Title: Master Of The Universe: Part II - Those Left Behind
Featuring: Hessian
Date: 09-02-11
Location: vs. ??? @ ReV 239

The encampment bore too many similarities to a gypsy caravan, and without any carnival rides to draw in a younger crowd it lacked the charm of a travelling funfair. Just after dawn, at the farthest side of the thirty acre show park, several roofs had sprouted up like fungi. Several four berth motor homes, three transit vans and a '78 Winnebago Chieftain had arrived first, followed by the '91 Scania towing its forty foot trailer which bore the name of a logistics company which had long since gone out of business, still visible where the letters had been peeled off and painted over with a mawkish logo for the show.

The truck served as a blockade between the RVs and the area where the blue and yellow striped big top was erected, along with two beer tents which had been patched up with everything from canvas to grip tape and would, when the extra partitions had been hung up, provide a rudimentary gallery of sorts.

Dog walkers and joggers reconfigured their daily routes to get a closer look at the set-up, but none felt obligated to ask what the attraction was. The few families who ventured into the park watched from afar as rotund, tattooed and rat-like roadies assembled the tents, ignoring their gawking features and arrogant judgement.

The weather turned damp later in the afternoon and proceedings were sped up to ensure the profit margin for the night wouldn't be at risk from more water damage to the already dilapidated equipment. When the colourful signs and ticket booth were assembled at the entrance to the show park small crowds formed gradually, and those who weren't turned off by the caricatures hovering over the big balloon lettering on the boards stepped up to book their entertainment for the evening.

While bodies milled around making their final preparations, a husky female voice aired its ire as thick muscular legs in high heels tried to walk a tightrope across the muddy field. She was an Amazon of a woman, a raven-haired beauty like the cover girl of Nick Rosso's “She Had It Coming”. Clad in a figure-hugging trench coat that kept her warm and her sparkling emerald PVC costume dry, Drusilla Dell'Olio gazed over the site for the right face, and finding only the wrong ones tossed a wavy tendril of hair out of her eyes and sighed.

“Vinnie,” she called out to a stocky roadie wrapped in denim and leather and bent over a case full of bunting. “You seen Cyril?”

Vinnie straightened up, the crack of his ass receding back beneath his jeans. Without removing the roll-up from the corner of his mouth he simply lifted his hand extending his thumb and pinky and tipping the gesture back and forth before his lips.

“Son of a bitch,” she growled, piercing green eyes focused on the mud and making a beeline for the nearby asphalt path leading to the entrance of the park, uttering one cuss for every step she took.

When the cracking of the asphalt under her heels gave way to the stony click of the sidewalk she lifted her eyes to the faces on the street, meeting their stares with the polite disinterest that some men mistook for a hard-to-get look hiding a sexual want that would normally be construed when her tasselled bust was on show during a performance.

The far side of the park where the show was being held bordered a residential area which had been continually growing in the last several years, the kind with houses that people paid double the cost for half the living space just to be able to raise their kids away from the high rise apartments and inevitable gang culture that thrived closer to the centre of town. The side Drusilla was scanning now was filled with two and three storey brown brick buildings, most of which were still independent businesses with the original oak porch at the fore. Where they lacked the half barrels filled with budding flowers there stood by the porches a rusty old wagon wheel harking back to the days of pioneers and outlaws.

Johnny Walker tipped his hat to her from the entrance to a building across the way that had its porch torn down to make space for tarmac paving to the roadside allowing parking for up to six cars. Baskets hung flowerless between each of the frosted glass windows along the ground floor, and looking up she saw emblazoned across the slate roof in giant white letters three words, only one of which concerned her.

BED
BREAKFAST
BEER

It was clearly visible from across the park where they had set up, and with a sigh Drusilla stormed across the road, barging through the entrance and immediately spying the man she was looking for.

“Goddamnit Cyril...”

The pub retained the classic style quite well; wooden beams along the ceiling and portraits of local legends hanging on the cream walls. The bartender was a fat old ex-pat Scot with tufty eyebrows and a bulbous pock-marked nose. Two of the five patrons on the other side of the bar were good old boys in sweaters with snow on the roof and a shake in their hand as they manoeuvred their glasses up for another sip of gin. The other three were middle-aged, with callouses on their hands, plaid on their backs and blue around their collars.

“Well ain't she somethin'?” One of them remarked.

“Mair eh a wumman'n you can haun'le ya puff,” replied the jock.

Ears burning, Drusilla turned and smiled at the group before narrowing her eyes and sticking a long forked tongue out between her teeth and flicking it up and down with a hiss. With a holy shit the men stole a final glance before shirking back behind their pints, leaving Drusilla standing over Cyril with hands on hips and a sleek cocked eyebrow.

“Boys're right Drew. You could do a lot better'n a two-bit sideshow.”

Her eyes glazed over at the remark and she quickly blinked them dry, staring up at the ceiling and feigning frustration to avoid showing him how easily he could upset her. Holding his pint glass tightly between both stumpy hands he took a drink, and only when the last of the foam drizzled down into his mouth did he regard the distorted form before him. Realizing his mistake he placed the glass onto a beer mat and shuffled off of his chair, plopping onto the floor and waddling up to her.

“Hey. You could do a lot better,” he said as softly as his gruff tone would allow. It was the closest thing to an apology she would get and she knew it.

He was a largely complex mind trapped in a stunted four foot body. He wasn't the prettiest character; a wide forehead, large brow, thick jawline and pointed chin with features comprising beady black eyes, wide nose and thin lips. A thinning head of stringy black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and being that he looked the spit of Leon Stap he was accustomed to hiding behind a pair of cheap imitation Oakley sunglasses and a Newsboy cap pulled to his brow.

He wasn't going to win any votes based on looks but his initiative had helped everyone involved in the show make a living and for that they were indebted to him, and so stuck with him regardless of how through the years the ticket sales had dwindled and how Cyril seemed to spend more and more time on the sauce instead of organizing his product.

“You've got to be ready for your act, let's go.” Drusilla said, motioning to the door.

“My act,” Cyril grunted and slid his feet across the hardwood towards the bar. “Bottle of Becks for the road, Hamish”, he asked of the bartender.

He tottered past the five men at the bar, pulling a crumpled bill from his pocket and reaching up to exchange it for the chilled bottle being handed over to him. Thanking the Scot for his hospitality and bidding the locals goodnight he invited them along to the show and took his leave with Drusilla at his back.

“Make that your last one. You know how dangerous it can get on stage.”

“Drew I'm not going on tonight,” Cyril groaned, popping off the bottle cap with his teeth and spitting it onto the road as they walked past the line of people waiting to get into the park.

“What are you talking about? You've got over an hour to sober up. You'll be fine,” Drusilla replied.

She took half steps at a slow pace to keep time with him as they approached the camp site. It wasn't until Cyril was looking at the big top and listening to the chatter emanating from beyond the Scania that he dropped the bomb.

“I had to sell him on. It was either that or let half the crew go. We don't have a final act any more Drew...”

“What??” She gasped, stopping in her tracks and staring at Cyril in disbelief. “You sold Chomper?!”

Chomper, as it happened, was the star attraction of Cyril Salazar's Travelling Museum of Monstrosities, a touring freak show which had been on the road every day of the last six years, not counting holidays. It comprised a cornucopia of some of humanities greatest mysteries and oddities that were divided up into exhibits in the gallery and stage acts in the big top. Before entering the circus tent, paying customers could walk into the gallery and see oddities such as the lobster shark, spider lady, rock man and others with genetic disfigurements as well as a number of strange fossils and facts to indulge in.

When it was time for the big show the audience were treated to acts including “Slim” Jim Fatts, a 5'11”, 175lbs South African who would eat one hamburger in front of the audience and gain 100lbs right before their very eyes. The Klukke Twins from Bulgaria, little European butterballs with amazing agility and focus who performed balancing acts on all manner of sharp objects. Drusilla who was a burlesque dancer performed with snakes, swords and fire and generally got the punters hot under the collar. Victor Ginetti was a sado-masochistic illustionist who butchered himself and his assistants in a variety of fantastic and magical ways. His speciality was disposing of “butchered” body parts in a large purple box covered in neon green question marks that, at the end of his act, he would attach a handle to and wind like a Jack-in-the-box, only for his brother Bobby to fly out into the terrified audience, covered in blood. Bobby suffered from sacral agenesis and was a half man.

While these acts would often be slotted anywhere from first to second last they never went on after Chomper. Chomper was the Monstrosity advertised on the side of the truck trailer and on most of the signposts. People who came to see the freaks could dispute the mutations with their scientific theories all day, but when they saw Chomper they witnessed something beautifully pure in all its primal mystery.

Nobody working on the show knew anything about the creature except Cyril. Chomper's handlers didn't even know what it was, only to treat it as they would a captive Grizzly. It was impossible to hazard a guess as to what species Chomper was, though the more intellectual customers who came to the show surmised it to be some surviving relation to Australopithecus. Cyril nicknamed him the 'Demon from the South Pacific' and left the guesswork to everyone else.

It was six and a half feet tall when upright, hairless and alabaster in colour. Its hands and feet were large in proportion to its body and tipped with claws. Slanted yellow eyes and a pig-like nose gave it a demonic look, while the pointed teeth in its wide maw promised no remorse to a grisly end. The most terrifying thing to behold was when Chomper flicked his spear-like tongue in the direction of the audience and seemed to smile an abominable smile. That or the canine-like penis that Cyril made no effort to cover up from the crowd, which those who looked too long swore had protruding from it a miniature tongue that tickled the air and caused the member to swell on occasion.

Instead of lobed ears it had two large tympanum, which were the key to Cyril surviving his act alongside Chomper every night. When the beast was revealed, chained up inside its cage, the audience certainly didn't expect Cyril to take to the stage clad in a hooded robe and carrying a gong and a drum mallet. What followed could only be described as a snake charming on acid; a demon dance perpetrated on some insidious astral plain, dreamt in a nightmare and re-enacted in person in front of a packed crowd of rednecks under the mildew-stained canvas of a second-hand circus tent in a backwater town somewhere in the Midwest. Price of admission five bucks.

“I had to Drew,” Cyril said, tossing the already emptied bottle of Becks on the grass as they left the asphalt path and plodded through the mud towards the site. “It was that or let half the team go. I couldn't do that to you guys. It had to be Chomper.”

“But Chomper is the show! The audience is so used to seeing genetic abnormalities and magic tricks that have been revealed a hundred times on TV that they won't give a shit about us! Chomper was that little wink at the end of the show that told these people maybe it isn't all sleight of hand and trick of the mind. He was a kick in the ass to those Discovery channel addicts who thought they knew how the world works! How could you just get rid of him??”

“Because Chomper was just a-...” Cyril paused and Drusilla's eyes went wide. He'd nearly given away the secret, one that she, as much as anyone else, yearned to know. “Look I don't want to lose any of you!” Cyril continued, throwing his arms out and glaring at her. “We used to have it all Drew. A proper venue with atmosphere and pomp that wasn't held together with fucking patches and tape. A fleet of vehicles that used to roll into town and draw a crowd before we even unpacked the first sign. Now we look like a fucking commune of inbreds looking for a place to live tax free before the sheriff department kick us out. In five years we've gone from Barnum and Bailey to a goddamn trailer park with a ticket booth.”

“We could've turned things around Cyril, you know that,” Drusilla rebuked.

“You think so?” Cyril said as they walked past the tents and the truck to the caravans. “We've had to continually cannibalize our assets just to keep going with this thing. Sure nobody notices when its a wagon or a set piece, until they're all gone and suddenly it comes down to redundancies to keep food on people's plates and clothes on their backs. You guys aren't assets, you're family. Chomper was an asset, a valuable one, but an asset nonetheless. It was a choice between him or half the crew, and I don't know about you but I sure as hell don't know how to rig that damn tent.”

There was no point arguing further, she had to accept this as a child would their parents divorce. All the pleading in those big innocent eyes couldn't sway the decision and the last shred of hope spilling from a breaking heart just congealed into a pool of hopelessness on the floor at her feet. Fragments of her world were falling away like the flesh of a leper and though it haunted her dreams she was, at the end of the day, grateful to be spared the chop to keep doing what she loved and be paid for it.

“So what are we supposed to finish on if you don't have an act?” Drusilla asked as they stopped outside Cyril's RV.

He stood scratching his head as she opened the door for him and, hiking up the three wee steps and pulling himself inside, turned and told her to give the slot to the Ginettis and have everyone extend their act by ten minutes.

Softening her gaze and pouting her full red lips she said, “what are you going to do in the mean time?”

“What I do best. Formulate a plan and get smashed off my tits. Have a good one.”

He banged the door shut before Drusilla could reply, and shouting a farewell from outside she left to prepare for her set leaving Cyril to wade through the musty smell of the caravan past a mess of clothes, take-out containers and various documents spilled everywhere to the pull-out bed which was always ready to collapse on. Throwing off his hat, jacket and slacks he hopped on and lay his head down on a pillow of cold glossy paper.

Pulling the magazine out from under him he squinted at the title on the cover and, pulling the cord on the corner light, immediately recognized the PWI title above a picture of a giant bearded man roaring out at the reader and holding a title belt in his hand that read Universal Champion across it. His eyes flicked back and forth vacantly across the cover photo for a moment before he snarled and hurled the magazine across the room. It hadn't even hit the floor before Cyril had a half empty bottle of Wild Turkey pulled to his lips, sucking it dry in one gulp and collapsing back onto the bed.

---

His teeth pulsed and his bones vibrated as the bass pounded throughout the club. From his booth he could make out hundreds of figures thrashing in the flashing strobe before a stage packed with Marshall amps, while the DJ mixed the tracks from atop a ten foot fibreglass desk moulded to look like the souls of the damned reaching up for the decks.

Around the dance floor people sat on cushioned leather sofas shouting into each others ears and downing their drinks while above them behind the gold railing on the first level tables full of groups did much the same thing. Where Von Kelsig sat, further back and higher up in the tiered booth area he could hear conversations a little more clearly, though the myriad of voices shouting to his right and left made it just about as difficult as being right next to the Marshalls.

The Pit, so named because of the large circular dance floor that was always full of moshers, was to be his haunt for the night. Dressed to impress in a denim waistcoat over a leather jacket beneath which he sported a sleeveless black shirt, stonewashed jeans and a prized pair of personalized Riff Raff leather boots with an Iron Cross design to match his tattoo, he mistakenly walked into a trance nation venue before making a U-turn back onto the street.

Spying a likely crowd the giant tailed along behind men in black with ghostly pale girlfriends whose metal fixings chinked with each step. Eventually he arrived at an unassuming redbrick building which he discovered upon entry had a stunningly opulent interior. It reminded him of the ancient Greek underworld, with the addition of caged dancers, waitresses in torn, tight uniforms and some of the best heavy metal booming in his ears.

Casually the giant claimed an empty booth and hung his arms over the backrest and took in the view. He was only a third of the way through with his first pitcher before the first lurkers stepped forward to join him, buxom and giggling and waving their peroxide blonde and pink and red hair around and flashing cheeky smiles or biting their pierced lips at the impressively massive stature of the man.

“Where'd you get those scars?”

“You in a clan?”

“What's the tattoo mean?”

A suicide girl on his left and a svelte gothic chick who reminded him of Morticia Adams cuddled into him, and the satisfied look that grew on his face as they caressed his stomach soon turned to one of quiet dismay at the realization their fingers were exploring the fleshy mound of a round belly. Somewhere between King of Kings and ReVolution 239 this unsightly layer of fat had settled over his six pack, and now it had all the makings of a beer gut.

“Actually, I'm a professional wrestler,” he said in reply to a question about his vocation.

A few of the girls seemed surprised, figuring him for a biker or a bodyguard but one in particular, the Morticia lady, cocked a plucked eyebrow and pressed a slender hand against the breast of her black sparkling sequin dress. Exhaling a breath of air she cosied up to the giant and smiled admirably, reaching for the pitcher and taking a respectable swig much to the giant's delight.

Two of the girls, one a skinny blonde with large implants, botoxed lips and lots of random tattoos skirting her midriff and the other a BBW with neon pink dreadlocks excused themselves to go collect a couple of their friends who they knew liked the sport. At the same time Von Kelsig felt his thigh vibrate and jumped at first thinking Morticia was getting frisky. When he realized it was his cell phone he twisted his hip to retrieve it without knocking either of the girls beside him.

According to Shakur's text message a meeting to discuss title plans was scheduled for the next day and he was to reply with a suitable time for him. Shaking his head with a sigh, the giant slipped his phone back into his pocket ignoring the request and, as a waitress sauntered past with a tray in hand, slammed an open palm into the table with such force that it startled her into stopping.

“Gimme a pitcher of your most expensive drink,” he ordered, and as the waitress nodded added, “and whatever the ladies want.”

A cheer rose up from the booth shrill enough to turn heads at the nearby tables. As the girls rattled out their order the other two returned with three more friends; one a preened man with a floppy black hairdo and piercings in every conceivable place, one a tall muscular man in a bandanna and trench coat with flame tattoos across his chest and the other a heavy set with a cute face and snow white hair down to her knees tied back in a long braid.

“Get theirs too,” Von Kelsig said with a gesture to the new crowd.

The waitress's head spun back and forth and unable to get her pen and pad with the tray in hand Von Kelsig watched as the cogs spun and she took in the bulk of the plus ten order before moving off to deliver the order on the tray and collect his. The random chatter between the group quickly dissolved into a big cheer for the giant as the DJ cross-faded “Dyer's Eve” by Metallica with “Guarded” by Disturbed, making use of the double-bass drum beat to make the transition smooth. The beginning of the track combined with the generosity of this professional wrestler in their club elicited another big cheer from the group crowding around the booth and more looks from other tables, some of which were followed by whispers of “that's Hessian!”

Taking his pitcher in hand Von Kelsig drained away the last of his beer, slurping down the froth and letting out a great belch. The vibe of the room began to creep into his veins with the beat of the music, and for a moment all the voices and laughter and noise of the club meshed into one and he smiled, feeling at one with the atmosphere. Forgetting his troubles with Matt Ward, Violence Jack, the Universal Title and that portentous belly pressing into his shirt he let his eyelids droop to the appropriate level of insobriety that one large pitcher of beer provides and smiled blissfully as Morticia tilted his head and started sucking on his neck.

The two guys who had joined the group and were perched on the very edges of the booth wolf-whistled and made some kind of sexual jibe that he couldn't quite hear before leaning into their friends and informing them of exactly who they were sitting next to. Still grinning ear to ear the giant simply raised a fist and hung it in the air for a moment for them to reciprocate likewise before clapping and hanging his arms back over the backrest. A warm feeling was spreading through his chest, exacerbated with a tingling zap to the nerves as Morticia bit and licked him. He felt strangely at ease.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Flicking his gaze to the floor he acknowledged the waitress with a nod before realizing she hadn't returned with any drinks.

“Problem?” He asked loudly.

“I've been told to ask if you'd like to move your party to the VIP lounge.”

Any other booth filled past capacity would have been asked to disperse to more convenient areas of the club, and Von Kelsig figured either his money or his reputation was the catalyst for this show of hospitality. Surveying the sprawl of bodies around him it was a no-brainer. Letting out a chuckle he nodded and clapped the thigh of the suicide girl next to him, and rewarded with a sweet smile rose up and motioned to the excited throng.

“Shift your asses, we're movin' on up!”

Another cheer and more attention from the club. The majority of people who hadn't seen Von Kelsig arrive watched on in wonder as the giant rose up as though out of Tartarus and swaggered across the room amidst his groupies in tow of the waitress. She led them past full tables of revellers, some of which applauded the Universal Champion and shouted his name with a tone of reverence. The waitress led them past the tables to a short corridor, at the end of which stood two large double doors flanked by a couple of burly security guards in black wifebeaters and slacks. One was shaven with a tattoo of Motorhead's Snaggletooth on the back of his skull, while the other wore a beard as big as his own.

“Party of twelve with this gentleman,” the waitress gestured to the giant, “for the lounge.”

Nodding in response the guards pulled on the door handles, opening them up to a set of stairs lined with gargoyle statuettes holding bright candles in their claws illuminating the luxurious gold banister and red carpet leading up to the VIP section. It was darker than the rest of the club and nowhere near as noisy, and with trepidation the group followed the giant as he climbed the stairs to claim his spot among the heavy hitters of the rock star scene.

A complimentary tray of Jagermeister greeted him as he reached the lounge and, taking the first one and wasting no time knocking it back, gazed over the assortment of private booths set into the curved wall that looked out through a massive two-way window that gave the VIPs an excellent view of the party in full swing down in the club. Shown to his table by the waitress, Von Kelsig motioned for everyone but Morticia and a busty middle-aged brunette in a PVC catsuit to grab a seat.

His head swimming and his groin throbbing, he escorted the two ladies past a slew of faces he'd seen time and time again in Rolling Stone magazine, a few of which seemed to recognize him, and disappeared through a swing door adorned with purple velvet that led to a corridor lined with private cubicles that reminded him of peep show booths, only larger and furnished with many cushions and mini-bars filled with more alcohol. Picking one at random he threw the ladies in onto the cushions and shutting the door behind him, collapsed down beside them. Just as the heavy metal seeped into his brain, buzzing with feedback, his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

---

When he awoke to the sound of loud ringing between grunts of heavy snoring the giant assumed the noise was coming from him. Lying face down on the mattress he turned his head to the side, smearing his face across the soft fabric underneath. A mound of duvet blocked his view of the hotel room which was, he recalled from checking in, like a little slice of sunshine boxed into the master suite of the topmost room in the building.

Pulling the duvet down he could only express his shock with a dry murmur at the back of his throat. Upon the whitewashed walls some kind of liquid had been sprayed in several places; a light brownish yellow stain that could have been anything. From the reek of the room it was most likely beer, much to his relief. Those stains could be washed off, but the large landscape pictures of Spanish countryside and the portraits of crowds at the beach would need to be re-framed, now that the prints were lying amongst splintered wood and broken glass on the sea blue carpeting littered with empty bottles varying from champagne to the Jagermeister from the club to baby oil and even a half empty tube of lubricant.

It was the sight of the lubricant that drew his attention to the strain in his groin. Spying a half empty bottle of Evian resting on the bedside cabinet he snatched it and guzzled down every drop, feeling a momentary reprieve from the sickening sensation roiling around in his gut. Then, throwing the duvet back to find himself naked, the giant cupped his groin and felt a slick residue on his skin. Groaning, he willed himself over onto his stomach and, with a momentary glance at the ceiling to find that thankfully the light fixture hadn't been ripped down, rolled over to the middle of the bed and got a mouthful of tit.

“Mmmm...”

Morticia groaned in her sleep before turning away from the giant, giving him long enough to taste the cold metal of a nipple ring on his tongue before the breast was plucked from his mouth with a wet pop. In that instant his head and stomach ache disappeared as he took in the glorious view of her naked body, soft milky white skin spotted with bruises from bite marks, the name “Helena” tattooed in gothic script across her nape.

So that's her name, he thought to himself.

Her long hair swept beneath her head and her bare neck stirred up animalistic notions in him. Feeling a twinge in his nether regions he looked down the bed to see her round rump pressing against his erection, and quickly pulled his butt back to alleviate the pressure against her.

His heart thumping, he searched the dark recesses of his short term memory to pick out details of how he came to be here. Propping himself up on his elbow he looked across the bed past Morticia and simultaneously grumbled and grinned at the sight of the busty brunette sans catsuit laid flat out and spread eagle next to Morticia, who had buried her face into the mystery woman's freckled breast and resumed her loud snoring.

“Jesus...Christ...” he wheezed. She hadn't said much of anything all night and now Helena was making enough noise to wake up the entire building.

He didn't give the other woman much more thought as a sudden rush of fluid oozed up into his throat and before he knew it he was in the en suite knelt over the toilet bowl bringing up a good three hundred dollars worth of alcohol. With each retch came a foul taste, some reminder of the vents of the last twelve hours. He remembered the club and the small crowd that had gathered around him. He remembered the giant pitcher, the invitation to the VIP lounge, the trip to the private booth with Helena and the other girl...and that was it.

Being a giant, Von Kelsig had a knack for handling his booze. Sure, he may have gotten into some states but he always remembered what he had done the next day. The blackout between the VIP lounge and now, and the smell of sex wafting off his face and body told a different story from the usual drunken escapade.

“Angie?”

He didn't recognize the voice at first, but thinking back to how quiet she had been he knew it had to be Helena. Gobbing out the last stringy line of bile he flushed the mess away and hovered over the sink, wrapping his lips around the faucet and filling his mouth with cool refreshing water, swallowing it down in great gulps until he felt his stomach bulge.

“You alright Angelus?”

Staggering back into the bedroom Von Kelsig found Helena sitting up on the bed, covering her ample chest with the duvet while the other woman began to stir next to her. She looked even more beautiful without the mascara and lipstick and cream foundation she had slathered on the night before that made her one of the Addamses.

“What the hell happened?” He didn't bother to hide his nakedness, or his gut. “I can't remember anything.”

“Well I'm not surprised. You were wasted. We all were.”

The twinkle in her eye and the giggle made Von Kelsig suspicious, but he couldn't figure out why.

“Fucking roofies man. I'm never doing that shit again. Feels like a bomb went off in my guts.”

The other woman sat up in time to catch Von Kelsig's expression change to a look of horror.

“YOU WHAT?!” The giant roared.

“...Thanks Kim. Smart move.” Helena sighed, her soft features tightening up into a sour regret.

Sitting up, Kim smoothed her hair back and covered her modesty with the duvet, surveying the damage around the room. She noticed hand prints smeared across the glass of the sliding door leading to the balcony, and a sheen coming off the knobs at the bottom of the bed. Following the trail of clothes and bottles around the floor she finally laid eyes on the giant, standing bollock naked before them and shaking with anger.

“Oh. Shit. The wrestler. Now I remember,” she moaned, running a hand down between her legs and looking surreptitiously pleased with herself.

“I was date raped?! What the fuck!” Von Kelsig yelled, throwing his arms out and throwing out the fingers of blame.

“Ha!” Helena cried, “You? Date raped??”

“You spiked my drink, didn't you! You slipped that shit into my pitcher last night, that's why I can't remember a goddamn thing after going upstairs!”

“You weren't raped! You fucked us! You had us strip teasing and dancing and grinding on the fucking bed posts before you took turns with us.”

Spotting his boxers on the floor Von Kelsig grabbed them and pulled them on, trying to decide whether he was more angry at her for her deceit or just gutted that he couldn't remember the threesome.

“I don't remember any of it,” he said calmly.

“That's funny, considering you kept telling us it was the best night of your life.”

“I sure had a good time,” Kim added meekly.

He could only imagine in his head from the destruction in the room, the fine bodies sitting on his bed and the smell in his nostrils what kind of night he had had. His reputation as PRIME Universal Champion had taken him from a quiet night on the tiles to a sex, drugs and rock 'n roll frenzy with two fine looking women. Then a frightful pang of guilt spread through his stomach as he played out a million sequences in his head of someone finding out about his debauchery and blackmailing the title, the money, the fame and the glory from him. The Gloria saga had left him with what little respect for women was damming the tidal wave of rage ready to burst forth at that moment.

“Yeah, okay. Killer. Had a good time, got whiskey bent and hell bound, but I gotta get ready, it's...” he bent down and fished his phone out of his jeans pocket, regrettably checking the time, “...quarter to two. I got a meeting I need to get to.”

Of course he had no intention of going to the meeting, and it was only for the little envelope in the top left hand corner of the display that he even remembered it in the first place.

“So, if you gals wanna pack up your things, we'll do this again sometime. I really need to get going.”

“Oh come on Hessy-Poo,” Helena cooed, “let's get some breakfast or something at least.”

A thousand dollars or so on drink. A few thousand more for the room. All the humbling generosity of a champion. He remembered how much he loved his mom and asked again nicely for them to leave.

“Oh don't be like that. You told us last night you run that company of yours. Re-schedule and let's spend the day together, whaddaya say big sexy?”

Starfucker. He couldn't quite believe that they existed in the noble world of rock and roll, a world where for all the violence and machismo everyone was family and looked out for one another and were friend and brother to all. A starfucker in his bed. His id couldn't creep past his superego long enough to turn that contempt for Helena into lust.

Outside the suite, a visitor was sauntering down the corridor admiring the gold-framed portraits in between the windows showing off a stunning view of the city below. Peeking over the sills and succumbing to vertigo each time, he counted off the numbers on the doors until he was only two down from his target.

"JUST GET THE HELL OUT!"

He knew he'd found who he was looking for when the door burst open and a gorgeous looking girl in her undies came stumbling out clutching a ball of clothes. She screamed into the room and spun on her heels, wheeling past him towards the elevators and cursing a familiar name under her breath.

She was followed shortly thereafter by another woman who had apparently been given the time to put her catsuit back on and the courtesy of leaving with a peck on the cheek and a note with something scrawled on it. Neither paid attention to him as they made their way from the room, and humming to himself the figure approached the door and rapped on it three times sharply.

“What is it now??”

Time slowed to a halt as the giant loomed out of the doorway, staring down slightly at where he assumed the girl would be standing again. In that moment the visitor took in every detail; the familiar hulking frame with many more scars than he remembered, a thicker, longer beard than he had ever seen the giant wear, but that same old look of intensity that never seemed to die away from his eyes. Then he looked down at the ground and that look of intensity became one of complete and utter shock.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me...”

“Von Kelsig,” Cyril said with a wry grin, “never figured you for a lady killer.”

The giant remained speechless.

“Well? You gonna invite your old pal Minion in or what?”
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