/Go-Go Spectacular
-Hollywood, CA
-Castor Strife Productions
-Castor’s personal office
It had been a few weeks since the business with Rook Black.
KELLY EVANS had taken something of a backseat in things since then, all part of her continued punishment for becoming a liability to her charge by allowing herself to become kidnapped and held hostage. In the interim, her eyebrows had of course grown back in, but the hair that she’d been forced to cut herself afterward remained a couple of inches shorter than shoulder-length. Absently, she brushed a few loose strands back behind her ears as she spoke to the sculptor who has been busy at work carving ERIC DANE’s face out of a piece of marble.
“How long is this going to take?” Kelly was notoriously impatient. “We haven’t got all week, you know.”
Unlike the laborers who had come before him in his profession, this particular artisan wasn’t a slave to any throne, and wasn’t going to be spoken to like one, especially by some uppity bi
tch who’d probably sucked her way into residency in this particular Hollywood Hills palace of luxury.
“When it’s done...” he growled. “It’ll be done.” He snorted and sneered over his shoulder at the Whore Next Door. “If you don’t stop bothering me, it’ll take longer, and if it takes longer, it’ll cost more, so I suggest you leave me to my work.”
He was proud of himself, shutting her up like that.
Only, apparently he’d never heard of Kelly Evans.
“Listen to me you asshole piece of general labor crap...” She hadn’t torn into anyone in a while, and felt like now was as good a time as any. “Castor VEE Strife is footin’ the bill for this here piece of “artwork” so it can take as long as I damn well please!” She actually made the finger-quotes. “And I can tell you to hurry the fu
ck up until I’m blue in the face, and all you can do is STAND THERE AND TAKE IT if you want to get PAID at ALL!”
He blinked back at her.
“Whatever.”
The sculptor went back to his work, and Kelly sat in Castor Strife’s chair fuming. She’d been left in the mansion and her only responsibility had been to make sure that this sculpture was done before Eric made it back from wherever it was that he’d went. He’d left hours ago, something about going to Compton to the Swap Meet, whatever that meant. Angus had tagged along and so Kelly had been left with Magnus of all people and the entirety of the staff of Castor Strife’s overly extravagant home.
The sad truth of it all was that Kelly was
bored.
Her thoughts drifted back to Magnus. She’d been bossing him around for the majority of the morning, having him run ridiculous errands or follow her around with a mimosa on a silver platter. She’d taken to calling him
her Cupholder.
“Magnus...” she cooed. “Be a doll and bring me another drink.”
She threw long, gammy legs up onto the desk. Her toes were pedicured and her feet wrapped in hundred dollar flip-flops, her legs went all the way up and made an ass out of themselves just past the hem of a
very short tennis-skirt. A silk halter finished off her get-up as she made mean faces at the back of the stone-worker who’d only just put her in her place.
She heard the door open, and the heavy footsteps coming in her direction, but she was so much more focused on giving the sculptor the stink-eye that as she held her hand out for her mimosa she completely missed the fact that Magnus had not been the one to bring it.
“Enjoying my office?”
Kelly’s brow furrowed.
Her drink was then poured right on top of her head. Note that her makeup didn’t run, she had that crazy tattooed-on permanent job that was all the rage now. Kelly’s face turned red and she shot up from her perch between Castor Strife’s chair and his desk, she was about to say something illicit before she realized who it was that she was face to face with.
“Something to say?” ERIC DANE had a mock-amused look plastered on his face. She knew the look, and wanted nothing more than to slap it right off of his skull. Instead she dropped her own eyes to the floor, all the fire gone out of her at once.
“No. Sorry.” She kowtowed.
“Have you been abusing the help again, Kel?”
She met his eyes briefly. “Maybe just a little.”
“Aren’t you on punishment?”
“Yes.
Sir.”
In the background the sculptor snickers as he carves away at the marble. The Only Star chooses to ignore this as he can see the irritation glowing in Kelly’s ears. Her ears always get red when she’s been infuriated by something or someone, and this time was no different.
“And just when I was about to bring you back on the road with me.”
“What!?” She yelped. “REALLY?”
He smiled, her misery was presently his pleasure. “Absolutely not. I have zero intention on going to Lowell, Massachusetts of all places.”
“What about ULTRATITLE?” She asked.
“What about it?” Eric shrugged, contemplating. “Hell, if I wanted to have a little fun with it I could always put you in the ring with Go-Go in my stead.”
A sparkle came to Kelly’s eye.
“I’d cut the bi
tches tits off!”
“Then you’d get me disqualified...” He pauses. “Idiot.”
Her lip curled into a sneer. “I’d do it anyway.”
“Which is precisely why you haven’t been allowed anywhere near TV, either in DEFIANCE or NFW, because for whatever reason and however it came to pass, Rook Black is in your head and he’s got your brain all fu
cked up.”
That last bit was said with an air of finality, but the look on Kelly’s face bothered The Only Star. Of course this was all a game between them, an over-the-top and somewhat mean game, but a game nonetheless.
“It doesn’t help that you haven’t looked at me in weeks.”
“It doesn’t help that you haven’t earned it.” He retorted. Her gaze again fell to the floor. On some level it hurt Eric to see her look defeated like this. Kelly, for her part, had always been the fire that lit the ignition to the party, but since the thing with Rook and the ensuing
punishment she’d been a walking defeated version of herself. “Besides...”
As much fun as it was to torment her, Kelly had always been a valued asset in both his personal and professional life. It really did hurt him to see her moping.
“...good things happen to those who wait.” He smiled.
“You mean...” she stammered. “I’m back on the road?”
“Absolutely not.” He took a seat in Castor’s overpriced chair and pulled her down onto his lap. Kelly suppressed a smile, but not so well that Eric didn’t see it and understand it. Maybe she was on the road to recovery after all.
“What then?”
“You need to get your head back in the game, I’m gonna need you sooner than later, and I don’t really have the time to still be dealing with this mess.” He spoke to her almost like a pet. She didn’t mind, it was better than the growling she’d been getting since Buffalo.
“And so?”
Eric contemplated this for a moment. He turned his head back toward the door where he’d entered and called on his personal monster. “MAGNUS!” The behemoth was through the door in a split-second. Magnus was all tattoos and piercings and blood and guts and whatnot, a clear psychopath and genetic freak. “I need you to do me a solid, Mags.”
The giant nodded.
Kelly furrowed her eyebrows again.
“I need you to take Kelly off somewhere and fu
ck her until she squirts out of her eye-sockets.” He said this all in a very matter-of-fact way.
The Ginormogantuan man in front of him raised an eyebrow.
“I’m serious,” Eric continued. “She does all her good plotting and planning after she’s been stuffed full of cock for a few solid hours, and I’m gonna need her at the top of her game for the later rounds of the ULTRATITLE and for whatever happens with your erstwhile employer in the New Frontier.”
Kelly bounded up out of his lap, her face aglow like a little girl who’d just been given her first pony. As an aside, Kelly had
received her first pony years ago, before she made it in wrestling. “You’re not fu
ckin’ with me, are you?”
“Absolutely not. Just make sure he wraps that thing with a Glad-Bag or something, can’t have any Mini-Magni running around here, now can we?”
She twinkled her way around the desk and curled up on Magnus’s arm. The giant of man looked down at her, then back to the boss for final affirmation. Eric nodded, and Magnus led her away from the desk toward the exit of the office.
“And Kelly!” He called after her. “Make sure you make with the kegel exercises before you come back, wouldja sweetheart?”
“Of course, Daddy!” she cooed as she let Magnum escort her out of the office.
In the meanwhile, all work on the statue of The Only Star had stopped dead as the stone-worker stood there, mouth agape, completely astounded at the scenario that just played out in front of him. This time Eric decided not to let it slide.
“Have you got a problem, marble-man?” Every single trace of goodwill was gone from his voice.
“Ah, it’s just... ya see...” He stammered.
“How about you shut your gaping mouth, turn back around, and finish the job that I’m making sure that Castor Strife pays you entirely too much to finish." Thinking of his wife and kids, the good master-sculptor did as he was told. Besides, it’s not like he’d have to wait long for some more high drama in a house full of people like this. So he decided to settle in for the long-haul, he would make this his masterpiece, and he would learn everything he could about Eric Dane in the process. It would only be necessary if he were going to immortalize the man in marble.
“Also,” Eric went on. “Ignore the fact that I’m about to rant to myself for a few minutes. I’m a wrestler, and that’s what wrestlers do.”
The sculptor nodded and sank back into his work.
Moments passed.
Eric Dane took a calming breath. It was common knowledge that Castor Strife’s house/studio was rigged for audio and video from every angle possible. As it were, Eric Dane’s entire life in Hollywood would be ON-CAMERA and there wasn’t a thing that anybody could do about it.
“Now, where was I?” He asked himself.
“Ah, yes, Go-Go Spectacular.” He extended both hands and gave her a polite clap. “Congratulations on spending four minutes affirming your gimmick to the ULTRATITLE world. I hope you didn’t break a nail while doing your best impression of a
fiery cookie-cutter, dear.”
His face twists in annoyance.
“I feel like I need to ask you, though, did you fail English as a Second Language in middle-school? I mean, I know that you fancy yourself a Mexican, but I’m pretty sure you’re from the Texas side of El-Paso, otherwise we’d have ourselves a few Immigration officers crawling around the tournament looking for your Green-Card.”
“Nah-mean?”
“Anyway, I find it a little odd that you decided to combat my offer of choke-rape with a hunch of hippy-dippy bullshi
t followed up by some Jesus Christ mumbo-jumbo. Really, I mean,
really? A fiery young
latina such as yourself and you can’t even be bothered to even put over the fact that I basically told you I was going to beat you because you’re a girl and if I wanted to have my way with you I could at the drop of a dime?”
“I call bullshi
t.”
“To be perfectly honest with you, I’m not even sure you’ve ever even
met a Mexican, let alone are supposed to
be one. More likely you’re a nappy-headed, wide-eyed idiot who fit the physical description for the terrible character that some promoter somewhere saddled you with and you’ve decided to make a go of it.”
He shrugs.
“I can’t fault you for that, I don’t suppose.”
“What I can fault you for is your grasp on the English language.”
[SMASHCUTTO:
Go-Go Spectacular said:
Wishing are fleeting and for fools. I maybe only nineteen years old but I am not no fool.
...CUTAWAY]
“Come on, man, I’m supposed to take
that seriously?” The look on his face says it all, bored apathy. “I’ve got Eli Flair, Cancer Jiles, and Alias in my bracket, and I’m supposed to take you with your third-grade grasp of the language seriously?”
“If this is the kind of effort that you put into learning the language of the country that you live and work in, how am I supposed to believe that you payed attention to any of your trainers when you were learning how to wrestle?”
“HOW HAVE YOU NOT KILLED YOURSELF OR SOMEBODY ELSE YET?”
“Especially with that bull
shit flippy-doo style of yours.” He slips easily into a mocking smirk. “Honestly Go-Go, I tried to listen to you, to find something of worth bogged down under that bad accent and worse mask, but all I found was fluff, because that’s all you are.”
“Fluff.”
“Cute to look at on the outside, but nothing of consequence on the inside. You can recite your useless cliches at me for as long as you want, but it’s not going to change the fact that in the first round of ULTRATITLE I’m going to peel that mask off of your bleeding face, and make sure that I mangle it enough that your poor mother won’t be able to look you in the eyes anymore...”
“Because I know how much that mother/daughter bond means to you.”
Eric pauses, allowing himself a snicker at Go-Go’s expense.
“And you had the audacity to call out Troy Windham, of all people. TROY G
ODDAMNED FREAKING WINDHAM! A guy who I should tell you I’ve recently smashed in the head with a briefcase full of his own money so hard that it put him in a neck-brace and made him think it was a good idea to start manning up to Mike Randalls of all people.”
Smirk.
“While you’re wasting wet dreams on that scumbag, I can tell you without hesitation that he’s managed the unlucky First Round draw of a guy from DEFIANCE who I pay in MICROSOFT POINTS to sit on loud-mouthed over-achievers for three seconds at a time. What that means is you didn’t draw Troy, you’re not going to make it past me anyway, and even if you did you’d be meeting Eugene Dewey in a masturbation-fest instead of Troy Windham in the match of your dreams.”
He pauses, reaches into the top drawer of Castor’s desk and retrieves his cigarettes. He pulls one from the pack, sticks it to his lips, and lights it.
“So while you’re droning on about Jesus and Troy Windham and whatever else rattles around in that cutesy excuse for a brain of yours, maybe you should stop, take six minutes, and realize that you’re going to be stepping into the ring with a guy who once nailed a friend’s hands to the mat just to win a match in a territory that nobody remembers for a belt that I can’t even tell you if I ever lost.”
“This isn’t going to be some friendly exhibition where I let you get your stuff in and then I get my stuff in and then we go back and forth and then we take it home with a finish that sends the crowd home happy, oh no, this is going to be an outright mugging, from me to you, and it’s going to end with me one step closer to claiming the ULTRATITLE and you one step closer turning tricks for tourists in Cancun to payoff hospital bills the size of the IWF’s entire payroll.”
Eric takes a drag, savoring the calming flavor of the cigarette before exhaling a plume of bluish smoke into the air around him. “Besides...” He takes another drag.
“When this is all over with, nobody’s gonna remember anything from Round One except for the upsets.”
His expression settles into a smile.
“And you, Go-Go, are going to be the ULTRATITLE’s Cinderella over my
dead body. Besides, you don’t have the
balls to get over on Eric Dane.”
He winks. “And don’t you forget it.”
