Beautiful Babes – Page 4

Bump in the Night

This novel was based on a true story when Hack was sleeping on Jonny and Boris’ couch, only to be awakened from a resounding crash that came from their bedroom. He went to check it out to find them arguing about whether Boris had fallen to the floor after he jumped out of Jonny’s hands when he was trying to help him down so he could pee, or whether Jonny has pushed him. The incident was forgotten the next day, save for this manuscript that Hack had cranked out after the pair went back to sleep.

The night was black as spilled ink, and the only sound in the room was the lazy rattle of the ceiling fan until Boris the pug started up his usual whimper. Jonny M., the eternal wreck of a man, stirred under his threadbare blanket, cursing softly at the ceiling. “You again?” he muttered, voice thick as the whiskey fumes clinging to his pillow. The little mutt needed to pee — he always did around this cursed hour. With a sigh that could have curdled milk, Jonny reached down, his hands trembling like a man holding dynamite with a short fuse. He scooped Boris up, the way he’d done a thousand nights before, trying not to think about how the dog had more control over his life than any dame ever did.

But this time was different. The pug squirmed, slick and stubborn, twisting out of Jonny’s grasp like a greased eel. Before Jonny could catch him, Boris slipped, hit the floor with a sound that made Jonny’s stomach twist. Thud. The kind of sound you don’t forget. “For crying out loud, Boris!” Jonny barked, flipping on the lamp. The light stabbed through the shadows, catching the little dog lying there like he’d been clipped by a freight train. Jonny knelt down, heart pounding, and snarled, “That’s what you get for jumping, you dumb mutt.” But the pug’s glazed eyes blinked once, twice — and then narrowed in accusation.

“You pushed me,” Boris said, voice rough as gravel dragged across the truth. Jonny froze, his blood turning to cold soup. A talking pug was trouble enough, but a talking pug calling you a killer — that was another kind of nightmare. “Don’t play innocent, Jonny boy,” Boris growled, struggling to his stubby feet. “You been looking for an easy out ever since Linda started asking questions.” Jonny’s head snapped toward the bed — Linda, her black curls like a halo of deceit, was still there, breathing steadily. Asleep. Or maybe pretending. The city was full of lies, and the biggest one might’ve been lying right next to him.

The Trim Machine.

Jonny M. was the kind of guy who made women flinch without knowing why. Something about the way he smiled—too wide, too needy, like a man selling counterfeit charm in a cheap suit. His best and only friend was Boris, a squat little pug with the brain of a physicist and the patience of a saint. Jonny lived off instant coffee and failed pickup lines while Boris tinkered in their dingy Van Nuys garage with glowing tubes, copper coils, and theories that would’ve made Einstein sweat. Nobody thought much of the pair—one too dumb, the other too furry—but that night, when Boris’s machine began to hum like a choir of dying angels, the air split open like a cheap dime novel cliché—and sucked them both in.

When Jonny came to, the world had changed. The smog of Van Nuys was gone, replaced by a city skyline that gleamed like chrome and sin. His reflection in a mirrored tower made him gasp—his skin smooth, jawline sharp, eyes glinting like he knew what he was doing. The first woman he met nearly fainted when he smiled; the second one followed him down the street without a word. Jonny M., the guy who couldn’t score a phone number if he’d mugged Ma Bell herself, had become a walking fantasy. Boris, puffing and panting beside him, adjusted his tiny lab coat and said in his gravelly voice, “Looks like the wormhole did some editing.”

Jonny took to this new world like a rat to whiskey. Nightclubs welcomed him with open arms and low-cut dresses, and the air smelled of perfume and bad intentions. But beneath the glamour, Boris knew something was off—the women’s laughter echoed a beat too long, their eyes shimmered like mirrors, and every corner of the city hummed with that same low frequency as the wormhole machine. Jonny didn’t care; he was too busy basking in a life he’d never earned. But as the pug scientist watched his friend drown in charm and illusion, he began to suspect the truth: this wasn’t paradise—it was the punchline to a cosmic joke, and Jonny M. was still the fool in the middle of it.