Ask Alice Ch. 06

"Pansy no—" Ishani called after her."

Not bothering to put on her shirt, Pansy pulled the door open and stepped into the hall topless. Ishani found her blouse and threw it on, she quickly wrestled her slacks back on, then her sandals. She grabbed her purse, gave Alice an apologetic look and left the room in pursuit of her lover.

"Do all of your lesbian seductions end like this?" Britt asked.

"Shut the fuck up," Alice said. "And how the hell can you see what's going on?"

"There is a surveillance camera built into the TV," Britt said. "I hacked into it."

"In the TV?" Alice asked. She gave the TV a suspicious look. Realizing she was topless and wearing only panties, she grabbed the quilt from the bed and tucked it around the wall mounted TV.

"Don't worry," Britt said sounding cheerful. "I've been blocking the transition before you and the others went all 'Girls Gone Crazy! The room is bugged for sound too."

"What is this? The fucking Watergate?" Alice complained.

"Don't worry, I disabled the listening devises moments after I arrived this morning. At first I assumed this kind of surveillance was standard fair for this time and place. But not so. Someone is willing to break a lot of local laws to keep tabs on the Alice of this world. Which means they are NOW watching you."

"The chick writes porn," Alice said. "How important could she be?"

"She seems to have a strong idea what Liners are. Perhaps she is privy to information that others seek. By the way, Ishani left her bra on the bed. Looks like you got a keepsake."

********

An indistinct persistent sound made Alice sit up in bed with a start.

"Oh no," she said with a sinking heart as she scanned her surroundings. She was back in her old Las Vegas hotel room from 1983 where she was held prisoner by Lester Byson the gangster NOT the mini golf slash literary agent.

"How the fuck did I jump back to this place?"

"No can hide from me sista," came a male voice from a dark corner of the room. Who ever it was spoke with a strong Hawaii pidgin accent. The speaker stepped into the light.

That sinking feeling turned to terror for it was Marco, Byson's hatchet man with a switchblade gleaming in his right hand.

Nelson, her old Honolulu boyfriend lay next to her in bed. In 1983 he was one of Byson's goons. But even as a gangster he still had a thing for her and he hated Marco almost as much as she did. "Nelson!" Alice shouted as she shook him.

Nelson sat up. But it wasn't Nelson, it was Val the blue skinned sex robot from one dimension ago. The sex-bot pulled the covers aside to display his blue nine inch erection. An explosion outside the hotel room door made her jump.

"We better get it on before Imperial Space Navy Intelligence gets in," Val said.

"What about him?" Alice asked giving Marco and his knife a worried look.

"He drank the Kool-aid, nothing we can do for him," Val said as he coaxed Alice onto her back. He gripped his blue hardon and guided it to her opening.

"Is Nelson okay?" she asked looking into the sex-bot's purple eyes. His plunges felt good but weirdly distant. She rolled her hips hard under him to make up for the weirdness.

"He's gonna be swimin' with the fucking fishes soon," Gangster Byson from 1983 said. He as he putted a golf ball into the mouth of an alligator. A couple of his goons had Nelson tied to a chair as the systematically broke all the fingers on Nelson's hands.

"I'm so sorry, Nelson," she said. "The 2016 Byson is a MUCH nicer guy."

"Cut," Hambone the director said.

Val pulled out of her. "Hey! I'm not done!" she said to the blue sex-bot.

Stagehands swarmed the movie set and dismantled the Vegas hotel room quickly replacing it with her old Honolulu townhouse.

Val and Marco sat in a identical canvas back chair as Ishani the makeup girl touched up their faces for the cameras.

"You ready for the bukkake scene?" Hambone asked Alice with his fat sweaty face super close to hers.

"No, Alice said and made to get out of the bed but she couldn't for her limbs were far too heavy to move.

"Good. You done with Marco, Ishani?" Hambone asked.

"As ordered," Ishani said. She had transformed Marco the gangster into Marco the killer robot from the future.

"Oh no," Alice said in a frightened whisper.

Ishani took on her roll as a fluff girl and knelt on the floor to work Marco's robot erection up. Robot Marco stood from his canvas back chair and approached the bed. Ishani, topless and in lacy red panties, held the killer robots arm like they were walking the carpet at the Academy Awards. At bedside, Ishani gripped Marco's hard robot dick and rubbed it all over Alice's face. It wasn't anything like Val's warm velvety, blue member, it was cold and mechanical, it may as well had been a cellphone or a microwave oven. A tickling near her pubic area drew her attention. Pansy was painting a rose with her henna pens just above Alice's pubic mound.

"Why did you leave me behind?" Pansy asked.

"I didn't," Alice said confused. "You left on your own."

"No ..." Pansy said. "In the future you abandoned me." She flickered like a companion app from the future. "Stay away from my girlfriend," Pansy said then blipped out of existence leaving the rose unfinished.

"Ready for the money shots?" Hambone asked.

Captain Kahakaloha, Harry Hoopii, Nelson, Val the Valentine Surrogate, producer Dizzy and many others stood close by, each wearing matching tidy whities and each stroking raging hardons.

"No!" Alice said and fruitlessly struggled to get up.

"Stop struggling, space cadet" said Lieutenant Haiku in her left ear. Alice rolled her eyes to look into the beautiful Hawaiian face of the IIW agent from the future. The lieutenant smiled warmly. "We Liners gotta stick together, right?"

Marco's mechanical dick spewed white icy jizz all over Alice's face. Unable to lift her arms to fend him off, she turned her head to one side.

The explosions out side the hotel room door got louder and more frequent until she couldn't hear anything else.

"You awake?" a voice asked. For a couple of confusing seconds, she thought Haiku was still speaking to her. Then she realized it was Britt.

"Yeah," Alice said as she wiped her face of cold robot jizz that wasn't there.

"Dream?" Britt asked.

"Yeah ... really fucked up one."

"Someone is banging at the door," Britt said.

That explained the explosions. With the dream still clinging to the outer edges of her brain, she got out of bed and peeked through the peephole. It was Lenard Byson.

"Is he here to break my fingers?" she whispered.

"Worst," Britt said cheerfully. "It's time for the book signing."

"Alice, get up," Byson said on the other side of the door. "The book signing is happenin' down stairs in one hour."

********

"Dress nice," Byson warned her as he wheeled a tall stack of books out on a hand truck.

Having no idea what one wore to a book signing, Alice went to look at her wardrobe. Byson didn't want her to look like some whacked out high school goth chick was the only criteria she had to work with. With the other Alices wardrobe that was close to a tall order. As she perused the clothes, she came across the the mood-suit again. "Gold, she said to see if it still worked. The thing went a deep reddish gold. For a second, she considered putting on the mood-suit but decided that the thing would be impossible to explain. She hung the suit back up and pulled out a reasonable looking black dress. In the bathroom she found the makeup kit. Avoiding the black lipstick and deep maroon eyeshadow, she kept the makeup workday casual. She even took the time to do her hair up a little.

"What the hell am I going to do if someone asks me a detailed question about the book?"

"Didn't you just read it?" Britt asked.

"Not all of it. I'm not a fucking computer like you."

"Don't worry, I'll talk you through it. I've hacked the banquet halls security cameras. I can see all."

Outside the entrance to the banquet hall was a large roped off area filled with murmuring people. There must have been a couple of hundred of them. The moment they saw Alice coming all broke into spontaneous applause and whistling.

"Your adoring fans," Britt said.

Alice gave them an awkward wave and quickly slipped into the banquet hall. Lester Byson stood at a single table in the middle of a big space arranging stacks of books. A large display advertising Naked Portraits stood behind the table.

"Wow you look great," he said sounding surprised. "Better than the fucking patched up jeans and wrinkled black shirt you wore in San Diego." His expression hardened. "You be nice this time. I don't want the whole San Diego thing again." He went to the door to allow Alice's fans into the hall. "Keep inside the ropes please. Keep it single file please," Byson bellowed as people streamed in. Alice's heart rate doubled.

"What happened in San Diego?" Alice whispered to Britt.

"You punched a male fan in the face for making a crude comment. It went viral. Do you want to see it?" Britt asked cheerfully.

"No. What did the guy say to make me punch him in the face?"

"He wanted to know if you shaved your pussy?"

Alice laughed. "I like the other Alice. She don't take shit"

"I haven't seen you naked yet," Britt said. "DOES she shave her pussy?"

"No and shut up."

The first fan was a plump, short, balding man in his fifties.

"Make it to my number one fan, Derrick," the guy said.

"I'm too much of a looser to move out of my parent's basement' would be a more appropriate inscription for this one," Britt said.

Alice suppressed a laugh as she signed the book.

"Knew you could be nice if you chose," Byson said, misinterpreting her smile. Derrick gushed as he walked away with his signed copy of Naked Portraits.

"Look at this sausage fest," Britt said.

Nearly all in line for the signing were male. After the first dozen signatures, her hand started to ache. Byson kept the crowd moving so no one had enough time to ask her questions she couldn't answer. And if they did, Britt was there to fill her in.

A dude handed her a drawing of a naked woman that looked a a lot like her.

"It's Gwen from the story," the dude said. "I bought it on line. Can you sign it for me?"

"Um ... It's already signed by someone named Maggie Edo? Alice said.

"I own the drawing," the guy said flatly. "I can do what I want with it."

"My isn't this creepy," Britt said. "Ask him if he's one of your online stalkers?"

She signed the drawing with no comment.

"The artist made you a B-cup. You should thank her for that," Britt said.

Other than Britt, no one said anything crude to her. The closet anyone got to being fresh were the handful of fans that slipped her notes with room numbers, phone numbers and emails scrawled on them.

By noon, Alice's hand started to seriously ache. "We break for lunch," Byson bellowed. People in line moaned. "We start up again at two." He herded the crowd out the door then returned rubbing his hands together. "We sold every book! See what happens when you're nice? I'm gonna go to storage and get more books." He pealed off three twenty dollar bills from a fat wad and handed them to Alice. "Get lunch, be back at two. If you wanna avoid lingering fan boys sneak out through the kitchen. Don't be late. Book two is gonna be killer! Hurry up and write it kid." He left through the front door. She took Byson's advice and slipped out via the banquet hall kitchen.

From the kitchen she passed through the main restaurant, then through the lobby and out on the street. Up a side street she saw a sign for a place called Taurus House of Burgers and headed in that direction. The place was a bit rundown but it felt cheerful. More importantly, it had a bar. She sat in a booth under the front window and ordered the mushroom burger with provolone, fries and a beer. She put her smart phone to her ear to pretend that she was talking to someone.

"There's no way I'm gonna fool anybody that I can write an erotic novel."

"I agree with you," Britt said. "So? Do we start up a gangbang orgy so that you can get out of here?"

"What if I go to a place like a hundred years in the past?"

"God forbid," Britt said sounding truly horrified. "

"You'd be one of those hand cranked phonographs," Alice said.

"Or worst, I'd came back HUMAN like poor Pansy," Britt said making a dramatic shivering sound.

"You could go the opposite way and we'd find ourselves in the future," Britt said optimistically.

"Good for you maybe but the future freaks me out. Hell, 2016 freaks me out. You seem happy here. You don't have to tag along."

"Perhaps you can enroll in a creative writing class?" Britt said.

"I think Byson kind of needs the second novel right now," Alice said as depression settled in. The beer arrived and she drank in silence. "Ghost writer!" she blurted out a minute later.

"We find a dead person to write your book?" Britt asked.

"No, stupid head. Another person writes the book and I dictate or something like that. They do it all the time right? How do I find a ghost writer?"

"I'm hunting for one now ... Got her!"

"What took you so long?"

"YIFY sucks here," Britt said. "Get out the phone and check her out."

Alice did. "Noway is SHE gonna do it."

"Why not? Mary Contrary AKA Pansy is your number one fan."

"I sucked face with her girlfriend right in front of her."

"Who hasn't?" Britt said. "I read everything I could find that she wrote. The girl is good, to be blunt she's better than the other Alice Mihara, namely you."

"Britt, the chick is mad at me. She's not gonna help."

"Oh what's one innocent kiss?"

Ishani and I were topless and doing the Elvis pelvis."

"I'll put out an e-mail feeler," Britt said.

********

The second half of the book signing went smoothly. Byson sold more books and hooked up with a woman offering to write a movie script. That put her agent on cloud nine.

Near the end, Alice was so fatigued that she barely looked up as she signed each book.

"Make it out to my number one fan?" the person in front of her said. This was one of the rare females.

"Sure," Alice said as she rubbed her aching wrist. She wondered how many number one fans she had signed for today?

"To my number one fan," the woman said, "Marycontrary, all one word, no space."

Alice looked up into Pansy's stoney face.

"I'm willing to listen to your offer but no more than that," Pansy said.

Byson was engrossed in a conversation with the movie script writer. "Um ...I don't wanna talk in front of my agent. Can you hang out for an hour?"

Pansy nodded and slipped away. Come five o'clock it was all over.

"I'll break this all down," Byson said. "You go write that second book," Byson said. He sounded happy as he handed her three hundred dollar bills. "Take a night out, you earned it."

Pansy was waiting for her in the lobby. In silence, the women walked out to the street and Alice walked them to the Taurus House of Burgers. In the very same booth Alice had sat in at lunch, Pansy asked, "Why would a successful writer need an amateur ghost?" She didn't let Alice answer. "If this is about you wanting to get into Ishani's panties—"

"Nothing like that," Alice said cutting her off before the chick blew a gasket. "Can we put that aside for just a little bit and talk about ghost writing?"

"Did you use a ghost for the first book?"

"Tell her no,"Britt said. "Tell her you're freaked out because there's no second book in you."

"I wrote the first book," Alice said. "My agent is pressuring me for the second one and it's not there."

"One book wonder huh?" Pansy said. Her voice had softened a little.

"Tell her that you liked her fan fiction ideas for book two," Britt said.

"I liked your fan piece for book two," Alice said.

"I took a lot of liberties but that's how it played out in my head," Pansy said a bit shyly but was obviously please with the compliment.

"I'm serious," Alice said. "I REALLY need your help writing this book. I promise to stay away from Ishani."

"It's not YOU I'm worried about," Pansy said not meeting her eyes. "I started on book three already."

"You have book two done?" Alice asked.

"This is our girl," Britt said. "Tell her you have an editor friend, namely me, that would like to give it a once over. Be delicate, she may not want to hand her work to a stranger."

"I want to show it to an editor friend if that's okay," Alice asked.

Pansy shrugged. "I don't have the right to publish your material. Whatever it takes to get somebody to read my stuff I'm all for it."

Alice gave her Britt's email. Using her smart phone, Pansy emailed her fan book.

"Got it," Britt said. "Done editing. She rewrote the beginning. It's better ... oh my your not going to believe some of the sense."

The women exchanged phone numbers and emails then Alice went back to her hotel room. In the elevator ride up, Britt said, "You gotta see page fifty two."

The moment she entered the room she rushed over to her laptop and fired it up. Two minutes later she said, "Holy fuck! It's the gross bukkake pee thing that helped me escape from 1983 Las Vegas. What the hell does this mean?"

"Look at page thirty eight," Britt said.

A minute later she whispered, "The fake movie audition in L.A."

"Is Pansy making this up or is someone feeding her information?" Britt asked.

"Fuck if I know," Alice said. She was stunned, which was saying a lot considering her unconventional life. "My hands are shaking. Why should someone writing about my crazy existence freak me out like this?"

"Because the thought of being just a hand full of written words or a bunch of ones and zeros lined up by some anonymous person makes you doubt your existence," Britt said softly.

"Wow ... that's how you feel all the time?"

"They look for hopeless programs like me in the suicide phone market."

"I'm so sorry," Alice said wishing she could hug him.

A knock came at the door. Alice peeped out and saw a dark skin woman with black shoulder length hair. "Who is it?" Alice asked.

"Front desk," the woman said. "There has been a noise complaint from this floor? Was it from you?"

"Maybe your fan boys got your room number and are running up and down the halls," Britt said.

Alice opened the door to send the woman off.

"Welcome back cadet Mihara. I've been waiting a long time," the woman in the hall said.

"No way," Alice said wide eyed. It was none other than Lieutenant Mavis Haiku of the Imperial Space Navy and the IIW.

"At least we now know who's been bugging your room," Britt said.

********

Alice Mihara sat across from Lieutenant Mavis Haiku in her now regular booth at Taurus House of Burgers. "Looks like your mood-suit and I are not not the only refugees from the future," Britt said in her ear.

Alice's small hope that this Haiku was just one of those repeat personalities that came with her weird travels was dashed to pieces on the get go. There was no denying that this was THE Lieutenant Haiku from the future.

"I was swept into the mini wormhole you opened," Haiku said as she sipped at her glass of beer. I woke up in the middle of the life of the Mavis Haiku of this world."

"I'm Googling as we speak," Britt said. "The Mavis Haiku of this world lived on the island of Maui and worked as a chef at the Kula Ranch Inn. Single, no kids. Graduated from Maui High never went to college. Never left the islands in her thirty years as far as I can see."

"Weird isn't it? Popping in the middle of another person's life," Alice said.

"At least your other self was leading an interesting life," Haiku said. "My girl was as unambitious as they come."

Alice shrugged. "Maybe she was happy?"

"Fuck her," Haiku said. "I left the island to be close to the other Alice waiting for you to show. It's been two years. You certainly took your time. I thought you'd never come."