Chapter 31: Indecent Exposure
Lydia stumbled behind a rapidy-pacing Juno, noting that the structure of the apartment seemed to have shifted due to Beetle's plans. She rubbed the ring, still in shock, while walking in silence down a newly-formed long, winding corridor with a red carpet strung along the floor.
"Pssst...Uh, hey! Deetz! I need you and tubby boy out here pronto! Can't get this show on the road without witnesses, if ya get mah drift!" Beetle's voice somehow echoed inside her mind, sending a strange surge of electricity through her body.
Too fearful to try and reply, she simply continued following the angry woman, head hung low and feeling both fear and regret. She'd tried to help her friend, and now she'd failed him miserably, all due to a stupid, drunken error. She worried just how Beetle would respond once he realized the terrible secret she'd just come to know. Since she was a dead woman, he'd probably never get out. Jail time was likely the only thing he would be guaranteed, and that, too, was all her fault.
Lydia sighed, squeezing the ring and pulling in one last, frantic effort to pull it off, only to be juiced very, very strongly. "AH!" she yelped, as Juno turned, glaring. Lydia quickly threw a hand over her lips.
"Mrs. Juice, you can't take it off! I already told you! If you didn't want to marry him, you shouldn't have put it on!" she scolded, pointing a cigarrette in Lydia's face.
"T-that wasn't why I was trying to take it off..." Lydia admitted, partly out of desperation.
"Then why, Mrs. Juice?" Juno asked, her face contorted into a look of pure confusion.
"I guess...I was just hoping I could fix it for him...Before it was too late." she admitted, knowing full and well that Juno would realize just how crazy she was, and really not caring about that at all.
Juno began to appear shocked. "I can't believe it...I never thought I'd see the day...You really care about that numbskull, don't you?"
Lydia sighed, shrugging. "Yeah. He's a good friend of mine. I didn't mean to ruin his plans."
Juno's appearance softened to one of what seemed to be pity. "C'mon, let's get this over with before it's too late..."
Lydia nodded, her heart now dropping into her stomach, as she fell in line behind Juno once more.
"DEETZ! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?! DON'T LEAVE ME HANGIN' HERE! YOU! JERRY! WITNESSES! NOW!" Lydia's eyes grew wide, hearing Beetle's angry, hurried voice in her mind once more, causing her to wring her hands and sweat.
Suddenly, there was a dim, greenish light at the end of the dark corridor. She could hear the ominous sound of a pipe organ in the distance as it rang out the Wedding March.
As they drew into the light, Lydia gulped. This was it, whether she liked it or not...
Beetle tapped his foot impatiently, with his now hand-cuffed bride struggling by his side. Pesky dame tried to run away twice already. He had to wrangle that problem in real quick.
"C'mon, Deetz, I don't have all fuckin' day here..." he growled, squeezing the ring tightly in a fist at his side.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Juice?" the strange, alien-priest slowly drawled.
"Heh? ME? PROBLEM?! HELL NAW! Just a teeny-tiny, miniscule setback, that's all!" Beetle reassured, dabbing at the sweat forming on his grungy brow. Shit! Deetz and fatboy needed to arrive now! He couldn't just stand there and wait until the cops tracked his ass!
"Ah, fuck it!" he spat, poofing his two prisoners back into the room, each chained to a chair with their eyelids taped open widely and their mouths gagged. "Okay! Witnesses! Now lets do this!" he chimed, as the priest began.
"Eh-hem...We are gathered here today..." he drawled again, his monotone voice enough to make Beetle chew his own arm off.
"Yeah, yeah! Enough of that! Cut to the good bits, Rev!" he barked, as the priest sighed, turning a few pages in his large tome and placing his bony finger on a certain spot.
"You may now place the ring upon your bride's finger..." he ordered, as Beetle cackled victoriously, doing just that. To make matters even better, the chick didn't even struggle. It felt good to break one's spirit so early in the marriage!
"Okay, okay! C'MON! SPEED IT UP!" Beetle growled, as the priest closed the tome.
"You may now kiss the bride..."
"HAHAHA! PUCKER UP, DOLLFACE!" he grinned, pulling the broad into him and laying the biggest, wettest kiss on her that he could muster. In the back of his mind he thought of Lydia, and how much better her drunken kiss felt, but he quickly shoved that one back into the pits of hell for now.
He chuckled when she wiped her face in disgust, and roared when he heard those great, victorious words.
"I now pronounce you man and wife!"
He belly laughed, stepping down from his bride and waiting for that huge-ass portal to show up and take him to wherever in the world he wanted in the land of the living. Maybe somewhere tropical like Hawaii. Or the Bermuda Triangle. Hell, he wasn't picky.
"Okay, open up for the Ole' B-man! C'mon!" he looked about, waiting for his precious escape. "Uh...C'mon...HEY! WHERE THE HELL ARE YA?!" he screeched, beginning to panic. Why the fuck was this not happening?
Suddenly, something did appear, but it wasn't his beautiful, luscious portal. It was his ugly, gross case worker. Fuck.
"AGH! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT!" he yelled, wondering why fate just took a big, hairy dump on his afterlife.
"It's not gonna work for you, Juice. Now, cut the crap and turn everything back to the way it was before the police get here." she stated, raising a hand and freeing the young woman, who ran out the door, screaming for her life.
"The fuck'd ya do that fer?" he asked, completely dumbfounded. "And just why won't it work? Ya think yer so smart..."
"Well I'm smarter than you, Juice. That's not the right ring. It has no enchantment at all. It's a fraud." she stated, as he found himself completely lost for words. Well, almost.
"Fraud?! Then where's the real one?" he grumbled, scratching his head in confusion.
Suddenly, another figure hesitantly stepped out from the shadows. It was Deetz. Her head was lowered, staring at her feet, as she timidly raised her hand, showing him the ring. The real ring.