CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

At first, Shersharms attributed the falling sensation and utter blackness to the killer orgasm she'd just given herself with her rabbit.
Not her pet rabbit, Mr. Snuffles, but the sex toy.
Sexy Supernatural Teens isn't sponsored by Rabbit (yet), we just recognize a fine product. Also, Mr. Snuffles was in the room and had watched her self-abuse with a surprising amount of understanding, horror and fascination. Like if you were trapped in a room where god was masturbating.
Shersh eventually realized, though, that the weightlessness was different from her normal, post-orgasmic euphoria and she gingerly made her way to the window. Not quite pitch black out there, but close.
She opened the window and a rush of wind blew her back, carrying the smell of earth. And Geddy Lee.
Then the impact of landing.
The whole house shook pretty hard. Books fell off shelves, the china hutch was ruined and Mr. Snuffles' cage was sent sidelong across the floor.
Shersh landed on her bed and was no worse for wear.
She grabbed a flashlight and opened her bedroom door.
The halls and stairs were in surprisingly good shape.
S-rock slowly made her way out of the house, Mr. Snuffles following like an obedient dog.
The air was hot and musty and thick. Like a dirt floor basement. Or a coal miner's taint.
She cast the beam of the flashlight about like she owned the damn battery factory. The house had landed in a rather large cave that appeared to be made of dirt. And it appeared to have been dug out. Several dark holes indicated a handful of tunnels, hence the cool breeze she was feeling.
She looked up.
Her house had fallen quite a distance. She had no way of knowing exactly, but she saw a hole of daylight way above her about the size of a quarter.
"No way the house fell through a hole the size of a quarter," she said to Mr. Snuffles, "Must be perspective."
She was correct, of course.
Shersharmjorp nearly leapt out of her skin when she felt the clawed paw grab her shoulder.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

"Lower the sails, shutter the cannons and drop anchor, ye scurvy dogs!"
The pirate ship stopped in the river.
"We're here."
The pirates scuttled off the boat. Some by rope ladder, some on lifeboats and some just tumbling over the side. The pirates were pretty frickin' pumped to be off the dumb boat.
They immediately busted out some bungs of liquor and also into some of each other's bungs in some consensual, celebratory sodomy.
"All right, all right, all right," said their leader Rumpbeard, shortly after his ecstasy. "That's enough. Let's get a move on."
At this point, the river nymph stepped forward. These guys were interesting.
"Hey, I'm the river nymph," she said by way of introduction. "You boys seem like you really know how to party."
Rumpbeard agreed that they knew how to have a good time but he also wasn't super into sharing his booze.
"So," began the Nymph, "What brings you guys to Hormonetown?"
Rumpbeard was relieved he wouldn't have to share.
"We're looking for a man most peculiar," said Rumpbeard, "Most peculiar indeed."
The Nymph raised an eyebrow. Intriguing! So much better than the soul searchers.
"Go on," she said, "Perhaps I can be of assistance."
"He's said to be handsome. Young seeming, but actually quite old. He's smart, aye, but he's arrogant too. Ring any bells?"
The Nymph yawned. She was over the pirate thing. "This man have a name?"
"Mooseknuckles," Rumpbeard rasped, "Jonathan."
"What are you, a ringwraith?"
Rumpbeard said nothing. He hadn't seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
"Yeah," sighed the Nymph, "I know the guy. He was doing some shitty soul searching on my river the other day. Head in town."
"Thanks, m'lady," said Rumpbeard. He felt she'd earned some rum and offered her a small bottle. It was a big act for the pirate.
"I'm a river. I don't really need to get drunk."
"Oh, good. I'll just keep this then."
There was an awkward moment.
The Nymph coughed.
The pirates shuffled their feet a little.
"Well."
"Goodbye."
The pirates lumbered off, the land rumbling under their feet.
That's what happens when a herd of pirate-dinosaurs moves all at once.
Rumpbeard was a t-rex.

CHAPTER FORTY

Bilf plotted.
He dreamt up murderous schemes. Falling pianos and anvils, pitfalls and traps. Running Vonce's body through a grid of chicken wire. Cutting the car breaks. The bus breaks. The life breaks.
He conjured bird attacks, dog attacks, piranha attacks. Bombs, explosions. He fantasized about the white heat of the fire he would cause, seeing Vonce's final second in slow motion as the force of the blast tore off his skin like a rotten apple sliding out of a peel. He imagined catching an extremity as it flew through the air, hollowing it out, coating it in shellac and then using it as a cup.
He imagined a sniper's bullet hitting Vonce's head in history class. The class where they'd first fallen in love. Vonce's dumb stupid handsome face exploding with all this brains and feelings.
He cooked up some real mean stuff for Vonce's trenchant junk. Clamps. Caustic lubes, vaginae dentatae. Guillotine-like traps. Thousands of biting ants. Slowly cooking his weiner with a magnifying a magnifying glass.
Just really abusing it.
Oh! And sticking stuff in the dickhole. Definitely that, too.
Bilf thought of all this because it gave him pleasure. None of it would happen, though.
Vonce would die at Bilf's hands but it would be intimate. Personal.
Simple.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Tina's ghostly adventure turned out to be real dull.
Just another instance where Shersh failed to learn anything important from her mother.
Tina made her meatloaf, made a mess trying to eat it (because she's a ghost and has no body), refrigerated the leftovers and then disappeared as she slid up the stairs.
Shersh sighed, went up to her room and rubbed one out. Not because of anything she'd just seen, mind you, just because she was a teen.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Man, Jonathan Mooseknuckles had seemed like kind of an unredemptive douche before but I'm kind of rooting for him now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Jonathan chipped a couple nails and swole up his right fist in the exchange.
Prepneck lost an eye, most of his teeth, swallowed a cue ball and traded some skin for glass.
He'd be in the hospital for a while and die in about three years, sad, drunk and alone in a gutter. Like all misogynist racists should.
Jonathan, meanwhile, enjoyed a night of no-strings-attached, vigorous, consensual sex with the lady right there in the bar.
He did it billiards style, which is to say balls first. And the other patrons all cheered them on.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The seduction was going EXTREMELY well, thought Jonathan.
He was already horny and turgid and could feel heat coming off her. Laughing. Eye contact. Slightly brushing his junk against her.
She'd brushed first, of course, he wouldn't jump to that part of the game without a signal.
"So," he said, licking the fatty deposits off the rim of his glass.
"I knew it!" yelled the bartender from across the room.
Jonathan ignored him.
"Wanna take this somewhere else?" suggested Mooseknuckles.
She hadn't quite responded when a meaty spatula of a hand swatted the glass out of Jonathan's grip.
"The hell you do!" the hand's owner yelled.
Chairs squeaked. Jonathan stood. The DJ played the "record scratch" .mp3.
"Is you hitting on my woman?!" It was the handowner again.
He was beefy, over tan. Wearing a polo and overalls, improbably. Somehow he had both HGH-fed glamour muscles and a cornfed beer belly.
"I'm just trying to get to know her," said Jonathan.
"Yeah, know her carnally," said the handowner.
"...Carnally," said Jonathan a little too late.
"You think this is funny?!" said the redneck-prep... the prepneck.
"No, it's kinda bringing me down," said Jonathan. His halfsie boner had wilted.
"You stay away from my woman," said the prepneck, pointing a girthy finger in Jonathan's eye. Jonathan could see a callous on his fingertip and surmised it was from playing a Jimmy Buffet/Dave Matthews medley.
"I think she's free to do what she wants. If your relationship's good, what do you have to worry about?"
"What are you," said prepneck, dropping his finger and stepping chest-to-chest with Mooseknuckles, "...some kind of race traitor?"
Jonathan was confused. Yes, she was black. And Jonathan white. But prepneck was also white.
"But wouldn't that make you a ra-"
"IT DON'T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE!" shouted prepneck, "It's racism! It's by definition irrational!"
Jonathan had had enough.
"Ok," he exhaled, "It's gonna get nasty."