LAM looks triumphantly at David and pulls out a small container
from her back pocket. "No, David, this time you've gone too far,
and you cannot repair the hurt you've caused me - I know you said
that moondust will cover me, but I have something that will cover
you here, and you won't be at all happy with it. This bottle contains
itching powder, and for all the times you've led me on, and for all
the hurt you've caused me, I'm going to pour this all over your
beautiful body, while you're tied like this, and you won't be able to
scratch yourself, nor will you be able to get free until I decide to set
you free." David "Oh LAM, you know I was only joking, you really
took me far too seriously, I always lead women on in this way,
you're just far too sensitive."
By now David is trying to think of every single ploy within his
means to save his skin!!
LAM spits on his erect and straining penis. "I think not...." and
then turns on her (spike-booted) heel and stomps away.
From the shadows, darkly, coldly, from the shadows drips a small
little man, only about *this* high. But David doesn't hear him.
David is busy struggling at his bonds, fiercely determined to save
the day like Tarzan.
The little man wriggles forward. He lacks legs; his face is nearly
black and his eyes are a pale sick gold color, the gold on the fingers
of miners freshly dead.
"You want your woman, don't you?" he leers.
David stiffens intensely, scared almost to breathe.
"You want your woman?" The little man drags himself along using
his fisted hands. Underneath the knuckles, where David cannot
see, his fingers are split in two down the middle. His face is almost
black and his eyes are pale, pale gold. "Yes? I found her."
Even LAM would have forgiven David at that moment when the
legless man came into his sight. He cringed in revulsion, attempting
vainly to pull up his legs to cover his nakedness. He looked quite
tormented, quite beyond the usual fun-and-games afraid. Things
had taken a turn for the surreal and David had never felt so
ashamed of his body before in his life. Despite all things love was
foremost, anyhow, as he cracked off his words as though grudging
them to the little thing on the floor: "Please....is she alright?"
"Yet."
: David was afraid to move and wordless regardless. The little man,
the black and gold man, split-fingered, was just edging toward him
when from the distance came the sound of a large stone breaking in
two. Both heads whipped to hear it. And the wee little mutant
shivered off into the shadows again. "I will be back," he promised.
"Pray yet."
Merciful, LAM strode in all high on the hips like a supermodel.
David sighs deeply and turns away from LAM, not knowing what
to say but knowing that anything he *could* possibly say won't
get him out of his current situation. "Just as I thought," LAM
sneers. She click-clacks around the pillar and positions herself
directly in front of Dave. LAM leans casually on one of the pillars,
the polished blood-red nail of her right index finger tapping lightly
on the bottle of itching powder.
"It's your own damn fault, you know," she says in a tone barely
above a whisper.
"What?" David says loudly. "I can't hear you! I've told Reeves to
turn down his amplifier in the studio but...."
"SHUT UP!!" LAM screams. "I can only take so much from you!!
All the pain, all the suffering, all the nights spend agonizing over
the fact that you stubbornly refuse to release American tour
dates....well, all I can say is that you deserve it, you deserve it all."
David turns to look at LAM. He tries one last friendly yet enigmatic
smile on her (hey, it's ALWAYS (well, almost always) worked for
him in the past to get him out of any particularly sticky situation),
but the cold glint in her eyes doesn't melt in the presence of his
radiant capped smile. LAM merely snorts at Dave and untwists the
cap on the bottle. David steels himself as best he can for the
upcoming itching torture.
"For Jareth" she intones with a voice full of loss, sadness,
deprivation and just a hint of professional dominatrix cool and just
then a small voice says "*ahem* Excuse me, Mistress Mine, but it's
for you."
" WHAT!!" LAM storms as she turns her gaze to the tiny goblin
who's shifting its weight from foot to foot (and obviously NOT
wanting to be there). Her movement causes a few sprinkles of the
itching powder to land on Dave's left big toe, and he moans out and
nearly faints as the powder works its wonders on this single digit.
The goblin, wondering what it had done to deserve this, holds out
a cellphone to LAM. "Couldn't you take a bloody message?!" LAM
spits at it.
"I tried, O Mistress Mine," the poor little goblin stammers, "but
they insisted on talking to you personally. Something about beans
and Bowie, I...I...I really don't know." Tears are welling up in the
goblin's eyes.
"OH!!" LAM coos, "they've FINALLY gotten back to me about
those Bowie Beanie Babies! I stand to make an absolute KILLING
on these things. Wait for me here, sweetie", she says, winking at
David, "I'll be right back."
LAM takes the phone from the goblin and heads out the door (the
reception down in her dungeon is really pretty crappy), and Dave
sighs with great relief as the itching in his big toe slowly subsides.
"You are lucky," he hears and once again the mutant comes
slithering out of the shadows. "If not for that phone call, you would
now be experiencing one of the fiercest jock itches known to man.
But we must hurry, as there isn't much time."
The golden-eyed man swiftly cuts the bindings holding Dave's feet,
and Dave waits patiently for him to cut the restraints on his wrists,
but nothing happens.
"Oops" the golden-eyed man begins.
"What do you mean, 'oops'?" Dave replies.
Even though he is completely legless, the golden-eyed man
nevertheless gives the impression that he is sheepishly shifting his
weight from one leg to the other.
"I can't reach the upper ropes," he says. He begins to giggle in a
manner most sinister. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you."
He giggles louder. "I'm afraid that when LAM comes back, she'll
see that you've tried to get away. I'm afraid that that will make her
angry. Very very angry. I'm afraid she may just have to....punish
you some more." The golden-eyed man is now giggling
hysterically.
David hears a click-clack of spiked heels (this time coming from
behind him), and he waits for LAM to unleash her wrath. Instead,
two hands cover his eyes and he hears a familiar "guess who?"
"NNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" David screams out, and Ramona slaps him
lightly on his bare ass. "Nope, wrong!" she says as she goes
around the pillar and stands in front of the trembling Prince David.
"Fancy meeting YOU here," she begins. "We always seem to meet
in the strangest of places. Oh, THERE he is!" she says, pointing to
the no-longer laughing golden-eyed man. "It's my Jimmy Page
garden gnome. I sent away for one of them from the Crowley
Catalogue, and no sooner do I get the bloody thing than it decides
to skip out on me. After all the money I plunked down for it, it
better damn well stay in my garden. Get him, Brett" Ramona says,
and the fey Mr. Anderson (twirling a pair of Mickey Mouse ears in
his hands) struts by Dave (and flashes him a coy little smile) and
scoops up the little lawn ornament. Ramona turns to Dave and
shrugs. "Well, you refuse to come back to California, and I have to
keep myself amused somehow. He's a nice one to have in my little
collection."
The alarm on her watch beeps. "Damn, I'm late for class. See ya
around, Dave" she says and just then Dave says "Wait?! Look,
don't just leave me like this!! Help me out of this thing! PLEASE!!!"
"Sheesh," Ramona says, "do I have to do EVERYTHING?" She
snaps her fingers and the restraints around Dave's wrists
disappear. She snaps her fingers again and a loincloth girds him.
Dave looks up at Ramona just in time for the flash from her Polaroid
to momentarily blind him.
"One for the scrapbook" she says as she disappears.
"OK, I'll be expe expecting the order in by next Monday. Ta" LAM
says as she switches off her cellphone and re-enters the room.
Dave...
"Damn," Bowie grumbles. "Practically naked. Nothing to cover me
but this shabby bit o'loincloth." He begins to wander about,
noticing that the entire scene has changed to some cheap bar and a
hauntingly familiar song is sung by a eye-popping
band......."Y!.....M!.....C!.....A!...... It's fun to stay at the
Y!M!C-A!....."
"Dear God, where am I now?" Bowie's near tears. Then, a six-foot
hamster walks up to him and takes him by the arm.
"Mary, where have you been?" the hamster says in a deep bass
voice (kindalike that of James Earl Jones), "You're on in ten
minutes!" "I am??" Bowie replies obliviously. "But wha-what am I
supposed to sing or do?" The hamster shakes his furry head and
chitters his massive incisors,"Damn it, Mary, it's all that smack you
do, ain't it, deary? Look, Mary, we gotta go get your leather straps
on and get your make-up all nice and raunchy. Have you forgotten
you sing your ' Ode to Barry Manilow'???" "An ODE?!" Bowie's
eyes grow wider by the minute. Moments later, he gets thrown onto
the stage by the hamster (apparently his manager) and the hamster
presents him.
"Gentlemen, thank you, thank you. Now, let's have a big hand for
the Queen of Malice, the Lord of Lipstick......BROTHER
MARY!!".....A huge applause as they cue the black-lights, the
holographic skeleton horses, and a hazy cranberry coloured
spot-light aims right at Bowie........
David sat up, rubbing his spiky hair, wondering what all those
strange dreams had been about. "Too much spanakapita, I
suppose..." he decides, mumbling out of bed and over to his closet
for a robe. "Hmmm, I wonder where I got his loincloth from....I'm
sure I wasn't wearing it when I went to sleep."
So the greatest artist of the 20th century showered, dressed (day
clothes), and went off into the sunset to find another adventure, to
have fruity drinks with his old friends, and to plan his upcoming
Ballroom Tour of the East Coast and Ali's Backyard and other
assorted premises. But...that's another story.......
