Number One Crush
By M. Alford
Begun April 2008, finished August 2008
Synopsis: An actor finds himself suddenly spirited away to a land where a mysterious all-powerful goddess keeps a court of entertainers, comedians and singers at her constant beck and call. What terrifying fate does the Goddess have in mind for our hapless hero?
Rated R for sexual situations, violence, and language.
Lyric by Garbage.
This is a fanfiction for entertainment purposes. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter One: Bloom
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored.
He jerked awake suddenly, his mind stirring dizzily in the muck that usually swamped his morning thoughts.
Another morning. Mornings hurt. He twisted--stretched his stiff legs; instantly feeling his calf muscles shrink and scream like Dracula in the burning rays of the rising sun. He swallowed hard--his liquor-burned throat clenched in parched pain as he tasted his thick nasty tongue in his mouth. He uttered a gusting sigh, and his nose registered the unmistakable funky stench of day-old wine breath. Rotten cheese.
He really needed to stop drinking, was the thought he thought to himself, groggily. Going out to club after club... getting bombed out of his mind, night after night. It had become a habit long before he’d moved here... to this city he lived in... whatever that city was. He couldn’t remember much at this hour in morning. He knew only that he had been getting shitfaced drunk for so long, so many muddled years now, that he was actually starting to get bored with it. He literally couldn’t even remember what he’d done the previous night... the previous two nights... ten nights before. It was downright pathetic.
His skin prickled--an icy draft was rolling through the air, enveloping his body. Hadn’t even pulled the sheet over himself before he passed out last night. Dully he forced his silly thoughts to turn... to remember and categorize all of the little, stupid, daily tasks he would need to accomplish before he even tried to get out of bed this morning. Sitting upright... maintaining balance... not drooling...
“Who are you?”
He frowned at the unfamiliar, low voice.
A bedmate? And judging from the question, one just as stoned and out of it as he himself was. His eyes cracked open, anticipating the usual stabbing headache from light streaming into his eyeballs--and he was surprised to see that the bedroom was still quite dark. Furthermore, as he looked around himself... this was not his room.
In fact--he wasn’t in bed at all. His knuckles curled--he felt the slimy crumble of cold, wet gravel slipping through his fingers. His foggy mind only now registered the hot, angry pressure crushing his tailbone--arcs of pain were flashing down his left leg. His arse was cramped, sitting upon the hard, stony ground. His back was crookedly propped against something equally hard and unforgiving.
He looked upward at where he thought the voice had come from. Standing there in the dark, looming over his prone form, was an older gentleman. He was dressed in a space-age bodysuit with arched shoulderpads that met in a V over the chest, and made of something faintly luminescent, like mylar. On his belt was a shiny silver buckle in the shape of the planet Saturn. He looked like some 1950’s TV-show concept of how spacemen would dress in the “futuristic” year 2000.
The elder man was holding a clipboard and a pen, and he seemed to be waiting for an answer to the question. “Who are you, sir?” he asked again. His voice held a vaguely pseudo-British accent.
On the dirt ground, the newly-wakened, profoundly hungover man was unable to answer. He was caught off guard, unable to process where he was, or what it was he was being asked by the strange, stern-looking, oddly familiar fellow looming over him. “...What??” was all he had the presence of mind to answer.
The stranger was not put off by this blatant naiveté. He looked... so familiar; so peculiar, like a great horned, evil owl. His brows arched manically and his voice dripped the kind of menace that must have powered every nasty villain in every movie since the silent era. “We must have your name for the roster. What is your name?”
“My name?” And here the man on the ground was startled to realize that, in fact, he could not remember his own name. He really couldn’t. He didn’t know where he was, how he’d got here, why he was on the ground--not even his own name! All he could come up with... was... “Bloom!...”
This seemed not right, like only half of the answer. Yet it was all he could go with. “What is your occupation?” the stern owlish fellow asked crisply, noting down something on the clipboard.
The newly-christened Bloom could not begin to guess. He was... he was...
What the hell was he?? WHERE was he?
He remembered... hospital beds... syringes, medical charts. Beautiful, sexy nurses. The tools and trappings of... “I’m a doctor?” he blurted out, hopefully.
His interrogator laughed. It was a creepy sound. A low, even chuckle that went on too long, sounded just a little too sinister. “I think that’s highly unlikely.” He gazed down at his clipboard with dispassionate interest. “Are you an actor or are you a singer?”
Bloom’s brow furrowed. “I just told you--” But then he had to check himself. Had to think about what the man had asked. Was he really a doctor? Or... or more unbelievable, and therefore more likely... had he only been playing a doctor?
Bloom did not know what to believe. “I’m... an actor,” he said, for the sake of argument. After all, he could be a doctor that way. Just on television.
His mysterious inquisitioner seemed to accept this. “I thought you might be. You’re not nearly young enough to be one of her serenaders.” He tucked away the clipboard, and Bloom was aware that one of his trials was at an end. “Stand up, please.”
Bloom got up shakily off the hard dirt ground. As he got to his feet he felt another draft of cold air gust by, and he realized that they were standing outdoors somewhere, some godforsaken forest out in the night. He looked up, around, glimpsing only the black jagged branches of pine trees against the night sky, wondering what the hell had happened to him.
“I am the Lieutenant,” the ghostly fellow in black informed him. “I am the one who meets those new to this realm. I will be your guide as you pass through the levels of judgment administered by the Elders--intelligent men of this world. They will decide whether you belong in their camp, or with the younger bucks.” His disdain was clear in his voice on that last word. “Regardless of what happens you are to answer to me. I am your guide.”
Bloom was honestly trying to pay attention, but he had meanwhile been trying to remember what had happened to him in the moments before he had found himself here. He knew... at least he was beginning to sort through the memories... of cameras, set marks, script pages, alongside the hospital props he had initially flashed back to. So that might explain why he’d thought he was a doctor to start with. In fact--he remembered now that he had been arguing with his own agent that morning, on the phone, about how few roles Bloom felt the man to be securing for him lately; so this would seem to indicate that he was right to think he was an actor. He suddenly remembered his girlfriend, Winnie--herself a sexy, up-and-coming actress. He remembered enough to know that Winnie had recently changed her hair color from auburn red to platinum blonde, the better to fit in with the Hollywood starlets they lived near. She had lately started seeing a guru--a life coach whom she believed was brilliant beyond anything Bloom could say to her. She even wanted to change the spelling of her name from Winnie to Wynnae, to keep more in line with her new-age philosophy--whatever that was.
Bloom shook his aching head, trying to get his still-groggy mind to snap awake. These little revelations, little memories winking like fireflies in his head were nice, but nearly useless. They only gave him sparse clues as to who he used to be. They didn’t tell him anything about who he was now--or where he was. And all at the same time, Bloom had been listening to the strange man’s voice, trying to guess where he’d heard it before. “I know you,” Bloom said, suddenly remembering. “You’re... you’re...”
The older gentleman clicked his heels together smartly. “Lieutenant Commander Zachiel Bates, of the Astroship Cypress.” He crossed his right arm lengthwise across his chest, in some sort of salute. “A castaway vessel on a doomed voyage to the farthest horizons of the galaxy--”
“No you’re not.” Bloom stepped forward, staring hard at the other fellow. The words were familiar--the opening blurb from the campy old sci-fi television series was so familiar, no amount of amnesia could have erased it. “You played Lieutenant Bates on Astroship Lost, in the 60’s.” His muddled mind wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t separate an actor from a character. Bloom snapped his fingers, recognizing. “You’re that guy!! The actor--Elijah Harrison! And...” Bloom's brief smile faded, to be replaced with a look of horror. “...you’re dead!”
He knew this to be true. He remembered the meager-sized media blurbs reporting the passing of TV’s “the Lieutenant”, a.k.a. Elijah Harrison, aged 88, about a year before. This stunning revelation--that he was standing face to face with a long-dead character actor--was quickly overshadowed by the burning question that Bloom personally felt to be much more important: “Am... I dead??” Bloom asked the old man cautiously.
But the shadowy, long-deceased actor only smiled at him in response. “Not yet,” he answered cryptically.
##
“Come now. The others will want to meet you.”
Bloom followed numbly along behind, as the Lieutenant led the way out of the brittle pines. They emerged from the forest, onto a dark, flat field of grey weeds and dandelions, the yellow eyes of which were closed in nighttime sleep. Bloom saw that Harrison was leading him toward a large, rustic-looking lodge--a looming A-frame structure standing black and menacing against an overcast night sky. On either side of the A-frame, in the darkness, Bloom could just barely see long wings of the building stretching off into the pines. The whole set-up reminded Bloom of Bear Ranger Scout retreats he’d been shuttled off to, when he was a kid.
Harrison glanced behind only sporadically to see that Bloom was keeping up with him. “You are the latest in a series of men who have been summoned here at the behest of the Goddess,” the Lieutenant called over his shoulder.
For some reason Bloom would have expected a thunderclap, or some kind of menacing sound to underscore what had obviously been a significant statement. The silence in the darkness following Harrison’s words was more startling. “Uh... a Goddess?” Bloom repeated. It was the only thing he could think of to say to break the silence.
“A divine being. The creator of all life... a woman.” Harrison soldiered onward over the coarse ground. “An all-powerful entity who exists separate from the lowly parameters of our mortal world, known to us only as ‘She’.”
“Who is ‘She’?” asked Bloom, logically.
The old man didn’t seem to think this warranted a clear reply. “She chose you. That is all you need to know. You are a Muse, as I am,” Harrison continued, seeming to think that Bloom’s curiosity had been satisfied. “You should consider yourself very lucky. You’re here purely because she wants you.”
Bloom wasn’t satisfied. “Wants me for what?”
There was no answer.
Bloom tried another tack. “Who are these ‘others’?”
“Fathers. Kings. Moral imperatives. My successors. They replaced me as the master of her heart.”
Bloom dared a chuckle. “Your replacements? You must be pretty bitter.”
The old fellow seemed, if anything, indignant at the very idea. “They were natural choices for a maturing Goddess,” Harrison argued. “She chose them. That made them right. After all, she chose me to replace others. I can’t begrudge others for being as blessed as I was.”
Bloom didn’t accept this. It all sounded too much like one of Wynnae’s new-age dalliances to him. “You can’t possibly be serious. You... you sound like you’re all part of a cult!”
This caused Harrison to shoot him a debilitating glare. “When you know the power of the Goddess, when you know her love... you won’t be so quick to laugh,” he warned Bloom. “We were dead. She saved us. It is because of her love that we live again. Every Muse here acknowledges that. Any that do not--well... they soon know what it is to deny She Who Must Be Obeyed.” And with this ominous statement, Harrison pushed open the heavy oaken door of the lodge.
Bloom found himself inside a great front room, lined on every wall with thick pine logs. The decor was no different than the usual forest lodge trappings--dark varnished wood and rough cut stone were in heavy display. In the center of the peaked ceiling, high above a cavernous roaring fireplace hung a large, ornately framed portrait of a woman. Before this icon was laid a long, low oak dining table, spread with an impressive-looking turkey feast... almost like an offering. The image in the frame above the table was like some holographic image of the Virgin Mary, the eyes and features blurry and indistinct. As hard as Bloom stared at it, he couldn’t quite make out what the face looked like.
“I’ve brought him,” Harrison called out to the empty dining room.
From every door, figures appeared. The first was a fried-looking, bug-eyed mad scientist type, with the typical shock of electrified Einsteinian hair. This new fellow strode toward the two men, grinning wildly. “A new face to add to the pantheon!!” the mad scientist exclaimed, holding out a grease-smeared hand. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance. You just call me the Doc!”
Bloom shook the Doc’s hand, dizzily. From behind the Doc, seemingly having followed him in the room but somehow invisible until now, an evil-looking gent clad in a dark cloak and tinted eyeglasses stepped into view. This sinister fellow was bald as an egg and pasty-skinned, as if he was entirely composed of industrial-strength rubber. He glared humorlessly at Bloom. “I’m the Judge,” he intoned soullessly. This one held out a hand, tightly bound in a slick black rubber glove.
Bloom noted that the two new men, as different as they were, seemed to have similar facial features. “Same actor... different costumes,” he murmured, catching on.
He looked past the two to a crowned, royally-raimented figure. This one was bearing a golden sword and a coat of arms--a grinning half-moon with a long pointed nose, and a cartoony beard and buck teeth painted on the face. “Greet thee, peasant!” the new arrival piped, raising his nose imperiously. “I am Arthur, King of the Brightens!”
There seemed to be a hierarchy here. “A king... a judge... a doctor... a spaceship lieutenant...” Bloom recapped, trying to keep them all straight.
“And me!” That was the last in the line, a silver-haired, suited fellow with a large red nose, his voice booming. “I’m Ed!” He lifted a microphone to his face. “And now--ladies and gentlemen, your host!” Ed swept his arm back toward a darkened corner of the room. “...Heeere’s Johnny!”
Bloom could do nothing but stare, openmouthed. A curtained stage lit up to a blare of trumpets and applause, and there was... Johnny. Even though he had been dead for years... there he was.
The iconic television entertainer waved, smiling at the invisible, cheering studio audience. Bloom felt phantom hands grab his arms, felt himself being shuffled by unseen stagehands toward the sofa next to the host’s desk--where he was unceremoniously plunked down. Riotous claps and howls sounded from the vast darkness. The hot spotlight glared down on Bloom, and he felt like he was in an interrogation room. Through the blinding glare he could see that the other Elders he’d just met were now seated in the front row of the stage, like an audience--or a jury.
Johnny turned to Bloom as the applause died away, just like on the old show. “So, what brings you to our beautiful city?” he asked the stunned guest. “What’s your latest project?”
Ed, who had seated himself in his usual spot on the other side of that evening’s guest, broke in. “Never mind that. Why’d she choose him? What’s his gimmick?”
“What skills does he have?” heckled the Doc from the audience.
“He lacks experience. He doesn’t belong here!” That was the Judge’s dooming voice.
“Quite right!” sneered the King. “He ought to tarry with the younger, less hardy boys in the other camp!”
Harrison, the Lieutenant, disagreed. “He can’t be classed with the young ones. He’s too old. Too odd-looking.”
“Ah, but you forget--she likes the odd ones!” There was laughter all around. Canned, tinny audience laughter.
Bloom felt distinctly maligned, at the third or fourth swipe at his looks and his age in less than an hour. Now, it was true--he was no longer one of the “fresher” faces in Hollywood. It had to be at least ten years now since he’d moved to the States--immigrated, from his hometown of Aberdeen in Scotland, he recalled now. But at six-foot-something tall and less-than-fortysomething years old, Bloom was still well pleased with the reflection he saw looking back at him every morning. Years of hard partying had left lines in his boyish face, but more than one female companion had hinted that this lent him a rugged, sexy quality. His native accent got him lots of feminine appreciation as well--all he had to do most nights was open his mouth, roll a few Rs, and he would most assuredly end up inside the panties of one hopeful starlet or another. He was proud to say that he was still in possession of all his dark, shaggy hair, at an age when most Hollywood men were getting plugs and slapping on the Rogaine to hide their widening “widow’s peaks”. No, he was no teen idol. But he knew damn well he was no dog, either.
Now Bloom looked around helplessly, wondering who he should ask his next question to. “What are they talking about?” he directed his question to Johnny.
But Ed took it upon himself to answer. “You see, we have to decide where you belong. There are two camps here--us Elders, who have been here since the very beginning. Johnny and I, we were the Goddess’ very first imaginary friends! Then, as she grew older, she chose a new imaginary friend--Lieutenant Bates there!”
“I served as her Muse for a year and a half,” Harrison/Bates spoke from the audience. “She moved on to other, younger Muses sporadically throughout her childhood. But she never forgot me. I was the one to raise the structure in which we now stand--the Lodge of the Goddess. I have remained in this realm for the past twenty-one years, keeping watch over the Lodge, as the Goddess added new members... new Elders. Only one of us can be in command of her heart at any given time. But once we arrive, we stay... forever.”
Johnny nodded at this addendum. “Yeah, the Mayor is in charge now. He’s been the Goddess’ favorite for, I guess the past five years now. He replaced the Doc and the Judge, there.” The Doc, far from being upset about this, only shrugged, smiling affably. The Judge’s expression was impenetrable. “The Doc replaced the Lieutenant, the Lieutenant replaced Ed and I,” Johnny quipped. “It’s not the first democracy run on the expiration dates of stuff in the fridge, but it’s close.” Mechanical audience laughter. “I tell you what’s REALLY wild, REALLY weird--there’s the other camp, down by the lake? That one’s made up of teen idols, boy bands--all ex-boyfriends of the Goddess... I tell you, there’s more exes there than there are around Liz Taylor’s house.” More canned laughter.
Bloom’s head spun, looking from Johnny to Ed, confused. “’Exes’?” he repeated.
“Well, technically Johnny--they’re not really her EX-boyfriends,” added Ed. “The Goddess still visits them whenever she wants... ah...” Ed seemed reluctant to state the obvious.
But Bloom thought he got it. The canned audience snickers and laughter could have clued him in either way. He could see his own wide-eyed face on the telemonitor as the camera zoomed in on his reaction. “Are you telling me... there’s a group of men that this ‘Goddess’ likes to sleep with? A group, now--not just one??”
In the audience, the King of the Brightens sneered again, derisively. “Forsooth--mere dalliances of the fickle feminine heart!” he scoffed. “WE are the advisors, the intelligence that guides her soul!”
Harrison agreed. “We are the Elders--they’re just boytoys.” His voice took on a melodramatic tone for a moment, just like it used to on his old TV show. “Paltry, petty pin-ups... frivolous flavors of the week! Dewy, dapper devils who all captured her heart at various times... one at a time. Just as the Mayor is the only active Elder Muse now, so can she only lavish her attentions on one of them at once.” And here Harrison seemed to pause, as if debating whether to say more. “She never has more than one at a time; don’t misjudge her.”
“Oh, I won’t.” Bloom looked around at the cast of Elder Muses. Frankly, he thought the younger Muses were getting the better deal. “So--a Mayor, too? Where’s he? When do I get to meet him?”
“Yes, let’s take him to City Hall,” agreed the King. “Maybe the Mayor can decide where he belongs!”
“Oh, let’s not bring the Mayor into this!” That was the Doc, firmly against the idea.
“Why not?” Harrison looked toward the Doc. “The Novice must meet the Muse whom he might one day... replace.”
A shock of thunder sounded over the lodge’s piney beams.
Chapter Two: The LodgeFeedback
Obligatory disclaimer: This is a fanfiction for entertainment purposes. No copyright infringement is intended.
