Chapter 10: The Word of the Day is ANALOG

Something that is analogous or similar to something else.

An organ or part similar in function to an organ or part of another animal or plant but different in structure or origin.

I did find something, though. My cell phone was still where I left it, tucked into my bra. You know...where the cup and the shoulder strap come together?

Go ahead, laugh, but then tell me this...what's a girl supposed to do when she doesn't have a pocket to carry her phone in? Clip it at the waist, like the guys do? If you're not wearing a belt, the phone weighs down the waistband and rolls it around itself, and just ruins the lines of your outfit. Lug around a purse absolutely everywhere just to have a place to stash a phone? Come on. Why should we have to do that when we can just tuck it in, you know? Look, honey...if the Almighty has gifted you with enough to fill out that bra, it will exert enough outward pressure to hold a phone in place, and if you've got a real thin phone like mine, it doesn't really show most of the time. A push-up bra actually works best. Problem solved.

Of course, when someone calls this does make it seem like one of your 'Girls' has its own ring tone. Or, if you set the phone to vibrate, like I do, people may look at you kinda funny, like you're into something just a wee bit kinky, you know? But for Bill it's a real power trip; he likes being able to (as he says) "set Sookie's bosom a-quiver from afar" just by calling me. Bill can be sweet like that sometimes, in a old-fashioned/high-tech sort of way. Eric? He's 'way into telling people to "hold on a minute while I give Sookie a buzz." Kink.

Finding my cell phone still did not solve the lip gloss problem, but it was a start.

I wasn't about to let a bunch of calls from Bill and Eric ruin my little vacation, so I had left the phone turned 'off.' I mean, I had to leave town because of them, so taking their calls would've been counterproductive, wouldn't you say? I turned the phone back on, and since I didn't have much of anything else to do at the moment, I listened to my voice mails. Just as I thought, most were from the Naughty Boys, demanding to know where I was. As far as I was concerned, they could wait a long time for return calls.

More than a few were from Sam, though.

Oops. I never had called him to arrange for my 'time out'/time off. After not finding me at my house on the night of the "indiscretion," and with me not showing up for work and all, he sounded pretty frantic. I had to take care of this.

Sam answered on the first ring. "Cher, where the hell are you? Are you okay? I've been going out of my mind here worrying about you!"

I explained that I needed to get out of Dodge for a few days and apologized for going AWOL and forgetting to actually talk with him about re-arranging my work schedule. Sam said that he understood and wasn't upset about me not showing up for work, but he needed to know that I was okay.

That's Sam for you. You know what they say...if you want someone sweet and loyal and protective who will always be there for you, get yourself a dog.

"Yeah, Sam, I'm just fine. Pam and I drove up to Branson to do a little shopping, that's all. And everything was going just fine until I headed out to Bass Pro in Springfield to pick up a fishing rod for Jason. That's when things got a little weird."

I explained to him how I had picked up a large white rabbit hitchhiker, about being chased by Rat and Prick...you know, the Readers' Digest condensed version of what you've already heard. After all, my cell plan doesn't include unlimited minutes, so I didn't have time to really get into the details, and my lips felt so awfully dry because of the lip gloss situation...

Sam got real quiet there for a moment and I thought I might have lost him. "Sam?" I said, "Are you still there?"

"I'm here. First you say that you're 'just fine,' but then you tell me that you're seeing some really weird shit. Listen to me, Sookie. You've got to find a way to get out of there right now, do you hear me?"

"You're telling me! I'm locked in a log cabin, I can't find my purse, and the sooner I can leave this place and get my hands on some lip gloss, the better."

His voice took on a more urgent tone. "Lip gloss is the least of your problems right now, cher. It sounds like you've run into some analog shifters, and believe me, you do NOT want to mess with them."

Analog shifters?

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Sam."

He explained that I must be in either Analog Hole or Wysiwia, where two large inbred families of shifters had been living more than a hundred years, and that they were organized more like weres, in packs.

"Either because of the inbreeding or maybe a mutation or two somewhere along the line, these shifters are really different than the rest of us...so different that we make it a point to stay as far away from them as possible."

"Why? Are they dangerous?"

"From what I've heard, they could be. But it's not just that, Sook. Don't you think it's weird that you just happened to meet up with an impossibly large rabbit? That you were taken captive by an impossibly large penis and rat?"

Ya think?

"This is my world that we're talking about here, Sam. My 'weird' hasn't been the same as other people's 'weird' for quite some time now." I didn't feel in the mood to be agreeing with him, even though I knew he was right. "But okay, let's say just for the sake of argument that it does seem a bit unusual."

"Analog shifters take on the shape of what they're behaving like at the moment, which can lead to some pretty...uh...interesting situations."

"What do you mean?" It was going to take a while for me to wrap my mind around this.

"When you thought that what you call 'Bunny' was running like a scared rabbit, that's exactly what she looked like to you, a human-sized rabbit."

"So, a guy would look like a rat if he was behaving like one?"

"Right, and..."

"...and a guy who's acting like a prick looks like a human-sized penis." I just had to laugh. "I'm sorry, Sam, but this is kinda hard to believe!"

Sam cleared his throat. "Sookie, what's more difficult for you to handle...that you've seen a giant rabbit, rat and penis, or the idea that there are people who can shift into a giant rabbit, rat and penis? Huh?"

Good point. Maybe this lip gloss deprivation was getting to me.

"Okay, let's say that whatever...whoever...I've run across happen to be these 'analog shifters.' Just because they're weird doesn't necessarily mean that they're dangerous, does it?"

Things that we don't understand are not automatically 'bad.' Sam, of all people, should know that.

"Of course not, but the Analogs have some other things that they'll fight like hell to keep hidden, and being caught in the middle of a feud isn't exactly safe, either. Like I said, you've got to get out of there ASAP, before you get caught in the cross-fire."

"A feud? You mean like the Hatfields and the McCoys?"

"Sort of, but in this case it's the Hedde family versus the Bunns. The Heddes live in Analog Hole and the Bunns have always been in Wysiwia."

"Wissy-wee-ah?" What kind of name is that?

"Unusual but appropriate. It stands for 'what you see is what I am.'"

Okay, at least that made sense.

"So which family do you think has me locked up here?" I needed to know just who had my lip gloss.

Sam paused. "My guess would be that it's the Heddes up in Analog Hole that have got you. Their pack master has a real bad rep in the shifter community."

"What makes you think that he's involved?"

"Just putting two and two together, that's all," he said. "His name is Richard, so..."

It clicked into place in my brain right then, just like that.

So, the huge penis has a name.

Dick Hedde.