Roxy Cotton walks into her new apartment, dressed unassumingly in a nice purple mini-dress and casual heels. She sets her purse and cell phone down and sees the indictor for a new voicemail is flashing near the top of the cell’s screen.

With a knowing sigh, Roxy takes the phone and walks to the mall love seat, staring at it for a few long moments before finally dialing in the passcode and turning on the speaker.

Vinnie Said:Hey Rox… it’s me, Vin. Again.

Listen… It’s been a while, you know? I mean, shit’s been crazy the last few month since I won the title, but you know every time I go out to the ring I still look for you in my corner.

I just… I don’t really know what to say. I’m sorry. I can’t explain everything, but a lot of times in order to get the things that we want we end up doing or saying things that we don’t really mean. We hurt people we don’t want to hurt, and we end up losing them.

I don’t want to lose you.

You know, ever since we met, way back last year, I’ve never doubted that you were the girl I was meant to end up with, you know what I mean?

Just like I knew I was destined to be the champion. And I was right! WE were right! You never doubted me, not like the rest of these people. Not like the fans, or the other people in the locker room.

I found real support from Shane now. My career is going places it never would have reached without his help. I’ve got a dependable squad, not like the jokes Kirk MacClay tried to saddle me with carrying for him in the Underground. I made it, baby! WE made it!

It’s just…

Well…

It’s not the same without you.

I know… I know.

I said and did some fucked up shit. And I know you’ve seen me hooking up in my promos, too. You know the way this business poisons you. You know the way we have to put up fronts and show the faces we need to show, and the lifestyles we need to exude.

It’s not me, baby.

The real me is the me you see when it’s just the two of us, lying in bed together and catching our breath. The real me is the me you see when we’re looking into one another’s eyes and being unable to keep from smiling.

That’s real.

We’re real. YOU are my real.

Everything else is just window dressing, man.

Just a mask.

Please call me.

I love you.

Click

“Who were you talking to, Mister Lane?”

The voice seems to come at Loverboy from deep within the drain as he stands bracing himself over the porcelain, breathing deep in anticipation of the next spasm in his abdomen. The water from the tap gurgles down into the pipe, wetting the sound somehow.

“Fuck you. I was calling your mother.”

“Don’t be an imbecile, Vincent.”

Loverboy’s sweaty torso tenses and twists as another cramp hits his stomach. He heaves himself forward and groans in pain as a wave of vomit flies from his mouth and splashes into the dirty sink, spiraling into the drain in concentric circles mixed with the running water.

Loverboy squeezes tears from his eyes and begins rapidly cupping water from the faucet up to his mouth, washing his puke-stained teeth and swishing it around in his cheeks before spitting it back out into the basin.

“You want that to keep happening to you, Mister Lane? Hmm?”

“…”

Loverboy’s response is low, barely a moan. He sips more water from his hand and looks at himself in the vanity mirror. Pale. Haggard. His eyes are bloodshot and the few marks on his arms seem to leap out at him in a way they couldn’t possibly to an untrained eye.

Grabbing a towel, Loverboy wipes the sweat and stray puke off of his muscular chest, still heaving from the deep breaths and speeding heart.

“Speak up when you address me. Do you want to continue feeling this pain?”

Loverboy sucks a long breath into his lungs, holding it as he continues to look at himself. Finally, though, he resigns himself to the simple, unavoidable truth.

“No.”

“Good. Now, we have a deal, do we not?”

“Yes.”

“And have we not kept our end of the arrangement, Mister Lane? Do you not stand before yourself right now as the undisputed Universal Champion? Are you alive and well and not comatose in a hospital bed, slowly wasting away and excreting into a tube?”

“You have. I am.”

“And your little whore?”

“Don’t you fucking… aarrgh…”

Once again, the anguish grabs him deep from within, tightening like a fist inside his bowels. The muscles of Loverboy’s arms and back and neck strain outward beneath his skin, tightening and stretching his ligaments to the limit as he is rocked by another sudden upchuck.

This time, he doesn’t get his face over the sink in time. The vomit spews forth from his gullet and splatters across his reflection in the mirror, slowly oozing down the glass in sticky droplets.

“Tut tut, Mister Lane. Mind your manners.”

“Guhhh…”

“Now. Your whore? Is she not alive and free to live her life? Did we not prevent her from committing an atrocious crime and pending the rest of her days behind bars?

“Y… yes. Yes you did.”

“And what do you say?”

“Th… th… thank you.”

“Thank you, WHOM?”

“Thank you… sir.”

“Good boy.”

The tension leaves Loverboy’s body and he collapses onto the cold tile of the bathroom floor, his slick torso falling against the ceramic with a wet slap. Closing his eyes tighter, he coughs as strings of saliva fly from his mouth and tether to the floor beneath his face like spider’s webs.

With hitched breath, Loverboy begins to curl into a fetal position, cradling his body with his shaking arms and dragging his bare feet up until the vinyl of his black pants’ knees rest against his chest.

“Look at the champion. Lying in a puddle on his bathroom floor. Such an inspiration.”

“Please…”

“You ask another favor of me?”

“Please… make it stop… give my stuff back…”

“I shall. As soon as you call your whore again.”

“Ffffffuck…”

Vinnie Said:Roxy, it’s me again.

I’ve been thinking… and FUCK you.

Seriously, you fuck right the fuck off. Who are you to leave all of THIS behind, huh? I won this fucking championship WITHOUT YOUR HELP because I NEVER NEEDED YOU.

You watch tomorrow night, dude. Turn on Warfare and watch me go out there and stomp your little goody two-shoes Girl Scout sister into a bloody fucking pulp in front of millions of people. Watch me walk in and out of that arena with MY TITLE on my shoulder and without some dumb blonde SKANK walking next to me.

I’ve got women begging me to be with them, you know that? Every day I get offers. I can fuck any woman alive. I can fuck TEN women all at once, what the fuck would I need you for? Look at the Goddess. LOOK AT HER. She’s got more to offer in that hot little body of hers than you could ever dream to, and she doesn’t ask for SHIT because she knows exactly where her place is and she STAYS IN HER OWN FUCKING LANE.

I’m glad you’re gone. Fuck it, I’m glad I’m not weighed down by your constant bitching and fucking moaning, and I’m glad I don’t have to tend to that cold, lifeless CUNT of yours anymore. It’s fine to fuck a basic bitch like you when I’m on the same level, but I’m the motherfucking CHAMP now, baby. And you’re just another THOT.

Peace.

Click.

On the love seat, in the apartment, alone – Roxy Cotton begins to cry.

Across town, Loverboy cries as well, his tears of pain drying on his cheeks as the needle slips into his arm.






Well, well, well…

Looks like little red rotten hood did have some more bullshit up her sleeve after all, huh? We even got treated to some softcore gay porn that’ll probably end up flagged on a NAMBLA website by the end of the week. Good for you, Ginger.

And wow, someone actually braved that stench down there and dove in, too! He must be feeling REALLY guilty about something to go to all that trouble. Those fumes could kill a man!

I know… he’s probably out getting his cock sucked by a woman who actually has a set of tits instead of the flatter-than-a-platter boygirl he’s attached himself to for some fucking reason. That must be it. Dude can’t help but go and blow his load into something that actually resembles a female body, then he feels guilty about enjoying it so much more than when he has to pretend he isn’t rapidly losing firmness inside of you.

Look Ginger, I just wanted to sign off with our little discourse for the week really quickly… since you haven’t had the respect befitting facing a champion of my caliber anyway and haven’t bothered tossing more than a few offhand bullshit comments my way here and there. Your little decision to call Shane and quit?

DO IT.

Fucking seriously, as a peer and a bit of a mentor for you young scrubs, the best advice I can give to someone like you, who has so quickly smashed into the glass ceiling and come crashing back down to a reality of a career involving absolutely NO MORE title opportunities, the best suggestion I could ever give to you would be to take your ball and go the fuck home.

No one wants you here anyway, you know? No one wants to waste their time looking after the lost little girl in the wolf-filled woods. Nobody wants to babysit. They have goals and dreams and the potential to fulfill them all… unlike you.

So fucking do it. Quit. Take this resounding loss to me, your perpetual better, as a sign from above. You ain’t good enough. You ain’t got enough.

You ain’t shit.

XOXO