Chapter 8 - Bee

Roses are red, violets are blue, love sucks ass and smells like poo.

~ Phoibe Cupid

It had been one week since I had shamelessly stalked Austin on his date. One week of wondering if he had another date with another whores-are-us catalogue sales item, another week of dying just a little on the inside because I hadn’t seen my potential, not that I would tell Mac that.

In the meantime, we had tried to find alternative accommodations, but no matter what hotel we called, they were booked out; no matter what apartment ad we responded to, it was taken; no matter what mortal or immortal contact we rang, they were unable to house one mortally grounded daughter of Eros. After three days, I had given up and taken one look at the credit card my father had left with me and went on a shopping bender to end all shopping benders. The apartment was now full of new furniture, furniture that didn’t even fit in the small space. A giant black sofa filled most of the living room, the old one dragged away by the delivery men, and a sixty inch LCD TV adorned the wall before it. Thick, luxurious rugs covered the floors, hiding the stained carpets. A new stainless steel fridge took up most of the kitchen, a modest sized, brand new microwave sitting on the counter space beside it. Two bar stools stood against the breakfast bar, which made a comfortable dining table, though we mostly ate on the sofa in front of the TV. In my bedroom, a queen sized bed had been made to fit, but took up the entire floor space, leaving my door jammed open.  We’d taken the doors off the closet and hung my clothes, throwing my underwear in a basket that sat in the bottom, and my shoes lined the hallway against one wall. There wasn’t a lot that could be done with the bathroom, but Mac had managed to order a new toilet seat and she’d hung a new shower curtain with little cupids adorning it. The musky smell was camouflaged with scented candles, and the most recent addition, a tiny, hairless, Sphinx kitten, sat curled in Mac’s lap as she watched Shallow Hal with rapt attention. Mac practically lived here, even though she could flash back to her lavish home in the immortal realm whenever she felt like it. She slept in my bed, often spooning me, and only went home when she wanted to indulge in a long bath and get a small dose of her much missed comfort. Last night, we’d snuggled with the cat, who had found a precarious position wrapped around my neck as a comfy place to sleep. Mac had wanted to name him Adonis, because Adonis would have had a fit the moment he found out. Since it was officially my cat, though, I got the final say, and I decided upon Krueger because A Nightmare on Elm Street was my favorite movie ever. And the pussy was a little on the fugly side.

“I need to go out and get some food,” I sighed, closing the fridge door.

Mac had quite literally performed some magical mojo on the front door to the apartment so I couldn’t open it. I’d tried, tugging that handle until I thought it would bend and break. But no such luck. The door was impenetrable. And even though I could still trace small distances with my weakened powers, I couldn’t right now because the magical mojo she had used on the door covered the entire apartment. She said it was for my own benefit, to prevent me from making a ‘potential’ mistake. So I’d been trapped here for a full week, cranky and antsy about not seeing Austin while at the same time cranky and antsy that I even wanted to see him. And now I was starving. I was a woman who loved food, and when denied something I loved . . . well, let’s just say, things got messy.  My temper was going to go nuclear if Mac didn’t let me out of here sometime soon. Even though my powers were somewhat tempered at the moment, I could still throw a hissy fit that would have the constantly bonking neighbors next door drowned out. As if on cue, the wall adjoining my living room and bedroom banged rhythmically. Mac, now immune to the thumping thighs next door, turned up the volume on her movie. The loud mating both grossed me out and made me horny at the same time. It had been almost a month since I’d last gotten laid, and the arrow I had been shot with left me in a perpetually needy state of unfulfilled lust. I needed food, maybe a few bags of sour Warheads, coffee, and an orgasm, not necessarily in that order. Without conscious thought, I began to scratch my arm, itching like a junkie needing a score. Beginning to pace, I took the only path the apartment really allowed me. Down the hallway, back again and down the narrow space between the large sofa and TV. Mac tried to duck around my figure as I kept up my petulant pacing.

“You keep walking through Cocaine Carl, stop it,” Mac demanded.

Cocaine Carl was the junky pimp who had once lived in this apartment. He was now dead, but his intangible form remained. I’d caught Mac chatting with him a few times before ordering her to quit it. That crap freaked me out.

This time I stepped into a spot where I thought Cocaine Carl might be and jumped a few times. That would teach the damn ghost to haunt my crappy apartment.

With a put out groan, Mac finally turned off the TV and carefully placed Krueger to one side.

“Violence will get you everywhere,” she said with a sigh. “Fine, let’s go get some food for your weak, mortal stomach. We can hit The Split Bean, their peach bubble tea almost gave me an orgasm last week.”

“I’m not mortal.”

“You’re as weak and whiney as one.”

Ordinarily I would have flipped her off about now, but Mac was going to let me outside, for food! So I’d play nice. Mac grabbed the key to the apartment which hung from a cute little devil keyring. I quickly joined my BFF as she reached the door and we both unanimously paused.

“I don’t think we can go out dressed like this,” I murmured, looking down at my pajamas which comprised of a tank top with ‘everything is better in your pajamas’ written on the front and a baggy pair of matching pants. My feet were shoved in slippers that looked like giant feet with flip flops lacing through their toes. Meanwhile, Mac was wearing a silk negligée edged in fine lace with knee high uggies and a trucker hat which read ‘I pee in pools’. With nothing but a simple thought, Mac redressed herself while I ran to my bedroom to dress the old-fashioned way. I could have used my powers, but doing so left me feeling drained, and I preferred to use what juice I had for tracing. The thought of having to walk everywhere or take a cab left me feeling dirty and helpless; although, a nice walk outside in the sunlight was positively appealing. I threw on a pair of fitted jeans with a corset style top and wedges. Back in the living room, Mac was leaning by the front door, waiting with an impatient frown on her face. She was wearing a new hat, this one reading ‘if you want a goddess, worship her,’ with an arrow pointing down. At the last minute, Mac decided to grab Krueger and shoved him in her handbag, his little head with big floppy ears poking out the top.

“Are we traveling mortal-style?” Mac asked. “Or Gangnam style?”  She began doing the iconic Gangnam style dance before I tried to slap her upside the head. Her wicked fast reflexes had her duck out of my reach, though, and she laughed at my slow attempt to hit her. 

“Let’s trace to the foyer and walk from there. You've kept me cooped up in here so long, I’m beginning to feel like a prisoner. And I’m so damn horny I think I might be suffering from Stockholm syndrome because, honey, you are starting to look like a Tootsie Pop.”

“You know I don’t bat for that team, baby-cakes, but I love you so much I’d jump online and buy you one of those silicone willies women go on and on about.”

“No, thank you,” I murmured, disappearing from the apartment which no longer tethered me to an invisible leash. “As a woman who got to spend a night with the legendary god of lust and fertility, it would be sacrilegious to use a prop to get off now,” I finished as we materialized in the foyer of my apartment building, with Mac standing by my side. Unfortunately, at that moment, Goth Boy jumped down the stairs and just about screamed the place down with a high pitched squeal most sopranos would be jealous of.

“Oh for Pete’s sake, cut that out. If you scream like that every time you see a woman, you’ll never shake off that ‘V’ card,” Mac scolded the now silent man-boy.

Trying hard to disappear into the furthest corner of the room, I noticed the nasty bruise around one eye that he tried to hide behind a sheet of greasy hair. Poor baby, someone had been whaling on my Goth Boy. My penchant for collecting strays was legendary, and I had a feeling the fine boned teen before us would be my latest acquisition.

While keeping an eye on our unusual neighbor, Mac and I sauntered from the foyer, and as soon as the sunlight hit my skin, all thoughts of Goth Boy disappeared. Taking a deep breath, I sucked down the slightly polluted city air and enjoyed every lungful of it. It was good to be out of the fish bowl my father dared to call an apartment. I smiled, and in that moment if felt like the weight of the world lifted, even Krueger seemed to smile as his head bopped along in time with Mac’s footsteps. In companionable silence, we walked a full block, then another. The further we walked, the better I felt, my heart picking up its pace, my gait lighter, my stomach awash with butterflies. At that moment, I faltered, and as we stepped around the corner of a building, I came to a stuttering stop. Austin sat in front of The Split Bean, his guitar on his lap as he sang to the people sitting at the tables around him. His jeans were stylishly distressed and worn to perfection, wrapping around his thick thighs with a delicious embrace. A button-up dark green shirt hugged his masculine frame, the long sleeves rolled up his forearms but not getting too far because of the deliciously crafted muscles in those drool-worthy sculptured appendages.

“Day-um,” Mac whispered.

“Bugger,” I echoed, “my needy vagina just got a whole lot needier.”

When I would have taken a step towards Austin, Mac held me back with nothing more than a hand placed on my chest, right on my boob.

“Sorry,” she said with a not-so-sorry smile, dropping her hand.  “Let’s just take a moment here, Frisky Fanny. Don’t forget your motto: ‘Love is like a box of chocolates. It's sweet at first, but by the end it will make you want to puke.’”

I paused, frustration swelling inside me to the point I felt like a Coke and Mentos experiment gone wrong. My potential was so close, and the need to reach out and touch him was riding me hard. Yet the need to not touch him was just as demanding.

“Just one touch, and I’ll give him up.”

Yeesh, I sounded like a crack head, and Mac’s unimpressed stare told me she thought I sounded like one, too.

I knew why I shouldn’t get too close to Austin, and I knew my own damn motto, since I coined it after watching Forest Gump. I knew touching the deliciously messy looking man before me went against everything I had ever stood for and believed in, and yet my mind was already twisting together a reasonable explanation for why I should be allowed to get my grubby hands on him.

“Wacky Mackey . . .”

Mac’s body tensed, and her eyes pinched together, glaring at me. She was wary, because I only ever used her nickname when I wanted something bad enough to beg. I was ready to fall to my knees and plead, and I wasn’t even ashamed to admit it.

“I have a great, big, festering itch that needs to be scratched, and the thought of anyone else scratching that itch makes me sick.”

Mac’s brow furrowed in confusion. “By itch, do you mean sex? Or do you have a rash?”

“I mean sex, Mac, a good ol’ fashioned boning, I need it, and I need it from him.”

I pointed at Austin who was now singing an acoustic version of Bruno Mars’s Just the Way You Are . . . another effing sonnet!

“But you’ll fall in love, and if that happens, by all accounts, we must assume that the apocalypse is nigh because Phoibe Cupid DOESN’T. FALL.IN. LOVE!” Mac ended her short rant yelling, attracting the attention of a few passersby.

“No, I don’t do love, but would you stop being such a wiener-blocker for five seconds and hear me out?” I hissed, narrowing my gaze at the busybodies who had slowed down to watch our little squabble. “Just because he’s my pooptential doesn’t mean I’m going to fall in love with him. Besides, he’s been shot with an arrow of indifference. I just want him to like me enough to scratch that itch. I’ll make my dad happy by ‘pretending,’” I used air quotes, which I knew Mac loved, “to do the whole feels and emotions crud and get my bow back! This is a win-win for everyone!”

“Your plan sucks, and how exactly do I win?” Mac asked.

“For starters, you won’t have to share a bed with me anymore.”

“I don’t have to share a bed with you now. I choose to be in your bed. You're welcome.”

“Fine,” I growled out. “Then I’ll be free to leave the mortal realm. We can get back to the stuff we do best, mayhem and chaos.”

Mac’s eyes began to fill with interest. “I’m listening.”

“Once I get my bow back, we can go shoot Lady GaGa and Mariyln Manson, like we’ve always dreamed of doing.” I knew I had Mac’s attention now. “And, and . . . we can replace all my arrows of love with arrows of flatulence!”

There was no such thing as arrows of flatulence, but I needed something epically cool to seal the deal.

“Holy crapola, I thought the booty bomb arrows were a myth.”

“But to accomplish all that, I need to climb that,” I said, pointing to Austin.

“That’s a weak-ass reason for why you need to bump nasties with Mr. Pooptential, but . . .” Mac held up one finger, “ . . . I’m in, on one condition.”

“What’s that?” I asked, impatient for this conversation to end and my seduction to begin.

“If you fail at climbing that,” she inclined her head towards Austin, “I get to change the ring tone on your phone to Sam Cooke’s Cupid, and you have to keep it for no less than a decade.”

No way, she was asking too much. I hated that freaking song more than I hated YouTube ads. My massively impatient nature meant my hatred of the adverts was a real struggle. Mac started humming the stupid song from the sixties.

“Phoibe Cupid, draw back your bow—” she sang.

“I have every intention of climbing Mount Austin, but if by some crazy, reason I fail . . . one year.”

“And let, your arrow go,” Mac continued to croon, ignoring me.

“Five years.”

“Deal!” Mac exclaimed spitting into her hand and holding it out for me to shake. I ignored the extended, spit-ball appendage and set my sights on Austin. I had a mountain to climb. I intended to reach its summit by nightfall and stick a great big flag in it that read “She came (multiple times), she saw, she conquered.”