Nathan watched as Charles' hand moved up toward his face and wondered if he was going to do that... thing again. He watched that hand and tense up with excitement, only to feel disappointed when a flat palm came down on the area of the mattress next to his head.
Charles used the new leverage to move his body up along Nathan's, bare skin sliding against bare skin. His glasses were still on, but for some reason Nathan liked it that way. He rubbed his bottom lip up Nathan's chin before tilting his head for a feral but slow kiss, tongue expertly leading without being aggressive. That was always Charles' strong point in his relationship with Nathan.
In an awkward response to his distraction, Nathan found himself staring at the ceiling, spacing out and putting his body on autopilot while his manager straddled his hips, both of them naked and sweaty. What had that been? It was a really weird thing coming from someone like Charles. Even after getting to know the man (much) more intimately, that on act still have him very confused.
He'd tried to get Charles drunk with the band a second time, but that didn't produce the result he wanted. He tried getting him drunk a third time, with just the two of them, but that only lead to a failed attempt at sex and Nathan having to sneak out of Charles' bedroom the next morning. That was the only time they'd ever messed up and fallen asleep together. Usually Charles was more careful.
"What is it, Nathan?"
Nathan blinked a couple times and finally looked up at the man he was supposed to be having sex with. His mouth was still open like it had been while they were kissing, but it was empty and Charles was sitting up, glasses reflecting the dim, incoming moonlight.
"What's what?" he asked.
"You called me here tonight," Charles reminded him.
"Yeah, no, I know." Nathan moved his hands to Charles' hips, rubbing his thumbs on them while staring at random pieces of furniture around the room. "I just, uh, I had a question."
"You had a question right now?"
"Yeah."
"Right now?"
"Yeah."
Charles' eyes slid shut as he sighed. "What is it?"
"What's this?" He reached on hand up to Charles' check and ran his index finger down the side of the other man's face.
He did it a few more times before Charles stopped him. "That's you poking me in the face, Nathan. That's what that is. It's also annoying."
"No, what is it when you do it?"
"I'm not following."
Nathan propped himself up on his elbows. "When we got you drunk after Melmord left you kept doing it to me all night. What is it?"
"I don't really remember that night, Nathan. You boys got me very drunk."
"Yeah, I guess."
Silence fell over the room and Charles took it as a wordless admission that nothing was going to happen that night. Nathan didn't protest as he watched the other man get dressed leave. He knew how to contact Charles if he needed him. Or wanted him.
- (/) - (/) -
"Doods, it's already been a week an' I'm still havin' fuckin' flashbacks about Christmas," Pickles announced as he walked into the main room and let his body fall onto the couch opposite Nathan.
Swisgaar was staring ahead at nothing, eyes black and heavy from lack of sleep. "I can'ts sleep. The clowns just keeps gettings H-job froms my whores mother."
Nathan opted to continue reading the newspaper, intent on using denial to forget the entire event ever happened. Toki had locked himself in his room the moment they got back from that fiasco, and no one had seen him since. No one in the band, anyways. Klokateers were sent to check on him regularly.
The remaining four members groaned as soon as they saw Ofdensen walk in the door.
"No," Murderface said from an arcade machine as soon as his manger took a breath in to begin speaking.
"No what, William?"
"No. Whatever it isch, no."
"I did some interesting research to see how your fanbase responded to that Christmas Special," he told them.
"What special?" Nathan asked.
"Pretending it didn't happen isn't going to work, Nathan."
Nathan shrugged. "Workin' pretty good so far."
"Well I was looking into how your audience demographics have changed over time. You've been steadily losing your female fanbase."
Nathan laid his paper on his lap, Swisgaar stopped playing guitar, Pickles sat up and Murderface's character died in the game his was playing.
"Thats is unpossibles. Ladies loves us. We's Dethklok," Swisgaar argued.
"Unfortunately, it's true," Charles said as he dropped a packet of charts onto the sawblade coffee table.
Nathan picked them up and readjusted his reading glasses so he could check them over. "Fuck guys, he's right."
"Whatdawe do?" Pickles asked. "We wrote 'Kill You' ta try ta get more chicks inta metal. If dat didn't work I dunno what will."
"If whats don'ts work?" Toki asked as he stumbled into the main room, rubbing at the sleep crust still clinging to his eyelashes.
"Women don't like usch anymore," Murderface said. "I bet it'sch 'cause of me."
"There's a variety of factors involved," Charles explained, "But we need to remedy this soon."
"With what?" Nathan asked.
"I've set up an interview for the five of you on a talk show that's popular with women."
Toki put his hands up and started backing away from Charles. "No, no mores womens. I's hads enoughs of womens afters our moms."
"You guys don't really have much of a choice in the matter."
"Bulls shit," Swisgaar yelled. "Yous don'ts understands what it's like withs dem. Yous families don'ts comes tos you's house ands fucks everyones and emparress yous."
"Yeah, how come yer family never shows up an' does crazy shit ta 'umiliat you?" Pickles asked. "It's naht fair."
"That's irrelavent," Charles replied. "You need to do this interview if you want to see better sales. Until then you will be making less money. Do you understand? You're still paying for renovations, now is not the time to be picky about PR appearances."
"Fine, we'll do it," Nathan said, "but it better be brutal."
- (/) - (/) -
Charles should have known it was going to end like this. He could shove as many scripted answers into their hands as he wanted, but relying on them to stick to them never seemed to work.
The host of the show, a middle-aged Hispanic woman, began with pretty vague, easy questions directed as the entire band. Each member gave a short, one-sentence answer that helped the interview move forward as a decent pace. Then, out of nowhere, she addressed Nathan in particular, asking him about his rumored drop in groupie whoring. Then the interview exploded.
When Charles was researching fan trends, he found a few factors contributing to the loss of female interest. Some of it was a result of the paternity waiver debacles, and some of it was from seeing Murderface's calloused penis on national television. The biggest drop, however, seemed to come when he and Nathan started sleeping together.
Charles always figured that Nathan came to him for reasons that stood between boredom and a kind of sheltering feeling. Charles knew everything about Nathan's life already, and he was always around, so it wasn't that surprising when Nathan showed up in his office one day and asked how much he could demand from his employees. Charles had told him "Pretty much anything," and soon found himself being called to Nathan's room around once a week. After he'd "come back from the dead" the trips increased. He figured Nathan was just working out stress that had resulted from all their financial burdens.
The research seemed to show something else, unfortunately. The decline seemed to correlate to how often he and Nathan had sex. He didn't think Nathan was having sex with him instead of groupies; he thought he was having sex with him in addition to them.
Charles looked down at the charts, arranged in rows on his desk like a firing squad, and let out a long sigh that deflated his entire posture. He pushed a few aside and pushed a button under his desk. Part of his desk slid aside and a small TV rose from the area underneath. He pulled the remote out of his desk drawer and pressed play.
"So? Why is that any of your fuckin' business?" Nathan asked on the screen.
"Inquiring minds want to know," the host answered. She crossed her ankles under her chair and sat up properly; her body language suggesting she was proud of the reaction she was getting. She could probably hear her ratings going up.
"Yeah, why'sat any're yer fuckin' business," Pickles slurred. He had, yet again, had "a couple" of drinks before an interview. "I... I 'ope yer tits fall ahf."
"Excuse me?" the host asked.
"Whats, yous deafs or somethings?" Toki asked.
"Dumb stupids dumb sluts is whats shes is," Swisgaar said. "Likes my moms. Likes alls the ladies. Dumb sluts."
During the chaos of the interview, no one noticed that Murderface his slipped behind the host's chair until he was behind her with his palms flat against her breasts. She froze for a moment, shocked and unsure of what to do. Murderface took the opportunity to lean in and whisper in her ear, "I like women."
The directors of the show mercifully decided to cut to commercial break that point. The host was trying to beat Murderface off with her notecards as the show's theme played and the screen faded to black.
Charles learned long ago how volatile Dethklok's personalities could be, and he developed a myriad of systems to compensate for that. He wanted to give the talk show a chance, but he was ready for it to fail. It wasn't taped live, so he could have easily had the evidence destroyed and the audience bribed before a word of it got out.
Except the tape was gone when he arrived and the audience was filled with reporters. Someone had tipped them off that Dethklok was going to be there, making a huge mistake that the public would eat up as a front page headline. Copies of the tape were at every local news station within an hour. Someone was trying to cause a PR nightmare for Charles and Dethklok.
Charles thought back to all the information he'd gathered while "dead," but the organization he uncovered didn't operate like this. He didn't know why someone would want to ruin Dethklok's image in the eyes of the public, but he was annoyed that whoever it was knew how to bypass his control tactics.
He had once last plan, something the boys were going to hate more than the talk show. It was their last chance to salvage their crumbling female fanbase before feminists began picketing at concerts or something.
"My Lord," a Klokateer greeted as he entered Charles' office. "We have found their manager. She will be at this location tonight." He handed Charles a folded up piece of paper.
"Very well then, thank you."
Charles stood up from his desk as the Klokateer left and read over the address. It was for a nearby nightclub that had theme nights. He figured the band was probably going to perform there that night, which was technically illegal considering the ban was still in effect for unauthorized tribute bands.
He walked down the hall into the meeting room where the band was sitting, looking chastened like they were ready to get grounded. Charles figured that if he raised their expectations by not scolding them, they'd be in a better mood when he unveiled his newest plan.
"How'd that footage get everywhere?" Nathan asked before Charles could even sit down.
"I'm not entirely sure myself, but I can assure you I'm looking into it."
"Well looks intos it harders," Swigaar told him. "Thats was awfuls."
"It did look bad," Charles agreed, "But there is one way that was can remedy all of this."
"Kill ourschelves?" Murderface asked.
"No William, you need to extend an olive branch to some female musicians."
"Whatdo olives hafta do wit any a' dis?" Pickles asked.
"It means you need to show support for a female band. I've taken the liberty of tracking down Ladyklok and I think that-"
"No," the entire band droned in unison.
"I don't think you boys understand how much damage this footage has done. You need to undo it before it has lasting effects on your record sales."
"Maybes yous needs tos undos alls your crappy managering, huh," Skwisgaar suggested.
"Yeah," Toki chimed in, "Maybes yous needs tos knows that we's is fucks ups and we's is gonna bes a mistake all the times. Maybes yous thinks abouts that nexts time."
Charles chose to ignore them an continue his explanation. "If you let LadyKlok play one song as an opening act it would be taking great steps to improve your image."
"Dethklok doesn't do opening acts," Nathan argued.
"That's my point, Nathan."
"No, that's my point," the singer corrected. "I said it. Don't take my points and call them yours. That's plaguer... plagger..."
"Plagersgisms!" Toki said, his voice so proud and excited it was practically a cheer.
"Yeah, that's plagersgisms," Nathan agreed.
Charles stared forward in silence for a moment. He learned long ago that arguments with the boys could die within second if left alone. Often times he would count to ten before continuing his point. If he started speaking in a different tone of voice, it was like they hadn't been arguing moments before. "It's common knowledge that Dethklok has never once had an opening act. That's why doing this will get you a lot of attention. You've ruined plenty of interviews in the past; people will gladly overlook old news for new news. Do you understand?"
"No, I think I get it," Nathan said. "You want us to dress up like women and be our own opening act. That's weird. That's really weird."
"You know tribute bands can exists without you taking over their act." Charles' statement was met by what seemed like contemplative silence from the band. "Right? You don't always have to be your own tribute band. That was one time, and it ended horribly."
"Yas, buts theys dos it wrongs ifs wes don'ts does its ourskelves," Skwisgaar argued.
"What, 're you sayin' you wanna put ahn a skirt an' some heels and go out ahn stage an' play?" Pickles asked.
"Ifs its means somes other dumbs skanks can'ts bes us thens yes."
"Dood, you got some prahblems."
"I think we schould let 'em do it."
The band stopped and stared at Murderface.
"Well why not?" he asked them. "I mean, they're juscht, ya know, a band. Nothin' wrong with bandsch." A moment of silence passed and Murderface looked up at the ceiling as he shoved his hands in his pockets and added a rushed and mumbled "of girls."
The other guys groaned, threw their hand in the air, or smack the palms of their hands into their faces. "You jus' wanna git laid," Pickles said.
"What? What?" Murderface yelled as he walk toward them. They turned their back on him but he kept trying to make his point. "Guys, if we could get thesche sluts to suck our dicksch... think about it man. It'd be like getting head from you with tits. It's suckin' yer own cock witshout the gay."
"Murderface makes a good point," Nathan found himself saying reflexively. As soon as he heard "without the gay" his mind went "That's what you're going for, right? Agree with it."
As if Nathan was the dam, the other guys followed suit. "Yeah, okay, maybe dey were kinda hot, if I remember right," Pickles admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Whatsevers, a couples mores sluts, bigs deal," Skwisgaar said. It was as close to on-board as he was going to get.
"Yous makes sures they leaves us alones," Toki said, pointing his finger in Charles' face. "And they don'ts makes out withs each others likes our's moms."
"Uh, Toki," Nathan spoke up, "I don't, uh, I don't think those two are the same thing."
"Yeah, dat'd be, uh, a happy thing," Pickles pointed out.
"Justs tells thems to leaves us alones!" Toki screamed with his fingers clenched into fists and his eyes squeezed shut.
"I can assure you that they won't be bothering you," Charles said. "They'll be placed in a hotel until the concert. They will not be staying on Mordhaus property."
"Yeah, okay, fine, when do we get them?" Nathan asked.
Charles looked at his watch. "Now would be good."
- (/) - (/) -
A long chorus of "Uh"s sounded when Dethklok arrived outside the club an found themselves waiting in line. They weren't accustomed to waiting for anything, but it was easy to see why this was a special case. Along the outer brick wall of the club were a mass of fans waiting to get in... all dressed like one of the members of Dethklok.
"Toos fat, eyes is the wrongs colors, boots is wrongs, toos short," Skwisgaar listed at he pointed to everyone in the crowd that was dressed like him.
"Dude, look, that group looks great," a guy further ahead in the line shouted to his friend. Everyone in line turned to see what he was talking about. "They even have a manager. We got Klokateers though." The guys in that group all high-fived with the kind of clumsy enthusiasm that pretty much guaranteed they'd been pre-gaming.
Charles learned from closely monitoring the "Thunderhorse Incident" that Dethklok was safest when hiding in plain site. When he noticed that the entire gathering was in costume, he had the Klokateers drop them off a couple blocks away and didn't bring any with him. The boys were in no mood to converse with the crowd, especially because it was entirely male, so he felt it would go down without incident.
The only difficult part was the waiting. The club wasn't that large and the demand for this particular theme night was huge. No one could get in until someone left. That was the issue with anonymity; it didn't get you what you wanted when you wanted it.
An expensive black car drove up and parked right in front of the entry door. A pair of long, thin legs in black nylons popped out of the passenger seat, but the woman turned before Charles could see her face, so all he got was a view of the French braid her medium brown hair was tied back into. He stepped out of line and walked past the crowd of people, pushing aside a guy with a taped-on Toki mustache.
The woman was wearing a denim mini-skirt and a black leather jacket tailored well to her figure. She was Charles' height and skinny, with little shape to her hips or bust. Though her frame was boyish, her posture and overall movements were graceful and feminine. She was carrying a black violin case in one hand and a black clutch in the other.
"The band hired me to play with them," the woman told the bouncer. She shifted from left to right, trying to see past the tall, thick man guarding the door. Charles felt a weird tightening in the pit of his stomach. She sounded strangely familiar.
"No one left any note with me," the bouncer said. He shrugged and frowned in the most obnoxiously patronizing way possible.
"Listen, the woman that manages them e-mailed me and told me she'd pay me to play with them tonight. Though by the looks of this place, " she said as she began scanning the area, "I doubt they'd be able to affor-"
Charles and the woman froze for an eerie yet entirely familiar moment when they finally made eye contact. "Charles?" She finally asked after a few heartbeats of processing what she was seeing. "Is that you or just someone dressed like you?"
"You know dis chick 'er somethin?" Pickles asked from behind Charles, almost startling him.
"Yes," he answered. "This is Gale Sherman. She's a violinist with the London Philharmonic."
Gale's facial expression was rather blank, but one eyebrow rose at the introduction. Her hazel eyes were unbelieving behind her rectangular glasses, like an exact but female copy of Charles. "Oh come on Charles, you don't seriously think you can lie to them about this," she said, motioning back of forth between his face and hers.
"Dids yous fucks this ladies?" Skwisgaar asked, stepping forward to inspect her until he was looming over her with the posture of a vulture. "She ams not bad, don'ts like this age groups though. Toos... ins-betweens."
"Dood, did you do 'er?" Pickles asked. "Aw man, you totally fucked this chick, didn't you? Ahfedensen I didn't even know you had a dick. High five."
"I'm not 'high-fiving' you because I didn't sleep with her. Gale's a colleague of mine in the music industry. Isn't that right Gale?"
After a few hard blinks Gale began trying to sputter out words. "Are they..." She started over again and addressed the band. "Are you guys blind or stupid or both?"
Charles closed his eyes and sighed. At least no one, not even the bouncer, was paying attention to them. At this point there was nothing he could do to stop Gale, at least nothing short of having someone kidnap her in the next 30 seconds and throw her in a ditch halfway across the country. He knew he wasn't going to do that to her.
"Nows I knows whys yous not fuck this lady." Toki said. "She a bitch, that what she is. Talks abouts hows we's stupid when she nots even knows us. Yous don't knows Toki, okay?"
"You... seriously don't get it do you?" she asked them. "I'm his twin sister. How can you not see that?"
"Yeah right, you don't look anyt'ing like 'im," Pickles said. He stepped up to the side of Gale opposite Skwisgaar and leaned in until his nose almost touched her cheek. She tried to shift away but the blonde guitarist was on the other side, still debating in his mind whether or not he "woulds totallies dos her." She was left furrowing her brow in confusion while Pickles squinted his eyes and examined her features. "Oh, no wait, yeah ya do. Sahrry bout that."
"Why are you here?" Charles asked as both Skwisgaar and Pickles returned to their original positions next to him. "This doesn't seem like your, uh, your kind of venue."
"It isn't," she answered simply, "But the Philharmonic can get, well, rather monotonous at times. When I got the e-mail from Ladyklok they said they'd pay my fee if I came here, tonight, and played 'Detharmonic' with them."
"So you haven't met the band?" Charles asked, his eyes narrowing as his gut told him to be suspicious of the situation. "You just got an e-mail saying to come here."
Gale paused for a moment and then mirrored her brother's skeptical look. "And they specified tonight only. They wouldn't even consider any other night. That seems more than a bit..."
"Odd," Charles finished for her. "Very, unnervingly odd."
Gale's expression suddenly relaxed in a show of realization. "Who is the one person who would want to get the two of us in one place? Who would go through the effort of managing a Dethklok tribute band and then get us both to show up?"
"Where'd Nat'an go?" Pickles added to string of questions. "And Murderface?"
"Oh theys goes insides," Toki said. "I stays outs here. I not in the moods for the club, too much peoples screams ins your ear. Sees, there ams no lines."
The other four people stopped and turned around to face an empty sidewalk.
Inside Murderface was in heaven. When they first got in they expected to see some chicks on stage doing a crappy version of their music, but instead they found six small stages, three on each side of the room, lit in red lights and equipped with stripper poles. Murderface immediately went to watch as a girl with a blunt, triangular haircut danced to "Bloodlines." She was wearing his same black vest, but under it was a blue bikini top that she was toying with the strings to. He dug into his pockets and began dumping money on the floor in front of her.
Nathan grimaced as drunk guys in shitty Dethklok costumes bumped their sweaty asses into him with every step. He looked for a place where he could sit down and get lost in the jiggling tits so he didn't have to realize he was surrounded by douchebags and listening to himself sing.
Nathan didn't realize what it meant when he counted six mini stripper stages. There were five member of Dethklok. When he came in girl Murderface was to his left and girl Pickles was to his right. In the middle were girl Toki on the left and girl Skwisgaar on the right. The female version of himself, who he felt awkward looking at, was in the back left and had, by far, the most men surrounding her.
He still didn't notice what it meant as he sat down in the one chair that was around, surprised that no one was in it. He didn't even have time to get comfortable before a woman in a Klokateer hood and a black bikini came over and held out an open palm as if she expected money. Nathan didn't know what was going on, but he reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of what was probably a little over a grand and shoved it against the woman's chest. She gathered it up and quickly ran off with it.
He wondered what was so special about one fucking chair, but it didn't take long for him to get an answer. It had high legs so he could see above everyone and it was direly on the edge of the stage. He looked straight ahead and had an amazing view of... of...
...Ofdensen?
No, some woman dressed like Ofdensen. She had on a blue suit coat and a matching, micro mini skirt that didn't even cover her bright red underwear as she wrapped her leg around the poll and bent over backwards to give Nathan a welcoming smile, her hazel eyes playful behind an exact replica of Ofdensen's glasses. The track switched to "The Gears" and the woman stood up again. Her back still to Nathan, she let the suit coat slide off her shoulders and down her arms to reveal an unbuttoned, white dress shirt she had tied under her boobs in the "slutty schoolgirl" style. Her feet, clad in red pumps, turned and stepped over the cloth, bring her very close to Nathan. He had a clear view of her figure, which was a very developed hourglass. Even in heels, however, she was really short, so her large bust and wide hips looked almost awkward. He tried to picture her a bit taller, with less curves. He found it extremely easy to morph her face in Ofdensen's, and the hair was the right color for the fantasy as well, pulled back into a loose ponytail.
Ofdensen dropped down and bent his knees, bring himself closer to Nathan's eye level. Soon he was sitting on the edge of the stage, dragging red pumps... no, black dress shoes, up Nathan's legs and lightly over his crotch. Suddenly his manager leaned back and began untying... unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it away until he was wearing nothing but a red bra... tie.
In one quick motion, however, Ofdensen barged in to ruin his own strip show. Nathan had to blink and shake his head to stop from seeing doubles... no, triple of the CFO.
After clarity began to sink in he realized the real Ofdensen was covering the stripper with a coat and a woman who looked just like him was standing nearby with her arms crossed and eyes glaring at... another woman who looked kind of like Ofdensen.
The woman dressed at Nathan noticed what was happening and motioned to the staff to cut the music. Pickles, who had run in to the club with Charles and his sister, already has his own bottle of vodka and was half-way through it. He watched the drama unfold and laughed to himself so hard he thought he was gonna piss himself. He took a deep breath just as the music was cut and screamed, during a moment of quite, confused mumbling, "Ha ha, Ofdensen's sister's a stripper!"