Ch 4: Slumber Party!
The next time I opened my computer Karen was human again and Nikki was gone. "Hey Sean, what's the problem?" Karen asked me as soon as I sat down behind the computer. She's always had a sixth sense about when things were bothering me. Usually I didn't even need to tell her.
"Just shits real rough with my company right now. It's fucking bullshit! I worked so hard for this. Worked my ass of for it and not it looks like the recession is going to sneak up and snatch it all away from me in a single blow. Worst part is that I made it to where things should have gotten easier again. Maybe not easy but easier." I'm practically crying as I'm talking to her. Going out of business is devastating it's like getting shot.
"What do you mean easier? It was never going to be easy and you should have known that." Karen chides. She's wearing a pair of loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt that does a decent job of concealing her delicious ds. And what do you mean you made it?"
"I was there. Two years. That how long it takes the average business to fail and my two year anniversary is in just over three weeks. By that point I should have been established enough, have enough consistent clientele that I could stop worrying about how I was going to make that money month after month and concentrate on growing the business into something greater. Into something that I could be proud of." I respond and then look up at the door to my shop.
Only three people have passed through it today and I need five to make ends meet. It's rather late in the afternoon I'm only likely to get one more person in today and that's just because they called in, otherwise I wouldn't get my hopes up. This whole week has been like this. Just utter shit.
"So what can I do to help you?" Karen asked as she looked around the void she inhabited. "And give me some kind of background, it's always creepy when you haven't decided where I'm going to be."
It takes me a moment but I will her to a serene lake with a few swans lazily swimming on its surface and shimmering shoals of brightly colored fish beneath. Smooth stones line the parts of the lake that aren't covered in grass. The grass stretches for miles in every direction and not another living thing is around to bother her. She rises to her feet wriggling her painted toes in the grass and looks around. "Paladin?" She asks me.
"Yes Paladin." It's a special place in many of my stories. It's the way that I choose to represent the mindscape. This one is Karen's. It's beautiful and calm just like she is. Mine-
"We don't want to see yours." Karen tries to cut me off but it's too late. The sky is already a dismal grey with little droplets of water falling from it. It's not raining hard enough to be considered rain, nor is it light enough to be drizzle. It's just miserable drops of water falling from the sky onto her head. The swans are gone, replaced with those nasty noisy sea gulls that brazenly steal food from people. The beautiful fish are probably still beneath the surface but the rain conceals them beneath ripples. What can be seen are catfish, probably a full foot long looking up from the depths for something to swallow. I turn my attention back to Karen. Even though she's only been in the rain for a few minutes it's already mattered her maroon curls to her forehead and her shirt is now plastered to her breasts. She might be miserable but she looks amazing. "Okay we've seen your Paladin. It's pathetic. Can we please get back to mine? I'm cold."
It takes a bit of effort to force the world to shift back once again but I manage it and she's back on the sunny shores of her lake lying in the grass. "Sorry about that."
"So how's the writing coming along?" Karen's eyes drift shut as she asks me that question.
"Ok I guess. Least some of it is coming along pretty well. I mean the story with you and your mother-in-law is coming along ok. I think the next story with you might be the Prostitute's Kiss." I tell her. I'm in the middle of watching a porn with one my favorite stars, Keri Sable, getting DP'd. It reminds me of something that I'm supposed to say to Karen while I've got her here. "And the one with you getting her out of an arrest by fucking an entire police squad is kinda dead ending."
"Duh. In real life I wouldn't suck a single dick to keep her out of jail. Nobody is going to believe that my husband is such a control freak that he would divorce me if he knew I masturbated."
"It's true."
"So is the fact that that the Cold War was a conspiracy. Nobody would believe it though." Karen replied.
"The Cold War was not a conspiracy. Anyway why would you protect her, she's family."
"That bitch ain't my family. I don't even like her. And she's a racist but she's not THAT racist. I mean goddamn, the last time I heard so many n bombs dropped I was playing Star Fox 64." Karen responded.
"Wow. Think we can back off the nerd jokes just a bit? Not everybody gets those kinds of jokes. I can't keep telling Sam that he has to write to the masses if he's ever going to find success and then start targeting a microcosm like gamers.