While The Muse is Away…

by Hypatia

 

The noise of the forest was quite disconcerting; the jungle of a night is a place alive. The man though seemed untroubled by the movements around him; the passage of a large snake, a medium size boa, which stopped to investigate his groinal region, only produced a minor reaction.

Through the night vision goggles, he looks down the road towards the compound.

"They do make it so easy don’t they," he whispers as he stands up, he is dressed for dinner and despite lying on the floor his suit is immaculate. "Only four of them guarding a place like this."

He walks along the uneven track, to the drug lab, hidden deep within the primeval Columbian Jungle and the jungle seems to take on an unnatural silence. Not a sound can be heard, until he is only yards from the entrance to the compound, then there is a loud ‘crack’ as he a step on a twig.

"Halt who goes there, friend or foe?" an accented voice shouts out and a small man with a goatee beard and moustache peers into the darkness.

"Foe I am afraid, I don’t suppose you would consider surrendering?" Our Hero asks. The man with the goatee responds by reaching for the automatic weapon, slung across his shoulder.

"Thought not," the solitary man shouts, his hand becomes a blur of motion, there are two rapid shots and two men fall. He dives for the limited cover offered by the gate pillar. From inside one of the other two guards opens fire; the machine pistol chattering away keeps our solo adventurer pinned for a moment. He takes a deep breath as another weapon joins in, waits for the inevitable pause in the firing and dives to the ground firing as he moves. Two shots ring out and there is silence, the man stands up and walks towards the man with the goatee.

"You should have surrendered," he tells him as the man lies dying in a pool of his own blood.

"Where is ‘The Sand Martin’? Where is he hiding?" he demands of the dying man.

"He…he…" the man starts to say when he is interrupted by a booming voice from above. The Voice of a God destroys the mood of the moment.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CALL THIS CRAP?"

"Action adventure, thriller. I think…It’s a bit hard to tell," the man with the pistol answers peering into the night sky.

"FOUR PEOPLE DEFENDING THE BIGGEST DRUGS LAB IN COLUMBIA?"

"Count yourself lucky we got four, do you realise how over utilised primordial jungle is? I have spent all night falling over hidden drugs labs and avoiding lost cities, we have half the cast from ‘Predator’ playing around out here. You wouldn’t believe how many giant apes we have running around this jungle." Our Hero replies accusingly.

"AH WELL, SORRY. " the voice answers uneasily at this observation, "THERE IS ALSO YOU…WE ARE VERY DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR PROGRESS."

"What is this ‘WE’? It must be ‘The Royal We’ as no one is ever going to read this crap, just because you have all the talent and imagination of a poorly evolved juniper bush don’t start blaming me"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT JUNIPER BUSHES FOR AND WHO ARE YOU TO CRITICISE MY WRITING?"

"That is just it, I am the one person to criticise your writing, no one ever read anything you wrote and as yet we have the first twenty pages of seven books underway." The man looks disgustedly into the sky, pauses for a second, "and look at me, your one attempt at characterisation. You, end up with a character as believable as Scooby Doo. Wooden doesn’t come into it, you could chop me up and make a boat out of me…Damn it why do I have to make these stupid comments all the time?"

"BECAUSE A HERO ALWAYS MAKES QUIPS AS HE KILLS THE BAD GUYS…THINK OF JAMES BOND."

"Yes but his author could write elegant quips, you can’t even write from the same point of view most of the time. Look at that Western you started, slipping between first and third person so often that I was feeling seasick, no one expects a western novel to be good but there are limits to what a reader will put up with. But as I said that isn’t exactly a problem."

"WELL YOU AREN’T EXACTLY AN ACTION HERO BURSTING WITH ACTION, ARE YOU?" The omnipresent voice asks with a tinge of anger in its voice.

"Well who is to blame for that?" The hero asks scornfully. "Last week I was ‘Long John Thomas’, whoring and wenching my way across the Spanish Main. I was the pirate with the biggest ‘weapon’ in the New World. I still have that ‘weapon’ and now I am crawling around the Columbian Jungle in a suit. Do you realise how little protection you get from amorous snakes when you are dressed for dinner? Thank god the Western was your first attempt at a book, riding a horse would be a physical impossibility at the moment."

"I AM YOUR CREATOR…YOU SHOULDN’T CRITICISE ME."

"Look I have a two pack a day cigarette habit from my excursion into the world of Samuel Schweitzer, Jewish Private Investigator in 1930’s America. I have a drink problem from the ‘Gut Rot Whiskey’ in the Old West and now I am Harold Jones, non-smoking, non-drinking all action hero with half the snakes in Columbia making a beeline for my trousers. I will criticise you all I want, couldn’t you at least write me in a pack of cigarettes?"

"YES…ONE MOMENT…" The omnipresent voice answers.

"Benson and Hedges…don’t even think about making them Marlboro." The Hero says reaching into his pocket and pulling out a battered red packet "God if there is a cliché you just have to use it, don’t you?"

"NO I DO NOT…"

"OH YES YOU DO," The Hero shouts back unwillingly "See you have got me doing it, this is worse than being stuck in a pantomime. I thought Hamlet had it bad working for ‘Old Bill’, that bloody Dane has nothing to moan about, he should try working within your mind."

"YOU DON’T LIKE ME DO YOU?"

"Like you…I am dressed for dinner in a dinosaur infested jungle, with every drugged up junky with a gun after me. What do I have to defeat the largest crime family in the world? One pistol and a not so smart quip, for gods sake this plot is so thin that it is falling apart, other stories are getting in."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" The Creators Voice demands.

"Well we have two veloceraptors working their way up the road and I just can’t see where Batman fits into this story…it is falling apart. Have you considered a different hobby, train spotting, stamp collecting…anything but writing?"

"BUT I LIKE WRITING."

"I know you do, it is just that you are not very good at it, we had green bug eyed monsters in your Science Fiction and that ‘Cold War’ thriller you did, The Search for Orange September, was a rather obvious steal of a film you saw."

"I HAD THOUGH ABOUT IT BEFORE I SAW THE FILM, IT WAS JUST TOM CLANCY WROTE IT FIRST," The Voice protests.

"Come off it, you said the same about Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbour. Everyone is stealing your ideas, aren’t they…now please explain how they are stealing them. Is the house bugged? Perhaps Stephen Spielberg is breaking in every Saturday night when you go down to the pub."

"THERE IS NO REASON TO BE LIKE THAT." The Voice says in a hurt tone of voice.

"An original thought and your brain are two things that have never been introduced, I know, I ‘m the poor sod who has to live in your brain. This idea you have about meeting the three witches, forget it, it has been done before."

"ARE YOU SURE?"

"Yes and I am not much good at playing Scottish Royalty, I cant do the accent" Our Hero replies. "Then again with your lack of research I am not much good at doing anything."

"I DO RESEARCH," comes a protesting and by now rather irritating reply from The Creator.

"You do research do you, what about a simple one, when did the Second World War start?"

"ERR…"

"Well I don’t know, because you don’t know…but I am bloody sure it wasn’t May 1938. What about ships, that was a recent one and we actually got past chapter three. Yes, you had the word mast right, but that bloody big stick on the bottom of the sail I am sure isn’t a member. Add to that the many comments about the size of my enormous ‘Member’ and we were on dangerous ground. If you had come back from one of your piss ups and carried on with the story, I would have been swinging from the bottom of the sail by my dick…"

"I DIDN’T THOUGH…" The Creator protests.

"No, only because you didn’t last the week writing it, the only reason you got past chapter three was because you wrote shorter chapters."

"WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK I SHOULD DO?"

"What do I think you should do?" The Hero asks, "You honestly want to know?"

"YES."

"You should sack the stupid little bint, who has got the job as your Muse. Christ even I would be a little suspicious of a woman with wings, who flies and goes by the name of Tinkerbelle, when she says she is a Muse. The silly little tart was just fed up with being typecast, she wanted a change of scenery where her life expectancy didn’t depend on how many people believe in fairies."

A flickering light in the night sky draws our hero’s eye; something is heading towards him leaving a trail of glowing dust behind it.

"Oh Christ, no." he says to himself.

"Who you calling a tart and a bint?" Demands the six-inch tall woman with wings who settles on the ground before him.

"Why don’t you just fly away and play with the little boys again?"

"That’s Lost Boys arsehole," she shouts at The Hero, while kicking him in the ankle. All she succeeds in doing is hurting her own bare foot and she hops around for a moment or two.

"See what I mean, she didn’t even get a job in the Spielberg film, Hook. What was it Tink? Oh yes I remember…wooden and wet was the way you were described. Gave the job to that Roberts woman, to figure out how it should be played."

"I had creative input I will have you know, she read Peter Pan seven times before she decided how to play it."

"Yes but it was totally different to you…" The Hero tells her and then turns his head back up to the heavens. "See what I mean, she is about as inspirational as a dose of herpes and a lot more difficult to get rid of. I do not believe in fairies…I do not believe in fairies…I do not believe in fairies. Still here? There is just no killing you is there?"

"You beast," Tinkerbelle screams at him and kicks him with her other foot, it has the same affect as her earlier kick and she hops around from foot to foot as the hero laughs at her misfortune.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" The creator demands.

"He is always like this, he is a beast," Tinkerbelle shouts now flapping hard, so her bruised feet are off the ground.

"Me and the Magical Moth Woman here have worked together before." The Hero admits.

"WORKED TOGETHER BEFORE?"

"Yes a long time ago, though." The Hero replies.

"Yes Simon, you would know how long a dose of herpes takes to get rid of…wouldn’t you." Tinkerbelle says.

"SIMON?"

"Yes Simon The Summoner, we both worked with Chaucer, I was a Duchess," she says with a grin, "but he felt he was a little hard done by there."

"He was a bastard that man, I wasn’t just ugly or unpleasant…" he shudders for a moment as the memories return. "At least I was someone, however diseased. What are you now, a Barbie doll with wings?"

"One more word out of you and you are going to find out just how Shakespearian this Barbie Doll can get on you. I learnt a lot working with Billy Boy."

"Working with Billy Boy?" Simon says with astonishment in his voice. "You call that working with The Great Bard, decrepit crone two, in one of them, almost a Witch without any lines in Macbeth and not forgetting my all time favourite what gave you your present role…fourth fairy on the right in a Midsummer Nights Dream."

"At least I worked with him," Tinkerbelle says smugly, "since Chaucer, you have been working with every fourth rate hack who picked up a quill. How many trees have died to show your adventures since you left Chaucer?"

"I live in the modern world, word-processors, computers, keyboards and the internet."

"Ah yes the internet, done less for Literature than Jackie Collins and that is giving it the benefit of the doubt."

"Look who’s talking, you started off in your present role as a bedtime story. Anyway, it is one thing to be a literary snob while if your name is Titania or Lady Macbeth it is a different matter when you are basically a walking supply of fairy dust," Simon tells her. He looks down the road, headlights can be seen approaching and they both step back, off the road. A green Land Rover goes roaring into the compound, there is a moment’s silence after it has gone.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS…" A loud boom that is almost at the lower limit of human hearing silences the Creators voice. There is a second and the ground shakes, the forest is silent in-between the booms and silent after until a third and a fourth break the silence.

"What projects are going on here at the moment?" Tinkerbelle asks with a worried tone of voice.

"Projects, we are not talking projects here, half the world seems to have taken up writing and set it in the Jungle at the moment."

"Well there you go, just what I was saying…give them an Internet link and they are Harold Robbins all of a sudden." Another boom silences her.

"Keep very, very still." Simon says as a huge dark shape can be seen approaching along the road.

"Not on your Nellie, why do you think The Author gave me wings…to stand around while bloody big things come bearing down on me. No chance I’m heading for the trees…" Tinkerbelle tells him.

A hand, almost faster than the eye can see, shoots out and grabs the little fairy.

"Listen short stuff, you gave him the ideas that got me into this mess, so you can see them through." The figure is closer now it is unmistakably tyrannosaurus like in appearance; it stops in front of the still figure of the man and bends its huge head down, examining the immobile figure from all angles. Finally it brings its nose only inches from his, displays a mouthful of the most deadly teeth ever designed and snorts loudly.

"It is you Simon, darling, what ever have you been doing with yourself." The Tyrannosaurus asks in an obviously upper class English and female voice.

"Do I know you?" Simon asks.

"Come off it darling, in the first drafts of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, you saw more of me that anyone else, it was only your insistence that it was a dead end job that kept you out of the final manuscript. You must recognise me…"

"Godiva?" The Hero asks with a smile on his face.

"The one and only,"

"WAIT A MOMENT, YOU SAID LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER…" The author protests.

"On speaking terms with him upstairs are we, that’s getting a little familiar for you. Does the Muse know? You know how funny those Greek girls can get." Godiva says.

"Well it is like this, this is not a Greek job," The Hero replies.

"My God, Divine Inspiration, you have moved up in the world."

"Not exactly," he says and opens his hand releasing Tinkerbelle.

"You are a bastard aren’t you?" She shouts at him as she tumbles to the floor. "These wings are precision instruments and you go messing them up with your big clumsy hands. Do you realise how much time I spend everyday on these wings?"

"Tinkerbelle!" The Tyrannosaurus says happily at the emergence of the little woman. "What brings you here."

"This is her doing, the fairy decided on a change of career…"

"WHY ARE YOU CALLING THE DINOSAUR, GODIVA?" The Author asks petulantly.

"What’s the story with him upstairs?" Godiva asks.

"Don’t worry he is a loner who likes the occasional drink too many, perfect alien abduction material as no one would believe him in a million years. As for this, he will put it down to lack of sleep." The Hero explains.

"Well Hon, its like this" Godiva says looking at the heavens, "I play the posh bird who gets her kit off, Godiva, Chatterley, Emmanuelle…that’s my speciality, posh woman with no clothes."

"POSH BIRD? WHY HAVE YOU STARTED TALKING LIKE THAT AND WHY ARE YOU A DINOSAUR NOW?"

"I am a professional dear, I speak to my audience in words they understand, a few years ago I did a few weeks as a dog you should have seen Spot run."

"ISN’T SPOT A MALE DOGS NAME?"

"Yes but you try drawing a male dog running without displaying all his tackle. See Spot run, see Spot get excited, see spot hump Jane’s leg and see spot lick his balls…" Godiva explains. "The kids would have loved it but there would have been an uproar from the parents."

"WHY ARE YOU A DINOSAUR AND WHY ARE YOU HERE?"

"Well I am a dinosaur because I didn’t read the contract and trusted my agent…"

"Agent?" Tinkerbelle asks urgently. "Where did you find an agent?"

"Forget it Hon, it was a fiddle. A Scandinavian hunk came offering to be my agent if I would be nice to him, not that he needed to offer the agent part, I would have been better than nice. I would have been bad for him, for nothing." Godiva says with a long sigh. "Anyway this guy Loki said he had a sweet job lined up for me, working with a guy who would become a big name, guaranteed film work, the lot. It also involved no clothes and being royalty, this time I would even have Rex after my name. This is what I got."

"WHY ARE YOU HERE THOUGH, THAT STORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN?"

"Oh that part is easy dear, we are haunting his dreams, showing him how it could have been done better."

"Any work out of this Dreamland stuff?" The Hero asks.

"Two sequels in the films."

"Not bad at all," Tinkerbelle says.

"Now," Godiva says, "tell me what is going on here, its not Divine Inspiration, its not a Greek Operation and unless he with the keyboard, is a hell of a lot sicker than I can believe, it is not a masturbatory fantasy, so Eros isn’t involved…so what is going on?"

"Well Tinkerbelle here decided to freelance as a Muse." Simon tells her.

"Tink, you know how the Muses get, god if you are lucky they will just bring in their father, he enforces all their contracts."

"I can cope with Zeus," Tinkerbelle says defiantly, "he is a man, he thinks with his dick. Flash him a bit of cleavage and he is a sweetie."

"What are you going to do if they decide to sort you out themselves, there are worse things than not working. You could spend the next hundred years as the unknown security officer in Star Trek Fanfiction."

"That’s a mans job, I am safe." Tinkerbelle replies.

"Get in touch with the times Tink, they have killed off female security officers and had a female captain, the world is changing and if you get tied into Internet Fan Fiction, you are there for years." Godiva tells her.

"The Winged Avenger here doesn’t believe in the Internet…" Simon says with scorn.

"I do believe, I do believe." Tinkerbelle protests, "I just can’t see the point of it."

"Look you sell a thousand books in a week you are a success in paper, you can have a thousand readers a day on The Net. It is a powerful place, too many characters start with a new author full of good intentions and next thing they are molesting donkeys shouting ‘Give it to me big boy’…" Godiva looks around for a moment or two. "I better get back to work…err, which way did they go?"

"The green Land Rover, into there," Simon points into the compound.

"Thanks Hon, don’t let the bloody authors, torment you too much." She says and turns towards the compound and roars. "Wait for me you miserable bastards."

"THAT’S MY DRUG LAB," The Author says sadly as the huge beast goes crashing into the compound.

"Yes I know and it is going to give a wonderful new angle, the stoned T-Rex."

"STONED IN THE STONE AGE?"

"Something like that, you just keep trying…you’ll get there." Simon says patronisingly. "Though I wouldn’t like to work with her tomorrow when she wakes up."

"She’s a Tart," Tinkerbelle says scathingly.

"So speaks the eternal virgin, that’s why you accepted the job with the little boys, it was safely non-sexual."

"That’s The Lost Boys, I’m warning you…"

"What are you going to do about it, sprinkle me with fairy dust?"

"One more word out of you Simon and you will be very sorry," Tinkerbelle tells him.

"Peter, oh Peter, come and save me from the nasty man." Simon cries out in a falsetto voice, Tinkerbelle marches towards him hands on her hips.

"Oh please don’t kick me in the ankle again…I’m begging you." He says laughing.

"You asked for it," Tinkerbelle says and quick as a flash she is under his trouser leg and a bulge can be seen moving upwards.

"What the bloody hell do you think you are up to?" Simon demands while trying unsuccessfully to grab at the rapidly moving figure of the fairy.

"Aieee, the little bitch is biting" Simon screams while still trying to grab the bulge in his trousers, Tinkerbelle is too quick though.

"Jesus stop it woman" he shouts and sits down on the floor to stop any rearwards attacks on his person.

"Call me names would you, this will teach you to take the piss out of fairies," comes the muffled response from Simon’s trousers. Simon’s answer is more a primal scream than anything that might be intelligible.

"STOP IT, I THINK I AM GETTING AN IDEA." The Authors voice booms.

"You can’t be, I’m down here," comes from Simon’s trousers. Simon just moans.

Around them, the Primal Columbian Jungle shivers and fades. An arid mountainous landscape replaces it, it is now daylight and high on the peak of a nearby mountain can be seen a great temple, with huge classical columns.

"Oh boy, are you in the shit now dust-ball." Simon shouts.

"No, I think both of you are in the shit personally" comes a voice from the high temple. A female figure can be seen getting closer and closer without apparently moving.

"Oh shit," says Simon, the bulge in his trousers is rapidly descending towards his ankle.

"Calliope?" Tinkerbelle asks, her head appearing from the bottom of Simon’s trouser leg.

"Who else would you be expecting?" the woman asks standing with her hands on her hips, in a long flowing gown, that despite being all covering, leaves very little to the imagination.

"Err…hello Calliope, what brings you here?" Tinkerbelle asks.

"Well it is like this, I had an ear bending off Thalia, over a double booking on the jungle, with one of my clients. But of course I tell her that she must be mistaken because I am leaving that client a tortured soul until Stephen King retires, then I can bring him in centre stage." Calliope says glairing at the two of them.

"Err, yes, well, I was going to have a word with you," Tinkerbelle says while trying to wish a hole into existence beneath her feet.

"I told her, I did," Simon says standing up and rearranging himself carefully.

"Then when Thalia insists that my next big thing already has jungle booked, I came over to prove her wrong and what do I find? You two fighting, other stories involved and a direct conversation going on between character and author, without the presence or permission of a Muse, do you know what you two have done?"

"No Calliope," Simon and Tinkerbelle mumble together.

"You two have just ruined the biggest selling books, for four of the next seven years." She shouts.

"But he was going nowhere…" Tinkerbelle protests.

"And he talked to me first." Simon whines.

"He was going nowhere because, to write a soul must be tortured first, so that it falls in thrall to the Muse. The bigger the book and success that comes with the book, the longer the suffering that must be endured first. You should see what J.K. Rowling went through before I gave her Harry Potter. But as for you Simon, talking to the Author just because he spoke to you…haven’t enough authors pleaded with you over the years for you to know better?"

"I WILL WRITE GOOD BOOKS?" The voice of the author asks.

"You would have, now though we have a problem, these two idiots have ruined everything."

"THAT ISN’T FAIR…"

"If I can get you in print regularly, a decent living and renowned within your own field will that do you?"

"I SUPPOSE SO…" The Author replies reluctantly.

"It is the only option you have, so listen to me," Calliope says and turns back to Simon and Tinkerbelle. "You two wait right here."

Calliope disappears, as does the temple on the mountaintop, the rest of the landscape remains the same though.

"What do you think she has got planned?" Tinkerbelle asks urgently.

"The gods only know, or the daughters of the gods more precisely." Simon replies.

Suddenly Tinkerbelle’s body begins to glow and grow larger, as it grows her wings and clothes dissipate into nothing. Her once slender frame designed for flight has changed proportion, grossly exaggerated in the bust and slightly wider in the hips.

"Oh god, what have you done to me," Tink cries out, trying to cover as much of herself with her hands as possible, from Simon’s leering gaze.

"I like this already," Simon says with an evil chuckle. "What’s the name of this story?"

"Athenian Love Slaves," comes the voice of Calliope, Simon’s body begins to glow and change also, growing smaller, the clothes vanishing to nothing.

"Lesbian Athenian Love Slaves," Calliope says.

"Oh god no…" Simon pleads but already it is too late her voice is now the rich lilting tones of a woman and the breasts, that are already large, are growing to rival Tinkerbelle’s. He reaches down between his legs but already it is too late, the object of many snakes affection has already gone.

The two shocked women stand looking at each other they are identical twins. Overly large breasts defy gravity, tipped by large dark nipples. The hair almost down to their firm buttocks is long, straight and black, matching the neatly trimmed, inverted black vee between their thighs and those thighs are on legs that never seem to end. The faces are a classical Greek beauty with a pale, almost milk like skin, without a blemish or flaw.

"Come on you two, we haven’t got all day," Calliope’s voice tells them firmly and the two naked women embrace passionately.

"Oh god no," says Tinkerbelle.

"This might not be too bad." Simon replies with a sweet smile as they kiss.

"Eayore" the donkey agrees.

The twins shouted as one "What the Fuc…"

 

The End

 

 

 

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© 2002 by Hypatia. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.