“Boo!”
Charise jerked forward in her chair, bumped from behind. She sputtered and spat up the soda she had just sipped, spritzing it on her desk and legs. “Dunlop! You asshole!”
“Apologies, Charise,” the professor chuckled. The white-haired, wrinkled kook backed up in his wheelchair. “This thing has a life of its own.”
Swatting the soda spray off her jeans, she gave him the side-eye frown and grumbled, “Why are you in a wheelchair? Your legs work better than your head.”
“Because it’s fun!” He spun around in a circle. “Look! I’m a roulette wheel. WEE-ooh!”
“Your brain is a roulette wheel, and it’s missing its marble,” she groused. “You’re too frail to have fun. You’d sprain your lips just whistling.”
“My dear, you will be surprised to know I am still quite limber,” he said, stopping in mid-spin to flash a grin and twinkle his eye at her. “So are my lips.”
He demonstrated by throwing a few puckered kisses at her like a guppy.
Charise removed her glasses to wipe them on her shirt and rolled her eyes up. “Yeah, jerking off to porn in your office keeps you very limber, I’m sure. You’re gonna break your arm.”
“You can always do it for me,” he suggested with a chortle and a hopeful bounce of his powder-white brows.
She smirked, picked up her empty soda can, held it up in his face, and crushed it with her hand.
Dunlop shuddered.
“I’m not that type of lab assistant,” she grumbled, turning back to her desk. She waved her hands over a mess of papers and at her computer monitor. “I’m not any type of assistant. All I do is so-called ‘data’ entry, uploading your nonsense.”
Her elderly employer and self-professed inventor bounced his head side-to-side and sighed. “You’re right,” he said, sounding surprisingly remorseful. “You deserve more productive endeavours.”
“Yeah? Like what?” she scoffed, flipping her cherry red locks of hair back dismissively.
“Well, to be honest, we could use some cash,” he said.
Charise paused, confused, then turned, eyeing him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I’ve run out of funds.”
“What?” She frowned and shook her head. “You’re out of money?”
Dunlop smiled and nodded. “I’m afraid so. Totally broke.”
Charise blinked at him. His wistful expression did not jibe with the apparent urgency of the matter at all. While struggling to absorb the information, she glanced around their surroundings: a decrepit warehouse full of Dunlop’s “inventions” and tonnes of other electronic hardware castoffs he had collected for years. Even though it was all junk, it must have cost him something to gather all of it plus fees for the warehouse, electricity, water…
And he had never sold any of his invention ideas as far as she knew.
Suddenly, it started to make sense that he was broke.
“So… what does that mean?” she asked.
“Well, I’ll probably start stocking up on cat food and then look for a cosy spot in the park by the public washrooms to set up a tarp tent,” he said wistfully. “Hopefully with a view of the lake.”
“Oh,” Charise remarked.
“Then, I’ll wither away and die, I suppose,” he mused while stroking the white and grey stubble on his wrinkled chin as if contemplating the breakfast menu at Denny’s.
“Sounds like a plan,” she mumbled, looking off to the side, distracted.
“And, of course, we’d have to part ways,” he added.
Still turned aside, she grimaced with mild concern. It was a good-paying job, for what it was worth. Not too demanding aside from fending off the professor’s feeble attempts at sexual harassment.
“But, I do have an idea of getting a fresh infusion of cash,” Dunlop said.
Charise chuckled at him dismissively, then jeered, “I’m not becoming a stripper.”
“Oh…” He paused, blinking. “Well, then we can just use the time machine.”
“Oh, God!” she groaned, throwing her eyes upward and turning away again. “I told you I’m not doing that again.”
A month ago, she and Dunlop completed their first successful attempt to send her back in time to 1985. After meandering around the era of hairspray, spandex and shoulder pads for a few hours, and getting into some mischief by accidentally walking into a guerilla porn video shoot, she returned and presented Dunlop with the Holy Grail of the quest: chicken balls from a defunct Chinese take-out joint.
“It’d be a simple errand, Charise.”
“Fuck off.”
“A milk run, practically,” he suggested.
“You want milk? Suck a cow.”
“You would just need to find Barry…”
Charise suddenly paused. “Barry?”
‘Barry’ was also known to her as ‘Apollo Cream’, a porn star she just met during her 80’s sojourn. Well, ‘just met’ was an understatement. She fucked him… under an hour of meeting him, too... in front of a goddamn video camera and film crew. She tried to convince herself that she had been coerced into doing so, but the word ‘LIAR’ crackled in her brain like a neon sign whenever she did.
“Barry has money?” she asked. She closed her eyes and shook her head, agitated. “Who the hell is this Barry guy to you, anyway?”
Dunlop turned in his wheelchair, shrugging. “Just a person I knew, once,” he said as he slowly wheeled away. “He’s a means to an end to provide funds to sustain our little operation here.”
Charise remained in her chair, her lower lip protruding and shifted aside as she thought. It wasn’t as if meeting with Barry again would be an altogether bad thing… God, that snaking tongue and steel cock of his...
“Stupid! Stupid!” she berated herself, suddenly, banging the heels of her palms against her temples. “You can’t possibly be thinking of agreeing to do this again!”
Oh, she was.
“If this works,” Dunlop called out from somewhere in the warehouse, “I’ll double your salary!”
She shook her head again and sighed with self-dismay. “Double and a half!” she shouted back and stood up to shuffle after him.
Right. She was doing this for the ‘money’.
Charise found Dunlop already waiting for her by The Chrono-Jump Chamber, an old jerry-rigged refrigerator. She didn’t acknowledge the cocky, puppet-master grin he was throwing her way.
“So what year am I tripping to?” she asked.
Regarding his tablet, he tapped the screen and replied, “1985.”
“Again?”
“Well, last time that was an accident, remember? It was supposed to be 1984. Not to worry, though. My calculations…” he paused to give his tablet a stiff whack with his hand. “My calculations are perfect this time.”
It didn’t exactly fill her with much confidence the way he continued to shake and smack his control tablet.
When he was done, he looked up smiling. “You’ll be arriving on November 28th, four months after the last time.”
Charise rolled her eyes. The 80’s again. As she limbered up, stretching her arms and legs, getting ready to climb into the fridge, she asked another question: “And once I’m there, I go meet Barry, then what?”
Dunlop reached into his lab coat pocket and produced a sealed envelope, handing it over to her. “Give him that. He’ll know what to do.”
She flipped the envelope around a few times and eyed him. “This isn’t going to screw with the timeline when I get back?”
Dunlop held up Scout’s Honour fingers. “There will be no screwing,” he replied, then leaned forward and winked, “unless, of course, you want…”
“Shut… up!” she interjected and pointed back to her work area. “Remember the soda can?”
He shuddered again.
“I just don’t want to be a part of anything amoral,” said the woman who agreed to star in a porno faster than singing Happy Birthday To You.
As she prepared to get into the fridge, he said, “Oh. I’ve made a few upgrades to the chrono-synchronizer band since last time.”
The modified Fitbit was her anchor to the present. It pulled her back from the past when her time was up.
“Like what?” she asked while strapping the device to her wrist.
“Well, for one thing, you can stay longer in the past. Eight hours,” he noted. Then he pointed to a little red button on the side of it. “That’s your time-hiccup button.”
“‘Time-hiccup’?”
Dunlop nodded, appearing pleased with himself. “It’s a one-time repeat mechanism. The band has enough power to send you back once by about an hour while you’re there.”
Charise regarded the button and nodded. That could actually come in handy, she thought. Not that she would give the old crackpot the satisfaction of knowing he came up with a useful idea.
“You couldn’t think of anything better to call it other than a ‘time-hiccup’ button?” she asked.
“Time-belch? Time-burp?”
“How about something not emitted from your mouth?”
Dunlop looked up and away, grinning crookedly. “I suppose I’m just fixated on my oral proclivities when I’m thinking of you.”
“Fuck…” she sighed and stopped herself. She hadn’t the wherewithal to waste a breath on “you”.
She stepped into the fridge, Dunlop shut the door, and she settled in. As she recalled from last time, she’d only disappear from the present for a few minutes.
After a moment, the interior was illuminated by blue light as the Chamber went into operation with a loud hum. She suddenly recalled a question and knocked on the inside of the door. “Hey, Dunlop! Am I gonna find Barry at the video repair shop again?”
The humming began to grow louder. A charge crackled along her fingers, up her arms.
“Oh, right! That reminds me. I made another upgrade,” the professor called from the other side. “You’ll not only be tripping back in time, but to a different location.”
“What?” Charise yelled, frowning as the machine trembled and her entire body tingled while tendrils of electricity enveloped her. “Where the hell am I…”
Ffz-ZZT!
“... going?!” Charise yelped, stumbling forward, the fridge suddenly disappearing around her. She would have fallen flat on her glasses if not for her head landing against someone’s chest.
“Watch yerself, missy,” the person said, catching her by the arms.
Her eyes rolled around as she froze against the man’s chest for a second. Then, she immediately jumped back and apologized, “Oh, shit! I’m so sorry! I… uh?”
“Easy there, darlin’. You look all shook up.”
Her eye twitched. “Aren’t… aren’t you Elvis?”
The man took a step back. Dressed in a white, high-collared, bell-bottomed jumpsuit and sporting that legendary pompadour-styled hair, he propped his upper lip aside and pointed at her with double-pistol fingers. “That ah am, missy. Uh-huh.”
Charise’s face tightened, sour and confused. She thought Elvis died in the 70’s. Did the professor fuck up? She smirked at herself. Of course, he did.
“Excuse me, missy,” someone else said to her from behind. She turned and faced another doppelganger Elvis, a bit chubbier and wearing sunglasses but decked out in a similar jumpsuit, baby blue and covered in rhinestones. He struck a gunslinger pose and pointed at himself with his thumbs. “But if you’re looking for the King, he is in the building, right here in the flesh. Ahthankyouverrahmuch.”
Charise’s red lips drooped open. “What. The. Actual. Fuck?”
She slowly turned her head and gawked down a line of Elvises --Elvae?-- a baker’s dozen in all, all striking poses, waggling their hips, curling their lips and declaring themselves to be the true King of Rock and Roll.
The first Elvis handed her a ticket: “The One and Only Elvis Revue (Las Vegas Chapter).”
“Compliments of the King,” he said with a cheeky click of his tongue. “Now, you be sure to come out and Elvis personally promises you a night of entertainment that cannot be denied. Glory, glory Halle-luuu-jah!”
The ‘Elvae’ strutted away down the aisle lined with casino gaming tables and slot machines, spectators snapping photos and asking for autographs.
Charise watched them go in a daze as they disappeared around some potted palm trees. Then, she looked up and around finally taking in her surroundings. Judging by all the gaming tables and machines, the ornately decorated furniture and wall, the barmaids in short skirts and stockings, she was in a hotel-casino in Las Vegas.
She sneezed as a woman brushed past her nearly knocking her over with the linebacker shoulder pads of her pastel-pink jumpsuit, the hairspray in her frizzed up ‘do setting off Charise’s allergies.
A group of women wearing frilly black lace dresses, stretched tops and fingerless gloves walked past her sniggering. They eyed her Plain Jane orange sweat top and jeans.
The men around her were similarly attired in mid-80’s style, brightly coloured, blocky suits and low neckline t-shirts. Almost all of them proudly sported wavy mullet hair and the fuzz of five o’clock shadow.
Olivia Newton-John, Linda Ronstadt, and Barry Manilow were all on the marquee, all shows “Sold Out”.
Charise ruffled her with a drag of her hand and sighed. Yep. Back in the 80’s again.
“Excuse me,” she asked a passing barmaid, “what’s today’s date? Um… and year, too.”
As she chewed her gum, the barmaid replied, “November 28, hon’... 1985.” She didn’t seem too bothered by the question about the year and simply walked off in her spiked heels.
Charise wandered the casino and hotel for almost an hour, the bells and whistles of the slot machines tickling her ear, the smoke clogging up her lungs. Giving the professor the benefit of the doubt, she presumed he had intended to send her to Las Vegas. But how the hell was she supposed to find Barry?
“Cherry?” someone called out from behind. It took her a moment to realize that they were speaking to her. “Is that really you?”
She turned and faced a curly brunette dude with bushy brows and a broom-head moustache. Tilting her head back, she frowned and said, “Parker?”
The man unexpectedly reached out and hugged her. She immediately shoved him back and away, cringing.
Parker was the director of the porn film she inadvertently participated in during her first jaunt to 1985. He had the mildew of sleaze about him.
“No way! I cannot believe it’s you! Here! In Vegas!” he declared, unfazed by the odious look she was giving him. “What the hell are you doing here? Did you see our ad?”
“Uh, no,” she said flatly. It was a misunderstanding with one of their stupid ads that got her into trouble the last time. She didn’t bother to explain why she was in Las Vegas and turned the question back on him. “Why are you in Vegas?”
“We’re shooting another movie!” Parker replied.
“‘We’re’... ?” Her eyes widened. “Is… is Barry here, too?”
“Holy smokes,” Parker remarked, openly admiring Charise’s figure, “I’d almost forgotten what a total hard bod you had!”
“Parker!” she snapped, pointing to her mouth. “Is. Barry. Here?”
“‘Apollo’?” he replied, referring to Barry’s porn moniker. “He sure is!”
“Thank god. I need to see him.”
“For sure!” Parker announced, his enthusiasm still peaking at an eleven. “I’ll take you to him right now. He’s so gonna freak when he sees you!”
He led her through the casino towards the hotel lobby, stopping at an open seating area where the chairs faced a wall of televisions. Various horse races were displayed on the screens.
“Judd! Yo, Judd!” Parker hollered.
The person he seemed to be calling to didn’t turn, just hopped around in his seat anxiously while watching one of the races.
“Judd! Goddamn it!” Parker yelled.
A porcine young man seated in one of the bucket chairs reluctantly looked away from the televisions.
“Kid’s got a goddamn gambling addiction,” Parker grumbled under breath. He pointed at Charise. “Look who it is!”
Judd squinted at them, then his eyes finally lit up. He looked back at the television for a moment to see the finish of the race, threw a crumpled piece of paper at the screen, then shuffled quickly over.
“Hi, Judd,” she said. The earnest guy was kind of squirrely and still perpetually glowing with perspiration, but not nearly as off putting as Parker.
“Cherry!” he said with a plump smile as he approached.
“Charise,” she corrected.
Parker and Judd regarded each other, nodding slightly. Then the latter said, “Right. Charise. Hey, I can’t believe it’s you!”
She rolled her eyes and chuckled bemusedly. “Yeah, well, apparently, no one believes it’s me.”
Parker nodded to Judd. “Go get the camera. Let’s take her to see Apollo.”
“He’s gonna freak when he sees you,” Judd remarked.
Charise sighed again. “Yep. I heard that, too. Plenty of ‘freaking’ to go around.”
Judd ran back to his chair and grabbed the video camera.
“He was supposed to be getting pick up shots of the casino for the movie,” Parker explained.
As they rode a hotel elevator up to the top floor, Parker couldn’t stop remarking how excited he was to see Charise again while still blatantly ogling her body. She didn’t pay much attention to him choosing to watch the floor numbers light up instead.
Almost immediately after stepping out and turning down a long corridor, she spotted another familiar figure leaning against the wall outside the last door. He was in a white suit and pink shirt with the collar popped. She tried to steady her lip as the edges of her mouth twitched upward and her heartbeat and step quickened.
“Apollo,” Parker called ahead, “look at who we ran into down at the casino!”
Charise wasn’t surprised that Barry, aka Apollo, didn’t ‘freak’ when he looked up and saw her coming. Cool like a tall glass of Perrier, he pushed up from the wall, turning and smiling his sparkling whites at her. She appreciated that much more than if he had freaked out.
“Hi,” she said with a pleasant grin, keeping it simple. His hair was a little longer than before, wavier, and more a warm golden colour than frosted. Those blue eyes and sharp, handsomely boyish features of his were thankfully unchanged.
“It’s Charise,” Judd noted. She caught him winking at Barry.
“Charise. Great to see you again.” Barry tilted his chin and nodded. “Yeah, nah. I wouldn’t forget you. My homegirl who tastes like cherry.”
Charise tilted her head down and aside, hoping to hide her grin and eyes behind her glasses. Fuck, two seconds in, and he already had her blushing. Yeah, that whip-like tongue of his had done a real number on her.
“And you ran off with my chicken balls,” he noted, chuckling.
On her first time trip, she had returned to her present time the moment he handed her the container of Wicked Wok chicken balls to the delight of the professor.
“Oh… right,” she said, wincing sheepishly. “Sorry for just… disappearing with your balls.”
“Hey, you’re welcome to my balls... anytime,” he said with a smouldering, playful squint.
“Damn this guy,” Charise thought to herself feeling her panties suddenly warming.
He waved her off. “Nah. It was the least I could give you after that amazing… well, you know.”
She swayed her head forward while nodding and shrugged at the same time. Playing coy as well, she said, “Yeah, I know.”
As they continued to grin at each other, Parker leaned in between them, grinning, and said, “After you two fucked each other mental.”
Charise and Barry both put their hands on their hips and turned away, shaking their heads.
Parker stepped away with Judd, sniggering to himself.
“So,” she started, scratching her brow with her pinky, trying to stay focused, “shooting another... ‘film’... are we?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, we are,” he said, always smiling at her. He paused and eyed her. “You’re… you’re not answering our ad again?”
“No,” she replied quickly. She grinned and held up her hands, backing away. “No, no, no... NO.”
She had no idea why she was so adamant in her response. Maybe she realized just a little self-respect and propriety was the best play, at the moment. Focus on the job at hand.
“I wanted to give you this,” she said, pulling out Dunlop’s envelope from her back pocket and handing it to him.
He puzzled over the envelope for a second but didn’t open it. Instead, he noted, “Yeah. I get that you wouldn’t be here to make another movie. It was lightning in a bottle, for sure.”
“More like lightning in a refrigerator,” she thought.
“You were really fantastic, though, Charise,” he said.
“Yeah. You were too, Barry,” she replied, feeling her cheeks warming again. “Oh, you’re probably in ‘actor’ mode. I should be calling you ‘Apollo Cream’, right?”
“Apollo Dream,” he said.
“Really? I thought it was supposed to be an homage to the Rocky movie character?”
“Yeah, well, not after they had that Commie, Drago, kill him off last week. Lame.”
“Oh… right. But his son…” Charise caught herself. The movies about Apollo Creed’s son were still decades away. “Nevermind.”
He shrugged. “Parker wanted me to go by ‘Apollo Reamed’.”
“Of course, he did,” she deadpanned.
“Yo, Apollo,” Parker said, “we ready to shoot soon?”
“Dino’s still in there casting,” he said, nodding his head back to the hotel room door.
“Who’s Dino?” she asked.
“Our, uh, benefactor. Dino Montoya,” Judd explained.
“Like an investor?”
Apollo waggled his head, squinting. “I guess you can call him our Executive Producer? To be honest, Charise, the movies we made after yours didn’t do so hot. We ran out of cash.”
“They ran out of cash?” Charise thought. Why did Dunlop think he could get money from him, then?
“We kind of need Mr.Montoya, so he’s calling the shots,” Apollo continued. “He paid for us to come to Las Vegas.”
“Yeah… by bus,” Parker sighed.
She raised her ginger brows high above her glasses. “Wow. Good to have a fan of your films, then.”
“Just the first one,” he said and unexpectedly reached up to her face and brushed aside a loose lock of hair. “Understandable, I guess.”
Charise stood frozen, staring back at him. God, she wished he hadn’t done that. She sniffed the musk on his hand as it passed by her face like it was the pheromones of Adonis.
“Get out!” a voice from inside the room suddenly bellowed. “All of you, get the fuck outta here!”
Some shrieks and excited chatter approached the other side of the door. It swung open and out spilt a gaggle of women.
Charise backed up against the wall as they streamed past her all in a huff. She frowned, noticing an odd commonality shared by all of them. They all had red hair, although probably only one was an actual natural. The others were dye jobs and at least a couple of them were sporting really awful wigs. They were also kind of dressed… down… sort of like Halloween country bumpkin.
Apollo, Parker and Judd immediately filed into the room while she hung around just outside the door and peeked inside.
A gruff, tall, brawny middle-aged man in a blue blazer and white slacks paced around the room while smoking a cigarette and looking mightily agitated. He mumbled and growled, “No good! No good!”
“No good, Mr.Montoya?” Parker asked.
The man paused and glared at him. “Ain’t that what I just said, you saggy-assed, budget rack, Tom Selleck wannabe, dip wad?!”
Charise stifled a chuckle, then snapped her fingers. Definitely, Parker resembled the Magnum P.I. star… after he was run through a photocopier several hundred times and slicked in grease.
“Where did you bastards dredge up them discount bimbos?” Montoya snarled, puffing his cigarette like a steam engine.
“We took an ad out,” Judd replied. He pointed to Apollo. “It was his idea.”
“Thanks, Judd,” Apollo grimaced. “Sorry, Mr.Montoya. I guess we lucked out the first time.”
“Sorry don’t get me no movie!” the ‘Executive Producer’ spat. He pointed at them with his cigarette. “If we don’t shoot a fucking porno, you guys are paying for this trip, plus interest. Then I’m snapping your dicks off with my bare hands. Comprende?”
Parker and Judd shuddered.
“I wanna see hardcore fucking happen in this goddamn room and put to video by tonight,” Dino Montoya insisted. “Now, what are you butt fucks gonna do about this situation?”
Parker, eager not to be separated from his money or his penis, lit up with an idea. “Actually, Mr.Montoya,” he said as he back-pedalled towards the door, “I think we have just who you were looking for.”
“Parker… no,” Apollo said.
Too late, discount-Tom Selleck nabbed Charise by the arm and dragged her into the room.
Montoya’s mouth flopped open, his cigarette dropping onto the suite’s carpet the moment he laid eyes on her. She wasn’t sure, but it sounded to Charise that he muttered the Holy Trinity in Spanish.
“Holy shit! You bastards! You found her!” he declared. “Cherry!”
“Charise,” the three other men said in unison.
The man welcomed her: “Hello, Charise. My name is Mr.Montoya, but you may call me Dino.”
“Uh, hi… Dino,” she said hesitantly as Parker and Judd prodded her forward. Apollo just partially covered his face with a hand, grinning.
“Let’s see the goods.” Montoya took her hands by her fingertips and held them aloft as he examined her. He didn’t appear disappointed in the least. “Jesus and Joseph. She’s even dressed for the part just like last time!”
Charise’s mouth slipped ajar as she turned her head aside and eyed him suspiciously. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘like last time’?”
She regarded Apollo, Parker and Judd, then looked towards the door where the would-be porn actresses had been unceremoniously kicked through. A realization dawned on her. “Those women were supposed to look like me?” she asked, incredulous. “The red hair? The plain Salvation Army scavenged clothes?”
“You know,” Montoya said to the three men, disregarding her questions, “I think she looks even hotter with the glasses. Let’s keep’em for the shoot.”
“You got it, Dino!” Judd remarked.
“Mr.Montoya to you, you little pie-faced, Pee Wee Herman ghoulie,” the Executive Producer snapped.
“Um… there seems to be some misunderstanding,” Charise remarked hesitantly. “I’m not here to…”
“I’ll pay you double what I was gonna pay one of those bimbos,” Montoya interrupted.
“It’s not the money…”
“Triple.”
“Charise just happened to be in Vegas for a vacation,” Apollo interjected. “We just ran into each other by coincidence. She wasn’t intending to be in our movie.”
“I don’t care why the fuck she’s in Vegas. She could be here with a nunnery tour group, for all I care,” Montoya retorted. “I want her in my fucking porno.”
“Well, you know, Mr. Montaya, that’s not up to you,” Apollo insisted, stepping forward.
The brawny man stepped right into him, as well. “Yeah? That what you think? You think your pretty boy toy Don Johnson mug will stop me from popping your balls like grapes with my fist if we don’t shoot no fucking porno?”
Charise noted Apollo had that “give it a try, fat boy” look in his bright blue eyes. It was gut-tinglingly sexy. Yet, incredibly, it was the thought of the thug, Montoya, crushing his beautifully balanced and totally suckable testicles in his big, hairy paws that spurred Charise into action. “Mr.Montoya,” she said as the two men leaned into each other. “Dino!”
The two men stopped. All eyes in the suite were suddenly on her.
Charise froze, momentarily forgetting what she was going to say. “Ah… actually,” she started, cleared her throat, then tried again, “Actually… I was here on vacation, but then I did see the ad and decided to come out for the audition. The ad was a good idea… Apollo.”
Montoya nodded approvingly at Apollo, suddenly appeased. He said to Charise, “Well, you’ve obviously got the gig.”
Apollo leaned close to her ear and said, “Charise… you don’t have to…”
She smiled at him. “No, it’s okay. I’m good.”
He continued to urge, “No, I mean I don’t think you really know…”
“Right. Settled,” Montoya declared, slapping his large hands together with a thunderous clap, “So, let’s shoot this fucker! Cam! Where are you?”
“Cam?” Charise looked around the room, confused. “Who’s Cam?”
Apollo sighed and rolled his eyes.
That’s when she noticed the guy on the veranda outside, doing the Karate Kid crane kick.
“Get your ass in here, Cam!” Montoya ordered.
Another hunk of prime man, his beefcake body topless, oiled and tanned, entered the suite from the veranda wearing Walkman headphones, bobbing his head and shimmying in his sneakers. His long, molasses-coloured hair was held back by a headband, pink to match his shorts, hugging his hips and crotch tight and leaving very little to the imagination as to what was behind them.
Once again, Charise’s jaw dropped, her eyes locking wide behind her glasses.
“Hey, dudes!” Cam greeted as he slid over and slipped the headphones around his neck. He looked at Charise. “Woah! Who’s the righteous babe?”
“Drop the surfer dude schtick, Cam,” Montoya grouse. “You’re supposed to be fucking Australian.”
“Australian?” Charise asked.
“Oh, right. Sorry, Mr.Montoya,” Cam apologized, jovially. He regarded Charise again. “G’day. Streuth, yer a right Sheila, ain’t ya?”
He sounded like he had had a stroke.
“Cock-a-mile Done Me, is my name. Gettin’ Sheilas like yerself done is my game!”
“Cock… Cock-a-mile… Done Me?” Charise stammered, her brows pinching painfully. She could barely enunciate.
“I came up with that,” Parker declared.
Of course, he did.
“Parker saw the trailer to some upcoming film from Australia and was hooked,” Apollo remarked. “He supposedly did ‘research’ about the movie and country. He thinks it’s going to be the next big thing or something.”
Charise blinked, stunned that the moustached-lizard would eventually be proven right.
“Strike while the shrimp on the barbie is hot, babies!” Parker beamed.
“We’re not calling him that,” Montoya griped. “It’s an asinine name, for fuck’s sake. It’s Cam.”
Parker slunk away in dismay.
Holding her bottom lip with her teeth, Charise thought for an anxious moment then pointed at Cam and asked, “So, uh, who exactly is he supposed to be?”
“He’s your co-star, sweetcheeks,” Montoya declared.
“My…” she paused then looked back at Apollo. “You mean, you’re not…”
Apollo nodded to her, grinning bemusedly. “Um, this is the movie you just agreed to star in,” he said as he handed her the one-page script.
Charise gawked at the title: Sin City Vice: Double or Nothin’.
“Oh, fuck,” she muttered.
“Yeah, baby,” Parker chortled in her ear, “both of them!”
“Fair dinkum!” Cam said.
A few minutes later, while Parker and Judd continued to prep inside the suite, Charise stood on the veranda overlooking the city. She flipped the sheet of paper that was the script over and over in her hands aimlessly, not really giving much thought to the words typed on it.
A warm desert breeze brushed her hair. Leaning on the railing, she looked out at the blue sky and smirked at herself. What the hell was she doing?
“Hey,” Apollo said as he walked up and leaned against the railing beside her, “you okay?”
She pouted her lip and nodded silently to herself for a second, then looked at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
It wasn’t as if the two strangers she just committed herself to fuck at the same time were Parker and Judd. Apollo and Cam with their Michelangelo sculpted faces and physiques were on the opposite side of the universe in that regard.
“Dino is kinda intense,” she said, nodding back to Montoya. Honestly, the dude was so hot for her, she was surprised he didn’t work himself into the script.
“Yeah, he is kinda harsh,” Apollo chuckled. “I think he watched Scarface a few too many times.”
Charise thought for a moment. “Oh. Ohh! Dino Montoya. Tony Montoya. Scarface. Right. Got’cha.”
“I told Judd to put a few shots of tequila into him,” Apollo said with a wink. “He’ll mellow out a bit. And speaking of which…”
He handed her a little glass.
“Thanks,” she accepted. She took a stiff shot, winced, then gasped with satisfaction.
“Hey,” he said, “I just wanted to say thanks again for doing this. You’re saving my ass, you know?”
She propped a brow and nodded downward. “You’re lucky you’ve got an ass worth saving.”
And a tongue…. And a cock…
They both chuckled and looked back over the city with a cleansing sigh.
“So, is this what you really want to do with the rest of your life?” Charise said. She wasn’t sure who she was asking, him or herself.
“I don’t know,” he answered wistfully. “You know, I’ve got some ideas but they’re kinda crazy.”
Charise turned to him, intrigued. “Oh, really? Like what?”
He shook his head, grinning and blushing like a schoolboy with a secret. “Nah. You’d think I’m nuts.”
She nudged his arm playfully. “C’mon. Try me.”
“Well,” he started while fiddling self-consciously with his fingernails, “did you catch that movie, ‘Back to the Future’, in the summer...?”
“Alright! Let’s shoot a fucking porno, already!” Montoya hollered from inside the suite, interrupting Charise before she could reply. He didn’t seem mellow at all.
Judd scurried onto the veranda and handed her another sheet of paper. “I made some revisions to the script,” he said.
“You made? You’ve moved up from Best Boy to the scriptwriter, huh?” she noted with a spike of her brow. She looked at the sheet. “Judd… this is a horse race betting schedule.”
“Oops. Wrong pocket!” He pulled out another sheet from the back of his pants.
She glanced at the script with red pen marks scribbled all over it. “It’s even shorter now.”
“Yeah. Mr.Montoya’s suggestions,” he conceded. “He just wants to get to the… y’know… ‘good’ part. The part where you...”
“I get it, Judd!" She rolled her eyes and read the script. "I see I’m still just known as ‘Hot Chick #1’. Why even bother with the numbers?”
Disregarding her question, Judd asked hopefully, “Do you need fluffing?”
“No, I don’t need fluffing!” she snapped.
“She’s perfect the way she is, Judd,” Apollo said.
Disappointed, Judd schlepped back into the suite. As Charise glared at his back, she suddenly felt a gentle peck at her cheek. She tilted her head aside and found herself staring into the smiling eyes of Apollo, up close and very personal.
“I know you’ll be great,” he breathed with a curl in his pink lips. “I’ll try my best to be great with you.”
Charise chewed her bottom lip, her sight shifting rapidly between his inviting eyes and tempting mouth. “Um… I guess you don’t need any fluffing, either?”
“Trust me. You’re all the fluffing I need.” He leaned close enough to her that the back of her hand brushed inadvertently at his crotch.
No, he definitely did not require any fluffing.
Apollo led her back inside where Cam was doing jumping jacks and other aerobics exercises, getting his body all hot and shiny. The dude was a high octane engine, for sure.
“Where did you guys find Cam?” she asked Apollo.
“He was peddling samples of Jolt Cola out on the strip in front of the hotel,” he replied. “Mr.Montoya recruited him on the spot when we arrived.”
Cam got into costume. In other words, he put on an oversized lemon-yellow blazer over his shirtless body. The pink headband and shorts and white sneakers remained.
Apollo was already in costume and Mr.Montoya insisted again that he wanted Charise to stay the same wearing the clothes she arrived in and her glasses.
The two male leads were directed to go and wait outside the hotel suite in the corridor. Apollo winked at her and gave her the thumbs up before he shut the door.
Judd was behind the camera and Parker was seated in the Director’s chair beside him when Montoya stepped in. He slapped Parker on the arm. “Outta the chair, dickweed,” he growled.
Parker nearly fell as he scrambled from the chair, and Montoya settled in heavily, lighting up another cigarette.
Charise giggled to herself, watching Parker all flustered. She needed all the chuckles she could get, to be honest. Turning her back to everyone, she shook out her arms and hands, blowing puffs of air in hopes of breathing out her nerves.
Maybe this is how she gets the money that Dunlop sent her for, she thought. Could Montoya be really paying her that much? Was that the reason she was doing this? Who was she kidding? She was just horny as hell for Apollo. And Cam was just as hot. But both of them at once?
She winced. Too many questions! “Don’t think!” she mumbled to herself.
“Let’s fuck already!” Montoya announced impatiently.
“Right, um… Judd, start the camera. A-and action!” Parker croaked, standing nervously beside the exec.
Charise held her breath.
There was a knock at the door. “Las Vegas Vice! Open up!”
She walked stiffly to the door and opened it up. Apollo and Cam stood there with sunglasses and quickly flashed their plastic badges. They were also both awkwardly holding plastic guns, for some reason.
“I’m Detective Rocket,” Apollo said with a cool, Clint Eastwood, sneer and gaze. “This is my partner, Detective Butts. LVPD Vice.”
“G’day, miss,” Cam slurred through a crooked grin. “I’m Austra-aay-lian.”
Charise swallowed and nodded anxiously. “Detectives Rocket and Butts, what may I do for you?”
“Where’s your boss, bitch?” Cam snapped unexpectedly.
“You’re supposed to be the Good Cop, Cam,” Parker whispered.
Apollo nudged Cam and nodded at Charise. He hissed, “Where’s your boss, bitch?”
“He-he’s not here,” Charise said. “Can I help you?”
The two men walked in, forcing her to back up. “We want to ask you some questions,” Apollo insisted, slamming the door shut behind him.
“You… you two just can’t barge in here,” she said. “Do you have a warrant?”
“We don’t need warrants when we have these...”
The two men held up their toy guns.
“...and these… “ said Cam as they both grabbed their crotches.
Off to the side, Montoya leaned forward in his seat, grinning as he took a drag of his cigarette.
“Where’s your boss stashing the coke, bitch?” Apollo asked.
“The coke?” Charise replied. She shrugged her shoulder to her chin and smirked. “Like Coke Zero?”
Apollo and Cam cocked their heads back and looked at each other, momentarily confused.
“Psst! Don’t improvise, Charise,” Parker directed.
“Shut up, Parker,” Montoya snapped. “Let her do whatever.”
“Crikey, Rocket! We got ourselves a bloody come-eee-dian Sheila. Streuth!” Cam said through a frozen smile.
“The cocaine, bitch! Don’t make us use our warrants,” Apollo growled and they both grabbed their crotches again. “Tell us now!”
Apollo was ramping up the intensity, leaning into Charise. She liked it… a hella lot.
“Now, now. Calm down, Bruce,” Cam said, patting Apollo on the chest.
“You asshole cops won’t get anything outta me!” she declared, getting into the role.
She tried to turn away, but Apollo grabbed her by the arms and shook her, snarling into her face. “Yeah, bitch? What if we put something into you? How about a couple of things? Hard things? Long things? Deep into you?”
Judd mouthed along with the words as he spoke them. Montoya burned through his cigarette with one long drag before casting it aside, leaning forward even further, hands folded tight.
As she listened to Apollo threaten her and shake her by the arms, Charise almost broke script again, stopping herself from shouting, “Yes! Do it!”
“Butts,” Apollo ordered, “tear this place apart!”
Cam proceeded to amble around the room, gingerly tipping over the decor and pushing pillows to the floor. He couldn’t stop himself from snickering. Finally, he turned back and said, “I got nothin’, mate! We’re bloody buggered! I’ve checked everywhere, fair dinkum!”
“Not everywhere,” Apollo said, still sneering. He shoved Charise back onto the bed. “I guess we gotta do this the hard way, then.”
“I reckon we gotta tie me kangaroo down, Bruce,” Cam chimed in, just blabbering Aussie gibberish at this point.
“Fuck you!” she spat.
“No, baby,” Apollo hissed as both he and Cam stepped up to the edge of the bed, standing over her, primed and ready, “Fuck you.”
They moved to join her on the bed but Charise suddenly held up her hands and said, “Wait!”
The two men stopped. The trio by the camera looked confused.
Charise sat up on the edge of the bed. She adjusted her glasses and sweater, folded her arms, then peered at the men with a cool gaze. “How do I know you have the authority… and the ability... to conduct a proper investigation?”
Apollo and Cam tilted their chins. “Um…”
“I think I have the right to inspect the tools to be utilized for this probe,” she sniffed.
Parker whispered, “You’re improvising again!”
Montoya slapped him in the stomach with the back of his hand. “What did I tell you, numbnuts? I said she can say and do whatever the fuck she wants!”
“B-but she’s going off-script…”
“I don’t give a fuck about the script!” Montoya shouted, snatching the paper from Parker’s hand and tossing it aside. “The script is a piece of shit!”
Judd couldn’t hide his hurt behind the camera.
Unfazed by the bluster off-camera, Charise wiggled deeper into the bed, clearly enjoying herself. “C’mon. You two are supposed to be LVPD’s finest, or so I’ve heard. Whip’em out.”
Apollo and Cam shrugged, unzipped and dropped their bottoms and underwear.
Charise’s eyes narrowed as she pinched her chin with her fingers, pursing her lips. It was all she could do to hide her elation at being presented with a lineup of two very handsome, meaty lengths of cock for her perusal.
She shifted on the bed and beckoned Cam to step forward. Leaning in close, she took up his cock and lifted it up. “Australian, you say?” she said before smiling and giving his tip a sniff and a lick. “Well, your dingle doesn’t smell like a dingo, at least.”
She gave his tip a kiss before taking it into her mouth with a deep suck. After just a few seconds of her talented tongue and mouth going to work on his shaft, Cam raised his head, his mouth widening and his eyes going almost cross-eyed. “Cr-crikey,” he gasped.
Apollo, waiting patiently by Cam’s side, grinned at him as if to say, “I told you so.”
Judd swallowed hard as he held the camera steady. He suddenly recalled, as well, how talented Charise was at giving a blowjob.
Cam really did have a tasty cock, she thought as she drew her mouth repeatedly over the ample length of stiffening muscle while cupping his sack with her fingers. Probably the best thing, though, about sucking him dry was it got him to shut up with the stupid Aussie expressions. As he held the side of her head and pumped his hips forward, he settled for simple “oohs” and “ahhs” and “yes, baby’s”.
“Fuck, she’s good,” Montoya muttered looking on intently with his lips behind his folded hands. “Now suck Apollo’s.”
Charise didn’t need to be told twice. She withdrew her red lips from his glossy cock with a soft slurp, then shifted aside. “That’s not a cock,” she said through a wicked grin, then raised Apollo’s long, thick shaft. “This is a cock.”
Apollo and Cam frowned, not understanding.
Charise shrugged. She guessed that scene didn’t make it into the trailer. Once again, she filled her mouth with a big, heaping portion of man meat.
“Yeah, baby!” Parker coached enthusiastically from aside. “Lick it down his length. Yeah, paint his balls. Good. Yeah, play with Cam’s cock at the same time. That’s bitchin’!”
“Will you shut the fuck up?” Montoya finally shouted at him. “She doesn’t need your fucking Siskel & Ebert critique! Go get the other camera and get in there!”
Meanwhile, Charise had a grip on both men, alternating between the two of them, sucking them and stroking them. It was a smorgasbord of virile, hard cock.
“Wh-where’s the cocaine, bitch?” Cam gasped.
“You...” Apollo paused to swallow and wet his lips, “You’re supposed to be the Good Cop, Butts. I’m the Bad Cop.”
Charise pulled her mouth off of his tip and spat a glob of saliva onto him. Smearing it over his cock with a churn of her hand, she looked up and smiled. “Mmm… you’re both the Good Cop. Really good. You can probe me now.”
Montoya clapped his hands. The heat was officially on.
Apollo and Cam slowly curled down and forward towards her. Charise welcomed them with her mouth and body as they took turns kissing her with darting, lashing tongues while stripping her of her clothing.
“Glasses stay on,” Montoya reminded them. He added under breath, “Christ almighty. That is one fucking hot redhead.”
Neither actor was going to dispute that as they removed the remainder of their clothing, their hungry eyes always upon her. Kissing and fondling her, they eased her nude, creamy body back onto the bed. She settled into the soft sheets and delighted in the duel sets of masculine hands and lips indulging on her nubile flesh.
Judd and Parker were both on cameras now, carrying the rigs on their shoulders as they moved around the bed for the best shots.
Charise gasped when she felt Apollo’s finger angle upward in her pussy, tapping her sensitive G-spot, and pressing his thumb against her clit. She gasped again when Cam wrapped his mouth around her pert pink nipple and sucked on it hard. All the while as they continued to run their lips and tongues against her moaning mouth and tingling flesh, she stroked their hard cocks feverishly.
Pushed further on the bed, she leaned back up against the pillows and cushioned headboard. Cam stood up on the bed, his feet straddling her, and pushed his cock into her yawning mouth once more. Charise accepted it with gracious, greedy sucks, then groaned languidly when she felt the tickle of a wet, slick tongue at her pussy.
“Still tastes like cherry,” Apollo breathed through a sharp grin before pasting her pussy lips and bud with succulent flicks of his tongue.
“Oh my fucking god, that tongue of his!” Charise thought, even as she continued to give Cam’s cock her all. Her brows pinched as her eyes squeezed shut behind her glasses, trying to concentrate although her body flinched and hitched of its own accord against Apollo’s swirling, stabbing tongue.
She stiffened suddenly, her lips still wrapped around Cam’s cock, then trembled and exhaled a harsh, ragged groan. She bucked her hips, shoving her dripping pussy against Apollo’s mouth as she orgasmed for the first time. Finally dropping the shaft from her gaping mouth, she gasped with pitched breaths, “Oh, fuck! Oh my god! Fuck me!”
“Someone fuck the poor girl already!” Montoya ordered.
Parker and Judd scrambled around the bed nearly colliding into each other as the trio shifted around in earnest, gasping and groaning like beasts, their tight bodies all flushed and glowing.
All of them kneeling upon the bed, Charise was sandwiched between the two men, their hard bodies pressing against her overheated flesh. She kissed Apollo who knelt before her, trading spit with their tongues while stroking his cock. He continued to dance his fingers along her now damp snatch.
Cam reached around from behind to give her tits a sturdy grope. She bullied her hips back, nestling the sexy curve of her ass against his crotch, seemingly implying that he was being offered the honours of first go.
With a grip on her torso and a dip of his hips, he nuzzled his tip into position and then eased in with a broad thrust. He was long and oh so very hard.
Fair dinkum, for sure.
“Uhn… mm-yes,” Charise gasped, tilting her mouth away momentarily from Apollo’s kisses.
He immediately seized her face and pulled it back, anchoring her mouth to his with his tongue. Charise braced herself against his solid frame as Cam revved up his body, grinding into her from behind.
“Judd, pull back for a wide shot of all of them,” Montoya said, fully taking over the director’s reins. “Parker get yer flabby ass around to the other side. Zoom onto that amazing hooch of hers. I want to see some cock action.”
Charise didn’t need to see that ‘cock action’. She was experiencing it in every other sensory way.
Pushed gently from behind, Charise eased down onto her hands and knees. Cam continued to fill her with rigorous thrusts but Apollo’s cock took the place of his lips and tongue along and within her mouth.
Montoya clapped again as if he was watching a ballgame. “Fucking hell, what a babe. Just knocking it outta the park.”
Cam’s fingers dug into her soft flesh along her hips as he banged his crotch against her ass with crisp smacks. In front, Apollo and Charise locked eyes as she looked up, sucking indulgently on his delicious cock. While he watched with immense, beaming satisfaction on his handsome face, he swept back her long red hair, gripping a clutch of it at her back. He was even mindful to reposition her glasses as they slipped down her pointy nose due to the stiff rattling thrusts from behind and the perspiration on her glistening face.
For a person who had no trouble travelling through it, Charise didn’t seem to care how quickly she lost track of time while being banged by two stallions in their prime. Yet as many minutes passed, she remained energized and invigorated. She was more than ready for Apollo after Cam finally withdrew and the men exchanged places.
“I’m out of battery!” Judd announced.
“Well, move your ass and get another one,” Montoya ordered. Truthfully, he was running a tighter ship than Parker ever would. He barked at the former Director, “Hey, Selleck-light. You get in there. I don’t want to miss a thing.”
What he didn’t want to miss was Apollo angling his cock against Charise’s pretty, pink pussy lips as he knelt between her legs, her lying back on the bed. Grasping her ankle aside, he swayed his hips forward. The video camera lens zoomed in, in sync with his shaft slipping inside of her.
“Oh-h… fuck! Yes!” Charise groaned. Cam was good --very good-- but she’d been waiting to feel Apollo’s cock in her again for… well, decades. He didn’t disappoint.
“Get’er done, mate,” Cam rasped, his faux Aussie accent noticeably dropping. Sweating harder than he did from the jumping jacks, he slaked his thirst for her hot flesh by suckling on her tits. While he stroked his cock, he gasped, “Streuth, you’re a beauty Sheila. I defo can’t get enough.”
Apollo knew the feeling. The look on his face told Charise he felt the second time with her was as good as the first, even if he had to share. His mop of golden hair droopy with sweat, his face shiny and blushing, he rocked his head back with every deep, grinding thrust, all the while grinning as if high on lust and desire for her.
To his credit, Charise felt the same way and wasn’t afraid to be vocal about it. “Fuck! Yes, Apollo! Sh-shit. Ohh, god! Harder! Fuck! Harder!”
“You heard the girl,” Montoya demanded with an encouraging wave of his hand, “put some oomph into it, you wusses!”
Apollo immediately “put some oomph” into it. They all did. Minute-after-minute, position-to-position, the trio found new combinations to express and enhance their sexual rapture till they were sultry, sweaty morass of flesh and wanton lust. Cam had a go working ‘Down Under’ a few times, and while he didn’t have Apollo’s snake-like tongue, Charise’s quivering pussy had no complaints.
Like her male counterparts, Charise couldn’t get enough of either of them. Their smell, their taste, the sounds of their lustful groans and growls echoing in her ear, their throbbing cocks alternating impatiently, taking their turns in her slick, warm snatch. Even as their motions became more brusque, rough and rugged, spinning her around, tossing her over, digging into her flesh, pulling at her limbs, and filling her with zealous thrusts, she delighted in all of it. While the two studs jockeyed for position, she greedily enjoyed them both at her leisure.
As with the eyes of the video cameras weighing on their shoulders, the cameramen watched in silence but intently, focused in, zooming in and out of the action. From his seat, Montoya directed them all with nods of his head and gestures of his hands, the slit along his lips stretched to a salacious grin.
Now riding hard on the cock of a prone Apollo while continuing to kiss and jerk off Cam kneeling beside her, Charise was peaking yet again. Cam reached down between her thighs, teasing her quivering clit with his fingers, sucking on her tongue as he probed her mouth with deep kisses. Beneath her, Apollo rolled his hips, rocking her like a hobby horse, jamming her with churning shifts of his stiff cock. Her slick, sexy body swayed to the rhythm of her studs.
“Bring her home, boys,” Montoya said with an unexpectedly steady voice.
Gasping, Charise broke away from Cam’s kisses. She squeezed her eyes tight behind the foggy, streaked lenses of her glasses, gripping Cam’s cock with one hand, digging her nails into Apollo’s chest with the other. She trembled and quivered, swallowed and groaned, “Oh. Ohh! F-fuck!”
She came hard, spilling her juices all over Apollo’s hard cock still buried deep inside of her. Her chest shook as she continued to gasp while Cam lashed at her nipples with his tongue.
Both men were breathing huskily, erratically, with fixed, yet fiery looks in their gleaming eyes. Cam came first, shooting his spunk all over Charise’s fist and onto her lap as she continued to pump him. He rumbled a groan against her ear, nibbling at her lobe, blowing hot breath across her cheek, “Mmm... goddamn, you’re so hot.”
Below, Apollo lurched his hips, his flat stomach tense with strain, gritting his teeth.
“Hold it,” Montoya directed, “Pull out first.”
Almost struggling to contain himself, Apollo growled his breaths while he hurriedly withdrew and pulled out from beneath Charise.
She immediately gathered him into her arms as he got to his knees and smothered him with sultry kisses while he gripped his cock between them. She felt his jism splatter on her lower belly in two harsh shots, oozing more strands as he continued to stroke himself. His slick spunk raced down her thigh, dribbling onto the bedsheets.
The men continued to rub their slippery, hard bodies against her, her pale, milky flesh smothered between their tanned skin. She turned her head slowly back and forth between them, showing her appreciation with long sucks of her lips and delving dips of her tongue at their mouths.
“Say the line,” Montoya directed.
Apollo leaned back, grinning. “We’re still gonna need to take you in for questioning… bitch.”
She grinned back at him, panting, “Okay. I’ll bring my own cuffs.”
“Streuth,” Cam chuckled.
“Cameras pull back, aaand… “ Montoya held his hand up before dropping it. “...end.”
Parker and Judd immediately dropped the heavy cameras from their shoulders with a sigh of relief. They both looked like they needed a bottle of tequila each.
On the bed, the threesome continued to kiss and fondle each other, basking in the glow of their sweat and heat, and the Vegas sunshine.
Montoya stood from his chair, dabbed his brow with a kerchief and lit another cigarette. He paused and pointed at them all. “And that, you bastards, is how you shoot a fucking porno.”
Judd almost saluted the man as he strolled to the bathroom.
Later on, Montoya paid for dinner at the grand buffet, and afterwards, he returned to the suite to review the tapes with Parker. Judd headed back to the casino. Cam suddenly remembered that he had left his Jolt Cola sample cart unattended the entire day and needed to run back for it. Before he said goodbye --or “G’day”-- he wrote his phone number down and gave it to Apollo. He felt, after today, he may have found his calling as a pornstar.
Ah, Sin City...
That left Charise and Apollo --now back in Barry-mode-- to stroll the Strip in the evening.
“I get this feeling that you’re going to disappear again,” he asked, grinning. “What if I didn’t buy you chicken balls?”
She giggled and shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you won’t see me again.”
He smiled and nodded, seemingly agreeing.
Charise laughed, “I can’t believe you guys were trying to find a lookalike replacement for me.”
“No one could replace you, Cherry,” he said thoughtfully. “Before I forget, here’s your pay.”
She took an envelope from him and looked inside, then paused.
“Not enough?” he asked, noticing she didn’t seem very enthused by her payment. “I think Mr.Montoya actually did give you triple the pay.”
She shook her head. “No… it’s fine.”
She just didn’t think it was enough to sustain Dunlop’s mad scientist operations back at the present.
“So, what do you want to do for now? Catch a movie?” he asked.
Charise looked at the chrono-synchronizer band around her wrist. She hadn’t used the time-hiccup, yet. Then she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, the horse race schedule.
Turning to Barry, she asked, “Where’s Judd?"
--0--
Ffz-ZZT!
Back in the present, Charise stepped out of the refrigerator only a few minutes after having climbed into it and was immediately greeted by Dunlop, still wheeling around in the wheelchair.
“So,” he asked, “did our little plan work?”
She scoffed, “What 'plan'? You just dumped me in Las Vegas in 1985 and that was it.”
“Well, did you get the money?”
She sighed and tossed him the envelope with her pay from the film shoot. “That’s all of it. I don’t know how that’s supposed to keep you from eating cat food in a month’s time.”
As she headed off towards the exit, Dunlop looked at the cash and smiled. It would do just fine, he thought. He called out to her, “So, nothing... ‘amoral’... occurred, I hope?”
Charise continued walking away and shrugged. “Nope.”
Once outside of the warehouse, she stopped and took out another envelope from her back pocket. She looked at the fat wad of cash stuffed in it and grinned.
It was amazing how many horse race trifectas a person could win in an hour.
--0--
Back in his warehouse office, Dunlop finally got out of the wheelchair and walked over to his bookshelf where he kept his Taste of Cherry video collection. He pulled out number two in the series, Double or Nothin’.
After popping the tape into the VCR, he settled into his easy chair and tossed the envelope of cash aside. Maybe he’d use it to get his fireplace going or practice origami later.
For now, he just wanted to sit back in his chair and enjoy a fucking porno.
--0--
November 29th, 1985
Barry leaned up against the side of the telephone booth cradling the receiver between his shoulder and cheek while he spoke to his investment broker. He reviewed the sheet of paper he had found inside the envelope Charise had given him.
“Yeah, that’s right. I’m sure,” he confirmed, “All of it. Everything. Equally in those four stocks. That’s it. Thanks.”
He hung up and pocketed the envelope. Standing on the busy Las Vegas streets, he thought of something to do to kill time before his bus departed. Then he noticed the marquee above a movie theatre across the street: “Summer holdover feature: Back to the Future.”
Smiling, he headed across the street. He had been really wanting to see that movie again.
Charise will return in
The Totally Accidental Time-Tripper, Part 3
(A Dino Montoya Production)
… maybe …
“Dunlop has left the building… WEE-ooh!”
