"It was a pleasure to do business with you, Dr Furter!"
After well conducted negotiations, Brad and Frank had escorted Scott to the iron gates which marked the beginning (or in that case, the end) of the castle grounds.
"Aw stop, you're making me blush!" Frank meow exaggeratedly. "Now, in order to seal our non-aggression pact, allow me to give you a little something!"
Saying so, he handed him the rectangular package he was carrying under his arm. The nature of the present remained a mystery to Brad, being wrapped in a sumptuous black cloth. The embroidered symbol on its centre didn't give much clues either, though it was reminiscent of Frank's thunderbolt pendant.
"How sweet, you shouldn't have!"
"You can thank our mutual friend here, it was his idea," Frank said, rewarding Brad with one of his naughty winks which never failed to weaken his knees.
"Well thank you, Brad," Scott acknowledged as he removed the piece of fabric to reveal a simple shoebox, while Brad himself didn't get what was going on. "Ooh, that thing is heavy!"
"Why Eddie's always been a rather stocky guy…"
While Scott greeted that statement with an indifferent nod, Brad stood gaping.
"I can't see the link," he laughed nervously.
"I followed your advice, I gave the body back," Frank retorted as he shrugged his delicate shoulders. He turned to Scott and explained : "I cremated it to make the transportation easier."
"You put human remains in a bloody shoebox?" Brad cried out as he moved forward towards the alien.
"Not a shoebox, the shoebox that goes with the good doctor's new gorgeous heels!"
"It's alright Brad!" soothed Scott. "You did well, I'll just scatter the ashes along the way. Hopefully the box can be salvaged!" He then addressed Frank, his indifference towards his nephew's grim end transforming into utter contempt. That mourning period had been even more short-lived than the poor bastard himself, Brad thought. "I don't understand why you split Eddie's brain between him and your erm, creation. I mean, he was not the sharpest tool in the shed! Zero divided by two still equals zero, am I right?"
The two scientists gazed at each other for a few seconds and laughed in concert, leaving Brad even more appalled.
"We won't hold you any longer," Frank said after he regained seriousness. "There are some urgent matters I can't postpone, I'm afraid."
"I bid you farewell, then. And Brad… I'll see you around."
The latter acknowledged as the disturbing intuition they'd never meet again crept in his head. That is how Dr Everett Scott left the way he came, giving Brad the privacy he dreaded and yearned for at the same time.
"'Guess he was fed up with being the third wheel," said a straight-faced Frank.
"Gosh you're annoying!"
He turned around and walked away, heading back to the castle.
The castle, as it happens, had never been so quiet than that greyish November morning, though with half of its usual occupants being incarcerated, plus a quarter being dead, it could hardly be called an achievement. Thus, had anyone been lingering nearby blanketed in that undreamt silence, they would have jumped instantly as two loud men barged in through the front door.
"Don't be such a princess! Scott isn't a problem anymore, I thought you'd be as pleased as I am. I couldn't have done it without you, you know." Frank stopped and skimmed Brad's cheek, who slapped his hand in response with an infuriated look. "Ooh, someone's grumpy! Maybe you were right, that shoebox thing was a little clumsy."
"Cut the crap Frank! You never needed me, all you wanted was an audience, as always! Because this is how you get off, isn't it?"
Frank nodded slowly, cut to the quick, his features coated in a petty expression and cornered him against the bannister.
"To each his own, I guess. At least I don't do frottage with people I hate."
"You know perfectly well I don't h—"
"Well not 'me' strictly speaking but…" he uttered while closing the distance between them, his heat spreading all across the room, "...don't you fucking loathe the fact that I have more control on your own body than you do?"
"That's not…" Brad mumbled shivering and sweating while shaking his head as if to get rid of all the impure thoughts which parasitized his mind. "No, screw this! The mechanic will arrive anytime soon, so I'm taking my fiancée — whom I love— and we're leaving this goddamn place!"
For the second time, he turned around and began to climb the stairs, trying to remember which bedroom he'd put Janet in. Janet. The situation hadn't allowed him to think about her in a while. His fiancée. Perhaps they could stop by the church on their way back home and get hitched. Elopement was so romantic, she'd always say. And the sooner the better, he thought. He was halfway up when Frank's voice resounded behind his back, making him freeze.
"I'm scared!"
"Whatever next?!"
Struggling not to turn back right away, he could still see Frank sitting down on the steps, almost collapsing.
"The only two people I trusted here tried to kill me. Now I'm all alone, stranded on a far away planet in a far away galaxy, and I don't know what to do. Which is just as well because when I actually do things…" He trailed off and sniffed, his read resting on the wall next to him.
"Are you crying?"
"Riff Raff was right : the mission is a failure. And so am I."
There were now proper, tiny sobs coming out of his throat and mouth. Brad went down the stairs, already mad at himself for being so hopelessly gullible. Another dirty trick, nothing more… He sat in turn and took a look at his face. Tears were rolling sometimes down the soft slope of his nose, sometimes down his reddened cheeks.
"Damn, you are crying."
"Last I checked, condoms for tear ducts didn't exist yet, so yes. I am."
Brad gazed at him for a little longer and cleared his throat.
"So this is for real, huh."
"You thought I was faking it?"
"Maybe," he shrugged, eliciting a shocked gasp from Frank which made him come around. "I mean you're an alien after all! You might as well be vomiting from your eyes or something, how would I know? "
"Well you watch too many movies, Bradley. Besides, our species are anatomically identical, as you've probably noticed. I'm the proud owner of two lacrimal glands," he said as his chin began to tremble and his eyes got wet, "and I'm using them because I'm dead scared."
Like morning dew on meadow grass, his lashes were covered with beaded tears. The small remains of mascara and eyeliner lingering on his eyelids were now completely smudged. What a delicious mess… Frank wiped his face with his bare hands and looked at the black smears on his palms.
"You're fine," Brad said, trying to reassure him. "Visually, at least."
The compliment made the desired effect, since Frank's lips curled in a self-satisfied grin.
"But mentally dying, I'm afraid. I haven't slept in days! Though I reckon that's the lot of every new parent."
Hearing him refer to his creation as his child was deeply unsettling considering the carnal nature of their relationship, however it gave Brad an idea to build on.
"See! How could you be a failure when you made Rocky?"
"Call that a success? The lad did the very opposite of what he was created for! Cheating on me as soon as he got the chance, diving into Janet's evil folds…"
"Nothing you've ever done before," Brad simply responded, without any acrimony in his voice. Frank acknowledged in silence and yawned, seemingly too tired to argue. "Everyone under this roof will agree that things didn't turn out the way we expected, but what you did last night was still a miracle. So like I said : not a failure. And you won't be alone for long, surely they'll send you other servants."
Needless to say, he had no clue about the identity of the 'they' in question, unlike Frank who crossed his arms and sulked.
"They will, once I tell them what happened. The thing is, I don't feel like it for now. Ugh! I can already hear my mother nagging at me : 'When one person disagrees with you, it's an argument. Let there be two, and it becomes a mutiny'.
"That's a nice saying but — "
"Mumbo-jumbo you mean!" Frank hissed, growing upset by the minute. "She'd warned me about Riff Raff, you know? He was unreliable, she said. I picked him just to bug her, and look where it got me!"
"Oh," he mumbled for lack of a more suitable reaction. "Is she a scientist as well?"
Frank turned his head to face him and sniggered loudly as if he'd said the most hilarious enormity.
"Not even close!"
The giggles brought Brad back several hours ago, in the seclusion of his red-lipped friend's embrace. Before this conversation, he'd already mentioned his mother once…
"Wait," Brad said, his voice fading into a whisper. "When we… You swore not to tell on your mother's grave, those were your exact words, and now you're complaining about her, which clearly indicates she's very much alive, meaning you lied to me, therefore you had no intention to keep it a secret!"
"Boy, that was one long sentence," Frank noted, back to his smirky flirtatious self. "It's not like that. My mother's not dead, not yet. Turns out I'm not too fond of her. I was being sincere, I did what you earthlings do, swearing on the thing I cherish the most : her upcoming death."
"Sounds a bit far-fetched, but I think I see where you —"
"Because I hope she snuffs it very soon."
"Yeah, that was pretty clea— "
"No really, I hate her guts!"
"Got it, thanks," Brad said, holding back his laughter. "That was a metonymy then, not a lie."
"Bless you!" Frank snorted.
"You said grave but you meant death. That's what a metonymy is. Referring to something by using another term that has some logical link to it."
"My! If someone ever asks you why you remained a virgin until your late twenties, here's the answer." Seeing Brad turning crimson, he bit his own lip and leaned forward to caress his forearm. "I'm just messing with you. Transexualites aren't very well-versed in the, or in any other art form."
"Tran… I'm sorry, what?" he asked, still flustered by Frank's fleeting touch.
"My people. The planet I come from is called…"
"Transexual," Brad completed as he reminisced - not without a quiver - Frank's velvet vocals along with their arcane lyrics.
"Earthlings have their Milky Way, but our galaxy goes by the name of…"
"Transylvania. It all makes sense now!" He lowered his eyes and shyly ran his fingers on the thunderbolt pendant hanging around Frank's neck. Could he someday be immune to the lasciviousness which oozed from every one of his pores? "Sweet transvestite," he then murmured as they got dangerously, searingly close.
When their noses touched, and despite the cold weather, Brad felt sweat drops forming at the base of his nape. When their lips brushed, he liquefied, standing still and inhaling greedily. He was so engrossed by this promising contact that the piercing sound resounding against the walls came to his ears with a few seconds gap, hence his surprise when Frank moved back.
"What was that?" asked the latter, a suspicious frown growing on his face.
He'd only finished his sentence when the sound came again, higher and louder. A woman's scream.
"Janet!" Brad finally exclaimed, taking Frank by the arm and rushing upstairs.
And a manic screaming Janet they found after they both entered the darkened bedroom in which she was supposed to take a nap. Instead, she had her back to them, her hands roaming her upper body vigorously.
"I'm asking again," Frank said, fed up. "What fresh hell is this?" He sighed and whispered in Brad's ear :"If she Exorcist-pukes on my parquet again, I won't be held responsible for what happens to her!"
"And I'm the one watching too many movies? She's been through a lot, like us all." He approached her calmly and put a hand on her shoulder. "Janet, how are you feeling?"
Her limbs coming alive in jerky moves, she spinned round to face him. Her eyes, however bloodshot red, were perfectly dry. Much to his surprise, she hadn't shed a single tear. Her complexion hadn't improved much either, though such a sickly appearance could easily be put down to the dim light leaking through the greenish curtains. She gaped and eventually pointed her stomach out. Brad looked down and felt his face crumple. In less than an hour span, her belly had grown into a strange protuberance which stretched the pastel fabric of her dress. Janet replied with a raspy voice :
"We've got a problem."