well." He passed a packet of papers across his desk.

Rodney saluted. "Thank you, sir." He stepped forward but he still had another question, Ted could see it on his face.

"We'll consider your other request when we see how you're doing on this assignment, Clarence." Ted smiled broadly, enjoying the joke.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Ex-corporal Rodney Clarence picked up his new assignment and saluted again before executing a precise about face.

Ted watched him march off into mists and the glare of an Arizona summertime noon. "Next applicant, Bo Lim'nhee of the Grays." The tiny alien with the bulging eyes stepped forward. Ted frowned. "Why are you here, Bo? I know you died on Earth but you could have gotten an automatic transfer to your own people's afterlife, you know?"

"Sti oyot thilish sturoi mixi," explained the gray humanoid.

"I see," said Ted. "But, you know, you're not even the right phylum, don't you? And do you chaps even have genders?"

"Struh, amra 'at coro ralko."

"Really? I thought you were all gray."

"Vaska, sti ralko trast zir?"

Ted laughed. "What color gray indeed? Well, then. I know you're a movie buff so how would you like to be a clarence? A green one?"

* * *

David Soo Wilson kicked a rock and watched it sail over the vacant lot where his grandfather's grocery used to be. Davy had never seen the old man's store; it burned down fifteen years before his parents had even met. But it still had a place in family history. Not that Davy felt especially familial this particular summer Thursday; in fact, he felt a grudge coming on against his sister.

"No fair," he muttered. Just because Mandy had turned eighteen and could drive now, she got to go to the beach with her friends. And Davy couldn't go without someone to take him because he was only eleven. His parents had to work and had never heard of buses, at least, not for eleven-year-olds; his sister would not relent and take him along, she made fun of him for asking; and G'ampa Soo had had one of his arguments with the ghost of his wife and was sulking in the upstairs apartment.

Davy kicked another rock, trying to make it travel the entire length of the lot his family still owned; at least, his mom and his uncles did in the family trust. G'ampa Soo talked about rebuilding the grocery someday, like anyone shopped in little neighborhood grocery stores anymore. His mom and his uncles couldn't agree to sell it, though now that Mandy would be the first of the grandkids to start college in the fall his Mom had a new weapon in her argument.

But Davy didn't care, it would be too many years before he'd start college. Who wanted to go to school, anyway, and what was college but more school? No one cared what a kid thought. He kicked another miserable rock. "I wish I were all grown up like Mandy," he said.

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

"Boys don't have boobs, do they?"
 

Green Sun
Chapter 7
Moose and Walrus, Bruce and Hobie

by Donna Lamb

 

The advantage of smoking toads to get high is that you don't have to wait till you're sober to enjoy the hangover.

"What did that kid say?" Sophie moaned.

"Something about moose in the lake?" Bill guessed. He frowned, then winced because the frown hurt then smiled because the wince caused beautiful colors to coruscate down Sophie's antlers then frowned because he was afraid of moose then....

"I should just turn him into a duplicate of his sister, serve him right. Little half-Asian bozo. Teach him to live in the City of Angels and make wishes," Sophie muttered. She didn't actually have to be nearby to hear or grant a wish on Strangefellows Day and currently she and her driver sat under a ramada outside some fast food stand in a little town named after, or maybe before, a Vietnam war leader. They rubbed ice on their aching foreheads and drank multiple liters of Orange Bash trying to get the taste of fried toad out of their mouths.

"That's too easy, you could do that with one antler tied behind your back," said Bill.

Sophie looked at him carefully. "What does that mean?" she asked.

Bill carefully didn't look at her. "Be creative, make him look just like his sister."

Sophie frowned, winced and smiled then shook her head--gently. "Isn't that what I just said?" She examined Bill critically; in the last few moments he'd developed a certain walrusness, or perhaps, walrosity? She didn't like walruses--always befriending carpenters and singing about cabbages and Eskimaux.

Bill held his flippers just a scant bit apart, "Subtle difference."

"What? Difference from which?"

"Witch?" asked Bill, confused.

"Which witch?"

"Oh! Not wish, whisk. I mean, not witch, wish. The boy's wish. Subtle difference, his sister." Bill turned away. The cartoon squirrel on Sophie's left antler was making disturbing gestures. And when an imaginary squirrel makes a gesture that disturbs a demon--well, that's one disturbing gesture.

"Oh," said Sophie. "I think I get it. Good idea, Wally." She nodded her head, causing the squirrel to fly away with a whoosh! Which made both demons wince then smile then glance at each other then frown then....

* * *

Bruce Martin drove toward the column of smoke carefully. He didn't want to surprise any nervous drug dealers who might be armed with who knows what; machine-pistols which they would fire in a peculiar sideways method made popular in that 80s TV show starring the guy who didn't shave. He didn't believe anyone ever actually fired a handgun that way, it seemed dumb. Why forgo the aiming point built into any well-made pistol? Style? What was that about?

Across his lap he held an AR-15, the civilian version of one of the military weapons he had trained with back in the first Gulf War. He felt comfortable with the small rifle but had no desire to actual shoot anyone. Nor did he want to get shot, so he circled the crash site at a distance of about a quarter mile, watching for signs of life and getting upwind of the greasy smoke.

The smoke that smelled like garbage burning; he knew that meaty, sick-making smell and did not really expect to find anyone alive. He zigzagged in closer, approaching from the northwest. He spotted the body about a hundred yards from the wreck by movement of what he at first took to be a yellow flag then saw it for what it was.

"Oh, Christ of Mercy, it's a woman," he whispered. Maybe she jumped from the plane? He drove directly toward the body, forgetting caution. "It's her hair," he said, wondering at such a marvel. "Who has that much hair?" When he got closer, he saw her nudity, and whistled low.

He stopped a few yards from the body and pulled one of the blankets from behind the seat. He stowed the rifle and stepped out, seeing only a single line of tracks leading from the crash directly to the still form of the tiny blonde. "Her clothes must have burned off," he said. He threw the blanket over her first, then knelt and checked for a pulse in her neck. "She's alive." Her abundant hair lay mostly under her but enough had escaped to blow in the wind and attract his attention.

He tried not to think about the incredibly lush body he had seen. He wondered if he should pick her up, she might have internal injuries. But the only blood he saw was a slight scratch on the bridge of her delicate little nose. He noticed other things. Her lip liner, eyeliner and outlined eyebrows were tattooed on but lacked the finishing makeup to make them look correct. Her eyelids and lips might have some tattooed color, too, but without more makeup, her face looked unfinished, like a beautiful but poorly painted doll. She had heavy brassy-looking earrings, big hoops with charms hanging from other hoops.

He'd only ever seen a body like he'd glimpsed before putting the blanket on her in a few Las Vegas strip shows. And he'd only seen makeup like that on prostitutes in places like Bangkok, Miami, and Marseilles. He sighed. Under the tattooing, she didn't look like much more than a teenager, a girl really.

He stood up and looked toward the fire. Almost burned out, the prickly pear patch still smoldered with the skeleton of the dragonfly-like machine sitting in the middle of it. He could see the outline of what might be a two-seater ultralite--and the body of the pilot in the control seat. The source of the greasy, vomit-inducing smoke, no doubt. He walked close enough to be sure but no one could be alive when you saw charred ribs through burned clothing. He did throw-up then, and buried the bile with the toe of his boot. Nothing he hadn't done before.

And nothing he could do for the pilot.

He turned to go back to the girl when he saw a bundle of pinkish leather, half-concealed in a clump of creosote bushes. Investigating, he found three pink leather suitcases, large, medium and small, all bound together by black shipping straps and only slightly banged about. He picked them up, wondering only for a moment how both they and their obvious owner had escaped such a disastrous fire. Perhaps the pilot had thrown them out at the last minute, unlikely as that seemed.

He heard a noise like a lost kitten. Putting the suitcases on one shoulder, he hurried back toward the girl--stopping only to put the suitcases down and grab a water bottle from the big SUV. Seeing that her eyes were open he knelt beside her.

Her gaze didn't seem to track him well. "Who are you guys?" she asked in a little girl voice.

Bruce glanced behind him on reflex. No one. "There's just me, miss. I'm Bruce Carson."

She blinked a few times, closed her left eye and peered at him. "Oh, yeah, you're just one guy." She giggled. "I thought you were twins."

Is that an act? part of Bruce wondered. Another part of him didn't care; her voice, her giggle, her hair, her face, the shape he could see under the blanket, even a slight smell of perfume and musk, everything about her practically shouted, "Sex!"

Bruce cleared his throat. "Do you hurt anywhere? Are you hurt? Can you move your fingers and toes?"

She frowned, a tiny pout. "I don't know? Did you call me 'miss'?"

Richard felt a stab of pain he couldn't identify. "I don't know your name," he said. It took him only a moment to ignore the incomplete makeup job. She's got me, oh hell, he thought. He heard the softness in his own voice, he knew he would do, well, almost anything not to hurt or frighten this girl.

She stuck the tip of a pointy pink tongue between her lips. Bruce thought it looked adorable. Then she asked, "Are you sure? 'Cause, I don't know my name at all. And why does my voice sound funny?"

"I'm not sure, miss. I found you near a wrecked plane. Before I move you, I have to find out if you hurt anywhere." He wanted to run his hands all over her--just to check. Oh hell, he thought again.

"I feel fine," she said. She reached up from under the blanket to pull the edge down.

Bruce stopped her, noticing her painted, manicured, and long nails on delicate little hands. Every little detail announced that she must be someone's--lover? pet? sextoy? "You're not wearing anything under that blanket," he told her.

That didn't seem to sink in. "You did it twice," she said.

He blinked. "I did what?"

"You called me miss." She shook her head. "I'm not a miss."

"Uh? Okay. Can you wiggle your toes?" he asked.

"Sure," she said. "The blanket moved, obvious feet waggling and toes wiggling. "That kind of tickles." She giggled.

Relieved that she didn't seem to have any spinal injury, Bruce asked. "Are you married?" He hoped she wasn't and wanted to swear at himself for such a hope.

"No." She drew the word out into another giggle. "You're funny."

He smiled. He couldn't help doing so. She seemed cheerful, amused, even happy. He realized he liked seeing her smile, hearing her giggle. "Well, okay. We'll figure out what to call you later. But I need to get you up and into my truck."

"Why?" she asked.

"'Cause I need to take you to a doctor."

She fumbled around under the blanket for a moment, looking puzzled.

Bruce watched transfixed. Just how big were her...breasts? He could see her pushing them around and they looked bigger than her head. She must be a stripper, he thought. Only explanation.

She looked up at him. "Am I the only one under here?" she asked.

"Uh, yes," he said. Not counting the silicon twins, he thought. They have to be fakes.

"I guess you can call me 'miss' then. I've got boobs. Boys don't have boobs, do they?"

"Not...not usually?" What had he seen before he tossed the blanket over her?

He watched her hands feel lower down on her body, testing her crotch. "Yup, I must be a girl. I don't know why I thought I was a boy."

"You thought you were a boy?" Bruce asked, feeling totally inane. And uncomfortably male.

"Uh huh, I must have got hit on the head, huh?" Her hands were still moving under the covers. "Ooo! That feels nice!" she squealed. Bruce gaped at her. She went right on rubbing herself under the blanket. "Ooo!"

"Stop that," he said.

"But -uh!- why?" she asked. "It -uh!- feels good." She moaned. "Uh?"

He couldn't think of a good enough reason but after a minute or so, with him watching, she stopped on her own.

"It doesn't feel good any more," she complained.

"Uh?" he said. He had begun to sweat, and not just because of the summer heat in the middle of the desert.

"Maybe? If you did it for me?" she suggested. "Please?"

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

"...when we get to your place will you tickle me all over?"

.

Green Sun
Chapter 8
Red Tape, Green Blanket

by Donna Lamb

.

Rodney Clarence slapped the Heavenly Requisitions desk. It made a sound like a gunshot, "I need more than an extra dead body, a burned-up aeroplane and some fancy luggage for my client! I need her changed back or at least her memory restored, her body turned into something more like a real person and identity papers for her! This is just unacceptable, sarge."

The young woman behind the desk jerked, startled by the noise. Dressed, as she had been in life, in the simple white shift of a temple attendant from 43rd century B.P. Egypt, she didn't look much like a sergeant and she confirmed that, verbally. "I am not called 'sarge', my name is Thema! And I've told you, you can only request material objects for your client here, not changes in living beings or history. For that you need to go to the Editation and Rewrite desk or to Documentation for earthly papers."

"But they won't do anything either! They say I have to have an orange seal from a Principality or higher, or two green seals from different Authorities!" Rodney protested. He took off his flat-crowned campaign hat and ran his hand through his close-cropped brown curls in frustration.

"Well, then, I guess that's what you need, those seals! You have to go through channels, even in Heaven. And you're just a Probationary Guardian Angel, Third. I'm only a Ministering Angel, Second, myself!" She shut the window panel abruptly, narrowly missing Rodney's fingers.

"But where do I find one of these Princes with an orange seal?" Rodney asked the closed panel.

"I'm on break!" came the reply. "See your own supervisor! He's probably an Archangel or an Authority himself."

Rodney frowned. "But I can't find him either, Heaven's a big place." No one answered.

Rodney turned away. It bothered him in many ways that Hobie Martin, his new assignment, had been transformed into...well, he couldn't think of a nice way to put it. If he didn't do something about that soon, Hobie and Bruce would probably be getting into even more trouble; he'd seen the look in the big man's eye. Poor Bruce had no way of knowing that Hobie used to be a guy. "And the way she looks now, it might not make any difference. I think those two toadeaters even did something to how she smells!" he muttered.

At least Ted o'Mersey had briefed Rodney on the Devil in Drag's shenanigans before sending him out on his first assignment. "She's a bad'un," Ted had said. "You may have to be creative about how you solve the problems she causes." But now he couldn't find Ted in Heaven's wide avenues and teeming multitudes. And he hadn't been able to find Bruce's Guardian Angel either, not in Heaven or on Earth.

He sighed. He'd have to do something. He'd sometimes got in trouble in life for going off on his own initiative, "being creative" in the military wasn't always a good idea, but he didn't see any other way to do it. Using his new angelic powers, he transported himself from the warehouse district of Heaven's Lowest East Circle directly to his client's vicinity in the Arizona desert, taking along the one item he'd requisitioned for himself.

*     *
*

"You can't even sit up?" Bruce asked. He'd tried to give her a sip from his water bottle but she'd been unable to lift herself up into position. Her effort had been something to see, though.

The girl under the blanket shook her head. "My boobies are too heavy; when I try to sit up, it hurts my back. Pretty silly, huh?" she said in her little girl voice. "I bet this must be your dream 'cause it's just too silly for one of mine." She giggled.

That actually offered a solution Bruce hadn't thought of before. A girl with breasts almost as big as soccer balls did seem like the stuff of dreams. He tried to will himself awake; that always worked in dreams once he realized he was dreaming. Not this time, though. He looked around and admitted to himself that he had never had a dream with such detail. Desert floor with heat waves shimmering. Burning airplane in a cactus patch with a towering smoke cloud. Blonde girl with dark eyelashes and a Barbie doll smile under a military surplus blanket. "I'm not dreaming," he said aloud.

The girl sighed."Then it must be me. Maybe it's like when I thought I was a boy and I only think I've got huge boobies. Huh?"

Bruce had to grin. She looked so cute trying to be thoughtful and serious.

Then she looked past him. "Who's that in your truck?" she asked.

Bruce turned quickly but he didn't see anyone. He got up and went to the truck to check then hurried back, scooped the girl crippled by her enormous breasts off the sand, and placed her in the back of the truck on top of a layer of blankets, surrounded by a cloud of her own fragrant blonde hair. He kept a lookout all the while, expecting something to happen but had a moment to marvel at how tiny she seemed, huge boobies and all. She couldn't weigh more than a hundred pounds.

"Are we going somewhere?" she asked. She looked so trusting--but his flesh felt warm and sticky where he had held her against him--he didn't trust himself.

"My place for now," he told her. Right, I should take her to a hospital or the police or the Border Patrol...no, I'm taking her home. Or to my motel at least. He groaned.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You look all hot and bothered."

He squeezed his eyes shut tight and blinked a few times causing her to giggle. "I'm fine," he said. "Are you okay? You need anything?"

"Um, nothing right now but when we get to your place will you tickle me all over? I like to giggle."

Help me, Bruce thought. He stopped with the door to the back of the SUV half-closed, a ticklish image stuck in his mind. She giggled again and he came back to the moment, remembered the luggage he'd found and loaded that too. He closed the door, rushed around the truck and climbed inside.

"Are we in a hurry?" the girl asked.

"Yes," he said. He started the truck up and pulled away from the burning plane, still trying to look in too many directions at once. He didn't want to tell her that the rifle he'd left in the truck had disappeared. But whoever took it could have shot me in the back before I knew he was there...so we're probably safe. Probably.

continued...

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Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

"Blackberries are actual purple," said Bill, shortly before his head exploded.

.

Green Sun
Chapter 9
No Accounting for Taste

by Donna Lamb

.

Bruce drove back toward his base camp in the desert east of Christmas Diggings, very distracted by the happy burblings in the cargo compartment behind him. "The truck bouncing makes my boobies jiggle all over," said the girl. "It's so funny. I think I like it."

He turned on the air conditioning, something he didn't always do but he definitely needed to cool off. What am I going to do with her? he wondered. I know what I'd like to do but that would be like.... like stealing from a poor box. Well, sort of. He knew he could turn her into the authorities, that she'd probably been involved in drug smuggling as an accessory, that only someone with resources of a government would be likely to find out who she really was. But something made him hesitate. Something besides that, he told himself.

He could take her to the motel he kept in Christmas but he resisted that idea. Just before he passed the turnoff toward Arthur Bullrush's new camp he realized he needed to talk to someone. He slowed. Arthur had almost a decade more experience of life than Bruce did, he'd actually finished his twenty in the Marines and lived off his half-pay pension and what little he and a cousin took out of an old turquoise mine. Bruce made a decision and turned down the lane that ended in the dry wash that led to a burro track that went up the canyon where Arthur lived under a stand of cottonwoods very like the ones where Bruce had first met him.

On the pile of blankets in the cargo compartment, the girl giggled. "Whee! Look'at 'em go! That tickles!"

* * *

Out in Los Angeles, Davy Wilson did not make it home before his pants split along the rear seam even though he ran as fast as his new longer legs would carry him. Fortunately, he made it into the house before anyone saw him due to the coincidence of a well-placed whirlwind blocking the view of his sister and her friends climbing into the six-year-old Toyota Corolla Mandy had inherited from mom. Davy went in the side door while the girls piled into the car out front They had loaded down themselves down with video players, drink coolers, beach hats and blankets--and were squealing about what the wind was doing to their hair.

Davy dived into his room and hid in his own closet until the girls had been gone for ten minutes at least. Then he'd ventured out and looked at himself in the mirror over his dresser. Long, straight dark brown hair hanging past the bottom of his now very tight Westside Pizza Soccer Champs t-shirt, prominent titties making two bumps in the shirt. Slender waist, oval face with light brown eyes, arms almost as thin as his own had been. He didn't have pierced ears, blond, gold and red streaks died in his hair or fingernails painted Industrial Orange Smoke but otherwise he looked exactly like his sister.

His eyes got very wide like an anime character, even if he was half-Chinese and not Japanese at all. "Holy cow!" he yelped. Then he ran down the hall to the bathroom he shared with his sister so he could see all of himself in the full-lenth mirror on the back of the door. Even though his jeans hung in tatters, split in the back, crotch and inseam, he could see that he looked like Mandy from head to foot. Mandy's grown-up features and body looked back at him, not his own 11-year-old boy looks. "Holy cow!" he said again. "I'm a girl?"

He took the tattered jeans and very strained briefs off to check. "Oh, good," he said. "I'm still a boy."

* * *

"Kid ought to be more upset," said Sophie, watching the scene on the sideways screen of her pocket iHell. "And there's some meddling clarence on the job there, I can smell him."

"No accounting for the perversity of the human race," said Bill. He slurped at a blackberry, licorice, and peanut butter fudge triple cone outside of the Rite Aid in a shopping mall next to Highway 111 in Palm Desert. Sophie had a cherries jubilee and devil's food cake double in a cup. "Blackberries are actual purple," Bill added for no particularly useful purpose.

She frowned. "Here's a pair," she said. She unfolded the screen twice, making it large enough for Bill too watch.

"Where's this at?" he asked.

"Henderson, I think. She's a showgirl and he's some sort of security at one of the casinos," said Sophie. "Watch."

On the screen Tiffanee Topps (nee Bettina Phillips) gurgled a sob. "I'm getting fat and ugly!" Her tall blond hair looked as if she'd been running her fingers through it and tears left grayish tracks from her mascaraed eyes to her carmine lips.

"No, you're not, honey," Bret Dane (nee Daniel Bott) said. "Why, you're not showing at all! And it's only going to make you more lovely, darling." He tried to pat her on her naked tummy but snatched his hand back when she tried to sink her two-inch plastic claws into his wrist.

"A lot you know, Mister-Safe-as-Houses-If-I-Pull-Out-in-Time! I've gained six pounds! Six pounds! My costumes don't fit!"

Bret really couldn't tell that she'd gained any weight at all but he supposed that six extra pounds into costumes as tight as the one's Tiffanee wore might be noticeable. "Oh, honey." He tried to console her. "Oh, sugar, it's okay. You can--you can quit work till after the baby is born. I make enough for us to live on."

"Oh, right!" she said sarcastically. "That's why your car is a twenty-year-old Dodge and I'm driving a new BMW!" She sniffled. "We couldn't make payments, buy gas and pay insurance for my car on your pay. We're screwed! And it's your fault!" This time she did hit him, a back-handed slap on his biceps.

Watching, Bill and Sophie laughed. Violence is like chocolate to demons, even a taste is good.

Bret didn't flinch. Even though four inches shorter than Tiffany's six-one, he worked out a lot and his muscles were hard as iron. "It's okay, honey. It'll be okay. You can wear a different costume or let them out or borrow one from a girlfriend. Something. See? It'll be okay."

"You just don't understand, you...you...you man! I don't want to get fat and ugly and lose my job! Even if we get a kid out of this, I'm going to be ugly for months!"

"You won't be ugly, it's all natural and beautiful," said Bret. "And I'll be right here with you telling you everyday just how beautiful you are."

"Oh, that's so sweet, I could puke!" protested Tiffanee. "And that's another thing, how can I gain weight when I throw up everything I eat?"

"Baby," said Dane. He didn't mention the bacon cheeseburger, big salad and milkshake Tiffanee had scarfed down at three a.m. last night. "I understand," he said.

"Here it comes," said Sophie.

"Oh you can't understand! I wish you were going to go though this with me feel exactly what I feel and get all porky with bad skin and your tits hurt and then try to squeeze a watermelon out your pussy!"

"Wow," said Bill. "That's a doozy."

"Good one," agreed Sophie. "But I can't make him pregnant, against the rules for me to create a life. And she wants them to feel the same thing."

"Heh," said Bill. He reached over and manipulated the zoom to take the view inside Tiffanee's womb. "Twins," he said, pointing out the two separate blobs of tissue.

"Perfect!" said Sophie. "Watchit! Your dripping ice cream on the screen."

"Sorry," said Bill, putting the much-demolished cone behind his back.

Onscreen, Tiffanee and Bret embraced. She'd expressed her concerns and felt enormously better and Bret liked nothing better than comforting her.

The two demons cackled while the lovers merged down to a cellular level then separated into two identical pregnant Tiffanees.

About that time, while he was taking another bite of the cone, Bill C. Bubb's head exploded.

"Idiot," Sophie screeched. "You got brains in my ice cream cup!"

continued...

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"Whoo!" said Bill as his head rematerialized. "What a rush!"

.

Green Sun
Chapter 10
Ex Libris Purgatorius

by Donna Lamb

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Ex-corporal Rodney Clarence, once of the Buffalo Soldiers, stepped out from the shadows, holding Bruce Martin's stolen AR-15 carbine. No one in the crowded outdoor mall had noticed the gunshot or if they did, they'd thought it only a backfire from the traffic on the nearby highway. No mortals present could see Bill C. Bubb's body still upright, hands blindly groping for his missing head. "Next one goes through your pretty self, Miss Drake," Rodney called out.

"Oh, please," sniffed Sophie. She spooned up another bite of ice cream, deciding that the little bits of Bill's brain were only a sort of jelly sauce. After a bite she remembered that Bill had smoked eleven toads to her two, besides the extra one he'd actually eaten. "You can't kill us, we're demons." Her tongue tingled with toad toxin from Bill's gray matter. She decided she liked the effect.

"I know that," said Rodney. "But I've spent the last ninety-odd years in Purgatory, being killed over and over in the various methods by which I dispatched enemies of the United States during a long military career. I've been shot in the heart, the head, the throat, the thigh and the back. I've had my neck bones snapped by ropes, tree branches and bolo knives. I've had my ribs stove in by boots, fists and hammers. I've been drowned in salt water and quicksand and I've been eaten alive by crocodiles, coyotes and garbage dump dogs. I'm already dead so I can't be killed but it still hurts--it hurts like Hell!" He nodded toward Bill's body which had groped around for one of the concrete bus benches and had taken a seat. "Ask him," Rodney offered.

Sophie tsked. "Pull yourself together, Bill," she ordered. A ghostly miasma resembling Bubb's monstrous head began forming at the top of the truncated driver's thick neck. "So what, clarence?" said Sophie. "So you can blow my brains out and make me feel pain. I'm the Devil, you idiot. Do you think I'm not tough enough to handle it?"

"You misunderstand me, Miss Drake. I 'killed' Flymaster there to keep him out of the way. I don't have no mercy bullets for you. I'll use the first of these next ones to blow away your jaw. Then I'll start on your hands and work up your limbs, joint by joint. Since you can't actually die, this could take some time." He stalked slowly towards her, not lowering the rifle.

"Whoo!" said Bill as his head rematerialized. "What a rush!"

Rodney changed aim long enough to blow the left side of Bubb's face away with one round. "Ouch, that smartsh!" Bill said. A second shot made a ruin of the rest of the driver's head and Rodney shifted aim back to the Devil in Drag.

Sophie looked down the barrel of the stubby, semi-automatic carbine knowing that he could shoot again before she could vanish herself or summon some suitable defense or counter-offense. She knew too, that Rodney was not the type to give up and she'd be dealing with the ex-corporal attempting to discorporate herself for perhaps decades if she didn't find out what he wanted. Besides, she also knew her own physical cowardice and when he started shooting off her elbows she didn't want to be reduced to begging.

She sighed. "What do you want?"

Rodney told her.

"Impossible," she said.

Rodney blew the ice cream cup out of her hands.

"Seriously!" yiped Sophie. "I can't change the past and I can't un-grant a wish! It's in the rules!" She didn't tell him that she frequently violated those same rules but he knew that. And she knew that as a lawful clarence, he couldn't ask her to break the rules if she appealed to them.

"You'd better think of something," said Rodney. "I know o'Mersey tricked you once. I ain't even going to try that, you're the tricky one. And you're cruel. What I am is ruthless. I'm probably going back to Purgatory for this but my client deserves a fair deal on what was a harmless wish. So hop to it, toad lady." He fired a round that shredded the heels of both of her Tommy Choo's.

"You know she's a drug smuggler?" asked Sophie, limping over to the bench where Bill was again groping for his missing head. "Close to a ton of poison smuggled into your precious United States to kill and blight the lives of hundreds or thousands of people, she's no innocent."

"You ever hear of the Opium Wars? Hell, they were probably your idea. The United States, Britain and France carved up China into markets for opium, so don't let's try to define innocence or justice here. That ain't what we're doing. You know what I want, figure out how to do it. I don't want to argue about it," Rodney said.

"How the Hell do you know about the Opium Wars?" whined Sophie.

"Every book that's ever been purged or expurgated has a copy in the Library of Purgatory. Sundays we got to go there and read, 'stead of suffering our sentences. They show censored films in the cinema there, too. You going to get with the project or do I start blowing away toes?" He gestured with the rifle.

"Okay, okay." Sophie capitulated. "She's not going to thank you for this but here's what I can do...."

continued...

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AR15-M4 Photo Copyright 2007 by Igor Koltunov. Used by permission.

"He's what? Must have a bad connection, Vin. Sunspots maybe?"

.

Green Sun
Chapter 11
Teenie Weenie, Red Bikini

by Donna Lamb

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"Waddaya mean, the kid's in trouble again? Didn't I get him a nice job in a casino and hook him up with a true fox? What's gone wrong now?" Larry the Wolf, also known in life as Lorenzo di Guelphi, sipped a double dry martini in his favorite dimly lit Trenton angel bar and talked on his cellphone to Coordinating Archangel, Vinny Gallo.

The pretty young Ministering Angel Third Class, Martina Przewski, sitting in Larry's lap made a face at him. Larry shrugged, business was business and Guardian Angels were never off the clock. "He's what? Must have a bad connection, Vin. Sunspots maybe?" Vinny had taken over watching Larry's clients so Larry could have a few days R&R.

The next thing Martina knew, Larry had spit a good mouthful of gin with hardly any vermouth down her decolletage and had started to stand up before remembering her. He caught her with one arm and stood her on her feet. "Sorry, Marti. My client has got himself into some strange shit out in Vegas. I gotta fly." A full G.A. First Class, Larry had two sets of wings and he spread them both, filling the narrow bar with pinions and feathers.

"Vegas? In July? Larry you gonna cook," Martina protested.

"'S'okay, doll," Larry said. He grinned and flapped gently. "I'm air conditioned." He rose slowly through the ceiling of the basement bar and on up through the ramshackle old brownstone that now housed a barbershop, a Jamaican grocery store, a second floor church, three lawyers and The Original Trenton Detective Agency, Rafael Original, Detective-in-Residence.

Rafe looked up from where he'd been sleeping with his feet on his rolltop desk as Larry rose through his floor. "Goin' somewhere in an all-fired hurry ain't you, angelman?" he drawled. "I know you know where the doors is."

"My boy out west has got himself pregnant somehow, got to see what I can do," explained Larry to the sometime occult investigator. "Don't ask how, 'cause I don't know yet." He drifted on up through the ceiling to the roof where he could safely use his wings to go supersonic.

"Hunh," said Rafe. "Sunspots maybe?" he suggested to Larry's toes.

* * *

In Los Angeles, Davy Wilson did the only thing he could think of to solve his nakedness. He raided his sister's wardrobe. Since he planned on going to the beach, he looked first for a swimsuit. The remaining evidence of his masculinity being hardly as big as his little finger--it hadn't grown when he did--he simply tucked it back and discovered that he fit very nicely into Mandy's red bikini. He admired himself in the full-length bathroom. "I think I'm prettier than Mandy, 'cause she's got girl cooties," he snickered.

Reluctantly, he decided that he'd better wear the top of the suit, too. It took him a few minutes to figure out how to tie it on. He picked out one of Mandy's beach cover-ups, a faded yellow one that hung down to mid-thigh, plus a pair of canvas sandals, red to match his bikini, and then he went back to his room to get the $33.73 cents he had saved up from his allowance.

But he couldn't get the front door open. Nor the side door, he tried it too. He frowned into the mirror over the fake fireplace in the living room, and got distracted momentarily by his sister frowning back at him. He stuck his tongue out at her. Then the phone rang.

He paused before answering it, wondering if he sounded like his sister, too. Finally he just picked it up and said, "Hello?" in exactly that rising lilt Mandy used that drove their Dad crazy. And he hadn't even tried to.

"You g'ammaw say you ain't livin' the house wit'out you pants on," said the voice of G'ampaw Soo from the upstairs apartment. "Gray fellow told her and she tell me. So put some pants on or a skirt, what you t'ink?"

Davy didn't point out that G'ammaw Soo had died six years ago, G'ampaw knew that but it never stopped him from finding out things from her or having arguments with her, and the family had just decided to act as if the old lady's ghost still lived upstairs and tried to run the old man's life--and everyone else's. "Yes, sir," said Davy.

"T'at you Amanda?" asked the old man.

"No, this is Davy," said the boy who looked and sounded like his sister.

"Okay, fine t'en," said the old man and hung up.

Davy went back to Mandy's room, picked out a denim mini-skirt with a wide leather belt, put it on, feeling only a little odd, then tried the front door again. It opened. Pleased, Davy trotted out, locked it behind him and scampered down the sidewalk toward the bus stop.

Bo Lim'nhee of the Grays followed him. "Avka usu tot," he said. Then he added, "Whew!"

continued...

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"Reality just is, it can't be tested or proven. You either believe in it or you don't. If you don't, people call you crazy." . Green Sun Chapter 12 Sapphire Eyes, Ruby Lips by Donna Lamb

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Bruce Martin parked under the leafy canopy of three cottonwoods next to the adobe cabin his friend Arthur Bullrush lived in while working the mine. Arthur had no motor vehicle himself and Holly Bullrush's Kawasaki crotch-rocket was nowhere in sight. Arthur may or may not be home but probably could be found nearby, possibly in the mine itself which was tunneled into the side of a rocky hillock about a hundred yards from the cabin.

"Stay here," Bruce told the girl in the cargo compartment.

"Okay," she agreed. "Can you bring me a Coke or something when you come back?"

"Um, maybe. Something," he said. Arthur probably had nothing but beer or water to drink--the ex-Marine was not partial to sodas, especially if he had to lug them in on foot from Christmas. He smiled through the rear window of the SUV at the girl and tried not to let his glimpse of her abundant assets distract him. Striding to the door of the cabin, he knocked and opened the door, calling out, "Art? You there?"

No answer. He stuck his head in and looked around in the dim one-room interior. Arthur's deer rifle lay across its pegs above the single bed and his hunting vest hung from another peg. Good, thought Bruce, he's here and not hunting, so he's probably in the mine. He backed out, closed the door and started up the trail toward the entrance of the shallow mine.

The old man sitting on the apron of the currently unused adobe fireplace chuckled, a deep delicious burble like an old fashioned percolator. The white man had not seen him but that wasn't unusual. He stood up from his almost yoga-like position and followed Bruce out of the cabin. He watched from the shadows of the cottonwoods while the white man crossed the strip of desert between hillock-and-mine and cabin-and-well. When Bruce clambered up the trail to the mine itself, the old man turned and went to the back of the SUV. Opening the hatch, he spoke to the girl lying on the army surplus blankets with one olive-drab corner being used as a sort of fig leaf.

"Hello," he said in a deep voice as calm and as dark as moonlight. "I am Mangas Junco. What's your name?"

"Hi," the girl said, smiling at first but then frowning. "I don't know what my name is. Do you?"

He nodded, putting a finger beside his broad Apache nose. "I'm a wizard. I know lots of things." And he smiled, moonlight on white desert rocks.

The girl giggled. "You're funny."

Mangas Junco opened the lower half of the tailgate downward, then hitched himself up sideways to sit. He half turned to face the girl. "I know that in a very few moments, you will begin to remember some things. It may be painful or scary to remember, that is why I am here--to help you to know that things are well and not horribly wrong as they may seem."

"Oh," said the girl in her tiny voice. Even a wizard who might have lived more than a century noticed how cute she looked, though the enormous breasts made her resemble a fertility idol or a cartoon character more than a human being. He swung his legs up into the truck and leaned back against the door frame. "Besides the remembering, there will be other changes. Here it comes," he said. "Don't be afraid."

* * *

Bruce stuck his head into the opening of the mine and called out, "Art? You there?"

"Yo! Don't come down here." A hatless Arthur Bullrush appeared in the dim light filtering in from the blue Arizona sky, his black hair slightly wavy from the dampness of his own sweat. "Too narrow for two big guys like us." He scrambled up the slight slope to the opening, walking bent over because of the low roof. He had a rock hammer in one hand and a canvas sack in the other. "What's up, Kemo Sappy?"

"I--" Bruce hesitated. "Um, I found a girl in the desert," he said then stopped.

"Yeah? Better'n what I've been finding." Arthur grinned. He dropped the hammer beside some other tools near the mine entrance and reached into a pocket in his shirt. "Have a look at this," he said, passing a polished blue nugget to Bruce.

The ex-Regulator took the item and looked at it. "Art, this is beautiful!" He tuned the pebble over in his hand, admiring the nearly sky-blue color and the hard, waxy shine.

Arthur grunted. "Should be, got that in a pawnshop in Bisbee. Here's what I'm digging out of this dung hole." He poured some greenish, chalky-looking rocks out of the sack into his big hand.

"Oh," said Bruce. "Well, they are bigger."

Art laughed. "Size isn't everything."

"That's what he said," said Bruce then they both laughed.

"Getting hot," said Art, wiping sweat off his face before retrieving his hat from a nail driven into the frame of the mine opening. Bruce held the sack for him and he poured the rocks from his hand back into the bag and put the blue pebble back in his shirt pocket. "Wanna a beer and some beans?" Arthur asked.

"Sure," said Bruce. They started back toward the cabin.

"What'd you do with the girl?" asked Art.

"She's in the truck."

"Yeah? Alive? Hurt? Illegal?"

Bruce shook his head. "She's not hurt bad, which is amazing since it was a plane crash and the pilot is burned up dead."

"Jeez," said Art. He resisted crossing himself the way he'd been taught in a Catholic boys' school he attended as a boy. He'd been exposed to so many religions in his life as a world-traveling Marine that he liked to think he'd developed an immunity.

"And while she's probably not an illegal, it's likely the plane was involved in drug smuggling," Bruce added.

"Drugs? And you did what? You put the girl in your truck and brought her here?" Arthur rolled his eyes. "Are all white men as stupid as you?" He grinned.

Bruce sighed. "You've got to see her.... But the kicker is while I was--uh--examining her--someone stole my AR-15 out of the truck. And there's lots of other stuff that makes no sense at all, like a full set of hot pink luggage that's not even singed."

"Hmm. Well, lucky for you, I happen to have a man staying with me who is an Authority on Stuff That Makes No Sense At All," said Arthur. "My great-great-grandfather, Mangas Junco."

"You're not helping. You're fifty if you're a day, your great-great-whosit Mangle Hunko would be something like one hundred and fifty. I'm serious, Art. This stuff is making my sphincter shrivel. And you've really got to see this girl."

"Mangas Junco," said Arthur. "And I won't be but forty-nine-and-a-half next month. I don't know how old he is or even if he's really a relative but Mangas is one canny old man. You know that card trick I showed you? He taught me that when I was eight. And I swear on a pile-of-shit the size and shape of the Pentagon, he looked just as old then as he does now. Old enough to have been the original owner of Manhattan. Is she that good looking? Or what?"

"She's Miss Wet Dream of Every Ninth Grader in America. Squared, cubed, blued and tattooed." Bruce blinked. "Literally for that last."

Arthur made motions with his hands.

Bruce nodded but said, "Biggerer."

"Whoo!" said Arthur. "Let's go see this Paragon of Pulchritude, if Grampa Mangas hasn't eaten her all up by now." He started down the hill and Bruce followed.

* * *

The memories came back at the same time as the last set of physical changes unwound. Hobie Carson's sapphire blue eyes got very big while her breasts shrank, her feet unkinked and her body grew from tiny to merely small. She made odd squeaking noises when her hair shrank to waist-length right under where she lay on it. "Those toad sucking bastards!" she said in what remained an almost-little girl voice. Her ruby red lips pouted deliciously, but she didn't know that.

Mangas Junco nodded. From a pocket of his loose khaki cotton pants he took a corncob pipe and a pouch of some herb.

Carson looked at her hands. Her nails had shrunk from two-inch daggers to mere half-inch extensions but were still candy pink and decorated with little white flowers with glittery centers.

Mangas began filling his pipe while watching Carson explore her new body. When she sat up easily, the blanket fell away, showing her breasts and the complete hairlessness of her body. She gasped but he merely quirked an eyebrow. She had not even the slight blond fuzz most people have growing anywhere below her neck. Without it, her skin glistened in a matte shine, her round softness seemed emphasized. It felt weird, too, wherever the blanket or her hand touched her skin.

"I could scream," she said. She still sounded cute. "Why...how? No, why did they do this to me?"

"Because they could," said Mangas. He went about the ritual of lighting his pipe and blew spicy puffs of smoke from the corner of his mouth before putting his matches away. "Understand that while they are evil, they do not always do evil. You were going to be caught with the money the next time you took the plane to Phoenix. Your partners in Mexico had sold you out to the authorities in exchange for letting them make this last shipment."

"What? How?" Carson gasped. One of Junco's eyebrows twitched slightly watching her chest inflate. "How do you know anything about it?"

He shrugged. "I am an Authority on Things That Cannot Be Explained But Just Are. Like the fact that you are now a beautiful, naked, young woman sitting next to a pile of luggage. Shall we open these cases and see what they contain?" From another pocket of his pants, he pulled a small Swiss Army knife, opening the smallest blade.

"I guess so," she said. "Am I really a woman? What do I look like? What am I going to do? Is there anyway to change back?"

He made his coffee-perking noise and cut the strapping tape holding the three suitcases together. Released, they tumbled off one another but he caught the smallest one before it landed on her foot. He closed the knife-blade one-handed and opened the "toothpick" blade. "You ask a lot of questions," he said, smiling at her.

She felt herself blush, a sensation she didn't remember feeling in years. "This can't be true. I crashed the plane and now I'm dreaming."

Without saying anything, Mangas reached over and poked the heel of her tiny foot with the pointy metal toothpick.

"Ow!" She pulled her foot up into her lap and examined it, amazed at her own limberness and startled that she had taken no actual injury. "Are you trying to prove this is real?"

"Can't be done," he said. Using the toothpick, he popped open the latches on the smallest cases and opened it. "Reality just is, it can't be tested or proven. You either believe in it or you don't. If you don't people call you crazy."

"Okay," she said. "I'm either crazy or I've been turned into a woman and I'm having a weird talk with an Indian wizard." She rubbed her foot and then stretched her legs out, looking at them. "Wow," she said.

Mangas puffed smoke from the corner of his mouth like visible laughter. "The rest of this one is full of cosmetics, cheap jewelry and bathroom stuff. You might want to look at that." He held a leather folder out to her from the top of the open case.

She took it, opened the folder and gasped.

Mangas commented, "Corporal Rodney Clarence remembered to insist on documentation for you. Passport, birth certificate, California I.D. card, Social Security card and two eight-by-ten color glossy headshots."

"Who's..?" she began then got distracted. She stared at the photos. "That's what I look like?" She began to cry, softly.

"Um, hmm." He pulled the middle-size case toward himself and worked on the locks. He didn't tell her not to cry but did hand her a small packet of tissues from the first case. "The boys will be here soon. Do you want to have clothes on when you meet them?"

She gasped, looking up. "Boys?"

"Bruce Martin, the man who rescued you, and my grandson, Arthur Bullrush." The second case popped open. "Underwear, stuff to sleep in, bathing suit, couple of dresses and a pair of high heel sandals." He said after searching a bit. "More than that, but not much more."

She sighed. "I guess I'd better put on some undies at least."

Mangas passed her a pair of lacy, pink, nearly-transparent, barely-there-at-all, thong panties.

She glared at the item. "You've got to be kidding," she said.

continued...

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"Does your mother know you left the house wearing that skirt?" she asked Davy. . Green Sun Chapter 13 Four-Fifths of Forever, Three Times by Donna Lamb

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"That'll do," agreed Rodney Clarence.

The Devil in Drag tossed her head and shot a glare at him. "Damn well better," she said. "You don't have any authority to force me to redo a wish, you know."

"I know," he agreed. "None but this." He patted the AR-15 which he still kept pointed at Sophie Drake's head. "Nice weapon, would have loved to have it when I was alive."

Sophie sneered. Guns had always been important to some of her less subtle projects but at the moment she wished she'd never midwifed their invention. "So we're done?"

"Guess so," said Rodney. He didn't change his aim but glanced at Bill C. Bubb's still headless body sitting calmly at the bus bench.

Unseen by Rodney, Bill had grown another face under his arm where only Sophie could see it. "Hell's Legions on standby, just say the word," Bill whispered. His mouth having formed right in the armpit, he had a curly mustache and a soul patch.

Sophie shook her head. "Can you point that thing somewhere else?" she asked Rodney.

"Not yet," said the ex-Buffalo Soldier. He kept his finger on the trigger, knowing by now exactly how much effort it would take to squeeze off a round.

"You're going to shoot me, anyway, aren't you?" Sophie asked.

"Thinking about it," admitted Rodney.

* * *

Davy considered where he wanted to go. Even though the girls had talked about the beach, he suspected they might have headed for the mall first. But he really did want to go to the beach, so he caught the blue Santa Monica bus at the corner and headed toward Venice instead of taking the RTD sideways to the mall. He couldn't help giggling at the freedom he felt, being a grown-up.

The bus driver grinned at him as Davy dropped his quarters into the box and he smiled back but blinked when he realized the man's gaze had immediately dropped to Davy's legs. Mandy's legs, really. Davy ignored him and found a seat next to an older woman who had motioned him to sit next to her. "Thank you," he said as he settled down.

The old lady nodded. "Don't neither of us want one of these hoods sitting next to us." The bus lurched into motion.

Davy looked around, wondering just who she meant. It looked like an ordinary bus full of students and business commuters to him. Except--every man or boy he could see from his seat was looking at him. Just the way they usually looked at Mandy when he rode the bus with her, he realized. He grinned, flipped his hair the way he'd seen Mandy do it, and giggled. No one at all realized he was just a little kid and he thought that was pretty funny.

Several of the men smiled back at Davy which caused him to giggle again. They all thought he was Mandy which made him wiggle in his seat with the amusement of it.

"Oh, don't encourage them, dear," sighed the old lady. She glanced at Davy's clothes. "Does your mother know you left the house wearing that short of a skirt?"

"No," admitted Davy, which caused him to giggle again. "It's the first time I've ever worn it."

Another sigh from the old lady. "Oh," she said. "Well, I remember enjoying such things; I'm not as old as all of that! We invented mini-skirts when I was your age." She grinned. "Enjoy yourself but be careful, dear."

Davy nodded, wondering what the old woman meant.

* * *

"How come you're a woman, anyway?" asked Rodney. "You're the Devil." The business of the mall in Palm Desert went on around them, the mortals saw nothing and heard nothing.

Sophie sighed. "We original angels don't really have gender," she said. "Though most of us show ourselves as male most of the time." She shrugged. "But I lost a bet a couple hundred years ago."

Rodney stared over the sights of the small rifle. "So now you're female?"

"Only on Thursdays; on any other day of the week, I can be whatever I want to be," she said. "Why am I telling you?"

"Because I've got the weapon," he pointed out. "But why the gender-bending wish granting?"

"Because it amuses me and I seem to be getting away with it, okay?" Sophie looked more annoyed. She glanced at Bill's yellow eyes peering at her from under his arm. He winked but she turned away. "Most of the time, I get away with it. I used to curse people on Friday the 13th, but the Muslims objected so I can't do that where anyone has heard of Muhammad, now. Actually," she ran her hands through her hair, "this is more fun, anyway."

Rodney watched her, frowning.

"You going to shoot me or just bore me?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him.

He pressed his lips together then licked them. "Still thinking about it," he said.

* * *

Her husband already occupied with the toilet bowl, Tiffanee ran for the trashcan in the kitchen. She barely made it. "It's not noon yet so I guess it's still morning sickness." She moaned. The two girls at opposite ends of the apartment heterodyned off the sounds of each other's nausea for awhile, taking turns throwing up; though in fact, it was mostly bad-tasting water because Tiffanee hadn't been foolish enough to eat anything more than toast and skim milk for breakfast.

When they'd washed their faces and cleaned up a bit, they met and hugged in the hallway; two identical, tall, busty blondes wearing boxer-pajama bottoms and Area 51 t-shirts. "So much for your idea of taking over for me when I get too fat to work," said Tiffanee. Her husband-sister giggled then began to weep. "Hey, hey," said Tiffanee, "I'm sorry about the wish, I didn't think it would really happen. What? Did one of us offend a genie or something?"

"I dunno," said the other blonde. "I'm pregnant, too, ain't I?"

"Uh huh," said Tiffanee.

"We're going to have babies."

"Yes, honey." They hugged again.

"We'll be mommies together," said the ex-man. She began to blubber again.

"Hey, hey," said Tiffanee, holding her tight. "It'll be okay. I said I was sorry. It's okay, honey."

"It's just such a beautiful experience!"

Tiffanee pushed her back and looked at her. "You're crying cause you're happy?" she asked, surprised.

"I dunno," the new woman admitted. "I'm so confused. I'm not unhappy. But I think I'm going to lose my job."

Tiffanee kissed her. "It's okay, hon. We'll just have to make twice as much money as usual for as long as we can."

"Um?"

"We'll go on as a double act. Twins. Tiffanee Topps and Brittanee Bottoms!"

They both got giggle fits, cried some more, then Tiffanee called her boss to tell him the good news about her long-lost sister.

* * *

Sophie looked at Rodney, still standing under the palm tree. "Is there anything you want, clarence?" she asked. "I could use a man like you."

"You trying to get shot?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're waiting for the cavalry to show up? It's not going to happen."

He shook his head. He knew he should get some other concession from the Devil in Drag before giving up his leverage. She'd never let this happen again. He just couldn't think of what he should demand. It wasn't safe to let the devil know what you really wanted.

"You're on your own, going outside of orders--that's the way it works. The same in any army anywhere." Sophie smirked at him. "But I tell you what, I'll give you, oh, four-fifths of an eternal second to get out of here before Bubb or I come after you. Plenty of time for you to use your Word of Recall to re-enter Heaven."

Rodney thought about it. "I want assurances from you first," he finally said.

"What. Kind?" she asked between her teeth.

"I want you to swear, three times, that you will not order, permit nor excuse any reprisals by yourself, your servants, or other forces controlled or influenced by you, directly or indirectly, against any Guardian Angel clients, past, present or future for my actions here."

Sophie looked impressed. "You sound like a lawyer," she said.

"A surprising number of law books have been purged at one time or another," he said. "I spent nearly a century of Sundays reading. That's about five college degrees worth."

"Maybe I should call you Dr. Clarence. All right," said Sophie. "I so swear. I swear it twice." She looked at him blandly. Bubb grinned at her with his hairy underarm mouth.

Rodney moved the rifle aim a fraction of an inch. "You want something back."

"Your resignation from the Guardian Angel Corps," said Sophie.

He didn't hesitate, he expected to be cashiered anyway. "Done and done and done, I say it three times," Rodney said.

Sophie nodded, smiling. "I swear as I swore before, three times and forever," she said.

Rodney shot her through the bridge of her lovely nose, disintegrated the AR-15 and spoke his Word, vanishing, all in less than four-fifths of an eternal second.

"Damn," said Bubb from his armpit. "Forgot to get him to agree not to shoot you."

"Oh, shut up," said Sophie's voice from where her head used to be. Like movie automobiles, demonic skulls usually explode when damaged.

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

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Wasn't it just too slutty? She felt confused. Slutty was bad, right? . Green Sun Chapter 14 Tailgate Party by Donna Lamb

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The old man hadn't been kidding. Carson pulled the tiny excuse for panties on, wondering vaguely if those were really her legs, they seemed so long. But looking around the back of the truck, she felt small. It confused her. The panties settled in around her hips, the small opaque part presumably covering -- important things. She resisted an impulse to feel around in that area. It wasn't so much what she would find as what she wouldn't find that bothered her.

It wasn't as if she'd made any great use of the missing items, Hobie Carson had sometimes parlayed the romantic danger of flying a small plane into a night with someone. But oddly, the memories that should be there of encounters she knew had existed -- well, the ones that weren't just missing were oddly distorted. As if she saw her old self from outside, not as if her memories were second-hand but as if she remembered them from a different viewpoint.

Mangas distracted her from a rather alarming realization by handing her a tiny, lacy, pink bra. Well it wasn't all tiny -- the cups looked plenty big even if they were only half there. "I don't know how to wear this," she said. She pouted at him without knowing it, thinking that she had simply frowned.

"Use your imagination," said the old Indian, who wasn't so old as not to appreciate a pretty pout.

Making a face at him, Carson put it over her hair and pretended to tie the straps under her chin. Mangas puffed on his pipe, spilling spicy laughter out of the corner of his mouth. "Suit yourself," he said. "I hear the boys leaving the mine, they'll be here in two minutes."

The boys meant Bruce and Arthur, she remembered. Carson eeped! fiddled with the bra, slipped her arms through the shoulder straps and managed to get it hooked behind her in only two tries. "It doesn't fit!" she squeaked. It felt terribly uncomfortable, too.

Mangas puffed, grinning. "One of your puppies is hanging her tongue out the window," he said. The permanent twinkles in his dark eyes danced arabesques of amusement.

She quickly adjusted the fit, glaring at him. He seemed to be enjoying this reverse striptease a little too much.

"Dress or nightgown?" he asked. He held up a silky red dress in one hand and a tiny bit of pink froth in the other.

"Aren't there any pants in there?" She stared at the suitcase. "What if we open the big one?" The third and largest case hadn't been opened yet.

"If there were any pants, they would do little to restore your masculinity," he said. "Take the dress," he handed it over. "It's red but the other one is pink and the nightgowns are all transparent."

It was intensely, deeply red -- as red as shadows cast by the moon outside a bordello. With pink and white lace hearts at the sleeves and pink and white ribbons to tie around the waist. It felt soft and -- well, it felt very nice, in contrast to how it looked which was very naughty. "How do I...?"

"Pull it on over your head like a t-shirt.," said Mangas.

"A what?" She asked. Mangas mimed the motion he meant. She did so. It fell into place and seemed to mold itself to her curves. Looking down, she could just see the pink lace of her bra peeking over the edge of her neckline. The deep cleavage visible had a very odd effect on her -- in that she suddenly wanted to see what someone else thought of it. Wasn't it just too slutty? Or did it look, um, well.... She felt confused. Slutty was bad, right?

Again Mangas distracted her. She left the waist ribbons untied while she examined the pair of high-heeled sandals he passed her. They were red and white leather with red, white and pink heart decorations and more ribbons, to tie around the ankles, she supposed. "Nothing but high heels?" she asked.

Mangas nodded. "You'll probably find them more comfortable than flats, anyway."

She remembered suddenly being unable to run in the desert and falling over on distorted feet while the demons laughed. Now her feet looked normal, but somehow the high-heeled arch felt natural when she slipped into the sandals. She sighed, wondering if she'd be able to walk in them. "This stuff is like a costume," she complained.

"You look like a confection," agreed Mangas.

"Like a what?" she said. She puzzled out how to tie the ribbon laces of the shoes, making a pretty bow of them, then tried to scoot toward the tailgate.

"Like candy, sweet and delicious," said Mangas.

He looked entirely too sly for Carson's comfort. Those dark eyes.... "That's not good, is it?" she said, struggling with trying to keep her dress down while scooting on her new cushiony bottom. It felt very odd. "I don't want any one to eat me by mistake."

Mangas coughed and she giggled, amazed that she'd actually said something with such an obvious double meaning. And even more amazed that she had laughed at his reaction. She covered her confusion by pausing to straighten her skirt and tie the ribbons behind her back. A skill that may have been related to working with tiny engine parts surfaced and she could see in her mind how the bow behind her looked. She retied it twice before she felt completely satisfied.

She scooted the last foot of the truck bed, dangled her feet off the end and tried to lift her butt and pull her skirt back under her at the same time. It didn't work and she started to slip off the padded tailgate. "Eep!" she squealed.

Mangas caught her by one arm and kept her from falling down, setting her on her feet. He grinned at her, two of his upper back teeth were gold she noticed. She wobbled a bit but stood there after a moment, looking up at him. "Even with me in these heels, you're taller than me," she complained. "I feel like a little kid."

"No one else will make that mistake," he said, smiling down at her.

She sniffed, knowing exactly what he meant. "But I'm so short! How tall am I?"

"It's probably on your ID card, though it may not be accurate," said Mangas.

She turned, almost falling off the heels, and tried to reach the folder of ID papers where she'd left it on the blanket but it was well out of reach. Mangas retrieved it easily and handed it to her. She opened it and paged past the two glossy photos. She did want to look at them again and also had a sudden urge to see a mirror but she needed to look at something else just then. She stared at the identification papers. "What did you say your name was?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"Mangas. It's an old name that belonged to an ancestor of mine."

"Mangas," she said in a small voice. "These things aren't written in Russian or something? I can't read them." Her lip trembled and her voice had a shiver in it.

He nodded. "The Devil will have her due."

"What does that mean?" she asked. She remembered the bizarre pair who had found her in the desert and promised her rescue, but it all seemed a little dreamlike -- too outlandish for reality and clouded by something else.

"The Devil was ... coerced into undoing most of the damage she did to you, but she doesn't give up easily. Rodney didn't cover everything, no one can, so she left a few surprises. He forced her to give back enough of your memory that you would know yourself but she left some things still erased. There's a balance here, though, so you probably have a few gifts you're not aware of yet. And some things may come back."

"Who's Rodney? And what kind of gifts?" Carson glanced down at her chest. "These melon cups weren't enough? What am I some kind of bimbo, I can't read?" She sniffled. "It makes me feel stupid!"

"Rodney is sort of a Celestial caseworker assigned to you, a Guardian Angel you could call him."

"An Angel?" she squeaked. "Where was he when I was lost in the desert?" She felt her eyes begin to fill with tears.

Mangas took the pipe out of his mouth and tapped the dottle out on the ground. He blew through the pipe to clear it and put it back in his pocket while stepping on the dottle to be sure it was extinguished.

Carson sniffled again. "Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked. She closed the folder and started to throw it into the truck but he took it from her before she could.

"Did you expect me to say something?" he asked. "I'm still waiting to find out if you think it would be too girly to cry about it. Oh, the boys are here."

That did it.

continued...

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Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

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Sophie re-materialized her head. "Talk about getting blasted!" She looked in the window of a parked Cadillac. "Was I a blonde before?"   Green Sun Chapter 15 Mattress Time by Donna Lamb

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Rodney materialized in the Department of Recruitment, Discipline, Promotions and Relegations in the Seventh Assize of the Eighty-Seventh Prefect of the Ninth District of the Third Terrestrial Heaven, North West Province, standing in front of a Ministering Angel First Class by the name of Samuelson who smiled thinly at Rodney and said, "All requests for resignation, promotion, discipline or relegation must be accompanied by a Form 32A-stroke-4786-dash-6,435,269,801 but we don't have any of those so you'll just have to fill out one of these Form 32A-stroke-4786-dash-6,435,269,800s and where it says 'Auto-immolation' cross it out and hand write in 'Resignation' then initial it, get your Supervising Angel to initial your initials then both of you sign all six pages and have it back to me not before next Whitsunday."

* * *

"They're stalling," the air where Sophie Drake's head used to be fumed.

"It's only been a few split eternities," said Bill C. Bubb from the face in his armpit.

Sophie re-materialized her head. "Whoo! See what you mean, talk about getting blasted!" She shook her body all over then looked in the window of a parked Cadillac. "Was I a blonde before?"

"Lady," said Bill seriously, "you probably invented blondes. How do I look?" He had regrown a head -- without a face.

"Something's missing," said Sophie.

"Well, you wouldn't want me to be two-faced, would you?" He laughed from down near his elbow. "How can you tell they're stalling?"

Sophie shrugged. "I would."

"Yeah, but they're the good guys."

She snorted. "Yeah, so? All that means is they cheat on the square -- like following the rules they choose to follow."

"You going to do anything about it?" Bill asked.

"Probably, it's just past noon, I've got time to think of several nasty things."

* * *

When Davy changed buses, Bo Lim'nhee got caught reading the latest issue of Gray Hulk over the shoulder of a boy sitting further back in the bus. Gray Hulk was a particular favorite of Bo's because he was big, smart, kicked ass and, best of all, was gray. But by the time the little alien angel noticed Davy moving, the mini-skirted boy had nearly descended the bus steps. Bo had to hurry.

When he reached the door of the bus Davy was changing to, Bo realized he didn't have a transfer in hand nor 75 cents. He hesitated before remembering that as an angel, he didn't have to pay bus fares. The door almost closed on his non-existent nose, the bus rumbled ahead and Bo did the only thing he could think of--he jumped on the bike rack at the back and yelled, "Stas' leren! Ez'ka floo!" to which he added, "Whee!"

They hadn't gone more than three blocks before a small yellow-skinned demon with spiky hair on a flying skateboard snatched Bo off the back of the bike rack and threw him under the wheels of a cement truck. "Marbant strikes!" cackled the little yellow demon. Then he said, "Oh, man! Rats!" as a second bus following the first ran over him causing his little yellow demon skull to explode.

* * *

Just as Larry the Wolf reached Coffeeville, a Hellbat came up over the horizon. "Aw, craps!" said Larry. He took evasive action but the hypnotic rays of the Hellbat sapped his speed and somewhere in the sage and scrub at the foot of the Rockies, the big purple Decepticon winged him with a blast. As Larry spun into a hillside, he put in a call to Angel Central. "It's a hit!" he told Dispatch. "I'm hit! Go to the mattresses. The B.A.D.* wants a war!" *Bitch of Air and Darkness.

After landing and plowing a few arid acres with his face, he took out his custom pool cue and quickly assembled it. Just as the Hellbat came over the horizon to see if he'd been forced to discorporate and retreat to Heaven, Larry played the nine-boulder in a carom off the mountain and clipped the Transformers head, causing it to explode. "Screwball in the corner pocket," he said in satisfaction.

* * *

Richard sat at the electric piano and pounded out a honky tonk rhythm, then blended into a set of bluesy chords and turned it into a nearly stacatto rock ballad. He sang, powering on the backbeat and gilding the blue notes at the end of the second and fourth line:

"I don't tell secrets, I don't make promises,
Let love gone astray linger and die.
Don't look for secrets, Don't ask for promises,
And you know I won't need to lie."

"How's that?" he asked.

Jo sat on the bench behind him, guitar in her lap. "Better than mine, f'shure. What was that transition chord? A7?"

Richard played the riff again. "Yeah, A7. Damn, I'm brilliant." He grinned at her.

She giggled and bent around to kiss him. "We like you to think so. Keeps you fat and happy."

He laughed. They played through a verse and the new chorus, including the honky-tonk bridge and tricky key change a couple of times. Jo made some notes. "Think you could still sing it if we transpose down a third?"

Richard considered. "I guess so. My range has improved and I've got better control down low than I used to. In the studio, sure. On stage, depends what else we're doing. Thought you were going to sing this one?"

She shook her head. "Changed my mind. It's perfect for you and you need another song if we're going to do a new album this winter." He opened his mouth but she went on, "You fixed the lyric and you're right, that bridge is brilliant. You can sing the devil out of that tune, Richard."

Richard smiled at her. "Well," he said, "let's hope so." He tinkled the keys one handed, the melody line of Lonesome Shoes.

"I know so," she said before putting the guitar down and kissing him again.

* * *

Rodney finally caught up with Ted o'Mersey at the Heavenly Cantina. Ted grinned at him, shaking his head. "Kind of took things ino your own hands, corporal, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," said Rodney.

"Sit," Ted ordered, pushing one of the wire-framed chairs out of the cumulus for him. "Want half of my ham and cheese?"

"Thank you, sir," said Rodney, taking the seat.

"Betty!" Ted called. A stunningly pretty blonde appeared. "Couple of brews here -- lager, Rod?" The soldier nodded. "And another best ale for me," said Ted. He pulled the sandwich in two and gave half to Rodney while Betty fetched the mugs of ale and beer, almost ice cold for Rodney's lager and cellar cool for Ted's ale. She winked at Rodney as she set the glass down then sashayed off among the drifting clouds.

They chewed and drank happily for a moment then Rodney remembered the paperwork he'd brought. "I came to resign, sir. You know that?"

"Sure," said Ted. "These little sour yellow peppers are sure good, aren't they?"

Rodney nodded. "I think they're Italian, I first had them back in Philly."

"Good," said Ted. They ate and sipped their beers; contentment comes in pints, as they say in Heaven.

"Bit o' fruit ice would go, woonit?" said Ted. "No use getting piggy, though. Eternity is another day."

"About my resignation," began Rodney.

"Denied," said Ted. "Can't very well accept your resignation right after we promote you to Angel Second Class, can we? Betty? Check, please."

When the pretty angel rang up the sale, Rodney's first set of wings appeared on his back with a distinct ringing echo.

Ted laughed at the brave Buffalo Soldier's expression. "Ought to see your face, mate. Priceless."

* * *

Back on the road again, this time in leathers on Harleys, Sophie turned to Bill and snarled, "We'll just see about that!" She wore red and her sidekick wore black. They roared up 111, cruised Indian Canyon Drive (almost deserted in late July), got on the freeway at White Water and headed toward Los Angeles.

Bill's helmet concealed his head's lack of a face. He shouted from under his arm, "Ain't the guy you want back the other way?"

Sophie made a face which could be clearly seen since she wore a pseudo-Nazi brain-bucket-style helmet. "More mischief available in a big city. We'll keep an eye on the bimbo, but the City of Angels is where we can put the most hurt on those heavenly busybodies, the clarences."

continued...

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Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

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"Stop that," she told her naughty bits. Green Sun Chapter 16 Mirror Mirror? by Donna Lamb

 

"I can't let them see me like this," Carson wailed. "They'll think I'm...I'm...." She trailed off into sniffles. Her blond hair fell around her face like two golden wings, tears tracked down to her lips and she wiped them away with her delicate scarlet-tipped fingers. The color distracted her and she turned her hands over to stare at her manicured nails.

Mangas looked calm, not showing any emotion but he remarked, "It might be interesting to find out what you're afraid they might think, but I'm not sure you know." He made a burbling noise like a forgotten coffeepot.

"Is there some place I can hide?" she asked, still sobbing. "I can't let them see me." Her musical voice caught on a hiccough. She looked around at the truck and the cottonwoods, blue eyes still leaking tears. The men, Bruce Martin and Arthur Bullrush, approached from the other side; she could hear them talking. Away from the small stand of trees, the harsh sunlight of the desert showed no refuge in any of the directions she could see, just open desert of rock and shrub and cactus.

"There's a cabin around the front of the truck," said Mangas. He nodded toward the little building. "You can go in there and I'll keep them out here for a bit. But you're going to have to meet them sooner or later, and other men like them. And Bruce did bring you in from the desert."

"But...but..." she stammered, gesturing at her curves and skimpy clothes. She shivered all over and tried to wipe her face with her trembling hands. Her gestures accented her vulnerability.

He smiled and she knew that he understood. He put a thin, bony hand on her back and guided her around the truck to the adobe cabin, holding the door open for her. She stumbled a bit in the high heels on the uneven ground but resisted the impulse to grab Mangas for support.

The inside of the cabin had the bachelor neatness of someone who had spent twenty-three years in the marines and lifetimes living alone on the desert. Everything had in its own place and clutter had no place. Colorful, tightly woven Indian rugs decorated the clean, unfinished planks of the floor and the dried mud of the walls. Light came in through small high windows in two of the walls. A big fireplace looked as if it might be used in colder weather for both heat and cooking. A small old-fashioned wooden icebox, some pine cabinetry, a sturdy-looking bed, several wooden chairs and a small table furnished the space with Spartan efficiency. Hooks and shelves on the walls held clothing, unused blankets, tools, musical instruments (a battered acoustic Gibson, a four-string banjo, a fiddle) and other equipment. It looked comfortable and inviting.

Before going in, Carson turned to Mangas Junco and asked, "You know what happened to me?"

"Yes," he said. "You've been transformed by fate and rescued from a life that had many wrong choices ahead and behind." He smiled at her and laughed one of his happy, burbling chuckles. "You've got new chances to make choices now, some good, some bad. A new life and it's all yours."

She smiled, the old man's chuckles were contagious, but her lips trembled. "I don't know if I can do it. I used to be a man. I don't know...." She trailed off looking down at herself.

"You'll have help," said the old man. "Do you want to know what those papers said?"

She looked back up, blue eyes very wide. "Yes, please."

"According to the birth certificate and passport, you were born twenty-two years ago, in Long Beach, California. Your parents, Rachel Margaret Carson and Homer Bartholomew Marsh named you Phoebe Jacqueline Marsh. That name is listed as an 'also known as' on your passport but the name at the top and on your other papers is Hollie Dollie Hayes with an address in North Hollywood on your I.D. card." He braced her with a hand on her arm and by letting her lean on the door frame.

"I'm.... I'm.... Hollie?" she asked. "Hollie Hayes?"

"It's a good name," said Mangas. "I got my name because my arms are so skinny. Mangas Junco means 'Reed Sleeves'," He flashed a grin at her and she smiled back without meaning to.

"Hollie..." she said. "Hollie Hayes. My name is Hollie." She sighed, looking puzzled but also relieved. "No knowing my name was terrible. But that's not the name I had before... those... well, before?"

He shook his head. "That person is gone, do not concern yourself with that past. You are Hollie, now. You can remember and mourn later, but now you have to become your new self."

Hollie's beautiful eyes filled with tears. "I don't know how... I don't think I can do it. Being a woman...?"

"Go in and lie down for a while," he told her, his voice soft and gentle. "You are by nature a cheerful person, things will look better later."

She gave him a doubtful look but turned and made her way to the big bed made of black-stained oak timbers and covered in fanciful Indian blankets. Mangas closed the door behind her and went to the back of the truck where he closed up the open luggage cases just as Bruce and Arthur came through the screen of cottonwoods. Without hurrying at all, he stepped into the deep pool of shadow cast by a tree trunk.

"Now, I've got to see this woman," said Arthur as the two friends arrived. "Hey, Mangas, have you met Bruce's girlfriend?" he asked the old man, looking directly at him.

"Who are you talking to?" asked Bruce, looking around.

"Somebody white guys can't see," said Arthur with a straight face.

"An Apache ghost?" asked Bruce, smiling.

Arthur shook his head, "No, man. Don't joke about that, ghosts are not funny to Apaches. It's Mangas Junco, my great-grandfather I told you about. Mangas, let Bruce see you so he stops talking about ghosts."

Laughing his quiet bubbling chortle, Mangas stepped into the edge of the leafy shadow and raised a hand like a Hollywood Indian. "Ya-ta-say," he said. "Hello, my grandson Arthur's friend, Bruce."

"Ah," said Bruce, more than a bit startled. "The vanishing American? Good to meet you, sir. I had begun to think your grandson might have got too much sun." Since Mangas didn't make any motion to shake hands, neither did Bruce but simply held his hand up by his shoulder, palm out

Mangas nodded, his eyes twinkling. "We in the family have suspected that for years," he said. "The girl is inside, she has somewhat recovered from her ordeal and I found identity papers inside one of the cases. The name she seems to prefer is Hollie Hayes." He handed the packet over.

"What? She's got more than one name?" said Bruce. He opened the packet and shared the contents with Arthur who immediately spotted something.

"Her passport says she's married to Daniel German Hayes, and she's an entertainer," Arthur said. He quirked an eyebrow at Bruce. "From your description, maybe she's a stripper?"

Bruce frowned. "Her California ID lists her as Hollie Dollie Hayes but says she's single. Hmm. Five foot one, blonde, blue eyes. I would have thought she was shorter."

Arthur stared at the eight by ten glossies, "Wow," he said.

Bruce glanced at the pictures, "That's her." He stared at the passport, still frowning. "Maybe the man in the plane was her husband?"

"Wishful thinking?" said Arthur holding one of the photos. "Looking to comfort a young widow?"

Bruce shook his head. "No," he sighed. "Just the logic of it. If she's married who else would she be in a small plane with?"

Arthur nodded, glancing toward the door to the adobe cabin.

"Before more speculation, perhaps we should open the third case? It might help resolve the mystery," suggested Mangas. "The smallest had cosmetics, jewelry and those papers, the second contained clothing, and shoes. Perhaps the third contains the man's traveling necessities?"

"In a bright pink leather case?" Arthur made a face.

"Let's see." said Bruce. He made a long arm and pulled the last case onto the tailgate of the SUV.

* * *

Inside the cabin, Hollie first sat on the bed then got up to wander around. She picked various objects up to examine them, not so much out of curiousity but in an attempt to avoid thinking about her own situation. "Sooner or later," she muttered, "I'm going to have to pee."

On the little table, she found various rasps, files, picks and knives and a supply of some gnarled gray brown branch-like objects about six to ten inches long, pointed at one end and sawn off at the other. She had no idea what they might be or what someone might be trying to make from them. A nearby pile of stainless steel knife blades with bare, blackened tangs gave a clue but she didn't have access to the memories that might have helped make the connection.

Instead, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the shiny metal. She picked a knife blade up with care, not thinking to grasp it by the tang but handling it as if it were alive, lethal and full of evil intent. Her caution defeated her purpose of getting a better look at her new face and eventually she dropped the blade where it landed point down, embedding itself in the floorboards right between her feet. Frightened she stepped away from the knives and looked for.... "A mirror? Is there a mirror here?" she asked no one.

She didn't find a mirror but the next shiniest object in the room seemed to be the bright hinges and fittings of the old icebox. She crouched down and turned her head this way and that, trying to find an angle where she could see herself but the metal had no sufficiently large flat area to see more than blue eyes and a lot of blond hair. While trying to move the metal to a better vantage, she accidentally opened the simple door latch.

The inside held food in various stages of preparation under a tray filled with a small block of ice. She touched the ice. "Cold," she said. Six cans on the shelf under the ice looked like they might contain beer. Just from the color and design of the cans, she could almost think of a brand name. She made a face. Hobie Carson had never liked beer and apparently Hollie Hayes felt the same. She made three tries to close the door of the icebox but it kept coming open again.

Staring intently at the latch, she finally figured out how to work the thing; she pulled the handle down, pushed the door closed and pulled the handle back to the straight across position, sliding the polished bar down into the slot on the frame. She felt proud of herself for a moment then shook her head. "Boy, am I dumb or what?" she asked. But she realized that the latch worked a lot like the fastener on her bra which she had figured out while holding it behind her back. She resolved not to have problems with hooks or tabs that fit into slots again.

Blushing because of where that thought led, she stood up straight again, and resumed her hunt for a mirror but didn't find one, at least not in plain view. She thought about going to the door and asking for her cases. She knew the little one had a mirror in the lid, she'd glimpsed it before when Mangas had opened it. But, no, "the boys" were out there and she had no desire to meet them until she had to, especially not the huge man who had carried her and put her in the truck and made her giggle.

Her nipples got hard while she thought about him. She looked down, smiling at first. The pointy little nubs showed clearly through the thin, almost transparent fabric of her dress and skimpy bra. She frowned. "Stop that," she told her naughty nipples.

* * *

Outside, Mangas used the toothpick-like prong on his pocket knife again to spring the locks on the largest case. He didn't watch his hands but kept his eyes level, his head up.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Bruce.

"UCLA," said the old man. "Class of '27." Mangas used a more familiar and less formal tone of voice with the two men than he had used with Hollie. The first lock opened with a snap and he began on the next one.

Bruce grinned. "Bachelor of Burglary?"

Mangas smiled. "Science; geology actually. Went back and got a masters in engineering when they offered it just before the war. Almost froze my Apache butt off in Alaska during the Second World War, building roads for the Combat Engineers; better than being an Indian dogface in the first one, though."

"He's a damn officer-type," commented Arthur. "Major Mannie Junco, no less. Got his gold leaf during the occupation of Japan."

"Sir, yes, sir," said Bruce, still grinning. "I kind of thought you had less of an accent than your jarhead relative here."

"Hey," said Arthur.

The second latch popped open and Mangas swung the lid up. He stepped back to let Bruce and Arthur get a good look. Both men used language that would have embarrassed them if Hollie had been there to hear it. The mildest thing either of them said was Arthur's reverent, "Holy Smokes!" Nodding, Mangas pulled his corncob pipe out of the pocket of his khaki pants and began loading it with fragrant herbs from his pouch. The contents of the third suitcase called for some powerful medicine.

Stacks of hundred dollar bills seemed to completely fill the leather container.

continued...

---

Maybe you'd better read Blue Moon first...

at Doppler Press!

"What would men like?" She glanced down. "Besides those."   Green Sun Chapter 17 Thirsty Work by Donna Lamb

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"Eight packets high, five long, ten wide, one hundred bills per packet--I make it four million dollars if they're all hundreds." said Arthur. The other two men nodded.

"And if they're real money, not counterfeit," added Bruce.

They all watched the suitcase full of Ben Franklin portraits as if it might suddenly do something extraordinary like the chorus line scene from Blazing Saddles, perhaps. Mangas puffed placidly on his pipe. Arthur made ticking noises by clicking his ring finger nail against his thumbnail. Bruce tried to work out how a--dolly!--a girl like Hollie Dollie Hayes could come into possession of so much money, real or not.

"What are you smoking in that thing?" he suddenly asked Mangas.

The old Indian took his pipe out of his mouth and looked into the bowl as if curious himself. "Indian tobacco," he said. "Cured with vanilla bean, cinnamon, cherry, beet root, agave, wildflower honey and corn beer."

Arthur laughed. "He left out the owl spit this time."

"Indian tobacco?" asked Bruce.

"Grows wild all over the country, about six times more potent than the stuff they make cigarettes from." He shrugged. "I don't smoke much of it and I mix it with commercial tobacco usually."

"Sorry," said Bruce. "All that money made me think back to my first idea about that airplane."

Mangas nodded. "Drugs."

* * *

Inside the cabin, Hollie finally gave up on finding a mirror. Instead, she examined the parts of her body she could easily see. Her small hands with their delicate, painted nails. Her smooth, slender arms. Her long, shapely legs. Her abundant, bright blond hair which she could almost pull around her like a cape. It reached down long enough that she had to be careful not to sit on it. Her breasts.... Abruptly, she decided to see what the guys were doing outside.

She crept up on the cabin door and tried to listen through the chinks around the hand-planed door frame but the men were too far away, at the other end of the truck, for her to hear them clearly. The door latch operated as a simple pull up-and-in device, she had it open quickly and leaned against the doorway to look out. She saw Mangas take a step back away from the truck and wink in her direction.

She giggled. Mangas was funny and didn't scare her like the idea of meeting Bruce again. But she still couldn't hear what they were saying very well. She eased the door closed again and wagged her head in a gesture she must have seen somewhere. "Well, Hollie, if that's your name," she asked herself, "what now?"

The men outside scared her but she wanted to meet them. She frowned. Why? That thought scared her, too. Bruce she'd already met and.... Okay, don't think about that, either. "I used to be a man," she said out loud. She remembered that, remembered the demons changing her...but were her memories real? She sighed. She didn't remember much about being a man or much in the way of details of her former life at all. Like her name, Hollie almost sounded right but not really.

She knew she'd been alone in the airplane which implied that she had been flying it, a totally impossible thought at the moment when she had trouble opening doors. "Hope Mangas is right," she whispered. He'd said she would remember more later. She trusted him, though she could not say why.

She looked around the room again, hoping for inspiration. "I want to go out there, but I need...." She didn't know what she needed. A reason? An excuse? "What do I know about being a girl, why would a girl go out there?" Duh. To meet the men. She blushed.

"I should take them something, like food," she decided. "That's what a girl would do. They might be thirsty or..." She stopped talking and looked at the icebox. "What would men like?" She glanced down. "Besides those."

* * *

"Somebody will report the plane crash," said Arthur. "It made a heck of a tall smoke." He nodded in the general direction of the still visible column of greasy gray smoke. "And it ain't that far from Christmas. Someone's probably already on their way out there."

Bruce nodded. "Yeah, they'll find the plane and the body and, well, who knows what else? Can't quite figure out why she was out there naked.... You don't ride around in an open cockpit plane with no clothes on."

"There are any number of logical explanations," said Mangas. "One of them may even be true."

"Thanks a lot, Chief Confucius," said Arthur. Bruce chuckled and Mangas made his gurgling noise.

"This money complicates things," said Bruce. "Whether it's real or not, we should turn it in."

"Why?" asked Arthur. "Maybe it belongs to Lady Mysterious?"

"How could it?"

"Same way she lost her clothes?"

Bruce shook his head. "It's got to be illegal to find that much cash and not report it."

"Sure, 'cause the government wants that money and they sure ain't the ones that lost it."

Bruce frowned. "What if whoever it does belong to comes looking for it?"

"Now that's one reason to turn it in..." Arthur began.

They all heard the cabin door open this time and moved so they could see. Hollie came out the door carrying a plate and three tall cans of beer. She smiled at them nervously, standing there in her short dress and high heels, blond hair floating around her. "Bet you guys are thirsty, huh?" she said.

"Wow," said Arthur.

"Blue-eyed love, ain't it wonderful?" Green Sun Chapter 18 Making the World Round by Donna Lamb

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Arthur moved first, stepping around Mangas to take the plate from Hollie. "Thank you for bringing us beer," he said, smiling down at her. "I'm Arthur. And you're Hollie."

"Uh huh," she said, staring up at him. Most Southwestern Indians are not so tall but Arthur had some mixed ancestry and topped six feet easily with the heavy upper body of many Choctaws and Chickasaws. He stood more than a foot taller than Hollie, even in her heels. Looming over her like a giant and exuding some sort of masculine aura that must have been aged in oak barrels to an intense, mellow glow of strength, Arthur's simple speech overwhelmed Hollie's damaged coping skills. She knew in that moment that she would have agreed with anything he might have suggested.

"Mangas," said Arthur, "you want to split a beer with me?" He didn't take his eyes off her and his smile impaled her like a butterfly in a dusty museum case. He took a beer off the plate and held it casually in one hand, breaking the seal of the screw-off cap with a sideways push of his thumb.

She smiled back, dizzy.

Bruce grabbed Mangas's shoulder before he could step forward and whispered into the old man's ear. "That's her--but, what happened? She's...different..." he trailed off.

Mangas grunted. "The swelling went down," he said and chuckled. He stepped forward, took the beer from Arthur, popped the cap off and put it into his pocket before speaking. "Did you bring a beer for yourself, Hollie?" he asked.

Relieved because she could talk to Mangas, Hollie said, "Uh, no. I don't, um, I don't drink... beer." She still hadn't taken her eyes off Arthur's and the last word came out in a whisper.

"You sure?" Arthur asked, offering her the second beer with the cap already loosened.

"No?" she said but she reached for the beer since he offered it.

Bruce felt something he hadn't felt since high school. He felt jealous, jealous of his friend, and that made him angry--mostly at himself. He stepped forward to speak but he couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound like some macho asshole talking. Looking at Hollie looking at Arthur--hurt in some way he couldn't define.

Hollie took the beer and stared now at Bruce, her gaze attracted by his movement. If Arthur seemed like potent masculinity aged in oak, Bruce gave the impression of triple distilled lightning in a glass bottle stored on a high shelf almost out of reach. It might even be dangerous to try. She gasped--and not only because she recognized him as the man who had rescued her from the desert.

"Who-ah!" Arthur grabbed the beer back before she dropped it. He glanced at his friend and grinned; none of the men had missed Hollie's reaction when she saw Bruce. "This one's yours, Bruce ol' buddy, ol' pal," said the big Indian, handing the half-opened beer to Bruce. He even stepped back a little.

"Thanks," said Bruce. "Thank you, Hollie. I'm glad you're feeling better." He took the beer and put the cap in his shirt pocket. "And I'm glad to find out your name."

"Thank you," said Hollie. "For...." She blushed, remembering her confusion and his kindness in her predicament. "I might.... I would have...."

"You're welcome," said Bruce.

"Sure you don't want this last beer?" Arthur asked before taking it off the plate which he wedged into a convenient low fork on the palo verde tree near the cabin. He popped the cap on the bottle and tucked it into his pocket, looking sideways at Mangas as he took a drink. "Ah, blue-eyed love--ain't it wonderful?"

Mangas chuckled."It's what makes the world round," he said before sipping his own beer.

"You mean 'love makes the world go round,' old man," said Arthur. "That's how the song goes."

"Different song," said Mangas. "Isn't it, Hollie?"

She blinked. Once again Mangas's voice had pulled Hollie out of a trance. "Um, yes. But in the song, it's not love...it's money." She put her head up, took a deep breath and sang in a bell-like soprano:

Money make the world go round, they say, so they say.
Money make the world round, so they say, so they say.
It ain't if you rich or poor, you still gonna pay.

That girl look at you, mister, what you gonna do?
That man look at you, sister, what you gonna do?
Someone gonna pay someone, that you know is true.

See the girl dancin', dancin', she got rents to pay.
Hear the girl singin', singin', she got rents to pay.
If you lay your money down, you can have your say.

Man got money in the bank, gonna get me some.
Man got money in the bank, gotta get me some.
Ain't thinkin' 'bout what I do, till it's gone and done.

See that pretty man workin' so hard for his pay?
See that pretty girl workin' so hard for her pay?
One of them gonna be broke by the end of day.

Money make the world go round, it's true, ain't it true?
Money make the world round, ain't it true, ain't it true?
You wanna get some money, what you gonna do?

She moved as she sang, dancing in place, a sexy, slow throb to some unheard blues sidemen. She rang the last note, high and clear, then she stopped, eyes bright, face flushed pink, dizzy and exhilarated.

Arthur and Bruce exchanged glances. "Holy smokes," said Arthur. "Voice like that, maybe that is her money."

"Baby make me feel so good, I just gotta sing." . Green Sun Chapter 19 Cold Drink by Donna Lamb

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"You're all looking at me," said Hollie. She felt self-conscious standing in the shade of the cottonwoods in her skimpy dress with three very male men staring at her. She glanced around as if looking for a place to hide. The big SUV, the cabin and the trees seemed inadequate hiding places but they were surrounded by open desert.

Bruce wiped his face. "Sorry," he said. "It's just...we didn't know you could sing." He took a sip of his beer. The cold drink shocked him a bit, he'd gotten used to drinking barely cool liquids while working the border both during and after his involvement with the Regulators. He took a bigger drink. The day's heat lingered in the air like a threat; not ten o'clock yet and it had reached the high nineties already. He glanced at the two Apaches, they didn't seem bothered by the heat.

Arthur snorted and Mangas chuckled. "It's not just that you sing, Hollie, honey," said Arthur. "You're a lot of fun to look at, you know?" He sucked down some of the ice cold beer, too. There's more than one kind of heat.

"I am?" She looked confused, vulnerable. Arthur blinked. Bruce took a step toward her and she focussed on him. As if pulled by an invisible magnet, she took a small step in his direction.

"How can you sing like that and look so innocent?" Bruce asked. He looked like the question caused him pain.

"I dunno," Hollie said, looking very innocent. Her blue eyes seemed enormous in her guileless face.

"And that song..." Bruce said. "I'd never heard that before. Where did you learn it?"

"I dunno," Hollie said again. "I don't remember where.... I just remember the songs."

"Songs?" said Arthur. "I don't think I'd heard that song before, either." He looked at Mangas.

The old man nodded. "It's an oldie. Do you know any other songs, honey?" he asked Hollie.

"Lots," she said, after staring off into space for a moment. Bruce thought she looked delightfully--well, spacey--while thinking so hard. He took a quick swig of his beer.

Arthur opened his mouth to say something but Mangas told him in Apache, "Don't gather flies, close your mouth. You talk too much, grandson. Listen." Arthur shut his mouth, only someone who knew him very well could have interpreted his expression.

Hollie looked upward into the green canopy of the cottonwoods and the sweet-smelling palo verde. She wrapped the fingers of her left hand around her right index finger, crossed her thumbs and put both hands under her chin. She touched the tip of her tongue against her upper teeth. Then she sang again and while she sang, she danced. She put her palms together and swayed from side to side; she made gestures and took little steps but mostly she danced in place, dancing with her hips. In the same bluesy rhythm she had used before, to almost the same tune, she sang:

One time, I took my baby somethin' cold to drink
One time, I took my baby somethin' cold to drink
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to think

And yesterday, I gave him a bowl of my stew
And yesterday, I gave him a bowl of my stew
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to do

Sunday, my baby and me went to church to pray
Sunday, my baby and me went to church to pray
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to say

Last night, I took him myself and a piece of meat
Last night, I took him myself and a piece of meat
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to eat

You know for my baby, I do most anything
You know for my baby, I do most anything
Baby make me feel so good, I just gotta sing.

Arthur and Bruce finished their beers quickly. Mangas chuckled and sipped his.

Hollie looked pleased.

"Hot day," said Arthur.

Bruce nodded. "I thought you... Nevermind."

"No," said Hollie, looking serious. "That was 'Cold Drink'; 'Nevermind' is a different song." She nodded.

The younger men stared at her some more. Mangas asked her, "Hollie, do you usually sing without any music?"

She blinked. "I dunno?" she said. "I mean, I don't sing...." She trailed off, confused. "I'm not a singer, I mean...." But she didn't remember what she had done before... before the demons found her. She felt scared.

Before he thought about it, Bruce stepped up and put an arm around her. "It's okay, you're safe," he said. She melted against him.

Arthur looked away. "You're some sort of entertainer, Hollie," he said. "No one learns to sing like that without doing it in front of an audience." Of sweaty, horny men, he added silently. He sucked on the empty beer bottle for a moment. "Somebody somewhere is probably looking for you..." He remembered the money. "Oh, shit," he said.

Hollie struggled with her feelings. Bruce's solid reality felt very good. Knowing what the demons had done to her, she wondered why she felt the way she did. I used to be a guy, she told herself. The details remained fuzzy but she knew that her old life had not included being held by men--or singing on a stage, either. But being held felt good, if scary in a different way than her memories of metting the demons. And the idea of performing scared and excited her in another way. She closed her eyes, wondering vaguely if Bruce smelled so good because he was a man or because she was a girl--now.

"What are we going to do about the money?" Arthur asked. He turned to Mangas. "Why am I asking those two?"

Mangas chuckled. "It's fortunate that we own a big hole in the ground full of tiny passages that only a skinny old man can reach."

Arthur grinned at him. "Oh, yeah," he said.

---

Theme From Green Sun (706.75 KB)

If you believe in coincidence... . Green Sun Chapter 20 Enemy Action? by Donna Lamb

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"You heard those songs somewhere else, sir?" Bruce asked. He glanced down at the tiny, big-eyed blonde still clinging to his left arm. She looked up at him with a puzzled expression, her blue eyes guileless.

Mangas snorted, "Don't take Arthur's noise about me being an officer serious. That was back before you were born. I'm just Mangas, unless you want something out of me." The old Indian had no expression at all but his dark eyes seemed to twinkle with amusement.

Bruce grinned. "Well, then, where did you hear Hollie's songs before? Mangas?"

Hollie smiled, though she couldn't have said why.

Arthur laughed. "Oh, oh, here it comes. Gramps is going to tell us how he dug the Panama Canal, single handed." The big Apache made motions with his hands, as if measuring a fish that kept getting larger.

Mangas chuckled. "No such thing. I was still in short pants when the canal opened, going to grammar school with the white family that raised me in Pasadena." Bruce blinked at this piece of information. The old guy had had an unusual life, a very long unusual life.

Hollie looked from Mangas to Arthur to Bruce; the younger men looked impressed even though Mangas had denied building the canal they were talking about. She tried to get back to the point. "Um, you've heard the songs before?" she asked.

Mangas nodded. "In a little nightclub in Los Angeles, back in the thirties. Woman named Clara Washington sang them. She used the stage name Clara Moon." He pulled his pipe out and looked at it thoughtfully. "There are recordings, she had a career for a number of years." He put the pipe back in his pocket.

"How can you remember her, Mangas?" asked Arthur.

Mangas shrugged. "I used to own some of her records. And we grew up together. Her mother kept house for my family in Pasadena."

Bruce wanted to ask more questions to straighten out the chronology but something stopped him. "That's... that's just a... a huge coincidence, isn't it?"

"If you believe in coincidence," said Mangas. Arthur snorted.

"Huh?" said Hollie, feeling she'd missed something.

"Do you know where she might be now?" Bruce asked. He looked troubled, his brow wrinkled and the corners of his mouth turned down.

"Clara was a few years younger than me; if she were still alive she'd likely be in a rest home somewhere," said Mangas.

Arthur closed one eye and looked at the old man around the bulk of his own big nose. "You ain't shittin' us, are you?"

Mangas shook his head. "As it happens, I know that Clara died back in the sixties. She's buried in Pasadena, next to her mother, in the plot my adopted family owned."

"Huh?" said Hollie, again. What the discussion meant to her situation completely escaped her and she didn't like Bruce's worried expressions.

Bruce said to her, "You couldn't have heard her sing those songs, but you could have heard a recording or someone else singing them."

"I guess so," said Hollie. "Does it matter?"

The men looked at each other, Mangas amused, Bruce still concerned, and Arthur's face expressionless as if he'd just bitten into a juicy koan.

"Well, we're trying to help you find out who you are," Bruce said.

"Oh. But don't you have my name? I mean, the name on those papers?" She gestured toward the SUV. She knew it wasn't the name she'd had before but it would fit her better as a woman and being unable to remember her male name, she'd begun to think of herself as 'Hollie'.

"Yes, but that's just your name, it's not who you are...." Bruce sighed. "If we know who you are, we may know if anyone is looking for you -- or that money."

Hollie glanced at the suitcase packed with $100 bills. "That's a lot of money, isn't it?"

Arthur grinned and Mangas chuckled. Bruce agreed. "That's enough money that someone might be willing to kill--a lot of people--for it. We need to know where it came from and...and...how it got into your suitcase."

"I know other songs," Hollie said, trying to be helpful. "Lots," she added after thinking for a moment.

"Do you know 'Stardust'?" Arthur asked.

She nodded and opened her mouth to begin singing but Mangas interrupted, "Do you know 'Summer Wine'?" he asked. She shook her head, looking confused.

Bruce couldn't stand it any more. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

Startled, she looked up at him. "Um?" she said.

"You're too cute," said Bruce, sounding so serious that she thought she'd done something wrong.

"I am?" she asked, a little worried and a little dazed as she realized she'd just been kissed by a man.

"You are too cute," agreed Arthur. "It's an incurable condition." He looked serious too, though his eyes twinkled.

"It's what?" she asked, looking even more confused and cuter than ever.

Mangas chuckled. "Do you know 'Downtown', Hollie?"

Relieved that she could answer the question, she nodded. "Do you want me to sing it?"

Mangas shook his head. "Not right now. Maybe later." He took his pipe out of his pocket again, looked at it and put it back.

"You know something or you've figured something out," Arthur accused him. "Enlighten us, O Skinny Buddha-of-the-Desert."

"Call it a guess," said Mangas.

* * *

When the phone rang, Richard and Jo had been mid-snuggle in Jo's big bedroom next to the upstairs studio in her Burbank home. "We going to answer that?" Richard asked lazily around a mouthful of Jo's neck.

"B-better," said Jo. "I told Ellie and Arnie we'd be here. They got a new music video to show us." She tried to sit up but Richard kept one arm across her middle, holding her round little butt against his thigh while he reached the phone with his other arm. Jo giggled and wriggled.

"Hey! You wanna answer the phone or start something again?" Richard asked.

"Yes!" Jo said, squeaking when Richard tickled her.

"All right, then," he said. "Whozit?" he asked into the receiver. "It's Ellie," he said passing the handset to Jo.

She took the phone, "Oh, hey, Ellie. Sure, come on over. Richard and I were just taking a b-break." She giggled and squeaked again as Richard gave her a stroke under the ribs. "No, really," she added. "Um, half an hour. I'm sure." She laughed and pretended to bonk Richard with the phone, "He'll b-behave," she told Ellie before hanging up.

"Half an hour?" said Richard, quirking his eyebrow.

"Lemme up," said Jo, pulling at his arm around her waist. He released her and she stood up, pausing beside the bed to look down at Richard's long, lean frame. "Well?" she asked. "We've got time for a shower, stinky b-boy." She posed her own slender body invitingly. After a year and a half and some special medical attention, the bullet scar on her right shoulder hardly showed at all on her lightly-freckled pale skin. She flipped her ginger-blond hair and turned to wiggle her ass at him.

Richard's interest in showering with Jo became very apparent.

* * *

Soundman Arnie Roberts, with some advice from Jo, had engineered the release of the "bootleg" audio tapes from the night Jo got shot at Wrangler Jill's onto the internet. Before Jo even got out of the hospital, the grass roots demand for an I-NO-Y album had turned into a prairie fire.

Elspeth Huffnire, a film student at UCLA, had come forward with her digital footage of several parts of the show, including a dimly lit and poorly vantaged ten dozen frames of the actual shooting. Which, oddly enough, made it look as if Richard had been the one to take the bullet fired by Cheryl Aronhaus, the assemblyman's irate wife who had thought that Barry had been having an affair with Jo.

After Ellie and Arnie had massaged the footage, music videos started appearing on You Tube. Ellie's sampling technique mixed up some of the songs into a dramatic ten-minute video with a storyline about the shooting, followed by two three-minute dance videos. The dramatic video played up the mystery of what had actually happened and the dancing videos displayed the band's energy and skill, all adding fuel to the blaze of public interest in the new group and keeping it alive and hot for weeks.

As soon as it became apparent that Jo would recover completely from her injuries, a bidding war erupted amongst indie labels wanting to produce an album for I-NO-Y. Tom Harmon and Andie Moore, the band's agent and new manager signed them up with Millennium Buzzards Nest for two albums and promotional tours. Jo, Arnie and Lemon Jones had produced the studio album I-NO-Y nine months after the shooting followed by a short winter tour through six cities and the release of the band's second album I-NO-Y LIVE * NEAR DEATH including tapes from the arena shows and the debut performance at Wrangler Jill's.

Jo hadn't recovered enough to play keyboards on the winter tour but made up for it with new songs and some electrifying performances during the first half of the NEAR DEATH summer tour. Blues-rock legendary drummer, George "Gogie" Luft, who'd also been shot in a separate incident the week before Jo's shooting, would be joining the band for two appearances in the latter half of the tour and would become the group's semi-regular studio drummer, letting Richard do some piano and guitar work. Kylie and Paul "Bugs" Benjamin remained with the band, too, providing Bugs' unique rolling guitar sound and Kylie's steady moral and rhythm support.

With very little in the way of interpersonal conflict, I-NO-Y looked set for a long and successful career.

After their shower, Richard went downstairs to let Ellie in while Jo finished getting dressed.

Arnie had come along with the young film student, less than half his age and barely one third his weight. Ellie dashed inside waving a freshly burned DVD. "Dynamite on steroids!" she enthused. "Going to knock your socks clean to Malibu!" The dark-haired young woman sometimes described herself as a "Jewish Dolly Parton pixie clone." To complete the image, she wore cut-off jeans and a rather tight Tinkerbell t-shirt.

Arnie and Richard chuckled. "We got a good mix on the sound," said Arnie.

"Don't get technical on me, guys," warned Richard. "Jo's the electronic whiz, you know. If it don't run on gasoline, it's too high tech for me."

"I'm just saying, we got a good mix. It sounds good," said Arnie.

"Looks good, too," said Ellie. "Black backgrounds, each of you dancing to a beat in turn. Who knew Bugs could get down without a guitar around his neck?"

They laughed and Jo's giggle joined them from the stairs.

* * *

From Greenwich to Honolulu and everywhere the calendar still showed Strangefellows Day, the demons who answered to the Devil in Drag went mano a mano with the heavenly corps of Guardian Angels. In Manhattan, an angel fed a demon into a paper shredder; in Surinam, blood-sucking flies chewed an angel into hamburger; in the Yukon, a ghost bear devoured the ectoplasmic corpsicle of a frozen demon and on Easter Island, a minion of hell toppled a 160 ton statue onto an inattentive Clarence.

"This is fun!" said Sophie Drake, the Devil in Drag. They cruised down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena on their black touring Harleys while keeping mental tabs on demons scattered over two-thirds of the globe.

Bill C. Bubb made a rude snorting noise with the mouth in his armpit. "We're wasting time," he said. His silvery full face helmet concealed the fact that he didn't actually have a face in the usual way.

"Sure," said Sophie Drake. "But don't forget why we're doing this; it's not just for the fun of it." She giggled. The electric blue trim on her bike matched the blue inserts in her black and fuchsia leathers.

"We've still got about twenty hours to make trouble in," said Bubb.

"Memorable trouble," agreed Sophie. "Hit it!"

They left rubber down the middle of the Boulevard.

Is there a perfect time to make a wish? Is there a perfect wish to make? Jo knew the answers.

Rock Me a Little Christmas Baby
A Blue Moon Drabble

by Donna Lamb

In the semi-darkness of the lightshow with Lemon taking his bows out front, Melody Jo mouthed something across the stage to Richard. He shrugged to show he didn't get that so she repeated it with gestures, rounding her belly out in front of her.

Richard's jaw dropped. "You're what?" he asked, loud enough that Kylie turned around. Bugs didn't notice, too many years of playing rock music. Gogie stroked the high hat with his brush, waiting.

"I'm p-p-pregnant," Jo said for the third time, which meant that it was true, and Gogie kicked the bass as punctuation.