SHIVER: 13 Sexy Tales of Humor and Horror (32 page)

“I’m Debbie and this is my husband, Bob.” Then Debbie reached toward Bob’s arms and pulled the rugrat into her arms. “And this is Ruby, our shih-poo.”

I will not comment, I will not comment,
I chanted to myself. But Renee had it covered for me.

“What’s a shih-poo?” Renee tilted her head and scratched her chin in confusion.

“It’s a shih tzu poodle mix,” Debbie said with a very strong southern drawl.

“I thought that was something that happened after you eat a lot of Arby’s in on sitting,” I muttered to Renee.

Miles, Raj, and a now harmonious Tom and Ryan joined in our small gathering and offered introductions since I seemed to be focused on Debbie’s assortment of fine gems.

“Hi, I’m Miles. This is my girlfriend Moxie and our friend Renee, Raj, Tom, and Ryan.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet y’all.”

“I like your puppy,” I said, reaching to pet the ball of fur. But the crapper growled and bared its teeth.

“Oh, Ruby. Stop that nonsense,” Bob scolded from behind is wife and placed his hands on her shoulders. “He’s very sweet, just a little territorial when it comes to my Debbie.”

“You’ve got quite the southern drawl. I can’t imagine you’d be from anywhere around here,” Ryan said.

“Oh no.” Bob shook his head. “We’re from Dallas. I own several farms up in this area, and we heard about this adventure and thought it would be fun. It’s nice to get out amongst every day folk instead of dealing with the old fuddy-duddies of the cooperate world.”

Again, I leaned into Renee and whispered, “Do I make the joke about
Debbie Does Dallas
first or the one where Bob is an old fuddy-duddy?”

She elbowed me in the side and gave me a sideways dirty look. Sam and Destiny came down looking disheveled and joined the rest of the party. Sam entered the room and threw me a wink while adjusting himself. The thought of Sam and Destiny having a quickie upstairs was enough for me to toss up the appetizers I had eaten.

The group mingled for a bit, and I was able to get some information out of our new guests. Bob owned a large cattle ranch in Texas and sold a lot of cattle to dairy farms around the county, hence his business here in Wisconsin. Debbie was thirty-three years his junior and did charity work. Basically he needed some hot tail, and she needed his finances to fund her Liz Taylor Diamond collection. Apparently Rudy went everywhere they went, and I wondered if the dog even had legs because Debbie hadn’t put him down on the floor even once. At one point, Ruby and I had a stare down over the last pig in a blanket. I won because, frankly, I was human and could squash that piece of shih-poo with my toe.

And then there was Sam and Destiny. Destiny was a twenty-year-old exotic dancer studying to become a licensed masseuse. Sam was a twenty-three-year-old guy. He seemed to be lost and searching, which was a nice way of saying he was unemployed. When I asked what he was looking to do, he answered. “Grow weed.” Ding, ding, ding! I do believe we have a winner here folks.

Sean and Marie made it back into the sitting room with a cluster of paperwork. “First, Marie and I would like to thank everyone for joining us on this very mysterious Halloween weekend. We have the characters you will be playing in the murder mystery game. Each of you will get your identity and some background information about your characters. We will give you some time to become familiar with your characters before continuing. The theme for the mysterious murder weekend is High School Reunion.”

Oh. Dear. God. To say I hated high school would be a lie. I flat out loathed it. I was the chubby redhead with enough metal in my mouth to conduct electricity. The fact that I had to reenact any part of that time in my life caused a plethora of angst. A knot formed in my stomach and the room started to spin.

“I wish I’d known you in high school,” Miles said, looking at the mixture of emotions on my face.

“Why is that? Did you need someone to stand on your roof to get a better TV signal?”

“What?”

“I had a mouth full of braces and was teased constantly.”

“I was thinking more like stealing you away underneath the football bleachers and devouring you between your legs.”

I gave him a wry smile. “While it sounds nice, I wouldn’t have been able to return the favor. Unless you wanted your penis torn apart like paper going through a shredder.”

“Well, thank God for present day and straight teeth.” He chuckled.

“Moxie and Miles, here are your characters.” Sean handed each of us our packets. Characters were designed around the questionnaire you filled out.”

I opened the manila envelope and pulled out the contents. I was not surprised at what the paperwork revealed.

Your character for the high school murder mystery is… The Punk.

I’m the fucking
punk. I’m not surprised considering what I wrote in my questionnaire. I was totally assholish when filling it out. They probably figured I was aiming for the misfit of the group. Instead of being annoyed, I would embrace my inner punk. But there are different kinds of punk. Did I want to be the rocker punk and spike up my hair? Or the Goth chick in an all-black wardrobe? Wearing black
was
slimming. Each of our packets came with character descriptions, so I flipped through mine to decipher how I should make my character.

The Punk

Every high school had that one person who would not conform to the rules. You were the person who picked fights and made sure everyone in the room knew who you were. Your body was adorned with earrings, tattoos, and multi-colored hair. If anyone told you to do something, you did exactly the opposite. Your reason for attending the high school reunion? To make sure everyone still knew who you were and, after all the years that passed, you were still living a non-conforming lifestyle.

My translation of the description: Be an asshole. It was something I could manage. I strode over to Miles to get a peek at his character. My guess—the guy who everyone tried to get into every girls’ pants.

“So, what did you get? Strong, attractive teen with no acne and a constant raging boner?”

“Close enough; I got the high school jock.”

“Surprise, surprise,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“And you?”

I slouched and bowed my head. It was my own fault, considering I’d been such a pain in the ass I filled out that questionnaire.

“I got the school punk.”

Miles roared with laughter. “I’m shocked.”

I slugged Miles arm and he took a step back, covering his mouth to hide his continued laughter.

“Yeah, well that’s what happens when you fill out the questionnaire like a two-year-old.”

Raj and Renee walked over to us after they saw Miles laughing.

“So what about you two?” I uncrossed my arms and pointed to Renee.

“I’m the captain of the pom-pom squad!” Renee kicked a leg into the air a demonstrated fake cheer face.”

“I’m the bloody class president.” Raj huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

I snorted. “A bit of an overachiever, are we?”

“Why couldn’t I be the football star or something.” He threw his head back and sighed.

“For some reason I can’t see an Indian guy being the captain of the football team. Maybe the math team. Or the president of outsourcing.” I pretended to type into an imaginary computer.

“Bugger off. When said football, I was talking about what you Americans refer to a soccer.” He tried to look angry, but had difficulty hiding his smile.

I tuned back to Miles. “So, what does you’re description say?”

He handed me his card, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when reading description.

The Jock

As the class jock you were well-known and liked by everyone in the school because of your good looks and athletic abilities. You had a string of relationships in your senior year, but ended up falling in love with the head cheerleader. The two of you married, and you got a full football scholarship to the college of your choice, but injured your knee during a game and lost your scholarship. You went through a deep depression and reconnected with the captain of the pom-pom squad from high school. The two of you had an affair, which your wife doesn’t know about.
Since your knee injury, you attended a community college and now work as a Phys Ed. teacher at the same high school you were once a star at.

“Oh my God, you’re a manwhore!” I bent over, slapped my knee, and started laughing.

“I was not a manwhore. It was the depression and injury which lead me astray from my beloved wife. Who knows, maybe I was addicted to pain pills and thought I was sticking it in my wife instead of the pom-pom girl.”

“Eww! In my character description it said you and I had an affair.” Renee shivered and scrunched up her face as if she’d just tasted something sour.

“Excuse me, that’s my man you’re saying ‘eww’ about. That’s eight plus inches you’re shuddering over.”

“Aww, sweetness. Except it’s more like ten plus inches,” he said with a devilish grin.

“It’s about to become a one-inch nub if you don’t wipe that stupid smirk from your face,” I made a saw and cutting board motion with my hands.

Miles leaned into me and whispered in my ear, “But then how would I be able to satisfy that beautiful pussy of yours with only a nub?”

I smiled. “That’s why God gave you a tongue.”

“Saucy wench.” Miles smacked my ass.

“Excuse me, sex fiends. Can we get back to the game here?” Renee interrupted.

I heard arguing and turned to Ryan and Tom in the corner, waving their cards in each other’s faces.

“Uh oh, looks like I need to perform quality control,” I said to Miles.

I walked up to the sparring couple. “Hey, love birds, whatcha get?”

Tom huffed. “I got the chess and math club president, and Ryan got the newspaper editor.”

“So, what’s wrong with that?”

“Clearly, I’m more suited to work as an editor of the newspaper and I hate chess,” Tom said.

“Don’t you mean you hate chest… like boobs… you know, cause you’re gay?” I laughed.

Both Tom and Ryan looked at me with growing irritation.

“Okay, then. I’m butting out now. I’m going to hide in my hole now,” I said, slinking away.

“What has their jock straps in a bunch?” Renee stood next to me, pointing her chin in Ryan and Tom’s direction.

“A lover’s quarrel. One wanted to be homecoming queen and the other the beauty school dropout,” I said.

Renee giggled just as Sean clapped for our attention.

“I believe everyone has their character cards and had had a chance to review them. Why don’t we go around the room and say who our characters are and how they related to the murder. Bob, I believe we need to start with you.”

Bob looked at his card. “I’m Bob and I was the AV guy in high school. I went on to become a high-profile director. I’m the one being murdered.” Bob read the card without enthusiasm.

Renee and I couldn’t contain our chuckles. It was a slightly cliché that Bob was being the one murdered considering he was the oldest person in the room. Sean and Marie probably just looked at his age on the questionnaire and stereotyped him for the role.

“Great,” Sean did a fist pump into the air. “Now we can go one by one and say who we are and how we are connected to the director’s death. I’ll begin. My character was the hall monitor in high school. I give the instructions and lead you through the murder investigation.”

“So you have no connection to the death? I asked.

“Correct.”

“Then I say you did it,” I continued.

“Did what? The murder?”

“Yes. Isn’t it obvious? It’s the whole whoever smelled it, dealt it.”

“Umm, I’m confused,” Sean said with a look of puzzlement on his face.

“You say you had nothing to do it with it. In the
Law and Order Special Crimes
unit that automatically makes you a prime suspect.”

Sean looked nervous when I said this, which fascinated me since this was just a game. “No, I can assure you that I had nothing to do with this. Why don’t we move on to Marie’s character.”

Marie looked at her husband with big eyes and shifted from side to side. Perhaps the woman had too much caffeine before we got here.

“I’m Marie and I’m in the marching band. After high school, I started my own music studio and wrote and produced music in my spare time. My motive for the murder was providing a score of music to the director, but never got paid the royalties for the music she created.”

“Because the music probably sucked,” I said to Renee under my breath.

It was Debbie’s turn. “Hi again, y’all. I’m Debbie and I was the class drama queen. I was real popular in high school and was the lead in all the school plays. After high school, I moved to Los Angeles where I met ‘the director’ in hopes he would advance my career, but he didn’t, and I was forced to take a job as a porn star. I always blamed the director for my downfall.”

“Maybe if she spread her legs for the director, she wouldn’t be in that position.” Renee swatted my arm and gave me a low shush.