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Post By The Hooded Hood Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 08:03:21 pm EDT |
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Great Parodyverse Moments #4: How To Pick Up a Brunette | |
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| Great Parodyverse Moments #4: How To Pick Up a Brunette For the fourth of our occasional series exploring some of the key events in Parodyverse history that somehow never got told we return to a short story from a year or two back and answer the much-asked question: “What happened then?”. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse  Five years ago: “So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” the young Englishman with the punk-blonde hair asked. The raven-tressed brunette looked up at that cheeky confident grin. “Waiting for my boyfriend to get back from the bar,” she answered. “My big, rugby-playing boyfriend.” “He doesn’t sound like my type,” the young man smirked, slipping into the vacant seat. “You, on the other hand…” “Are with him. Look, Paul’s the jealous type, and I don’t want there to be any trouble.” “Fair enough,” her suitor nodded. “Can’t blame a bloke for trying, eh?” “Well, maybe I could blame you for the nice girl in a place like this line,” the brunette suggested. The young man shot her a smile, lit a cigarette, and slipped off into the crowd. He moved towards the bar, looking carefully to spot the burly physique and bullet head of a born Rugby player and the red neck of somebody still unused to the Greek sunshine. He waited till Paul was paying for the drinks and sidled up to him. “Raoul?” he said, laying a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Listen mate, I got a message from your date. She says she can’t see you till later, cause she’s havin’ a drink with some Neanderthal called Paul, okay. But he’s got no idea you’re giving ‘er some, so don’t worry at – oh, sorry mate, thought you were Raoul.” Then he quickly turned to the second biggest guy at the bar. “Hey, Raoul, I got a message for you…” But Paul was right behind him. “What did you say?” he demanded. “What did you say about my date?” “Date?” the confused random barfly frowned as the beery Rugby player bore down on him. “I don’t have a date.” The cheeky young man was dwarfed by the two men flanking him. He looked from one to the other. “Oh, right,” he nodded. “Sorry Raoul. I think this must be Paul. Oops.” “My name’s not R…” the man at the bar got out just before Paul hit him. Suddenly the bar was filled with flying bottles and flying punches. Paul got a barstool in the face early on. The brunette stood up in alarm as she saw the melee with her date in the middle of it. The young Englishman who’d spoken to her earlier grabbed her arm and pulled her away as three struggling men fell on and collapsed the table she’d been sitting at. “Best we get out of here, eh luv?” he suggested. “Paul’s going to be busy for a bit.” “He swore he wouldn’t get into a brawl again!” the young woman scowled wrathfully. “He promised.” “He’s a shithead alright,” her rescuer admitted, leading her to the fire exit. “He doesn’t deserve a lovely lady like you, that’s for sure.” He got her safely outside into the warm Greek night and halfway down the street before the police sirens sounded. “Best we go get a drink elsewhere, eh?” he suggested, putting an arm round the pretty brunette. “My name’s Con, by the way. Con Johnstantine.” “Nice to meet you, I guess, Con,” the brunette said, glancing uncertainly behind her as the riot police raced into the bar to subdue Paul with truncheons. “I’m Sarah.” Con Johnstantine looked over into Sarah Shepherdson’s dark dancing eyes and grinned again. “So what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Con asked his impromptu date once the waiter had left the Bloody Mary and the gin and ice on the table and retreated. “You brought me here when the police rushed into Stephanides’ bar,” Sarah reminded him with a little grin. “Are we on the lam now, Bugsy?” “I don’t mean in Gino’s. I mean on the Greek islands,” Johnstantine clarified. “You’re too brown to be a tourist.” “Oh, I was working as a dancer at the Copa.” The girl grinned. “Isn’t that a wonderful traditional name for a night club?” “Was working?” “My contract ended and I thought I’d go home by the long route, you know? Explore here for a while, then travel home through Europe, make my way to Paris…” She leaned in and imparted the Shepherdson Philosophy of Life: “It’s a pretty wonderful world and there’s an awful lot to see and do.” Con found himself looking again at his new acquisition. Five foot eight of leggy curvy brunette with a cloud of lustrous black hair, and dimples when she laughed, she was certainly easy on the eye. But who’d have guessed she fizzed like a firework and had a heart big enough for the whole world? “All the better,” the mysterious Englishman said to himself. “Sorry?” Sarah asked. “What did you say?” “Just approving of somebody who sees opportunities,” he told her. “I’m a big believer in that myself.” “So I noticed when you grabbed me from poor Stephanides’ place and carried me off to the casbah.” The second round of drinks arrived. “Thanks, Spiro,” Sarah told the waiter at the little café bar. “How are the kids?” “Just fine thanks, Sarah,” the old man told her. He scowled at Johnstantine a little. “You treat her good, young man.” Con looked after the waiter in surprise. “You know the people in here?” Sarah shrugged. “I’ve been here three months. It’s only polite to get to know everybody.” She swayed her head from side to side as she confessed, “Besides, I sometimes help Gino out with a bit of waitressing here when Spiro’s back is bad. It helps pay the bills.” The evening wasn’t going to plan and Johnstantine found he didn’t really mind a bit. “So you’ve had a chance to look around the islands, have you?” “A little bit. Mostly I’ve sunbathed and swum, and a bit of running and diving and beach volleyball. Plus the dancing, of course, and some helping out down at the special school.” Con snorted. “You’re kidding!” “No,” objected Sarah. “I like sunbathing.” “I mean about the special school. What do you do there?” “Aerobics mostly, plus some games and things. There are some lovely children there.” Her face clouded for a moment. “Paul said I was wasting time we could have been together. He can be very jealous. He said I shouldn’t pretend I was an angel, because he knew me better.” Johnstantine reached for a cigarette, caught Sarah’s frown, and scratched his nose instead. “Did he?” the Englishman challenged. “Know you better?” “Well… I’m not an angel,” Sarah confessed with a sneaky sexy smile. “Nah. I’d have spotted you straight off if you were,” Con assured her. “But you are pretty special.” “Ohh, here it comes!” the girl teased. “I hope it’s more original than your ‘doing in a place like this’ line.” Con grinned back at her. “All I’m saying darling, is that Paul is a class A shithead, and you could do a lot better.” Sarah managed to take the insult to her ex-boyfriend with perfect equanimity. “You?” she asked sceptically. Johnstantine leaned back and rubbed a nicotine-stained hand through his scrubby blonde hair. He was a lean twenty or thirty-something, scruffily dressed in jeans, off-white t-shirt and ragged sneakers. Somehow his raffish style managed to make up for his other shortcomings. “Well, I try not to be a shithead,” he asserted. “I’m more of a bastard, really.” “That’s better is it?” “Oh yeah. Everyone knows that.” Sarah drained her second Bloody Mary. “Everyone?” “Pretty much.” “And why is it better to date a bastard than a shithead?” the dancer asked. “Because when a bastard wrecks your life he’s probably got a reason for it, even if it is sick and twisted. A shithead just wrecks your life by being in it.” “I see. So why shouldn’t I just forget all about bastards and shitheads and go find myself a nice boy?” “You wouldn’t know what to do with a nice boy,” Johnstantine told her. “And he wouldn’t know what to do with you.” “Whereas you have ideas?” Johnstantine jumped up and grabbed her hand again. “Oh yeah.” “I think I’m going to die.” “Sorry,” apologised Sarah. “Did we go too fast?” “I think I’ve ruptured something.” “I got carried away,” the girl told him. “I lost control.” “No, it was great, really,” Con Johnstantine assured her. “And a very good lesson on why I have to cut down on the cigarettes.” “It’s my favourite thing in the world, you see. I can’t get enough of it.” “You’re spectacularly good at it, darlin’, I can’t deny it.” Sarah grinned. “Hey, I’m a professional,” “That’s obvious. I don’t think I’ve ever done it with so many people watching and cheering.” “Dancing is my life,” Sarah told him. “It was great to go dancing with you.” “No problem. I think I left my lungs in the last club but one.” Sarah giggled. “You’ve been a great sport, Con Johnstantine. Thanks for playing.” The Englishman straightened up. “Do I win a prize?” Sarah looked him up and down. “I don’t think your heart would stand getting the sort of prize you’re aiming for just now, Mr Johnstantine.” “I live to take risks,” her date told her. “On the edge, that’s me. Danger is my middle name. I’m not afraid to die in your arms.” “I’m not sure I could live with the responsibility, Con. I mean, after four or five men have died in a girl’s arms she gets a certain reputation.” Con Johnstantine snorted and grinned at the brunette. “You’re brilliant, you!” he admired. “No, really. I thought you’d be just another bimbo holidaymaker but here you are, being a great person. I think that’s brilliant.” “Are you saying you didn’t want me for my mind?” Sarah demanded. “Oh yeah, the mind definitely,” Johnstantine assured her, snaking his arm round her waist and leading her towards the door of the night club. “I was just thinking of taking the scenic route to get there.” “You’re a bastard all right,” Sarah agreed. “Do I give off some kind of aura that bastards can pick up that says ‘I have a fatal weakness for men who are bad for me’?” “Your aura was the first thing I noticed about you,” Johnstantine told her honestly. “And yeah, that’s why I came over to chat you up.” “Because you were looking for a bimbo holidaymaker to die in the arms of?” “Well yeah,” Con admitted. “But instead I got lucky.” “You haven’t got lucky,” Sarah pointed out. “Yet.” The Englishman held up a finger in a wait-a-moment gesture. “Just you hold that thought, Shep. I’m gonna pay a visit to the gents to recycle some of the alcohol I’ve been putting away and then I’ll escort you safe home.” “You don’t know where I live.” “It’s not your home I’ll be escorting you to. I’ll be right back.” Sarah took the opportunity to head into the ladies and freshen her lip gloss while Johnstantine vanished into the crowd towards the gents. “Right, we’re on,” the irritating Englishman said to the man sitting by himself at a table in the corner. Despite the night club being crowded nobody seemed to want to sit near the stranger. “I’ve pulled a bird called Sarah Shepherdson, and I’m taking her back to the villa. She doesn’t suspect a thing.” Then he hurried back to his date. “This isn’t your villa, is it?” asked Sarah Shepherdson. “Loaner from an acquaintance,” Johnstantine told her. “Why?” “I was pretty sure this wasn’t your bed,” the brunette said, stretching out and fanning her hair across the pillow. “Nobody who actually owned this bed would have got the stains on it you have.” “You wriggled,” Con pointed out. “If you’d held still the bed wouldn’t look like a picnic site.” “You tickled,” Sarah defended herself. “What’s a poor girl to do when she’s accosted with culinary items with erotic intent?” “Fruit’s very healthy for you,” Con pointed out. “You’re supposed to have five portions every day.” “Not like that, Con.” She rolled over and curled into a happy ball. “Still, at least the overall calorie count is probably negative given the exercise.” “I know I’d go to the gym a lot more if it was always like this,” the Englishman admitted. “You’re not going to the right gyms, Con,” Sarah teased. She stared over at her lean lover. “What are those scars?” “Which ones? The ones that look like squid-sucker holes or the claw marks?” The brunette snuggled herself against Johnstantine. “What are you doing in Naxos?” she wondered. “Apart from seducing semi-innocent dancers, I mean. And creating more work for the fruit growing community. You’re not here as a tourist.” “Bit of business I need to sort,” Con told her evasively. “Nothing very interesting.” “Okay, none of my business,” Shep acknowledged. “Am I about to get offered my cab fare home?” “Nah, I’m not trying to give you the elbow, I promise. Anyway, I’m rubbish at dumping women. I usually just wait till they get to know me better and they give me the push by themselves. Plus, there’s still plenty of stuff in the refrigerator and the night us young.” “I suppose that would give us time to try and put those bookshelves back up.” “That was just shoddy Greek workmanship,” Johnstantine assured her. “So was the coffee table.” He seemed to consider for a moment. “You ever been to Ebos, Shep?” “Ebos? What’s that?” “It’s one of the islands. A really little one, almost uninhabited, about eight miles off Folegandros. Famous for its goats and its rocky places and its complete lack of tourist attractions. You can walk across it in ten minutes, but you wouldn’t want to.” “You make it sound lovely, Con.” “I’ve got to go to Ebos tomorrow,” the Englishman explained. “Business trip. I’ll be back the day after, and I’d love to see you again if you’ll let me. But…” “But?” “Well, I was wondering if you’d be up for a trip to Ebos? See the goats?” Sarah’s face blossomed into a beautiful smile. “Con, I’d love to! I’m excited already!” “You mean you weren’t excited before?” Con asked her. “Bloody hell, I don’t know if I’d survive you if you were really excited!” “Listen, I’m rethinking this Sarah thing,” Johnstantine said. “She seems like a really nice girl. I should have picked somebody who deserved to be horribly murdered, not her. But she had such an amazing aura around her, I swear. Anybody scanning her will easily believe she’s a being of destiny waiting to come into her own. She’s fantastic.” “Well, it’s too late to find somebody else now,” Xander the Improbable told him. “The Lycanthrope’s Guild has already spotted her. Or scented her I suppose. By this time tomorrow every evil supernatural creature in a thousand miles will be planning her destruction.” “I know. I just wish…” Con began. “Well, she deserves better, that’s all. Better than this. Better than me.” It was a clear bright morning, so Johnstantine wore his mirror shades. Sarah bought a tiny bikini and a silk wrap and she shed them as soon as the hired motor boat was out of the harbour. “I’m an all over tan kind of girl,” she told the Englishman. Con had no objections to Sarah’s admirable devotion to sunbathing, but his joy was tempered by the last words of the boatkeeper as he’d cast off from the mooring at Agaiassos. “That’s a nice girl,” the burly sailor who’d been chatting with Sarah in pigeon Greek/English for twenty minutes told him. “You take good care of her.” “So what’s the mysterious business?” Shep asked him again as he steered towards the tiny island of Ebos. “I hope I’ve not fallen in with international pirates and smugglers?” “No self-respecting international pirate or smuggler’s going to Ebos,” Johnstantine assured her. “In fact nobody goes to Ebos at all. Why do you think I’m having to pilot this boat myself?” “Because you wanted some alone-time with a sun-warmed naked beauty who needs sun-tan oiling?” “That was the other reason,” Con admitted. “But mainly it was because none of the locals will go to Ebos.” “So it really is that boring?” “They think it’s haunted.” “Is it?” “Not by anything human. But the legends say a god died there.” Sarah shifted to look over at Con. “A god? Are you pulling my leg?” “That’s not the bit of you I’m lookin’ at, darling. But straight up, there was writer called Plutarch. He wrote that in the reign of Tiberius Caesar – that’s the time of Christ - a voice from the island of Paxos hailed a passing ship. It called for Thamus, who was the Egyptian pilot. After the call had been made three times, Thamus replied. The voice from the shore, louder than before, said, ‘When you reach Palodes, tell them that the great god Pan is dead.’” “And was he?” asked Sarah. Johnstantine shrugged. “He might just have been pining for the fjords. Anyway, the crew and passengers were astonished. There was long debate about whether it was better to deliver the message or not and eventually they decided that they’d pass Palodes in silence if the wind held, but deliver the message if the wind dropped. When they reached Palodes there was this great calm, so Thamus stood on the stern and shouted like he'd been told. At the words, ‘The great Pan is dead,’ there was this loud lamentation - Plutarch says like the mourning of a multitude. The story’s one of the rare literary accounts of the death of a god, and a lot of people believed it at the time.” “What’s that got to do with Ebos?” “That’s where they said Pan had died,” Con shrugged. “And that’s whose ghost they say haunts the place.” “And what’s your business there?” Shep asked a little nervously. “Maybe I want to have a chat with the old boy?” Johnstantine suggested. “Nah, I’m just meeting some people to have a bit of a discussion is all. A long chinwag then back to Agaissos in time for retsina and raving.” Sarah settled back with Bridget Jones’ Diary and enjoyed the cruise. “I don’t know why people don’t come here,” Sarah declared as she stood on an outcrop overlooking the sea and let the wind whip her hair behind her. “It’s beautiful.” “No bars, no betting shops, and the bus service is crap,” pointed out Johnstantine. He looked over at Shep. “The scenery’s not bad,” he conceded. “So where are these people we’re meeting?” the girl asked him. Johnstantine scratched his ear. “They’ll be here sometime soon. But before they get here… Look, I think I’d better come clean, Sarah.” “What do you mean?” Shep asked suspiciously. “Con, you’re scaring me.” “Right. My job, right… It’s not so much a job as a self-destructive habit, but basically I try and stop bad things happening in my own inimitable way. I’m a bastard, but I’m a bastard for the good guys.” “Okay. And?” “So there’s this prophesy about what’s coming up. There’s all kinds of wackiness, like there always is, but one of the signs is the coming of the Celestial Madonna.” Sarah glanced round for a heavy rock in case she needed to defend herself. “If this is leading up to you telling me you think I’m Madonna you’re going to get such a thump.” “Nah, it’s not you Shep. Shame, because you’d be great at it, but it’s not you.” Johnstantine stuck his hands in his pockets and stared out to sea. “Fact is, we don’t know who it is, or where they are. But the Sybil is dying.” “The Sybil who was the ancient Greek prophetess?” Sarah recognised. “I think you’re a bit out of date there, Con, by about two thousand years?” “Look, who’s telling this unbelievable story, you or me?” “You are, Con. You carry on while I hunt for a nice heavy rock, okay?” “Thanks. There’s a good one over there, by that acacia bush. Anyway, the Sybil’s dying, so she gets to make one last prediction, and it’s usually a good one. So my… business associate has wandered over to ask her who the Celestian Madonna is, and what that’s all about, and what needs to be done. Stuff like that.” Sarah nodded. “Okay, like the Pan is dead story, disturbing and intriguing and well removed from a common frame of reality. Just saying. And I still don’t see why that means we have to come to Ebos. Or does the Sybil live here too?” “Nah, nothing like that. But Xan… my associate… needed a clear run to get the prophesy out of her without every occultist and psycho-monster on the planet hearing about it and going after the girl. They already know we’re looking for her.” “People might try to do bad things to this Madonna if they could find who it was?” Shep understood. “Right. So we needed a distraction, as it happens. We needed everybody looking at me while Xander got the goods. We needed…” “You needed a decoy!” accused Sarah. “You needed somebody who everyone would think was… Oh, I can’t believe I’m buying into this!” “I’m fairly impressed myself,” Johnstantine assured her. “Look, I said I was a bastard. But I’m really sorry to have hauled you into this, Sarah. Truly.” Shep was still working out the ramifications. “Hang on. So if all these nutjobs think I’m your Celestian Madonna, aren’t they all going to be looking for me to kill me?” Johnstantine nodded. “And… Con, who are these people you’re expecting to meet here? Are they nice people?” “Not in any sense of the words nice or people,” the Englishman admitted. Down on the shore, dark shapes were pulling themselves out of the water. “Am I going to get my life wrecked by a bastard for a good reason then?” asked Sarah, trying to keep her voice even. “Could be. I really am sorry about this, Shep. If I’d known what you were like, who you were, before I dragged you into this…” “Am I going to die?” “Very possibly. Slowly and painfully. But listen, before that… any chance of a quickie?” Sarah Shepherdson glared at him. “What?” “A nooner. Rumpy-pumpy. The horizontal mambo. Hide the sausage. I reckon we’ve just got time before the Guild of Werewolves gets here to tear you apart, and probably me as well when I try to stop ‘em.” “You… you seduce me, use me, drag me into mortal danger… and then when there are squirmy things coming up the beach to kill me you expect to have sex with me? Why on Earth should I do that?” Con Johnstantine smirked. “Don’t you want to go out with a bang?” The Grand Ravener of the Guild of Lycanthropes and Associated Skinshifters led the death squad up the cliffside, guided by the scents the quarries were generating. He had expected more in the way of abject terror and less in the way of rutting from his prey, but there’d be plenty of time to make the girl scream before they’d done with her. The werewolves climbed over the edge of the cliff, surrounding the two humans who lay limp and exhausted in each other’s arms. “How do, chief,” Johnstantine greeted the Grand Ravener. “Just give us a minute to get our breath back, will you.” “Also my arm’s gone to sleep,” added Sarah. “Um, could you pass my bikini bottom?” “Frail humans,” the Grand Ravener growled, flexing his cruel talons, “Prepare to scream, to bleed, to beg, and to die.” “Nah,” said Johnstantine, helping Shep up and gallantly handing her his t-shirt. “Nah?” thundered the leader of the Guild of Lycanthropes. He felt that the frail humans weren’t taking this seriously enough. “Nah?” Con held Sarah close and explained to her. “Shep, you remember when I said you were really great in bed, good enough to wake the dead?” “You said lots of things last night, Con. Between mouthfuls.” “And remember how I said this island was haunted by the great god Pan, one of the oldest and most powerful of the fertility deities?” “What?” snarled the Grand Ravener. “Yeah. Guess how the great god Pan was invoked back in the good old days?” Con grinned. “And then you guys come along here and desecrate his ceremony!” The skies were becoming black with angry clouds and a high wind rose to tear at the lycanthropes fur. “Con?” Sarah swallowed. “S’okay, Shep. It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing, right? Plus we got some pretty hot danger-of-discovery sex too.” Something dark and terrible passed over the top of the pinnacle, sliding past Sarah and Johnstantine and smothering over the intruders with the ghostly wrath of an awakened deity. “No!” shrieked the Grand Ravener in tones of horror very different from his arrogant growl. “No! Noooo!!” Shep squeaked as something goosed her in the darkness. Then the clouds dissipated and the Greek summer sunshine filtered down again. There was no sign at all of the Grand Ravener and his Guild. “What… what was that?” Sarah ventured at last. “That,” Con Johnstantine told her, “was panic.” “If I see you again in a million years it’ll be too soon, Con Johnstantine,” Sarah Shephersdon declared angrily as the taxi dropped the travellers off in the city of Naxos. “Far too soon.” “You’ve been a great contestant, babe,” the irritating Englishman told her. “Thanks for playing.” “I. Never. Want. To. See. You. Again.” “We got the info we needed from the Sybil,” Johnstantine ventured. “So it was worth the risks.” “Never. Again!” “Word’s out now about the trick we pulled so nobody’s going to want to rip your throat out any more. You’re safe.” “N – E – V - E – R…” “And the fact is that my associate and I probably owe you a favour. We’ll try and get you a nice present sometime, okay? Well, he will. I’ll probably forget.” “Gaaaaahhh!” Sarah screamed at her latest ex-boyfriend, then stalked off away through the marketplace. Johnstantine watched her go with a wistful look on his face. “She’s a great girl that one,” the taxi driver told him. “You should have taken care of her.” “Shut up,” said the Englishman.  Thanks to Dancer for some enthusiastic additional material for this story.For more on Xander’s present to Sarah, read UT#43: Dancing in the Dark, or Good Things Come in Little Boxes, Bad Things Drive Up in Removal Vans. The Pan legend that Johnstantine cites come from Plutarch, Why the Oracles are Silent, 17. It is retold, amongst other places, in The Greek Myths, vol. 1, 26.g by Robert Graves, and in The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frasier in his essay On the Mortality of the Gods (some abridged versions do not contain this account). Ebos is not mentioned, however, and has been made up for Parodyverse purposes. More stories at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Character descriptions in Who's Who in the Parodyverse Place descriptions in Where's Where in the Parodyverse And here’s what people had to say about Part One, back in August 2004: |
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