ShapeShifter fiction: The Day After (Real-Time)

Well, ready to end this year’s Musical Hanukkah celebration? I think that in keeping with the theme of the holiday — hope and miracles — this year, we’ve opened more cans of worms than we’ve wrapped up.

Mitchell knew three things immediately upon waking. The bed wasn’t his. Not with sheets that smelled faintly of perfume. Kerri knew better.

The house wasn’t his.

But the hangover? That was entirely his own. His own making, too.

He wished he could go back to sleep, but the image of what had happened when he’d walked into The Rocket Theater the day before wouldn’t leave him. It figured; it hadn’t let him drink it into oblivion, either.

She wasn’t in bed with him. He didn’t need to send a leg or arm exploring to know that. If Kerri was there, he wouldn’t have been on his stomach, his left cheek probably drowning in a pool of drunken drool.

But she was behind his eyes, giving Chrome and Penis warm hugs. Penis had even lifted her off her feet when he’d embraced her. Loudly. Excited to see her.

And then turned to him and said, “I’m in the middle of something. Is it okay if she shows you where the dressing room is?”

It wasn’t that they’d been all over his wife; he wasn’t sure, but he thought Chrome might have felt the contours of her ass. Kerri watched women crawl over him on an almost daily basis, especially when they were on the road. It was her turn to get pawed a little bit. Maybe later, when he was less hungover, he’d think it was a turn-on. Not now, though. Now he was still steaming over the whole thing.

It was that they’d been glad to see her. Friendly. Had wanted to sit down at some point and catch up, had invited her to stop in one day when she was free and shoot the shit.

Him, they’d thanked for moving the benefit to their place. Hadn’t even bothered to shake his hand. Had, in fact, avoided him as much as they could.

Sometimes, being a dick sucked.

Kerri and Trevor would probably gang up on him if he tried to whine about it. They’d tell him that he’d decided to be a dick on purpose, that he’d wanted to keep people at arm’s length. He had no reason to complain when he got what he wanted.

Still. Sometimes, being a dick sucked.

So did hangovers.

Don’t forget that if you’re new here, use the Cast tab to be taken to the Cast of Characters page. Or think about picking up a copy of The Demo Tapes, which collects twenty (roughly speaking) of the outtakes buried in these here archives. Join the Trevorlution with your own chronicles of Trevor Wolff, bass player hardly-extra-ordinaire. But no one ever said we loved the boy for his musical talent, only for his personality.