Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

**Vincent Lane** · (02-14-2017)

Late Night...

“FUCK dude!”

Loverboy clutched his left hand with his right, his broken little finger already swelling. The taut muscles beneath the tattooed skin of the enforcer’s arms flexed like elevator cables as he backed up and grabbed a towel, wiping himself down. The warehouse had to be 100 degrees.

“Do you take us seriously now, Lane?”

Fucking Yakuza. Always as dramatic as possible.

“Akio… dude… your money is totally safe, man.”

“Oh? How good of you to promise something you can’t guarantee, Lane. You are in your position in the XWF because of our investments, need I remind you?”

“I’m well aware.”

The younger enforcer steps forward again, the ornate dragon splashed in deep reds and greens across his torso slithers as he rolls his arms forward. Loverboy turns his head away from the expected blow, but Akio, from his desk chair over to the side, raises one hand and stops the man in his tracks.

“You have to learn to watch your mouth, Lane. My men do not permit me to be disrespected.”

“I’ve noticed… but Akio, dude… for real… this isn’t necessary. I’m a draw, even now. This isn’t some desperate ratings grab. Lotto is going to make more money than it ever has.”

Akio finishes rolling a cigarette on his desk, then places it between his lips and pulls a diamond encrusted lighter from his hip pocket, firing a bright red cherry onto the end that pulses with his inhale.

“Maybe so. But I have seen your medical records, Lane. Do you know what could happen to our investment if you were to die in the ring?”

Loverboy stays quiet. Akio stands and walks over to him, leaning forward.

“However, if you cannot participate… perhaps due to injury… you cannot suffer that fat, now can you?”

“Akio… look, there have been too many setbacks. Duke’s visa status is still up in the air. No one has seen Soldier. Chris Chaos is MIA. The tournament needs my star power to bring in the buys. If I pull out now, it might tank the whole thing. Don’t you see that?”

The slender Akio stands upright and turns away from Loverboy, smoking quietly while Loverboy cooks under the lights of the warehouse. Akio’s enforcer looks like a pit bull at the end of a chain.

Finally, Akio speaks again.

“You have a point.”

Loverboy almost smirks. But, the pit bull.

“The XWF needs you in the ring for now, it would seem. But understand this, Lane. If your recklessness and your condition end up getting the organization shut down and I lose my money? Well. Let us just remind you that we know where your woman is. And we know where your… daughter… is.”

“Not gonna happen, dude.”

Loverboy winces as soon as the words roll out of his mouth, and he balls his right hand into a protective fist.

“Tut. Such a mouth. One more, Bishamon. Then take him home.”

“Wait!”

The shirtless enforcer walks up to Loverboy and grabs his rigt hand, forcing his fingers to straighten as Akio walk out of the room.

“WAIT! AAAAAUugghhhh!”

crunch.

Earlier That Afternoon...

“Oh, look, Gilly’s banging a 40 year old Japanese man.

Holy shit has this dude fallen off. Christ, dude, you’d think that finally, finally, FINALLY clawing your way to the top of the mountain after… what… five? Ten? Years in the XWF, that Peter “The F Stands For Failure’n” Gilmour would be at the top of his game… but what do we see instead? Same old, same old. Let’s recap a little, like we did in the old days, huh?

Hmm… you know what though? I’m gonna try something a little bit different. Yeah. I’m not even gonna watch any more of this little masturbatory masterpiece of Gilly’s. Why would I? I know what he’s going to say and what he’s going to do… don’t we all, by now? All I had to do was hover over the thumbnail that got uploaded to Pornhub, suspiciously by username SuperDickGilmour6669, and I could tell exactly what was up. Gilmour, getting pegged by Giant Baba over there, then waxing poetic about he’s extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme and that he’s beaten yours truly years ago. Great job, Gil. Never fuckin’ change, man. Did you say anything racist in there? Probably, let’s just assume you did. Better safe than sorry.

I feel like Petey, as is often the case, probably missed the point entirely here though. Has Gilmour beaten “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane before? Yup. Sure has, dude. Can’t win ‘em all, right? I mean, even Ghost Tank wins every now and then, and that guy probably shits into a bag by now. So yes, XWF faithful, there’s your bombshell. This drooling 163rd trimester man-baby has in fact defeated yours truly in the ring. He’ll of course say he did it a hundred times, but whatever, the only times we ever squared off that counted for anything were A – when I kicked his ass all over the arena and buried him in seventeen tons of Shane

’s C.Diff infected feces, and B, right here in the Lethal Lottery tournament in 2015.

Of course, that Lotto victory comes with a giant asterisk wider than Gilly’s own stretched-out gape, doesn’t it? As usual, Gilmour relied on his much stronger, much tougher, much BETTER partner to get himself a tainted victory in that tournament, didn’t you, Pete? This dude did so much bragging about a DQ victory that you’d think he’d done anything more than tag in, get knocked on his ass, and tag right the fuck back out… BUT I DIGRESS.

Ancient history. That’s all it is. How about instead of plodding through an encyclopedia of Gilly’s shortcomings against literally every single Universal Champion the XWF has ever had… we talk about the way things have been recently instead?

Oh, what’s that? Gilly still just runs his mouth to whatever champion he sees, then immediately shits the bed harder than Ghost Tank on laxatives? Awesome.

See dude, a lot has changed in the XWF since the last time you and me tangled. For one, duh, hello, I own the joint. Your boyfriend Dim hasn’t been seen in eons. Neither have Sid Feder or, shit, even Unknown Soldier recently. Where the hell did that dude go anyway? Gilly, the sun set on the Shane

Era of the XWF the same way it did on your career – suddenly and without remorse. The 300 alleged X-Treme Championship reigns you claim are long gone. You had ONE last gasp, ONE last chance to cement yourself as the star you claim to be… and what happened? See above, RE: Ghost Tank, Laxatives.

It’s not all your fault though, dude, and I can’t find it in my heart to hate you. You’re just like that slow kid in the back of class with the big-ass hands who accidentally pet the class rabbit a little bit too hard and sent him to Heaven, you know? Except in your case you were screaming at the bunny to suck your dick the entire time and sexually assaulting everything in a skirt, regardless if under the skirt was a vagina or an underwhelming Asian penis.

Jesus Christ Pete.

Anyway.

We were talking about recent history, right? Right. So… how fucking hilarious is it that the one and only Universal Champion you’ve ever managed to put one over on is now the dude you have to rely on to get you past a legend like Moi? What are the odds, right? The ONE dude who was SUCH a pile of shit that he managed to break the two most cardinal rules of the XWF within the same few months. The dude who stopped being

and somehow got WORSE. Scully. Now, knowing Pete, there’s probably nothing else shitty I can say about Scully that Pete hasn’t already said, since there’s nothing Gilmour likes to do more than trash his own partners. Only Peter can so readily shit talk himself and not even realize it.

“Oh, shit, Loverboy… but didn’t Scully beat you for the title???”

Why yes, imaginary micrococked Gilmour fan, yes he did. Thank you so much for asking, now you can go back to making alt-right YouTube reaction videos and disappointing your parents. In fact, and you can probably go ahead and research this in the annals of XWF lore, there are exactly TWO things the resident rock n’ roll megastar never managed to accomplish in his ridiculously successful XWF career. One… I never won the Lethal Lottery tournament. That obviously changes this year. And along the way, I get to rectify number Two – I never beat Scully. Can you believe that shit? I mean, the Lotto, that’s at least difficult to do… but having a Hall of Fame career while also carrying an 0-2 record against Scully feels like what I imagine it feels like to get an amazing blowjob and then looking down to see the face of a middle aged Chinaman. Gilly, as an aside, seriously, I cannot overstate how disgusting your ‘girlfriend’ is. Get help.

But hey, Scully needed me to be overworked and overtired…. He needed me to be dealing with the death of my mom and the transition of my son into my daughter… he needed me to be suffering from what would eventually be diagnosed as a career-ending neck injury… ALL THAT is what Scully needed to beat “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane for the Universal Title. And what’s sad is, even if I’d have spotted Gilly all of those exact same things he’d still have come up short. I’d probably still be champion. Jesus, why didn’t I just defend against Gilmour every month? That seems like such an easy answer, why didn’t anyone think of that?

Gilly, you and Scully are the perfect couple. You’re both so fucking awful that the only people you can beat are yourselves and each other. Thank God I was gifted with an unparalleled acumen for this business and signed Chris Chaos to be a REAL champion. Can you imagine how low the stock would be right now if we were just playing hot potato with the belt between you two?

Ugh.

Anyway, Pete, I’ve got to go. Say hi to Scully for me if he ever decides to leave the Birmingham Bathhouse and wrestle men for money and fame instead of for fun and sexual pleasure. Don’t say hi to Mia. Dude gives me the creeps.

See you soon!

XOXO –

Vin"

The playback stops.

“How’d I do, babe?”

Loverboy asks Roxy as he looks over the monologue he’s recorded onto his Microsoft Surface tablet. She’s leaning against the marbled kitchen counter sipping a dark red wine out of some gleaming crystal stemware. An empty bottle of Cab sits nearby.

“Well? You think it’s good?”

“Scully did upload a promo, just FYI, Vin.”

Loverboy scowls for a minute, furrowing his brow in thought.

“Eh, whatevs. This is still fine. Everything’s fine. Not as fine as you though babe… you are fuckin’ FINE.”

Loverboy saunters over to the blonde bombshell and slithers an arm around her slender waist, but the knockout slips away, her six inch stiletto heels clicking on the tile as she walks off, finishing her wine.

Loverboy looks like a scolded dog.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

“You know what’s fucking wrong, Vinnie!”

She spins at him. He instinctively ducks and puts his hands up in a defensive posture. She doesn’t throw the glass, though, merely sets it on a nearby shelf and folds her arms across her buxom chest.

“You aren’t supposed to be in the ring! You remember what the doctor said? That spinal fusion in your neck… one bad fall and you might never walk again! You could die!”

“I’m not gonna DIE, baby, it’s just The Gilmour Girls out there…”

“I’m not joking, Vin. Pick on Scully and Pete all you want but your last matches were against them and the doctor said it was a miracle you weren’t already in a wheelchair.”

“Baby…”

Loverboy walks over to Roxy and runs a hand through her flaxen hair.

“I’m gonna be fine. Really. I’m always fine, right? Come on. You’ve been with me all this time. You’ve seen me go up against bigger threats than this. Tougher fights. And this one isn’t about defending a title, you know? I don’t have anything to lose!”

Roxy purses her lips and backs away from Loverboy’s hand. Her eyes have a fire deep within them that seems to make the Megastar flinch.

“Really? Nothing to lose, Vinnie? We’re talking about your life here. You’re not even 35 years old, you want to end up shitting into a bag?”

“Oh weird, I just made that joke about GT…”

“Vinnie, fucking LISTEN to me. We have it good. The XWF is breaking records and making more money than it ever has thanks to YOU. You spent your time in the ring. You proved everything there is to prove. Now where you belong is behind the scenes so you can make a new generation of stars. Not out in the god damn ring crippling yourself to prove a point!”

Black rivulets start to form on her sharp cheekbones. Loverboy stutters and grasps for words while her lip trembles, but he can’t think of anything to say before she turns away from him and storms off into the bedroom.

“Great… GREAT… my fucking makeup is fucked now. Just go. Go to the gym and try not to get hurt. Asshole.”

The slamming of a door is often the only punctuation one needs.

That Evening...

The molten yellow of a gibbous moon hangs from a dark cloud like honey off of a comb. “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane sits on the stone steps outside of his local gym, holding an ice pack on his forehead. A threesome of young jocks in sweat gear and carrying nylon duffels pass him on their way to the parking lot.

“Sorry again, Vin.”

“It’s cool, dude.”

“I just… I mean I thought you’d see it coming.”

“I know, it’s cool.”

“I’m just saying, I wouldn’t have thrown it so hard if I knew.”

“Dude. It’s cool. No worries alright man? Good sesh.”

The three bucks wave and wander off, horseplaying in the parking lot before they all load into an SUV and pull out. They give a honk before turning out onto the 405.

Loverboy adjusts the icepack and groans, pulling the cold plastic away from his skin and revealing a deep purple bruise beneath his eyebrow with a think knot of flesh swelling up. The kid’s superkick had caught him square and put him on his ass. It was two-thirds speed, tops.

“Fuck.”

Another cloud passes by and draws the veil of shadow across Loverboy’s frowning face. He hangs his head between his knees and pulls his sweat-darkened hair back and under the spare bandanna he’d been wearing tied around his knee. The original hot pink number he’d worn to start the sparring session was soaked through with his blood and tossed into the trash bin inside. Luckily those kids hadn’t noticed.

Probably.

Loverboy’s hands are still knotted through the hair on the back of his head when the soft hum of a lowering window cuts a gentle line through the night’s silence.

“Lane.”

“Huh?”

“Lane. Come here.”

Loverboy looked up then. The limousine had rolled in like the fog, on little cat feet. Now it idled nearly silently just a foot or two in front of the megastar with its back window rolled down and a nonplussed Japanese man’s face looking at him in the moonlight through jet black sunglasses.

“Akio?”

“Please, Lane. Come here. Get in the car.”

Loverboy knew it wasn’t a request. He only hoped they’d come looking for him here first and hadn’t swung by the apartment and found Roxy alone.

“She has no idea.”

Akio was a master of reading facial expression. He knew exactly what worried Loverboy.

“Now. Get in.”

The opposite rear door of the limo was now held open by an extremely barrel chested and extremely unhappy looking Japanese man in a bolo tie.

“God I hate bolo ties.” Loverboy thought as he ducked his head under the roof of the car and got in. Classical music played as the car drove.

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode "Loverboy" - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Author	Message