Dragonstone

Lights flashed momentarily and then flickered as they bounced across the interior of the car.  We were parked at a roadside rest near a picnic grove of trees and wooden tables.  Tractor trailers snarled as they roared through the parking lot, and from the nearby rest stop house, the sounds of flush toilets resonated with a gargle-gargle gurgling that sounded not unlike the gurgle-gurgle hurl sounds that Corin was making in the bushes. 

Corin had been so drunk that he couldn't fly and had to be carried out of the club.  We strapped him to the room of Kotari's SUV and roared off down the highway.  When we pulled into the rest stop, Corin was still singing his rendition of "Singing in the Rain" from A Clockwork Orange soundtrack.

Which might have been funny, but by then we'd heard it at least 75 times, but who is going to tell Corin to be quiet?

It was all we could do to sit there and wait for him to pass out. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I kept hoping that all the clowns and mimes were home safe in bed or at least far, far away from this rest stop.

Takari and I catch up with Corin sitting on the back steps of the office, staring sadly into a patch of daisies.

We stop simultaneously and then we make every effort to make a LOT of noise as we resume walking forward.  Its never a good idea to sneak up on a dragon, especially not one that has breath weapons.

Its then that we notice Lisa sitting in a deck chair, legs crossed at the knees.  She's got a half-empty Diet Coke in front of her and her Blackberry.  She just looks at us and shakes her head.

Takari frowns, puzzled.

"Corin, what's up?" I venture.  No reply, only a groan.  Corin drops his head into his hands crying, "She hates tits!"

WTF? I look to Lisa for some clarification.  She just nods, smirks and rolls her eyes.

"Who, um, hates, yeah - who are you talking about?"

"Keira!"

"Keira?"  I look to Takari who is now texting something to someone and then back to Lisa who only says "Knightley."

"Keira Knightley hates tits?"  I repeat.  "Corin, what the hell are you talking about?"

Corin pulls a wadded up tabloid newspaper from beneath his armpit.  On its cover is none other than Keira Knightley in a low-cut cleavage-baring dress.

"HER!" he pouts, not unlike a small child.  "She refuses to have her pictures altered to give her more cleavage.  I just might not go see her movie now!"  He bursts into tears.

"Its good to know that Michael Alig didn't alter your view of women," I reply, wincing, as I know thats not the RIGHT thing to say, not the politically correct thing to say, but its the only thing I CAN say at that very moment that won't get me turned into a human torch.

Corin stifles some sobs, and stares out across the parking lot, red-eyed. 

Kotari shuffles over.  "He's been out for two days.  Lets take him out to the club and get him laid."

It's been a while since I'd seen Corin.  I'd heard he'd been working off some incarceration time fighting forest fires out on the West Coast.  He'd shared a cell with the incontinent Michael Alig and was frequently visited by James St. James.  "I really didn't have anything to do with Angel's death," he'd confide.  "I don't know why James comes to see me."  "Maybe its for the publicity," I suggested.  "I mean, when Michael gets out, he will be able to cash in on having shared a cell with a dragon.  I've heard he's working on a book."  Corin snorts and blows a curl of fire out of his left nostril, torching a nearby trashcan.  "He tried," he mutters.  "I know he's having someone on the outside write it for him, but as long as he's locked up, he can't profit off of it." 

I tap the rim of my soda bottle.  "So when are you getting out?"  "Tomorrow," he replies.  "Tomorrow."  I cautiously clear my throat.  "So what were you in for in the first place?  I mean, why would they lock YOU up out of anyone?"

Corin looks at me and then says, "Dwarves.  Can't live with them, can't behead them in broad daylight.  Well, not anymore."

I take a deep breath.  "Corin, those weren't dwarves.  Those were vertically challenged people.  Midgets.  At a convention.  A match-making convention.  A match-making convention where all of the midgets across the lands come in an annual migration to try to find that special someone to make their lives complete."

"Midgets.  Dwarves.  So what if they weren't wearing armor.  We don't need no stinkin' dwarves."  Corin sneers.

"Corin, you're just not the same after that incident at the restaurant."

"Look, we're not going there."

I wonder if Corin still has trouble sitting down.  Maybe him and Michael have something in common.

Office lunch

Kotari, Lisa, Corin, Tashi and I decide to take the afternoon off and head out for lunch.  After all, Corin did secure the number one spot on the upcoming show ‘Dream Date with a Dragon.”  The voters chose him over Black Bart, The Copper King, Rythugnoamkila, and Ruben the Red.  We pile into the SUVs and drive off to Pho Pho’s, a Vietnamese restaurant.  Traffic is typical for a Friday lunch hour until we hit China town where all hell breaks loose.  Bicyclists zip past us carrying all sorts of contraptions: ladders, aluminum furnace flues, baskets of livestock, and suitcases stacked high.

After dodging hordes of paparazzi yelling “Give it up!” as they chase someone in a baby blue Porsche, we find spots in a parking garage.  The seemingly ubiquitous flocks of city pigeons are absent from the scene, as if avoiding the crowded back alleys and outdoor kitchens of Little Saigon.  If I were anything smaller than an orangutan, I would too.  After a momentary wait, a pony-tailed girl seats us in the smoking section of Pho Pho’s.  “Hey, she’s kinda cute,” Kotari murmurs.  “CUTE?” Corin sneers.  “She looks like Michelle Malkin in a cheerleader outfit.”

We each receive a laminated menu, red letters on white, and within moments, a man appears with a pot of tea and a tray of ceramic cups.  The pony-tail girl assists him in pouring and when we each have a cup before us, the man pulls a pen from behind his ear and waits to take our orders.

“I’ll have the sự chết đau đớn có gia vị,” Corin mutters.

The waiter’s eyes grow wide.  “No no no,” he urges.  “You no wanna dat.  Dat is hot painful death!  No buy!  No buy,’ he waves his hands back and forth at waist level.  “And why not?” Corin replies, eyeing him suspiciously.  The small Asian man frantically fans his mouth. “Hot!  Hot!  Hot!  You no wanna eat dat.  No eat.  No wanna!”  He hops up and down somewhat comically, waving his hand in front of his mouth and then, perhaps for added emphasis, waving his hand below his butt, as if he had just farted.

Kotari cracks up and in between laughter, orders the Suon Nuong.  Lisa orders the Tom Cai Thap Cam, Tashi takes the Long Duk Dong, I spring for the Bo Ca Ri and when everyone is done, Corin is still staring glassy-eyed at the menu.  The waiter looks to him, pen poised just above his flip-top order pad, his white paper hat cocked jauntily over one eye.  Corin clears his throat.  “I’ll have the sự chết đau đớn có gia vi.”  He stares squarely at the waiter who immediately bursts into a fresh bout of protests, calling over another waiter, speaking frantically in Vietnamese and then together, they both protest Corin’s choice.  “Look,” Corin says calmly.  The waiters continue yapping away in Vietnamese but their concern is evident, as its urgency has attracted the entire staff who now congregates around our table, their attention focused solely on the gold dragon in our midst.  Corin simply tilts his head back, clears his throat and shoots a finger of flame out of his left nostril that torches the long green and blue accordion-pleated crepe paper crane hanging overhead.  The staff stares for a moment and then scurries away to their kitchen cubbies with not another word of protest.  Roughly fifteen minutes later, our appetizers arrive amid a spattering of office-based discussions sprinkles with a dose of weather, sports and local color.  Soon after, our lunches arrive.  Every now and then a wide-eyed waiter dashes past, stealing a stealth glance at Corin as he dines upon his ‘hot spicy death’ platter.  Corin eats his dinner without much commentary, albeit complaints that the meal isn’t as spicy as the staff made it out to be.  Mulling over news and the latest controversies, with a debate on the extent on Courtney Love’s latest plastic surgery and Rudy G’s latest flip flop on illegal immigration, we finish our dinners an hour later. 

Corin picks up the tab and waves us on, saying that he has a stop to make.  He stomps across the street, heading for an Asian health food store.  “Since when did Corin get into health food?” Lisa murmurs, one foot on the running board of Kotari’s SUV. 

We duck through Little Saigon and head back to the office to shuffle through the day with the ordinary mix of phone calls, video conferences, emails and copier jams.  At 4:30 we bust out, head for the train station and hit the road for Happy Hour.

Happy Hour morphs into Misery Hour as alarm clocks go off and everyone rolls back into the office the next morning nursing their respective hangovers.  Kotari is found standing in the employees’ lounge, his head in the freezer.   

Lunch time comes and goes with some $5 pizzas from Little Caesar’s, and it isn’t until sometime after two that I notice that Corin hasn’t dropped in yet.  Lisa rings his cell phone but it goes directly to voice mail.  Two meetings and thirty seven emails later, it’s time to go.  Still no Corin. 

The next day, the early morning staffing comes and goes and Corin is nowhere to be found.  “Maybe we should put out a missing dragon report?” Lisa suggests.  “Mmm no, we don’t even know where Corin really lives,” Kotari states.  True.  No one has ever been to Corin’s home, er, lair, that is save for one: Clarice.

“I don’t think sending Clarice over there is a good idea,” Tashi says.  “He might have a guest over.”  “A guest?” Lisa says blankly. “Yeah you know, like an extended booty call or something.”  “Oh my god.  We’re talking about CORIN.” “Yeah I know, and he is like the Gene Simmons of dragons.  Him and that long tail of his.” “Oh come on now,” Lisa snickers.  “He’s probably out searching the globe for that little missing Madeline McCann.”  “Wherever he is, he needs to get here soon.  He’s got a cast meeting for Dream Date in exactly 24 hours,” Kotari states.  “Oh dear,” Lisa replies.  Tashi runs his hands through his hair, looking exasperated.  “OK, Lisa, ring up Clarice,” I order.  “I really don’t-“ “Just do it.  I’ll take the fall out for this if it goes to hell,” I reply.  “Alright,” she replies and pulls up her Outlook Express contact list.

Half an hour later, we hear a THUD THUD on the rooftop and no it isn’t Santa Claus, but Clarice coming in for a landing.  Clarice is looking pretty good these days, having checked into Promises, a residential rehab center in Malibu.  I pull her aside and explain the urgency of our situation.  Clarice agrees to fly ‘over there’ wherever ‘there’ is and check in on big C.  “Yeah, he’s an untrustworthy asshole,” Clarice says.  “But he also happens to be very good at sex.  As long as he doesn’t send the pictures anywhere, I guess I can check in on him.”  She pauses for a moment.  “Hrm, if he is missing, maybe he DID send the pictures somewhere.  Probably to some site in Eastern Europe, but hell if he’s raking in the big bucks on this, I want a cut of the deal.”  And with that, she leaps off the roof and into the skies.

 

 (to be continued.)

 

 

 

 

Back in the employees’ lounge, Kotari and I are sitting in front of the TV, discussing possible celebrity appearance options for Corin.  Kotari tosses a glossy four page photo shoot ad at me.  “Face Your Fear on National Television” the title screams.  “Um, I don’t think Corin is afraid of anything,” I say.  Kotari scoffs, “Oh come on, everyone is afraid of something.  That’s the beauty of it.  We find out what he’s really afraid of and then make him face his fear.”  “On national TV?” “Yes.” “In front of thousands of people?” “Try millions.” “No way.  He’ll never buy it.”  “Oh come on, he’s got to be afraid of SOMETHING.”  I shake my head and reach for my coffee.  “Kotari, think about it.  This is NOT a good path to follow.  He is a GOLD DRAGON.”  “Yes, I know that.” “He breathes FIRE, Kotari.  Freaking FIRE.  You back his ass into a corner and start jabbing at him with whatever bogey rattles his tree and you’re just asking for trouble.”

Kotari is silent for a moment and then presses the intercom button.  “Yes?” Lisa’s voice echoes with a metallic edge.  “Hey Lisa, its ‘Tari.” “Hi Tari.” “Hi.  Listen, hey do you know what one thing Corin might be afraid of?” Lisa is quiet for a moment then she says, “Clowns.”  Kotari’s eyes light up.  “Thanks,” he releases the button and settles smugly back into his chair.

“Coulrophobia,” I read from my Blackberry.  “What the hell is that?” he asks.  “It’s a phobia, specifically,  the fear of clowns.” “Which is what Corin has.” “Apparently.”  “OK so now we need to get a clown and hey wait, maybe a clown car-“ “You are out of your mind Kotari.” “No seriously- “ “Yes seriously.  You are a fucking moron.  There is NO way I’m in on this with you.  NO WAY. You gonna hire the Zem Zem guys to dress up like clowns and zip around in their little idiot cars?” “Hey now there’s an idea!  Give them some makeup, some lights, and a couple of Joy Buzzers-”  “No it’s not an idea you clueless meathead.  You put a gold dragon in a room with a bunch of clowns in little cars and that spells out target practice for Corin.  Oh my heavens, can you just imagine the lawsuits??? And when he gets done with them, he's going to come after you, and after he cuts your ass to a bazillion pieces, hell, even Criss Angel couldn’t resurrect you then.” “Hey I heard he was banging Britney Spears.” “Well that would have been an accomplishment at one time but now she’s got like mom boobs and she's bald and sheeeet.” 

The door flies open and none other than Corin is standing there filling up the doorway, larger than life.  “Hey C,” I start to greet him. “Hey Corin, how do you feel about clowns?”  I cringe.  Kotari HAD to throw that out there.  I curl up in my seat, trying to make myself as small a target as possible.

Corin glares at him for a moment and then says, “Clowns are horrifying things.  I wouldn’t say that I’m AFRAID of them but I don’t like them.”  “Why not?” Kotari asks.  “It all started with a backward redneck circus I was forced to endure as a hatchling.  Next I was made to watch the cult film Killer Circus Klowns from Canada over and over again as punishment for blowing up a mime academy.  Then Clarice started getting all hot and bothered by clown snuff films.  It went to hell after that.”  He growls and smokes curls out of his nostrils.  He walks over to the vending machine, slams the top of it with his fist, shakes it twice, and down drops a plastic-wrapped Honeybun.  Corin retrieves his processed food item, gives us one last glare and stomps off down the hall.

“So maybe it is true,” I mutter to Kotari after Corin leaves.  “I think we should do it,” he presses.  “Kotari, the idea of Corin nearly shitting his pants out of fear when confronting clowns-for-hire is not pretty.”  “Fine, we’ll get some ex-cons, maybe some ex-military like Adriel, Coil, and Archibald, and serial killer clowns, and buff them up and send them out, that way they’ll actually stand a chance of surviving if -”  I stand up, pulling at my hair.  “You don’t understand!  It will NEVER get to that point.  How about we just hire some psychopath clown who holds down a couple part-time jobs… someone who makes squeaky balloon animals by day and then uses them at night to strangle his elderly nursing home clients in their sleep. Oh my god can you see it now?  The clown moving across the room toward Corin cackling maniacally, and the Corin freaks out, shits his pants, and torches the joint, and I don’t want to be there when it happens.  And by the way, Coil and Archibald are in Afghanistan right now so you couldn’t get them anyway and they’re enlisted, not ex-military.”  I give him my best ‘YOU FUCKTARD’ look.  Kotari gives me a dubious look.  "No Kotari, no.  Coil's wife will KILL you. No.  Absolutely not."

Kotari strokes his goatee with his fingers. “Hmm,” he says.  I peer at him suspiciously.  “Hmm, what?”  “Hmm as in, OK.  Let’s get Sero instead.  He’s terrified of clowns.”  “Now that sounds like a winner.  OK let’s do it.”

(Click HERE for a YouTube video about clown phobia and don't laugh when you see the woman nearly piss herself when she meets Mr. Giggles.)

“So Clarice, how did you meet this dragon guy?”  The dull thud of an empty pizza box hitting the hardwood floor sounds abruptly between tracks on the CD.  Clarice, Valerie and Kirstie are sprawled across the overstuffed couches of Valerie’s spacious media room.  “He’s not a dragon guy,” Clarice insists, slurping down a portion of a Mudslide.  “He’s a real dragon.”  “I’ll bet,” Kirstie says, chomping away on a wide slice of Meat Lover’s pizza.  “And we met a long time ago, when I was just a hatchling.”  Valerie listens intently, stuffing Cool Ranch Doritos into her mouth with one hand and swigging a bottle of Down Home Punch with the other.  “We would see him flying around in the distance, keeping pace with the other dragons in the valley.  They all hung out on the rock cliffs you know,” Clarice says, pausing to pick at one of her gold-tinged scales.  “Mother always said to stay away from that brood, that they were no good.  And you know most gold dragons really are nothing but trouble.”  “Oh I had a guy like that,” Kirstie interjects.  “Or maybe it was one of the characters I played.”  Kirstie pauses, furrowing her brow.  “Then came a long winter and an avalanche.  We didn’t see Corin for a long time.  It was so cold it seemed to last for eons.  We thought maybe he died.  Then Mother showed up one day with Corin not far behind her.  He was half starved.  She fed him some dwarves although I don’t think they much appreciated being called appetizers, but it seems Corin was suffering from frostbite on his tail.”  “OOOh sounds kinky!” Valerie giggles.  “Did you get to suck on it to warm it up?”  Clarice laughs so hard that flames shoot of her nose, torching a silken Japanese wall hanging.   As tiny tendrils of ash float slowly to the floor, Clarice downs the remainder of her drink, tossing the empty bottle in the trash to rest with empty Trim-Spa cartons.  “Why did she save him if he is such a fucking bastard?” Kirstie asks.  “I don’t know,” Clarice admits.  “He stayed with us for only a short time and then took to the skies when it warmed up.  I didn’t see him again for many months but every time he was in the region, he would drop by and bring my mother a goat or a calf or something as a gesture of thanks.  One time he brought her a trio of halflings!  What fun we had chasing them around before we ate them!  Nothing is as much fun as playing with your food.”  Clarice gets a faraway misty look in her eyes and then collapses is overcome with a fit of sobbing.  Gobs of dragon snot flie everywhere.  Kirstie just laughs and but Valerie suddenly looks quite annoyed. 

Kotari is kicked back in the employees’ lounge,  legs propped up on a 1970’s vintage end table.  The flat screen TV displays a Dr. Phil trailer.  Lisa is brewing a fresh pot of Maxwell House Master Blend.  The Dr. Phil show is abruptly cut out by Kirstie Alley cruising across the screen in the driver’s seat of a hot pink convertible car.  “Look who’s calling Jenny now!” she bellows.  The screen transitions with a vertical left-right split into a shot of a chubby Valerie Bertinelli pigging out on a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.  Shocked, she looks up with a deer-in-headlights look and drops the container behind a nearby potted plant.  “Hi Kirstie!” she offers, grinning ridiculously.  “It’s been an easy program for me to follow.” She slips into a rehearsed dialogue.  The scene transitions with a dissolve into what appears to be a hotel room set.  A fat blonde lies face-down on a bed, wearing oversized pajamas and big pink fuzzy slippers.   Stacked next to her are red & white cartons of Trim-Spa diet products.  Turning to the camera, Valerie flaunts a wispy blue dress as she barks, “Hey Clarice, have you called Jenny yet?”  “Screw you,” the blonde growls without raising her head.  The screen splits into a three-way panel wherein Kirstie and Valerie are glancing nervously at each other.  The blonde raises her head revealing a face smeared with chocolate and a Heineken in hand and a glazed donut in the other.  It’s none other than Clarice, Corin’s ex.  “I mean, hi Valerie!  You look great!”  Valerie can be seen glancing hesitantly beyond the camera.  Kirstie Alley continues to furiously pilot the wheel of her stationary convertible “Hey Clarice, have you called Jenny yet?” she yells.  “Does it LOOK like I’ve called Jenny yet, you dumb ass?” Clarice replies, flinging her beer across the room.  A scream followed by the sound of shattering glass can be heard in the background.  “No better time than the present!” Valerie giggles, blinking furiously and swiveling her hips.  “I’m such a failure!” Clarice howls, shoving the donut into her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks before she is surrounded by a dozen crew people, some with headsets, others with towels.  The shot splits back to Valerie and then to Kirstie, each smiling and waving.  The commercial ends with horse-lips Kirstie yelling, “Have you called Jenny yet?” 

A Publisher's Clearing House commercial begins to roll across the screen.

Kotari and Lisa stare open-mouthed at the set.  I hear the trickling sound of water spilling over something and onto the floor.  From somewhere nearby, a door slams. 

We're sitting at a table next to the fountain in the Galleria.  Clarice is browsing the personals in the local paper.

"Seeking unstable woman for drama driven love/hate relationship," Clarice clears her throat and beings to read:

"Date:  Monday 30th April
Hi there,

I'm seeking a like-minded woman to share a disasterous 3-9 month
relationship with, ending in acrimony, emotional chaos, and possibly
legal proceedings.

My name is Miguel , I live in Edinburgh , I'm 25 years old,
Fairly well educated, I hold down a good job and am pretty stable.
I'm told I'm fairly good looking, but I'll let you be the judge of that. 
I'm generally caring and very honest.

I am looking for an attractive female who will at first give me obsessive
love, praise and devotion - but whose paranoia,
self-loathing and fear of rejection and abandonment will eventually
lead her to alternately push me away and pull me closer in a love/hate
cycle that will lead to infidelity, consensual sexual violence, and
the eventual emotional breakdown of one or other party - or if we're
lucky - both!

You should:

* be 20 to 35 years old;
* have a history of short, intense, drama-driven relationships;
* enjoy degrading and dehumanising sex;
* have undergone negative psychiatric evaluations in the past; and
* be willing to threaten self-harm and/or annihilation as a weapon to
control your partner and make them stay with you and care for you.

Although not completely necessary, I would prefer women:

* with nice smiles;
* that have larger than average breasts;
* who are married or already in unstable relationships;
* that drink to forget; and
* who have had a previous established diagnosis of Borderline or
Dependent Personality Disorder or Bi-Polar Affective Disorder - or who
are currently taking Lithium Carbonate, SSRIs, or Tri-cyclic
antidepressants

If you think you meet these requirements (and wow, I'm getting excited
just writing them!), please don't hesitate to get back to me as soon
as possible. In the meantime, thank you for reading my advert, and do
take care."

Clarice drops the paper into her lap and looks at us suspiciously.
"Don't either one of you say one WORD!" she snarls.

I stir my double latte with the tiny wooden stick.

Fearing for the worse, we turn and scramble down an alley, trying to move as quickly as we can through shards of broken glass and pieces of rusted metal.  Suddenly from behind us we feel a great whoosh! of wind and the flapping of wings.  We can see the two pickup trucks clearly now, both parked at the entrance to the alleyway, engines thumping and flannel-wearing boys jumping out of the cabs.

"Well, well, what have we here?" purrs a female voice.

It's Clarice!

"Clarice!  Where have you been," we shout.  "Please get us out of here!" 

Clarice just smiles in the laid-back way she does, which means she's probably doped up on valium or just got back from a trip to Sandorra's sauna.  She glances over her shoulder, folding her wings down to see behind.  "You're afraid of THEM?" she jerks her head at the group of guys stalking into the alleyway. 

"Well, not really afraid of them... more like terrified," Kotari cries.  "I don't really want to have my face rearranged."
"Then why are you running around in bed sheets like a couple of cross-dressers gone wild? You'd think there was a toga party going on but there's no fraternity house for ten miles and besides, its in the middle of the day."

"Later Clarice.  Right now, you need to get us out of here!" I demand.

"Pffft.  I want to have some fun first," she growls.  Turning completely around, she hurls a smallish-sized fireball at the men who are mere feet from her tail.  The window-shaking explosion causes the men to turn and run.  "OK boys," she says.  "First stop, Bloomie's to get you some clothes."  Clarice always was one to go first class.  And even though neither of us really wanted or needed to go shopping at Bloomingdale's, we couldn't argue with our rescuer.  Not unlike Paris Hilton, what Clarice wants, Clarice gets. Every time.

"Sero isn't the father" Lisa gasps, leaning across the table wide-eyed.

"No, it appears that would be Larry Birkhead," Tashi replies.

"Well they do kinda look alike.  Oh my, what will Corin say?" she muses.

"What will I say about what?" booms a deep voice behind them.

"Breathe, relax and let go..." the attendant says in a low calm voice.

"How do I do that?" Corin replies.
"Just let yourself go.  If your mind wanders, let it wander but don't follow it," she replies.
"OK I won't," Corin says.
"Just bring it back to where you want it to be," she says.
"Where is that?"
"In that private place you go to inside your head to relax and destress."
"There is no place inside my head," Corin replies.
"I'll agree with that," Kotari interjects.
Corin glares at him, his face contorting as his masseuse works her hands beneath the scales on his shoulders.  All three of us are lying on our stomachs on the tables within the luxurious Diamante Day Spa.  "Ah-choo!"  Kotari has come down with bouts of sneezing, probably due to all of the herbal aromatherapy products.
"Just relax," Corin's attendant says.  "And enjoy."

So we lie there beneath the crisp white linen sheets on the heated tables, feeling our individual attendants work their hands to massage away our anxieties as we listen to soft woodland music.  The strumming of a harp reverberates gently across the room as flames within tiny votive candles flicker ever so slightly. "I feel like I should be out killing elves," Corin mutters. 

"Killing not good for the soul," the attendant chides.

"Don't preach to me bitch," Corin snarls, tossing two gold pieces at her.  "Now how about my happy ending?" 

*******

Minutes later we're standing on a street corner in front of the salon, sheets wrapped around us and holding our clothes.  Kotari is frantically trying to flag down a cab.  People driving by are yelling "Hari Krishna!  Hari Krishna!" 
Corin says "I'd offer to give you guys a lift back to the studio, but considering we're all wearing bed clothes, it would appear to be inappropriate."  He takes to the skies, leaving Kotari and I to fend for ourselves on the street corner.  Not far down the street, I see a big 4x4 truck with rack headlights and a rollbar turn the corner and begin its approach.  Its followed by another, probably one of its buddies.  Both are filled with men wearing flannel and ball caps.  A Confederate flag waves from one of the antennae.  "I think we're in trouble, Kotari," I yell.

“Action!”

The stage actors spring to life. 

Lisa, Kotari, Corin and I sit in the theatre’s front row.  An actor wearing an ill-fitting gold dragon costume moves about the set not unlike Godzilla, razing cities that look, oddly enough, a bit like Tokyo.  Laser beams shoot from his eyes.  He wears a string of neon lights along the underside of his tail, not unlike the tricked out light strips on cars in New Jersey. 

Enter Howie: a maniacal fellow who pops unannounced into suburban homes to visit kids but only succeeds in setting off crying fits and bad trips.  He tries to explain to the frightened screaming kids that he is there to balance things. 

“You’re here to terrorize us!” exclaims a middle-school aged kid. clutching his cell phone.

“No, no, no!  You’ve got it all wrong!   I’m here to help you!” 

“Yeah, my mom warned me about assholes like you!” the kid shoots back, stomping on Howie’s foot with his wide-laced Heelys and taking his picture with his videophone.   Howie is combative when authorities arrive to remove him from the premises. 

That’s when the 50 foot tall dragon arrives, flying, er, rolling on not-so-well-hidden skateboards tucked beneath his bum, as he sways rather unsteadily as red lights beam from his eyes.  When the police surround him, the guy in charge of the flames misses his cue and he has to be cued again before a burst of flame explodes from the dragon’s mouth, scorching the red white and blue flag hanging nearby.  Smoke alarms shriek as the theatre’s overhead sprinkler system kicks into high gear. 

We leave, with Lisa and Kotari trailing behind and bickering about something.  Corin and I avoid looking at each other as we head toward the train station.

“Hold still!” Kotari shouted.  Corin glared at him and inhaled deeply.

My eyes automatically swept the room for a fire extinguisher.

“There!” Kotari announced triumphantly.  “Turn to the mirror and look!” he sang out, placing one hand on Corin’s shoulder and slowly turning him around like a teen-aged girl in a prom dress to face the full-length mirror across the room. 
“What the hell?  I look like goddamn Stevie Nicks!”
Corin shouted, thrashing about trying to yank the sheets from his body.

“Stop!  Stop!” the curly-haired sculptor shouted, rushing forward.  It takes all three of us to convince Corin to stand still a moment longer.  I clamber onto a nearby table and standing on it, place a crown of leaves upon his head. 

We all dive out of the way as a blast of flame flies past, torching a nearby olive tree. 
“You morons!  Now I look like the Little Caesar’s pizza guy!” 
Corin rips the leafy crown off and hurls it over the side of the open-air balcony. 

We’re standing in a hillside studio in Greece, with  Corin wearing a toga.  It was Kotari’s idea to lure Corin away to the Mediterranean island nation under the guise of having a statue created in his likeness.  We accomplished that much.  Now we needed to keep him here for the next week until the current of issue of Time magazine vanishes from the newsstands. 

At first Corin seemed interested in the idea of a 50-foot replica of him carved from stone but then, something went horribly wrong.  Someone suggested robotics, break-dancing and laser beams shooting out of his eyes like the big beacon-style runway lights they use for planes.  “We could even put a neon crown on his head like the Statue of Liberty,” Lisa suggested.  “Oh get out.  Neon is so ‘90s.  Lasers are totally where it’s at,” Kotari quipped.  Lisa rolled her eyes.  “If we don’t have the neon, we’ll lose the sponsor for the show!” she snapped. 

Show? 

Corin and I eye each other suspiciously. 
Things were bad, but they were about to get worse, much, much worse.

“I don’t believe it,” Lisa mutters.  “What?” I ask, entering the break room and head for the coffee machine. 

Lisa looks up from her perch over Kotari’s shoulder.  She is peering at his magazine.  Kotari shrugs but remains focused on the page, turning it this way and that way.  The front cover of the TIIME magazine reads “The History of the Military Pin-Up Girl.”  Lisa glares at me and stalks out.

“Check this out,” Kotari lays the magazine on the table.  Its open to the centerfold and it is none other than the voluptuous green dragon-turned-golden girl Clarice, dressed in a camouflage bikini.  Each of her arms is wrapped around a large flame thrower as she reclines leisurely across a bed draped with a very large American flag.  The following page displays a small oval photo of Clarice wearing a red beaded dress and seated at an outdoor café with a very happy sailor cuddled up in her lap.  The caption of the photo reads simply, “Clarice and Sero enjoy an afternoon coffee.” 

“Good heavens,” Tookie mutters.  When he showed up, I didn’t notice.  “They remind me of Anna Nicole and Larry Birkhead.”  His voice faded away into the distance as my mind reeled, grappling with ways to control the media feeding frenzy that was sure to erupt as soon as Corin got a hold of the latest issue of Time.

“We need to send him away,” I announce.  Moving into motion, I whip out my Blackberry.  “Send who?” Tookie asks.  “Corin.”  “Corin?  Why?” Kotari exclaims.  I silence him with a glare and he immediately grasps the seriousness of the situation.  He pauses momentarily and then claps his hands together. 

“I’ve got it,” he says.  “Let’s check him into rehab!”

Tookie and I stare at him with mouths agape.

Kotari checks his email on his Blackberry.  “Hey, there’s a message from Clarice.”
We all crowd around his little hand-held device and stare at the message in BOLD TEXT, sitting there staring at us like a ticking time bomb.  With some hesitation, Kotari finally opens it. 

“Oh,” he says.  “She’s cancelling dinner tonight.”

“You have dinner with her tonight?” Lisa asks.  “You’re dating her now?”

“I’m NOT dating her you moron,” Kotari snaps.  “What do you think I have, a deathwish?”

Lisa shrugs.

Kotari looks down again.

“Oh, she’s having dinner with TomKat,” he nods.

“TOMKAT?” we cry in unison.

Kotari nods and looks at me plainly.  “She’s gone all astronaut-diaper on us, hasn’t she?”

With her nonstop careless partying since splitting from Corin, Clarice just doesn’t seem like the same dragon. She appeared at a Prexion tattoo parlor late last night with a long blonde wig covering her green scaly head. "She looked distraught and disturbed,"  said eyewitness Prexion mayor Mack Crowne.
Eyewitnesses said that Clarice appeared to be "a total train wreck."  Another witness stated that the once shiny-green dragon "looked like she was having some major issues right now with the tanning bed."  “Wherever she went, she left a powdery trail of dried scales, almost like fish scales,” one observer said.  “At first I thought it was RuPaul under that wig because it kind of looked like Dolly Parton, but then I realized it was a dragon when she torched the valet when he hesitated while opening her car door.  There’s nothing left of the poor guy, just a scorch mark on the concrete.”

It seems that Clarice checked into Eric Clapton's Crossroads rehab center near Ariya, but checked out 24 hours later! Clarice stayed at the Elven Borderlands hospice in Einar, and spent some time trying on clothes in a store in Aden during the week.  It was reported that she left the dressing room curtain partially open and was butt-ass naked!  “She kept singing, “Bow chicka wow-wow” over and over again.  She kept having a conversation with an imaginary individual named Motabu.  It was pretty freaky,” the store manager said.

After abandoning friends and family for her subsequent careers in auto demolition followed by binge drinking and credit card heists coupled with her recent pyrotechnic displays of incredible caliber, Clarice appears to be at a crossroads, as she must choose the NEXT wifebeater to hang in her closet. We’ve compiled this list of potential boyfriends for Clarice:

Jack Bauer
PROS:  Bauer is a smart, handsome, and fast-thinking guy who calls all of his shots.  Clarice might get to slip into a cat suit to battle radical Islamic fighters.

CONS:  Might get abducted by the Chinese government and deported.  Might have to witness Jack risk sacrificing himself to thwart Armageddon.  Could be a deal breaker.

Roan
Pros:  Roan has long been considered to be one of DragonStone’s most eligible bachelors.  It might be a real status booster for her to land him.  Diamante used to chase Roan around when they were mortals.  He always ran away from her.  And fast.

Cons:  He’s the goody-two-shoes immortal of Harmony temple.  Unless Clarice is ready to change her wicked ways, hooking up with Roan would be more explosive than her ‘blowing up the Benz’ event. 

Flavor Flav
PROS: After two seasons of his VH1 show, people might think that women would kill to date ol’ Flav. Also, she’d always know what time it is.

CONS: Getting the crap beat out of her by fame-hungry bitches.

Nradg
PROS: Could help launch Clarice into a musical career of line-dancing and singing.   Has a cute Swedish accent.  Knows how to handle firearms.

CONS: After all those years of torching villages and sport utility vehicles, Clarice’s vocal cords may be a bit worse for wear.  Also, fire and soundproofing materials do not mix.  Just ask that loser band Great White. 

Michael Jackson
PROS:  She could relax on the beaches of Bahrain in relative safety and quiet.  She could go swimming with him (and the dolphins!) and not have to worry about him mauling her.

CONS:  She might run into Jack Bauer and his new girlfriend looking hawt in her catsuit.  Michael Jackson is an even bigger trainwreck than she is.  So much for moral support.  The dolphins they swim with might be the same ones that are carrying the STDs from Jenna Jameson.

Ghraal
Pros:  Ghraal is an immortal in good standing and is the hero for the Hand of Darkness.  He has a good sense of humour and a cute American accent.  She could get her very own office up in the stars with all of the immortals. 

Cons:   He’s way too obsessed with those golden gnomes.  In fact, he’d probably ask her to dress up like one.  Oh wait, she’s been in the tanning booth so long she already is GOLDEN. 

David Beckham
PROS:  Could get all the free ‘football’ tickets she wants for her family & friends.  He has a cute British accent.

CONS:  After walking out on Corin, she might not have any family & friends.  Who could seriously date a man with the nickname of GOLDEN BALLS?  Might get mind-probed by his alien companion, Posh Spice.

The next day, I find Corin on the deck overlooking the asphalt parking lot.  He’s leaning over the balustrade, cradling his cell phone in one hand and a cold beer in the other.  A struggling gnome is wedged beneath one of his massive feet.  Corin seems to be having a tough time getting back into his daily routine after his crash course in credit card abuse by significant others.  “Perhaps our relationship has come to an end,” he mutters.

"But ours is just beginning!" the gnome cries.  "Think of all the money I can make for you!  We can work something out! C'mon big fella whadyyamfpofht---"

************************************************************************

Clarice raises her head from the edge of the pier and peers at me from behind red-rimmed eyes runny with tears.  She’s been dry-heaving over the side for the past fifteen minutes.  “Corin hates me now,” she wails.  “I think its time to move on.  How was I to know that I’d end up as a tanning goddess with a passion to shop if I came here?  He can't really hate me for this.  I mean shopping is part of who I AM.  He just believes in pillaging and plundering.  Is it MY fault that I have higher standards?  I prefer to be selective, but you'd never know that from looking at my choice in dragons.”

Corin receives a call from his credit card company saying that Clarice has maxed out his credit card.  Someone snapped a picture of her after she emerged from a downtown tanning salon looking like a chocolate glazed donut.  They sent it to him on his camera phone.  “Green!” he snarls, tossing a wayward trashcan out into the street.  “She’s supposed to be a GREEN dragon!  Not COPPER!  Not BRONZE!  GREEN!”

We spend the better part of the morning canvassing the streets.  In one particularly expensive-looking store, Corin thought he saw her scaly foot sticking out from beneath a dressing room door. 

“CLARICE!” he bellows.  “Corin, wait!” I begin.  “You might not want to go –“  When the security guard tries step between him and the dressing room door, Corin torches the guy, singing the hair off of his head and eyebrows.  And it wasn’t Clarice in the dressing room after all, but Joan Rivers.  “Corin!” I hiss.  “There’s going to be one huge lawsuit over that.”  “You fix it.  You are my agent after all,” he shrugs and walks away.  I look at the smoking security guard and offer up one name:  Ghraal.  The dragon’s name is Ghraal.

We eventually catch up with Clarice sitting leisurely outside a café, chatting with some patrons who apparently had never met a dragon.  “Oh hi C-baby,” she purrs, curling around in her chair to smile at him from behind huge bug-eyed sunglasses.  Piles of posh little shopping bags with reinforced handles cluster around her feet like dozing dogs. 

Corin glares at her momentarily and suddenly every bag is airborne, soaring into the middle of traffic, exploding as they’re run over by cars and taxis.  The sound of squealing tires is shocking and alarming, but pales in comparison to the sounds that Clarice emits.

Clarice lets it slip that she's not totally cool with being known as “Torchlighter.”  It seems that her 'blowing up the Benz' stunt brought her an unwanted fan.  "One minute I was being booked by the Highway Patrol," she told me, "the next some creepy psychotic ranger from the Thakiss swamps starts sending me romantic e-cards that trigger avalanches of SPAM to my inbox. It was all because I blew up the Benz."

Clarice is a very proud and haughty girl, erm dragon. But after some sweet talk, she eventually admits that she knew all along just how flammable the fuel really was.  Of course, she didn’t realize how much fuel the tank contained.  She apologized to Kotari and even sent him some flowers.  He's fine, of course, and much happier now that he’s been released from the burn unit.

Clarice and Corin seem to be keeping their distance from each other.  Oh sure, they had a dinner feasting on cattle out in the fields beyond Celoran village, but that ended early and it was reported that Clarice went out on the town with Rythugnoamkila.  The two were seen boozing it up at a Prexion pub, followed by a night of unbridled gambling at Plank's Casino.  Corin went out for a late night flight and decapitated some peasants, attacked a merchant caravan and killed off some pilgrims.  Oh, the games that lovers play.

Clarice really didn't hijack Kotari’s Mercedes-Benz. She simply took it out for a spin and having never driven a car, found herself under arrest after she was reported headed the wrong way on a freeway.  Clarice was arrested without incident at 1:45 a.m. (PT) after she failed a field sobriety test given by Highway Patrol officers.  Kotari’s 2005 black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle was stopped in the car pool lane of the state highway.

When Corin posted bail and brought her home, she was so humble, so apologetic to Kotari.  She had ripped off the muffler during the off-road expedition (she stopped to retrieve it) but he just forgave her (what else could he do?) She was so touched at his generosity and poison-crazy to make things right.  She assembled everyone around the Benz as she hiked it up into the air with one hand.  Had she known what a giant burst of flame would do to the fuel in the gas tank she never would have offered to weld the broken muffler back on right there in front of everyone.

“Clarice is now on pace to becoming a total trainwreck,” Corin muttered, watching her unscrew the lid from a prescription pill bottle. 

“Hey Corin,” Clarice calls from her deck chair.  “Let’s go swimming with the dolphins.” She holds up a glossy photo ad, waving it about in the sunlight. 

“Let’s eat the dolphins,” Corin snarls.  “I could go for a good tuna steak.” 

“Those aren’t dolphins,” Kotari interjects.  Kotari is the PR guy.  He’s seated next to Corin discussing a photo-op.  “They’re sharks.  Besides, I heard that Jenna Jameson went swimming with the dolphins not so long ago and all of the dolphins in that tank were stricken with STDs.”

Clarice glares at Kotari and settles down into her deck chair sipping a tall cold drink.  “C-baby,” she wails. “Where DO you find these imbeciles?”

Clarice taps on the touchpad for her laptop and re-immerses herself in virtual tours of area houses for sale. 

Corin may have to hire a butler, purchase an extraordinary art collection and install an infinity pool just to keep Clarice happy.

I ask Clarice if she's heard the one about the dragon that kept turning around in a big circle. 

Clarice pauses while applying her lipstick, the red waxy stick cranked partway up in a slim gold tube, poised before her mouth.  She’s stretched out on a chaise lounge floating in the middle of the pool.

“He wanted to read a long tale,” I continue.

She starts to say something, but instead just shakes her head and reaches for her drink. 

Corin looks up from his laptop and frowns.  “Don’t get out much, do you kid?” he asks.

Clarice snickers.  “Who is this person?” she asks in a thick Long Island accent. 

“My agent,” he replies.  He sits back in his poolside chair and claps for he attendant. 

“The one who let the entire world think your name is Karen?” She shakes her head, casting off a halo of tiny shimmering scales that flutter across the water like pixie dust.

Corin glares at me and exhales deeply, torching a potted plant on the edge of the concrete patio.

I follow Corin through the business district.  We pass through Chinatown, past rooster fights in an alley, and behind a restaurant with a sign that reads “DAILY SPECIALS”.  We cross the Nineteenth Street drawbridge without paying the toll and hike a block south to the harbor.  No one bothers us.  I always feel safe when I’m around Corin.

Corin doesn’t talk much.  I’m pretty sure he’s still mad about being called Karen Moore on national TV.  He still holds me responsible.  I am his agent after all. 

Corin leads me to a dock where, amidst seagulls, we wait.  He paces and begins to ramble, telling me about his former lifestyle – before he gave up the roaming, the killing, the burning and the pillaging, checked himself into the Aden clinic, cleaned up, and found a new life.  “I applied to work with Mother Theresa,” he says, “but my visa was rejected.”

Suddenly a large passenger ferry appears in the harbor. We watch it grow larger in size until it is larger than life and right beside us.  Someone drops a long aluminum walkway and secures the ship.  Hundreds of passengers disembark, flooding the wooden pier. "My friend Clarice should be along soon," Corin says. I spy an emerald-scaled green dragon standing onboard, arguing with a porter. She backhands the hapless employee across his face, pushes past him and storms down the narrow metal gangway.

"Clarice is a dragon?" I ask.

"My, but aren’t you a perceptive one.” He glares at me. 

Corin doesn’t apologize for not speaking in the interview. It seems they had announced him as a “she", as KAREN MOORE.  So he sat through the entire interview as if mute.  I begin to consider other means of employment. 

"Why didn't you tell them right away?" I asked him. I'd dropped by to see Corin on my way into work; his office door was leaning against the wall, splinters of wood dangling from its hinges. He looks up and leans back in his computer chair, long legs propped up on the desk, feet crossed at the ankles. He pulls out his ipod and pops in his earbuds. 

"You don't understand male lizards," Lisa murmured, pouring coffee in the break room. “They have a real ego trip.  You know, their chests puff out, and that little thing under the neck swells up like an Elizabethan collar.  Insult their manhood or even imply that they resemble a woman and you, my friend, have made an enemy for life.”

"But wait a minute," I said, "I’m not responsible for this mess.  Why is he mad at ME?"

Corin's New Year's Resolutions

1. Be nicer to the guy they hired to stand on the corner and wave in a dragon costume. He's just getting paid to do a job.  Leave him alone.

2. Go easy on the peasants before noon.  And give them a five second head start.

3. Stop spending all my time with MUDDers. Am losing the ability to maintain coherent verbal expression. Am starting to think 'emote grins like a crazy fool' when I start to smile.  This cannot be good.

4. Extract more power from Caimen; create an area all to myself that does not allow tours by mortals.

5.  Have Diamante show me how to use the cappuccino machine. I could have a future as a barista.  Keep all options open.

6.  Learn linedancing from Nradg.  Broadway?

7. Figure out this business about the Golden Gnome.

8. Meet Shaylynn.

9.  Dry out Roan.

10. DO NOT KILL MORTALS. 
    

Corin Mur looks at me with his glowing red eyes, striking his famous James Dean pose. Which would have been perfect if he had been wearing a leather motorcycle jacket, a white t-shirt and jeans.  Only he wasn't.  He was wearing a wife beater, blue flip-flops and a pair of boxers that said 'LUCKY BOXERS.'

I say to him, “Corin, do you know why you’re here?  I know you know why you’re here.”

He flicks his tail impatiently and blinks at me once. Twice.  Did I imagine the second blink?  Probably.  It must be the lights. He raises a clawed hand, admires it, popping out the razor sharp claws one by one, glancing sideways to consider me.  I realize how small I am. 

A busy-looking man with an ear bud mic scurries past, offering us wine, coffee, beer or seltzer water.  Corin just glares at him until he leaves.

I can only imagine what is going through Corin's head right now.  Its ten minutes until show time and he's stuck backstage with me when he would much rather be in Scandinavia right now drinking martinis (shaken not stirred) with Nradg and the Swedish Bikini Team.  Dave Letterman be damned. This dragon wasn't going to budge.

I want to give up and go home.  I’d rather be any place but here.