Though the music is low, Roxy turns it the rest of the way down to continue her phone call.

“Are you sure, officer? You haven’t found any trace of him?”

Roxy Cotton paces barefoot in her purple panties and one of “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane’s myriad Saigon Kick t-shirts, cut off below the chest and showing her flat, tan stomach. As she nervously digs her pedicured toes into the carpeting of the hotel room, she bites her lip and listens to the response from her cell phone.

“He was taken on live television! You know who did it! How can you not investigate?”

Her hand is thrown up, catching wisps of her platinum hair and tossing them into the air around her head in frustration. She dabs at the wetness bleeding her eyeliner across her face with a tissue and throws it angrily at the floor when she hears the reply.

“It’s NOT fucking fake, you asshole! They took him! I haven’t seen him in days! One of them is a rapist, do you understand? He might be getting raped right now! YES men can get raped!”

Eventually she clocks off the cell phone in disgust, giving up on the thought of the Denver police department doing anything to help with her plight.

Since arriving in Denver to try and find her missing fiancé, Roxy has gotten little sleep. She’s done everything from canvas local strip clubs and bars and come away with nothing other than snickering replies from drunks to job offers. And solicitations for sex, of course. Another day in the life of a perfect ten living in a world full of sixes and sevens.

She spent her time calling and texting Loverboy repeatedly, desperately hoping h might have just been stranded somewhere or that if nothing else one of the Asylum members who took him from Turning Point might fuck up and answer, letting the GPS work its magic. Every call went straight to the silly voice mail message the two of them had made together though. The phone wasn’t ever on. The GPS was a lost cause.

Hey dudes and dudettes! You got “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane here… talk dirty to me after the beep!

They’d better not talk dirty to you, Vinnie… that’s my job.

Well, ladies, you heard her… I guess you have to talk dirty to BOTH of us!

BEEP.

The message played again, of course, but by now the box was full. She could do nothing but sit and hope, pressing her hands into her face and her elbows into her thighs, crying softly as she sat on the stiff hotel room bed.

She spent several minutes weeping quietly before a sudden realization caused her head to shoot back up and stare into the glass screen of the cell phone.

That time when she called it had rung.

Thinking she was crazy, she dialed the number again. It rang. And rang. And Rang.

“C’mon baby… pick it up… pick up the phone Vinnie…”

Hey dudes and dudettes!

“Fuck!”

She tossed the phone onto the mattress and stood up, pacing again. She walked from the window to the door, back and forth, repeatedly checking out through the curtains and through the peephole respectively.

It was futile, but what more could she do?

Then the phone chirped. A text had come in.

Roxy practically dove across the room to land on the bed, sending pillows flopping to the floor. Hurriedly, she swipes across the phone screen.

She cups her hand over her mouth to stifle a happy squeak of surprise when she sees Loverboy’s name on the screen, but the message leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Fgohollld

Better than nothing, though. She again tries to call, but there is still no luck getting through. Confused, she starts to gather clothing up from around the room… and then there is a knock at the door.

Carefully, Roxy peers through the peephole. She sees nothing, though, but as she turns away the knock comes again. Lower on the door.

Roxy grabs the iron form inside the hotel room’s closet, brandishing it over her head. Then, she opens the door to her room and steps back, ready to defend herself from whatever threat might be on the other side.

Collapsed and bloody in the hallway is “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane, sucking breaths into his broken body and leaving smeared handprints across the bottom of the door as he feebly knocks.

“Honey… I’m home.”

He blacks out as Roxy drops to her knees and cradles his shorn head, holding him close to her.




“I’ll live, baby. I’ll be fine.”

“Shut the fuck up and let me do this, you big sissy…”

“Owwww!”

Loverboy howls in the bathtub as Roxy dabs him with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. He winces as the bloody scrapes on his bald head are disinfected.

“Easy, girl… I know I look like bald shit, but don’t take it out on my scalp, dude!”

“You don’t look like shit, Vinnie. I mean, you do, but only because of what you’ve been through.”

“I knew you’d hate what happened to my hair. I don’t blame you if you leave.”

Roxy splashes a handful of tepid bathwater, tinged with the blood from Loverboy’s many wounds, causing him to spit it out in a mist. He looks up at her with tired eyes.

“That wasn’t nice, Roxy. I forgive you, though… I’ve been through hell and you look like an angel from heaven.”

“Vinnie… I don’t care if you’re bald. I don’t care if you get fat or if you never win another match. Hell, I don’t care if you work for a fast food joint. I love you, no matter what. Don’t worry about me leaving. Okay?”

“Okay…”

Loverboy wraps his hand, gauze covering the fingers which have had the nails pulled off, around Roxy’s toned arm. He squeezes and winces again from both the pain in his fingers and the sheer exhaustion from his ordeal.

Roxy leans forward and kisses Loverboy right on the top of his shaven scalp, leaving a purple imprint of her lips.

“Actually, Vinnie, you look kind of hot. You have a sexy skull, you know that?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve missed you. How much time you need to recuperate before you can give me what I’ve been going without, Mister Number One Contender?”

“I’d say… between one and two minutes.”

“Mmmm… good. I’ll go easy on you. And don’t worry about missing the rumble. You don’t need it anyway.”

“What?”

Loverboy grimaces with pain as he sits up straighter in the tub, his bruised torso emerging from the copper toned water.

“Roxy… I’m not pulling out of the match.”

“Vinnie! You’re hurt! Look at you! Your ribs… your nose… your hands…”

“I know. I know all that, trust me. Throw in the fact that my feet are swollen to twice their size, my wrists and ankles are raw from the ropes, and I’ve almost definitely gotten a concussion… but I don’t care, baby. I’m not letting them beat me. Not having me in that rumble is why they took me in the first place. Morbid Angel’s the higher power to the Asylum, and they are doing everything they can to keep me away from his Universal Championship!”

“I know, but… Vinnie you could be really hurt.”

“I’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ve done my homework. And from the promos you showed me just now? I don’t have much to worry about. Frodo’s going to get his face beaten in if we end up in the ring together, same as his little errand boy Lucius.

“But there are some really tough guys in the rumble, Vinnie. Ruthless types. They know you’re hurt, they won’t take it easy on you. Even friends of yours like Harrison, or Doc.”

“Harrison? Are you sure you don’t have a concussion too? In order for Harrison to lift me over the top rope he’d need a fucking backbone, wouldn’t he? And if he had one, he would have done something about Morbid Angel killing his wife and kids. And Doc D’Ville? Look… I think it’s great that he spent a couple of moments arguing with what you had to say, baby, but the fact that he’s willing to trash talk not only one of the hottest women that’s ever lived, but any innocent woman at all, just shows what kind of man Doc really is.

I respect Louis, really, but that’s just bad form. He wants to remind me that he’s beaten me? Like I don’t already know that? We all saw it, didn’t we? But I’ve beaten other guys who’ve beaten me, haven’t I? Justin Sane, for example, who I noticed has been conspicuously quiet ever since I took him to task at Turning Point. He hasn’t said a word about the Rumble has he?

“No, he hasn’t, but…”

“But nothing, Roxy. He’s done. Watch him fall apart and lose that case of his to fucking Frodo of all people. Did Frodo seriously lose his Precious to a for real midget?”

“He totally did.”

Loverboy stifles a laugh, clutching at his ribs as he does. The pain in his eyes is evident, but the smile on his face is unwavering.

“I’ve got to watch that. I’m going to sign onto the XWF Network as soon as I can and watch that on a loop. That is god damn priceless. A midget. A midget who ALSO thinks he has a shot in this rumble! Maybe I’ll make a point of dumping that little dude over the ropes right in front of Frodo to show him how easy it ought to be? I don’t know. All I know is these jerks all want to shit talk against you when you aren’t even in the match! You aren’t even a competitor!”

“Well… I’ve held more titles than most of them. Even that hot shit newcomer Austin Fernando.”

“Oh yeah… Austin Fernando. I almost forgot about him, much like the history books will once his fifteen minutes are up. That guy… any chump who has nothing more than an arbitrary accolade like superstar of the month to fall back on is barely a blip on the radar of a main eventer like me anyway. Notice this is the only way Fernando could be in the main event? To be on a show with only one match? Unless you count being carried by Doc into a decent match, but shit, man, I closed Madness against Doc months ago! That’s MY show, man. Fernando is nothing more than a wannabe, and after the rumble he’ll be a neverwas.

Fucking poseur with his star of the month bullshit. Hey, Austin, guess what? Here are some other competitors who’ve been star of the month. Justin Sane, Gator, Frodo Smackins, Mastermind, Peter Gilmour, Sebastian Duke, Luca Arzegotti, Theo Pryce, Azrael, Cain, Morbid Angel… they all have that in common with you, dude, so good job having some good company. But you know what else they all have in common? Every one of them has lost to me. That’s another thing you’ll get to have in common soon enough, bitch, but for now you’ll have to settle for getting chucked over the top rope by a fucking megastar.

Enjoy the little bit of spotlight you’re getting while it lasts, rookie. When the fall happens, it happens fast and hard, like a john pumping his load into your mother. Ask Ghost Tank. There was a time when people were up his ass to be star of the month too, you know? How has that grand arrival worked out for him? Last I checked he was getting punked out by midcarders like Caroline and losing relevance faster than you lose T cells, Fernando.

You’re out of your league, out of your depth, again, just like you were last week when you got dropped by the Doc. But hey, at least you’re the star of the month! You earned it, beating a bunch of nobodies in a ladder match!”

“Are you done, Vinnie? I didn’t expect you to waste all your energy cutting a fucking promo in the bath.”

“Oh sugar, don’t you worry. I’ve got plenty left in the tank for you. Got a towel?”

“Hmmm… I have a better idea, actually…”

Roxy lifts the shirt off of her body, freeing her massive sweater puppets, and tosses it to Loverboy, who quickly uses it to half-assedly dry himself as he strains to exit the bathtub.

Roxy giggles and imitates his decrepit movement, then backs seductively into the bedroom of the hotel, smiling and bending a finger into a very convincing come-hither motion.

Loverboy comes hither.

Fade out.