Luan Loud pulled her coat closed at the throat and ducked her head against the biting cold. Her stylish boots, bought second hand from the thrift shop near her apartment, kicked through black, icy slush and her red scarf fluttered in the wind, a long strand of flaying fabric dangling between her breasts. Her skirt danced around her knees and a deep chill soaked into her bare legs. She should have worn pants.
She came to an intersection and stopped to let a flood of cars roll past. While she waited, she made a game of counting the taxis, something she often did. She had lived in New York City for almost two years and she still couldn't get over how many taxi cabs there were. Back home in Royal Woods, she'd see one every other blue moon, but here, they were everywhere. Except, of course, when you needed one, but that was par for the course, wasn't it? If you need something, you're not going to find it, even in the city that never sleeps.
Boy, that was an apt name. Luan's building, a brownstone tenement with a rusting metal fire escape, was on the corner of West 58th Street on the edge of Soho and no matter the hour of day or night, the street and sidewalk in front of it were alive with activity. Luan grew up in a suburb of Detroit and at sunset, everything shut down. The only thing that was open past 8pm was the gas station next to the interstate, and even that closed up shop before eleven. Lying in bed, the ever present chirp of crickets wrapped itself around you like a soothing sonata, and it went on for hours. Here, a thousand miles away, the voice of the night sounded a whole lot like sirens, horns honking, and people yelling at one another. New York was like a lit computer screen in that it dimmed but never quite went off completely.
The light changed and all of the cars came to a halt. Luan looked both ways and hurried across. She passed a rush of shops, markets, and restaurants and turned right. Tall buildings towered over the street, their black facades sprinkled with lights, but Luan was not aware of them. Like so many people who come to New York with stars in their eyes and then get swept away by life, she was blind to the sights. When she first came to the city, she would crane her neck and look up at the skyscrapers with giddy wonder. In Royal Woods, the tallest building was three stories. Here, the roofs of the Art Deco monoliths Downtown went on forever. In her first week, she visited the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Coney Island, Battery Park, and Fifth Avenue. She rode the Staten Island Ferry, strolled in Central Park, marveled at Grand Central Station, and explored the quiet wealth of the Upper West Side like a gobsmacked tourist. Here's where John Lennon was shot (happiness is not a warm gun after all), and there's where Katy Perry lives. She ate authentic Brooklyn pizza and met celebrities walking down the street like they were normal people. Occasionally, someone would call out to them with a quote from one of their songs or movies, but for the most part, they ignored them.
New York was wonderful.
Then she rode the subway, with its trash, graffiti, and winos. Then she met her first crazy bag lady, an old black woman who pushed a shopping cart full of garbage and castoff things. Then she had her purse snatched. Then she watched a man get shot. Central Park was lovely during the day, but at night, drunks, perverts, pushers, pimps, and prostitutes moved in like roaches when you turn the kitchen light off. Homeless people clustered together under bridges and on sidewalks like heaps of trash, pushy vendors chased you down and forced fake watches and fake furs down your throat. Used needles and used condoms littered the street. In some places, abandoned buildings with boarded up windows rotted in overgrown lots like bodies dumped on the side of the road, their decayed chambers hiding crack dens and sometimes worse. Times Square, once a clean and polished tourist Mecca, had gone back to the seedy open air market of vice it had been in the seventies. Hookers and drug dealers boldly plied their trade and sex shops, porn theaters, brothels, and legal drug dens lined the once proud throughfare.
Luan had built a romanticized vision of New York in her head, turning it into a place of glitz, glam, and dreams, but if that NYC had ever existed, it was long dead, and its corpse was infested with bugs. The schools under long-time education czar Richard Carranza, were an exact microcosm of the city, each one reflecting the overall racial make-up of the city, but while Carranza was focused on bean counting people's skin colors, the NYC public school system slipped into chaos. Luan heard horror stories of gangs, bullies, assaults, and suffering. Test scores had plummeted, the dropout rate (especially among minorities) had skyrocketed, and charter schools and alternative schools had been shuttered, leading to a mass exodus of the middle class to Connecticut and New Jersey and no place for problem students to go but right back to their old class, where they could deal, bully, and rape with impunity.
In 2019, at the behest of left-wing activists, New York passed a radical bail reform law that abolished bail in most misdemeanor cases. Judges were not allowed to impose cash bail on all but the most serious cases and criminals were released almost as soon as they were arrested.
Predictably, it crashed and burned in barely six months. A black woman who attacked a group of Hasidic Jews was released and attacked more Jews the next day; multiple bank robbers got out and went back to what they did best. There were more cases than Luan could remember, but it was a nightmare and proved to the people of New York that left-wing policy and pragmatic governance don't always go hand in hand.
Or it should have.
The law was reinstated in 2025.
Can you guess what happened?
Criminals were released into the community to carry on criminaling (is that even a word?). Poor minority communities were overwhelmed with crime and people who could afford to leave hightailed it across the Hudson. Businesses closed down, jobs were lost, the economy tanked. She didn't know all this was happening. If she had…
...let's be honest, she'd still be here. Luan was a comedian and New York City was the place for comedians to be. There are a thousand famous comedy clubs on Manhattan, not to mention Broadway. For someone with the wit and comedic timing of a Luan Loud, New York bristled with opportunity. She came in on a Greyhound bus with all of her worldly possessions in a single bag, a girl with big dreams and boundless optimism. She got a job waiting tables and working at a library, got an apartment, and set out to make her dreams a reality.
Only it didn't happen. She attended every open mic night at every hole in the wall bar and club in the city but success never came. She longed to get a gig in one of the better comedy clubs, but it was like banging her head against a brick wall; no one wanted her or her act. Melancholy set in, then bitterness. She became cold, annoyed, rushed. She didn't smile as she walked to and from work, didn't stop to chat with a vendor or a policeman on horseback. She didn't drink in the sights the way she used to. She resented her crappy job, her crappy apartment, and all the clubs that rejected her. She snapped at people when they tried to hawk their wares and pushed and shoved her way through the massive crowds that clog up every street and sidewalk on the island. She was rude, short-tempered, and always ready to snap off someone's head if they bothered her.
In other words, she became a true New Yorker.
She hated being this way. She wanted to give up and move on with her life, but what would she do? Where would she go? Comedy is what she loved and she had never, ever, pictured herself doing anything else. There was nothing else. She had to hit it big even if it took her fifty years.
Sometimes she wished she had come up with a Plan B, but she hadn't; like every young artist, she put all of her eggs in one basket and dedicated herself wholly to her craft. She had room in her heart for nothing besides comedy. She lived it, she breathed it, and not being able to do it professionally, to fail at such a basic level, plagued her like a dark cloud. Bitter shame washed through her and in her darker moments, she felt like a fraud.
Ahead, a blue awning jutted out over the sidewalk and Luan's stomach knotted.
She was here.
The Giggle Room was one of the biggest of the small comedy clubs in New York. It didn't have the traffic or name recognition of a place like Soho Laff and MidTown Munchies, but a lot of famous comedians got their start at The Giggle Room, and Luan held it up as vital to her own climb to the top.
Because of its reputation, The Giggle Room was very exclusive and only booked the most promising new talent.
Inside, the air was warm and smokey and the lighting low. A bar stood against one wall and tables crowded a cramped dining room. Straight ahead, a stage waited to host the night's talent, and the moment Luan saw it, her pupils dilated and her heartbeat sped up..
There, dreams were made. There, a long, distinguished line of comedians had made their name, and tonight...she would follow in their footsteps. Tonight was different, tonight was her night. She wasn't going to be booed off the stage, no one was going to throw anything at her; tonight, she, Luan Marie Loud, would win the crowd over at last with her clean brand of upbeat observational humor.
Tonight, she wasn't going to seize up and bomb.
She wasn't.
Taking a table by the wall, she ordered a Long Island to loosen her nerves and waited for the show to begin. Fifteen minutes later, the first comic took the stage. A plump woman with plain, rat-like features and lank blonde hair, she told an endless stream of jokes about men and her vagina, disgusting Luan. Luan hated comics who thought that kind of talk was funny. On its own, it was not. Oh, back in the sixties and seventies it was because of shock value. No one had ever talked that way before, and when they did, it was a spectacle. Now it was old hat and overdone. Her act was much better.
After a litany of dirty jokes, unfunny comedians, and Long Islands to calm and then bolster her, it was Luan's turn. She finished off her last drink and got up. It was only then that all the alcohol she'd ingested hit her and she stumbled a little. Flushing with embarrassment, she crossed the dining room, weaving between tables and waving to everyone. She took the stage to muted applause and went up to the mic, tripping and nearly falling on an unexpected dip in the floor. The lights were binding and she stung her eyes. She held her hand up to block it out and squinted.
Now her head ached and it was hard to think.
The applause died down and she started to speak, but her mind blanked. "Uh...I just walked over and...my legs sure are tired."
Nothing.
Not even a polite chuckle.
The act she had been preparing all week was gone, lost in the void, and she had nothing to replace it with.
Awkward silence filled the club and Luan's heart slammed against her ribs. Someone coughed and somewhere else, the rustle of fabric and scraping of chairs told her people were getting up and leaving. Each second stretched into an hour and still she sputtered and grasped like an idiot. Sweat coursed down the back of her neck and burned in her eyes. Her head spun and the dazzling floodlights seemed only to get more and more intense. "That...that light is really bright," she said with a nervous laugh. "Can you turn it down?"
She meant that to be funny, but it fell flatter than Lynn's tits.
Her stomach was twisting and reeling and her head throbbed with every jagged beat of her heart. The room started to spin, and the floor lurched suddenly beneath her feet, nearly spilling her to the stage.
All at once, the contents of her stomach rushed up and filled her mouth, hot and bitter. Her heart clutched and she tried to swallow it back down again, but it was no use. She doubled over and puked on her shoes. A sound of disgust ran through the crowd and even more chairs scraped the floor as patrons walked out.
When the wave of nausea passed, Luan stood up straight and stared dazedly into the lights. "I guess you could say I'm pretty quick on the upchuck."
They threw her out.
In the cold air, she sobered up and walked aimlessly away, head down and hands in her pockets. She blew it. She blew it big time. She could have won the crowd over, she could have made them cheer for her, she could have walked out of there with her head held high. Instead, she slunk out with her tail between her legs and a stomach acid seeping into her socks.
And it was all her fault. She couldn't blame the audience or the club owner or anyone but herself.
She took a deep, watery breath.
From The Giggle Room, she walked south with no particular destination in mind. Soon, she came to Battery Park. On her left the Brooklyn Bridge spanned the distance between Brooklyn and the tip of Manhattan, its length lit up like a ship at sail, and on her right, a metal bench faced the East River. She leaned over the railing and let out a sad sigh. A cold breeze washed over her and she blotted her teary eyes with the cuff of her coat.
Maybe she wasn't cut out for comedy. Maybe she wasn't good enough.
Maybe she just wasn't funny.
She gazed out at the lights of Brooklyn and pursed her lips. It wasn't the end of the world. She could come back from this. And if she wasn't funny, well, maybe she could start telling jokes about her butt and boobs, It worked for other women, why not her?
That wasn't her type of comedy, though. She was wholesome and positive. She wanted to tell silly and corny jokes like her dad told. Those were the best, and nothing, nothing, could top them. Didn't everyone else feel the same way, or was her kind of humor just not popular? Luna used to get sick of her constant wordplay and tell her that puns were the lowest form of humor. At the time, she dismissed that as frustration. Maybe Luna was right, though.
Luan started to walk away, but her eyes fell on something floating in the water below. In the darkness, it was hard to tell, but it kind of looked like a person. She leaned over the railing to get a better look. A jetty ran the length of the shore, its edge almost level with the water. Gentle waves pushed the...thing...against it, and it must have snagged on something, for it came to a stop. It bobbed in the swell, and a ray of light cast by a lamp along the walkway fell across it.
To Luan's horror, she saw a face.
It was a person.
A voice in her head screamed at her to run, but morbid curiosity got the better of her, and she went down a set of stairs to the water's edge. She approached the corpse cautiously, ready to bolt if the body made any sudden moves. It rose and fell in the lapping waves, and as she got closer, she saw more of it.
She was wrong. It wasn't a body; it was a heap of leaves and driftwood that just happened to look like a body.
It did have a face, though.
Getting down on her knees, she leaned over the edge and stared down at it. Two gaping eyes gazed up at the starry sky, and an oval shaped mouth seemed to grin mischievously. In place of a nose, it had a rectangular strip of brass, and the plains of its cheeks and fore were without feature.
Luan reached out and touched it.
Her fingertips grazed wood.
A mask.
Her brow furrowed in confusion and she picked it up.
Though it had been in the water, the mask was impossibly dry. Warm, even, almost like living skin. Shallow grooves had been etched into the wood in an intricate swirl pattern and when she turned it over in her hands, the inside seemed to glimmer. She flipped it over again and studied the face, her thumb unconsciously tracing one of the grooves. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could swear that it lightly hummed in her hands like a transformer box alive with electrical currents.
Where did it come from? What was it doing in the water?
Something told her to leave it, but instead, she tucked it into her purse. On the way back to her building, navigating narrow side-streets, she could feel its shape. She met several people along the way. An old bag lady who threw a tin can at her and screamed about the Devil; a hooker who looked her up and down with disdain, as though she, Luan, were the gross one; and a man who tried to sell her cheese from a plastic bag.
At her building, she unlocked the door, climbed the stairs, and let herself into the apartment, snapping the light on as she went.
Like every apartment in the city, Luan's was tiny. A kitchen with cracked linoleum floors opened onto a living room with matted carpet. She dropped her purse onto the counter, shed her clothes, and jumped in the shower. The water pressure was weaker than Dad's pullout game and the temperature was two steps above freezing, but Luan took her time anyway, paying special attention to her feet. When she was done, she cut the spray, threw back the curtain, and grabbed the towel. She dried off, wrapped it around herself, and went into the kitchen for a snack. She got a container of leftover Chinese food and turned around.
A cry of alarm ripped from her throat and the container fell to the floor, spilling cold rice and vegetables.
The mask lay face down on the counter.
She could have sworn she left it in her purse.
As if realizing it was being watched, the mask shimmered like a rare stone beneath a jeweler's light. Shades of pink and blue flashed across its curved wooden frame and Luan felt it drawing her in the way a hypnotist's swinging watch draws one into a trance. She tried to look away, but her neck muscles refused her brain's command. Her feet began to move, and she fought against the mask's pull, but it was in vain. She stood over it now, staring down into the phantom light show. She reached out, and the moment her fingers touched the mask, the spell broke.
It was warm.
And soft.
Like flesh.
She wrenched her hand back and fell against the fridge. Her breathing came in short, hot gasps and her heart slammed so loud that it echoed through her head like thunder. For a long time, she stared at the mask, mind racing. It lay where it was, dark, cold, wooden. Finally, she went over and hazarded touching it again.
Nothing.
Picking it up with her thumb and forefinger, she turned and dropped it into the trash can. Losing it, she thought, you're losing it.
Thoroughly shaken, she went to bed and lay awake for a long time before sleep finally stole over her.
In the kitchen, the mask glowed…
The next morning, Luan dragged herself into Bob's Diner bright and early. The place was a madhouse of people, orders, coffee, and misery and inside of an hour, she had run at least two miles bringing people their food and drink. Bob, a beefy man with gray hair, barked orders at her and picked apart everything she did. "Faster, honey," he said at one point, "this is a restaurant, not a funeral." She picked up the pace...and wound up dropping a plate on the floor. It exploded like a bomb and the chatter died. Everyone looked at her, and for a terrible second, she was back at The Giggle Room.
Blushing, she dropped to her knees and started picking up the shards of her hopes and dreams - I mean the plate. Bob leaned over the counter and favored her with a sour expression. "That's coming out of your pay."
At the end of the day, frazzled and shaking with nerves, she caught a city bus to the library. As always, it was packed and Luan rode the whole twenty blocks standing up and with her face shoved into someone else's armpit. She pulled the cord and it dinged, but the driver missed her stop anyway. She said so, and he copped an attitude with her. "You gotta pull the cord."
"I did," she said, "you didn't stop."
"You didn't pull that cord."
Luan rolled her eyes and got off at the next stop. It was beginning to rain, and by the time she got to the library, her coat was saturated and her clothes were damp. Her teeth ground roughly together and her eyes narrowed to hateful slits, her damp hair hanging in her face and lending the appearance of a madwoman. She hung her coat on the rack by the door, then took up her station behind the counter. The clerk before her, a pudgy woman named Barbara, left shortly thereafter, and Luan was alone.
The library was always dead this time of day, which offered Luan a respite from her gruelling existence. She passed the time organizing and cataloguing books from the return bin. After a while, someone cleared their throat. She looked up, and her heart gave a jolt.
"Hey," Benny said.
"Hey," Luan said, unable to keep a dreamy inflection from creeping into her voice. Tall and handsome with curly brown hair and crystal blue eyes, Benny was a regular at the library. Twice a week like clockwork, he came in and checked out a stack of books, usually on religion and ancient civilizations. They had chatted a little over the past six months and Luan learned that he was in his final year of studying for an anthropology degree from Columbia University and wanted to travel the world on archaeological digs. Luan wasn't interested in that sort of thing at all, but she listened spellbound as he talked, her gaze darting from his eyes to his lips and back again.
Luan had been building herself up to ask him out, but kept waiting for him to do it first. She didn't have much experience with boys...okay, any experience...but boys are usually the ones who make the first move. They're supposed to be, like, the hunters, right? If he's into you, he'll pursue you. If he doesn't pursue you, well, he's not. She wasn't going to risk asking him out on her own because it would make things awkward if he said no, and seeing him was always the high point of her day.
She didn't want to ruin that.
Presently, Benny sat a stack of books on the counter and Luan scanned them. "How's it going?" she asked.
"Same old, same old," Benny said with a shrug. "You? I, uh, I like what you did with your hair."
Hair? What did she do - ?
Just then, she caught a glimpse of herself in a darkened computer screen. Her hair, wet from the rain, had dried into a crazy, frizzy mess.
Hot embarrassment spread across Luan's cheeks. "Yeah, I got caught in the rain."
"It's different," Benny allowed.
As he walked away, Luan stared at his cute little butt. Once he was gone, she hung her head and took a deep, shaky breath. Great, she managed to bomb last night, screw up at work today, and look stupid in front of Benny.
Sigh.
At the end of her shift, Luan shut out the lights, locked the door, and walked home through the damp evening. She didn't stop and didn't talk to anyone, her heart racing and the back of her neck tingling in dread expectation. No one mugged or raped her, thankfully, and she made it back to her apartment in one piece. She locked the handle and the deadbolt, engaged the security chain, and peeked through the fisheye peephole to make extra sure she hadn't been followed by any muggers or rapists.
The coast was clear.
Letting out a pent-up breath, Luan stripped out of her clothes and left them in a trail behind her as she made her way to the bathroom. She turned the shower on, adjusted the temperature, and climbed in. She let the water work on her tight muscles and her thoughts drifted back to Benny. Maybe she should ask him out. Maybe he didn't know she was into him. So far, she'd only smiled and batted her eyes at him. She expected him to pick up on those hints - they were pretty obvious - but guys aren't exactly the best at discerning unspoken nuances. Men are straightforward so it made sense that the best way to approach Benny would be to just come outright and ask him on a date.
What if he wasn't attracted to her? What if he thought she was ugly? He laughed at all of her puns and dad jokes, but he could just be humoring her. If she came onto him and he wasn't interested, she'd destroy their fragile friendship. It would sit heavy between them, awkward and misshapen like Lincoln's teeth, and things would never be the same.
It would be best to let him do it.
But what if he didn't? What if he liked her but had the same fears?
She had been torturing herself with this same doubt and circular logic for months and it was starting to get depressing.
Done in the shower, she got out, toweled off, and dressed in a nightgown. In the living room, she dropped onto the couch, and something jabbed her butt. She winced, lifted off the cushion, and reached behind her. She found the offending object and pulled it out.
Her breath caught.
The mask.
An eerie tingle crept across the back of her neck and her bowels turned to water. The last time she touched this...thing...it was to throw it away. Her eyes shifted to the kitchen, as though she could see the trash can, which she could not.
What was it doing here? God, what was it doing here?
In answer, the mask began to vibrate in her grasp. The wood turned warm and soft and the inside seemed to glow. She stared down at it, transfixed, and only realized too late that she was lifting it to her face, her traitorous hands rising of their own volition. Her mind screamed at her to stop, but she was powerless in the mask's thrall.
The mask touched her nose, and a jolt of electricity shot into her brain. Scalding pressure swelled in the center of her skull and she sucked a sharp intake of breath. The mask jumped from her hands and stuck fast to her face. She let out a strangled cry and tried to pry it off, but her fingernails clawed impotantly at the soft, lumpy mass.
It was no longer wood but something else, something warm, pliable, and living.
Phantom fingers probed Luan's brain, questing for a way in, and she could feel herself beginning to change. Energy crackled through her; blood boiled in her veins; gray tinged the edges of her vision; and strange thoughts that did not originate with her flashed through her mind. She tore desperately at the mask in a last ditch effort to get it off. She pitched forward, hit the coffee table, and fell onto her side. Convulsions wracked her body and her eyes strained from their sockets. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth and a stir of echoes swirled around her. The lights pulsed, dim and bright, dim and bright, and a strong gust of wind with seemingly no source swept through the apartment, rustling the curtains and knocking framed pictures from the walls. She rolled onto her back, dug her heels into the carpet, and tried to stand, but it was no use.
Her vision began to fade and her mind sank quickly into the numb warmth of the void. A cold vise grip of panic closed around her chest and her lungs burst for air.
In that moment, she knew she was going to die.
Darkness stole over her and her heartbeat stilled. She couldn't stave it off any longer; the abyss was rushing up to meet her, and instead of running from it, she embraced it. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she lost consciousness.
As soon as her lids fluttered closed, her body began to shake violently, head whipping from side to side. Her back arched and her limbs twitched limply like a dead frog when you apply electricity to it. The wind blew faster, the lights blinked, and an unearthly green light shrouded her body, growing brighter and brighter until it filled the world.
All at once, the world went silent. The wind died down, the uncanny effverence winked out like flipping a switch, and a queer calm held sway.
For a moment, nothing happened, then, in a flash, Luan leapt to her feet with a flourish.
Only it wasn't Luan anymore.
Not entirely.
Her face was the color of that Nickelodeon slime shit and she wore a canary yellow zoot suit with a hat, a feather jutting from the bill. She tipped brim and threw her arms up like she was being robbed. "Smokin'," she said. She turned into a fucking green tornado and tore through the apartment, knocking stuff over and bouncing off the walls like a top spinning out of control. In the bathroom, she came to a halt and looked at herself in the mirror. She stroked her chin and hummed, then held her index finger up like she just had an earth shattering revelation. She dug through the medicine cabinet, throwing bottles, razors, and other crap over shoulder. She pulled out a tube of lipstick and smeared it all over her mouth, painting her lips and chin ruby red. "Just my color," she said. She drew curly eyebrows with an eyeliner pencil, and then drank an entire bottle of mouthwash, Glug, glug, glug. She tossed it aside and let out a satiated sigh. "Minty."
Leaning back, she strutted to the door. She reached under her hat and pulled out a rubber chicken. She looked at the fourth wall. "How did that get in there?" She pulled out a bowling pin, a bowling ball, a whoopie cushion, and, finally, a gold-tipped walking cane. She left...then a moment later stuck her head back in. "Don't wait up for me," she said to the empty apartment.
Outside, the night was bitterly cold but Luan didn't feel it. In fact, she had impossibly changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top. She dragged the back of her hand across her forehead and took a deep, exaggerated breath.
Three blocks later, on a dark corner, a black guy in tight jeans and a leather jacket stepped out of an alley. He flicked his wrist and held up a knife. "This is a stick up, lady," he said.
Luan looked at the fourth wall. "Oh, no, a mugging," she deadpanned.
"What's wrong with your face? Who are you talking to?"
She jumped back and held the cane out like a sword. "On guard!"
The mugger launched himself at her and Luan responded by whacking him in the leg. The knife fell from his hand and he howled in pain. Clutching his bad leg, he jumped up and down like an African-American pogo stick.
Suddenly, with a flash of green, Luan was behind him. She yanked his pants down, exposing his underwear, then spun him around. "Put her there, pal," she said. She clasped his hand and he started to shake and jibber. His hair stood up and smoke rose from his head. Luan held go and held her hand up. "Joy buzzer," she said, "I NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT."
Reaching under her hat, she brought out a rubber chicken. "You again?" she asked. Shrugging, she slapped the mugger across the face with it.
Like a mighty oak, he toppled to one side and crashed to the pavement, where he jerked and convulsed. "That was quite shocking," she said. "Luckily, he likes to stay current so it wasn't too jolting."
Cackling mad laughter at her own humor, she bounded off into the darkness. A block later, she came across a cop writing a ticket for a black sedan parked at a fire hydrant. She held her finger to her lips as if to shush an imaginary audience and crept up behind him on the tips of her toes. Literally. Now she was dressed in a black uniform and hat. Instead of the NYPD seal, the patches on her shirt were of her own green, smiling face. "Whadda we got here, mack?" she asked and put her hands on her hips.
"A wise guy who doesn't like to follow the law," the cop grumbled.
Suddenly, Luan whipped out her billy club. "HE'S RESISTING!"
She brought the club down on the hood with a thump, then smashed out the headlight. The cop startled and dropped his ticket book. "Hey! What are you doing?"
Luan cupped one hand to her mouth and said in a stage whisper, "Shhhh...he's black."
The cop glowered at him. "Alright, bub, I'm gonna have to report this."
"Oh?" Luan asked.
A fevered grin spread across her face.
When she left, the cop was stripped down to his boxers and wife beater and hanging upside down from a lamppost, his screams echoing through the city. "GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!"
A crowd of onlookers gathered to point, laugh, and take pictures.
Meanwhile, Luan arrived at The Giggle Room as a puke-green cyclone. A bouncer at the door crossed his arms and regarded her with mild distaste. "You on the list?"
"I sure am."
"Name."
"First name Joe last name Mama."
The bouncer raised his eyebrow. "Cute."
"I swear."
"Prove it."
Five minutes later, Luan stood amidst a pile of junk, toys, gag gifts, and miscellaneous crap. She dug a pair of chattery teeth from her pocket and dropped it. "No, that's not it either." She pulled out a giant mallet, a bazooka, a bunch of lost mail-in ballots from 2020, and, finally, a living, breathing Sonichu. "Zap to the extreme, bitches," he said and took off in a yellow streak.
"I must have left it in my other pants." She reached into her pocket again. "Oh, wait, here it is."
The bouncer nodded. "Let's see it."
"Come closer."
He leaned in.
Luan pulled her hand out and threw itching powder into his eyes. He shrieked in pain, stumbled, and went to his knees. "Life's an itch," she said, "then you cry."
As if on cue, the bouncer began to sob.
Inside, the club was jumping. A man in a silly hat stood on the stage and cracked jokes into the microphone, amusing the crowded dining room. There wasn't much space for walking, but Luan was a problem solver. She backflipped her way to the stage, going from one table to another. People cried out in alarm and a confused titter ran through the building. She landed on the stage like a gymnast and threw her arms out. "Tah-dah!"
A few people clapped and others whispered to each other, impressed.
"Sorry to steal the spotlight," Luan said and bumped the comic away from the mic with her hip, "but I got an act that's right up your alley."
She pulled a metal folding chair from the back of her pants, snapped it open with one hand, and sat down. She yanked the comic over, sat him on her lap, and shoved her hand up his ass. He jumped and hissed, then went limp, his faculties now under the mask's control. Luan made him open and close his mouth like a ventriloquist's dummy and threw her voice so perfectly that you would never know it was her talking. "You're all a bunch of stuck-up assholes. You think this joker is funny? You wouldn't know funny if it turned black and fucked your wife in the next room while you ate soy pizza and played Warhammer."
Someone booed.
"Racist bitch!" another called.
Every one started to get up to leave. The dummy's head swerved around, and he and Luan looked at each other. "Tough crowd," she said.
She threw him aside like a used Kleanex and backflipped over the heads of the crowd, wheeling and spinning head over heels. She landed in front of the door and held her hand up, palm facing out. "You're not going anywhere," she said.
Turning into another green tornado thing, she zipped around the room. When the dust settled, everyone was back at their tables, tied up and unable to move. "Now that's what I call a captive audience," she quipped.
'You people laughed at me yesterday," she said, "and not in a good way. For that, you're gonna be punished."
Whipping a chalkboard out of her pants, she held up her hand and strained. Her nails grew into jagged claws. She raked them across the board, producing a high, grating scratch, and everyone winced.
When she tired of that, she sang a selection of Broadway's biggest hits - all off key. She even launched into a rendition of "Mammy" complete with top hat and cane. Everyone groaned, wept, and passed out from the sheer awfulness of it all.
Once she was sure she'd made her point, she set the place on fucking fire. Smoke clogged the air and everyone coughed and wailed for supplication. "Toodles," she said and wiggled her fingers.
Then she shut the door and left.
In the street, she moonwalked to the piercing scream of onrushing sirens. Before the first fire engine showed up, she swung away on a green web like Spider-Man. "Somebody stop me!" her voice rang through the city. The cold night air rushed over her and made ripples in her suit. Her hat, however, remained firmly in place, as if by magic. She swung from one building to another, stopping to rest on a gargoyle perched on a high ledge. Puffing her chest out, she pounded it and belted out every racial, sexual, and ethnic slur she could think of in order to offend as many people as possible. Suddenly in a sexy bikini, she swan dived off. As she fell, she slipped inflatable arm floaties on and blew them up. By the time she reached the ground, she was also wearing goggles and a snorkel. Her descent slowed and she landed safely on her feet.
A wino sitting on a bench squinted in disbelief and took a swing from a brown paper bag. Luan spun around and her bikini was replaced by a sexy red dress and heels. She cocked one long, shapely leg and put her hands on her hip. "How do I look?"
"Like you can spare a dollar."
Luan rolled her eyes. She went over, pulled a twenty dollar bill from her purse, and handed it to him. "Hey," he said, pleasantly surprised, "thanks."
"Don't spend it all in one place," Luan said and walked off.
"I'll buy from two different liquor stores then," the bum assured her. He looked at the bill and blinked. "Hey!"
In place of Andrew Jackson's portrait was Luan Loud.
"This isn't real, you green face bitch!"
Nearly half an hour after leaving the bum, Luan slipped through the front doors of Bob's Diner. No, literally, she flattened herself and slid sideways through the crack between the in and out door. She dropped to the floor and slithered around the counter like a snake, her tongue flicking out to taste the air.
At this hour, the place was dark and empty save for a single light spilling through the order window. The hiss of the sink and the clang of pots and pans sounded from the kitchen, followed by a muttered, "Goddamn it."
Getting to her feet, Luan pressed her back to the wall and crept to the batwing doors. Beyond, Bob bent over the sink with his arms thrust into soapy water. Next to him, the front loading dishwasher stood open. An idea struck Luan and she sprang into action. She kicked the batwing doors open with a thunderous crack. Bob jumped a foot and whipped in her direction, his hand flying to his chest.
Luan moseyed in, wearing chaps, cowboy boots, a yellow shirt, and a cowboy hat that cast her face in the shadows. A piece of straw jutted from her lips and her hands were at her sides, fingers hooked.
There was a gun on each hip.
"Who the hell are you?" Bob asked.
By way of reply, Luan wiggled her fingers. "You best get ready to draw, pardner."
Finally noticing the guns, Bob went pure white. "Hey, hey, no, no, look, y-you can take the money."
Luan swished the straw from one side of her mouth and spat out a wad of brown tobacco juice that dinged a random spittoon. A little buzzer above it blinked 01. "I ain't here for your money, hoss."
Bob fell back a step and Luan drew. He threw his arms up in a vain attempt to shield himself from coming death, and Luan fired.
A flag popped out of each barrel. Attached were tiny flags reading BANG.
"You're dead," Luan said.
Bob gaped at her, features twisted in terror. She threw the guns away and strode up to him. He stared to quiver and whimper like a little baby. "D-Don't hurt me. Please."
A sickly smile touched Luan's lips. "I'm not going to hurt you," Luan said.
She didn't exactly break that promise. Crammed in the dishwasher at an impossible angle, his feet over his head, he looked like he was hurting, but she was pretty sure he lost all feeling in his body when she snapped his spine in half. Hooray for loopholes.
"You could say he's...all washed up."
Before leaving, she ate and drank everything she could lay her hands on. Raw hamburger, whole potatoes, frozen chicken ("Crunchy!" she exclaimed), even the grease out of the grease trap. She left absolutely nothing behind. Have fun with the breakfast rush.
From Bob's, Luan made her way southeast, arriving at the campus of Columbia University fifteen minutes later. She pulled a tracking device from her pocket and followed its beeps and boops to the fourth floor. At a nondescript door, she tossed it away, lay flat as a sheet of paper, and crawled in the crack between the bottom of the door and the weather striping on the floor. Inside, she tiptoed through a darkened kitchenette and a living room. Another door led into a bedroom with two two beds. The one on her right was empty, but the one on her left was occupied. She pulled the straps of her dress down her arms and let it pool around her ankles. Naked, she went over to the bed and climbed in.
Benny lay flat on his back, eyes closed and mouth open. She carefully pulled his underwear down and stroked his cock. In moments, it was hard and hot. She straddled him, pinned his wrists above his head, and rubbed his rigid member with her leaking pussy. Benny's eyes fluttered open and he smacked his lips sleepily together. He realized someone was on top of him and went stiff with fear.
Luan sank herself onto him and they both gasped. He filled her completely, his shaft spreading her apart and his head plucking a sensitive bundle of nerves. Luan put her head down, hair hanging in her face, and rocked her hips against his with a sound like Lana scarfing down mac & cheese. Benny's breathing changed, becoming heavier, but he didn't move. Either he was a virgin and didn't know what to do, or he was still weirded out by the whole waking up balls deep in some random pussy thing. Thrusting faster, Luan guided his hands to her tits and command, "Pinch my nipples."
He did as he was told, pulling and tweaking her throbbing nips. His dick poked the back of her womb, scratching a deep, primal itch that Luan didn't realize she had, and the warm, musky smell of crotch filled the room like perfume. Luan pressed her palms flat to Benny's chest and fucked him harder, harder, their flesh slapping and the bed squeaking. Benny moaned and groaned, and finally started to move in time with her, the friction of his dick rubbing her walls sending her over the edge.
She was so lost in the moment that she didn't know he was close until she felt his burning Ben juice shoot into her stomach. Fire swept through her and she threw her head back, hips swiveling around his pumping dick, taking every last drop. Benny's back arched off the mattress and his tip strained against Luan's cervix. She bit her bottom lip and rode the wave of his cum into her own orgasm.
Benny flopped back against the bed, spent and panting. He closed his eyes and shook his head. On opening them again...the mystery woman was gone.
The next afternoon, Luan scanned books at the library. She kept going back to the strange dreams she had the night before. The dreams that all came true. Bob crammed into the dishwasher, the fire at The Giggle Room (thank God no one died), and finally -
"Hey, Luan,"
Benny flashed a warm smile, and her insides melted. Her eyes darted to the mask. She left it at home but somehow it was lying on the counter now, seeming to smile. She didn't know what it was or what kind of power it truly contained, but she did know his:
She liked those dreams.
Especially the one where Benny came in her.
"Hey," she said and leaned against the counter. "How you doing?"
Benny shrugged. "I'm okay. You?"
"I'd be better if you took me on a date."
She did not know she was going to say that before she spoke, but, hey, it was true. She would be a lot better.
A blush spread across Benny's face and he looked down at his feet. "That's actually why I was here. You wanna...go see a movie?"
"Sounds fun," she said.
Benny nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "And, uh, Luan?"
She lifted her brow.
"Bring your mask."