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**Vincent Lane** · (03-21-2016)

"Come on home, girl" he said with a smile
"you don't have to love me yet, let's get high awhile
But try to understand, try to understand
Try, try, try to understand, I'm a magic man…"

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane and his gorgeous fiancée, Roxy Cotton, are enjoying an evening at home for once. The music is up, the bottles are pouring, and the duo are dancing in their underwear across the living room rug.

Loverboy takes a long drink from a half-empty bottle of Jack while Roxy pulls the lit cigarette in his hand over to her mouth and pulls in a breath, brightening the golden cherry’s glow momentarily before holding his hand in the air above her her head and spinning a little barefoot twirl across the room, her bronze skin soft against the purple lingerie set she wears in the dark mood lighting.

“Stay with me all weekend?”

She purrs coquettishly, swinging an orbit with her hips to rival the moon. The rock n’ roll megastar laughs and dances towards her in his boxer shorts, placing a hand on her waist and gyrating along.

“You know I can’t do it, baby. I’ve got to head back to Vegas in the morning. Got a full plate this weekend, you know?”

“Always such a hot commodity.”

She winks and arcs her lip in a seductive smile, her eyebrow raising in an inverted V. Loverboy chuckles again and turns her around, resting his chin on her shoulder and holding his hand against her toned midsection while they dance along more.

“You know me, baby girl. The more I win, the more they try to beat me. And I just keep winning, and winning, and winning… so the haters and wannabes are out in full force, dude. It won’t stop me, though. It never does.”

“I know it won’t… and you’ll look so sexy in a crown.”

Roxy laughs and pats Loverboy on top of his golden hair, tussling a little and breaking free from him, stealing the bottle in the process.

“I can’t wait to be a queen.”

“Honey, you know you’re already my queen. The XWF Crown is just a formality at this point anyway, babe. Everyone knows what the pecking order is around there. They know that I’m a god among men, a true megastar, and that the only possible outcome of any tournament I’m involved with is me with my hand raised. There’s nothing that Rebel Star can do about it, nothing Tommy Gunn can do about it, and definitely nothing Luca Arzegotti can do about it.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never faced him before now.”

“Well, I can. Luca’s a mess, and he has no focus. No drive to better himself and succeed. It’s why he’s content just dragging his feet in the midcard with Fernando when he knows he’s better than that. Or at least, he knows they keep telling him he’s better than that. He’s spending all his time hashtagging every tired pic on the internet and retweeting them to his six followers. Where’ve I been baby?”

“In the gym. In the ring… in me, too.”

“Well you can’t blame me for that, can you?

“Not in the slightest, Vinnie. And it counts as cardio training anyway, you fuckin’ marathon man.”

“You always find a way to put me over, that’s why I love you, doll. But in a way you’re right, man. And even if I wasn’t lifting on the daily, getting trained by the best trainers money can buy, and honing my craft to a finer edge each and every day… I’d still have the advantage over the so-called “Meme Queen” anyway. Sure, 2016 has seen him get into the ring several times – probably more than 2014 and 2015 combined, actually – but rust doesn’t just flake off that easily, dude. This is still a guy that shat the bed as recently as two weeks ago and got beat by Nico LaVey. Who the fuck is Nico LaVey anyway?”

“Oh, I know him.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Well, while you were in that coma, I beat him in a match.”

“Your only match?”

“Uh huh.”

“A centerfold and webcam model with no actual training or experience?”

“That’s me.”

“Well congratulations, Roxy, you probably ended 2015 ranked higher than Luca. Then again, so did wannabes like Maverick and Ghost Tank. Even Mastermind had a better year than Luca, and he left halfway through it. None of that matters though, he’ll tell you. He’s born with all he needs to win against me, right? As if I’m some out of shape slob and not a reigning multiple champion, a top draw in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, and an all-around legend in the world of pro wrestling. Luca will still just blow all that off and snidely act like he’s just somehow better. Well you know what, dude? Diamonds come out of the ground exquisite, but they still need to be perfected. That’s what the best of the best do, they take great and make it PERFECT. My game in the ring is at the top of the charts, dude. I’m better than I ever have been, because I keep working for it. I’m better than I was when I won the Universal Championship from Doc D’Ville. Better than when I defended it against Ginger Snaps and Maverick. Better than when I solidified my claim to the title against Trax, a guy they claimed I couldn’t beat. I’m better now than I was when I proved everybody wrong time and time again. I win here, I win elsewhere, I win everywhere I go, all the time, no matter what the odds are, because I’m a god damn megastar. Luca can’t even grasp what it’s like to be on my level, because it’s so far above what he’s ever even dreamed of being that to him it might as well be science fucking fiction. So as long as I don’t lose my focus, as long as I strive to be the king of the XWF, then that’s exactly what will happen, Luca or no Luca.”

Roxy kisses Loverboy deeply on the lips, taking another pull from his smoke. Loverboy sees the cig is at the end of its lifespan and crushes it into a nearby heart-shaped ahstray.

“And you know what else pisses me off about Luca?”

But Loverboy is cut off by a loud rapping on the front door of the apartment. Both he and Roxy look startled and confused, staring at each other with stunned expressions, questioning silently to one another.

Then the knock comes again, three firm strikes.

“Police. Anyone home?”

The two lovers look even more startled now, and Loverboy quickly moves the XWF Title belt, dusted with white cocaine across the faceplate, into a kitchen drawer as Roxy rushes to grab a robe from the bathroom.

“Uh, yeah dude… we’re here. One second, we’re pretty much naked.”

Silence from the door. Roxy comes back into the living room with a purple satin robe cinched around the waist. She hands Loverboy his terrycloth robe and he puts it on as Roxy heads to the door, sliding the gold chain out of the lock.

Opening the door, Roxy steps backward into the apartment. There are two police officers standing at the doorway, looking morose.

“Roxy Cotton?”

“Yes? How can I help you two officers?”

“Miss Cotton, I’m afraid we are here with potentially very bad news.”

Roxy looks nervous, and Loverboy walks up behind her to put his hands on her shoulders to comfort her.

“Last May, you reported your sister Dani missing?”

“Yes! Yes, Dani left to go to the beach last year and she never came back! We both assumed she went back to Canada… but wait… did you find her?”

“We may have, ma’am. We… need you to come with us. For identification.”

“Identi… what? No, no, Vinnie what does he mean ‘identification?’”

Loverboy is at a loss for words. His hands slide down his love’s upper arms and he pulls her in to an embrace. The officers look mortified and Loverboy stares at them with a protective expression, though he nods at them in understanding.

“Guys… give us a few minutes. We can get dressed and come down there together, okay? She shouldn’t have to go like this.”

“Vinnie what do they need us to go to the station for? Why isn’t Dani here? What did they find, Vinnie? What did they find?”

Her voice vanishes into desperate sobs as she presses her face into Loverboy’s shoulder. Her body shudders and convulses with each crying wail, and Loverboy rubs thee back of her head with his hand, his fingers raking through her peroxide blonde hair.

The two officers nod in agreement with Loverboy and turn to leave.

“We’ll be right behind you two, dudes. Fifteen minutes, tops.”

Again, the officers nod and begin to walk away as Loverboy shuts the door. Roxy looks up at him, her face a mess with tears and smeared makeup.

“Baby… take a second. Calm down. Get cleaned up and dressed, we should go and get there as soon as we can, okay? Everything will be alright. I promise you that. No matter what happened, we will be alright.”

Roxy sniffles her nose and almost manages a smile before breaking down into wracking sobs once again. Loverboy stands and holds her, the two swaying together in a new type of dance as a slow song on the radio plays.

Thy hold one another close until the storm passes, and Roxy manages to get hold of herself once more. She wipes her face with her hands and looks Loverboy in the eye plaintively.

“Whatever happens, right? You promise that no matter what, we’ll get through it?”

Loverboy looks down at the light of his life, looking so much smaller than she did only moments before when she heated up the entire apartment with seemingly no effort. The raw emotion on her face shrunk her to an almost childlike state.

“Absolutely, baby. No matter what. I promise.”

He kisses her, first a small one on her lips, then moving to each eye, his lips washing away her lachrymose flood.

“Now get some clothes on. Let’s do what we need to do, babe, so we can start making it right.”

With a quivering lip, Roxy looks up at him again, but she steels herself against the torment within her and nods. Then, wordlessly, she releases herself from Loverboy’s muscular arms and slips into the bedroom.

Loverboy looks down at the floor, at his own bare feet with toes kneading into plush carpet fibers like earthworms attempting to flee death from the sun. He walks to the couch and sits with head in hands as the radio changes from music to a somber voice.

“…out in Los Angeles, police have found the remains of what they believe to be a girl in her late teens to twenties… no official statement regarding if this is considered connected to the ‘Magic Man’ serial killings allegedly perpetrated last year by escaped prisoner Reginald Murphy, but the crime scene is in the vicinity of his known dump site and details from witnesses describe a very similar scene…”

Loverboy stands slowly, as if held down by ropes, and walks with his head hung low to the radio, switching it off before walking into the bedroom to change.

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode "Loverboy" - Magic Man
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