Blume - The Rest Of The Story

****

He was elated as he drove home, thinking about the feeling of Sarah's lips on his. A new much more normal relationship was on the horizon, and he couldn't be more happy.

The possibilities opened up before him, and all he wanted to do was spend more time with Sarah.

He didn't notice the light on his house until he walked in the door. The light in the living room shone into the darkened hallway.

His heart froze and he gripped the door handle. He didn't ever leave that light on at night, and no one should be able to get in here.

No one except Ms. Miller, he thought, and a shiver ran up his back..

No. That can't be. There is no way that Blume would still be coming after him after he stopped paying for the service.

Run. Get the fuck out of here now. There is nothing good down this hallway.

But his legs kept carrying him forward. He imagined he heard voices echoing toward him, slightly distorted. Each step reverberated through his feet.

The light grew closer and bigger, the edges serrated by something in the doorway. He never noticed the shape of the shadow before.

Don't look in there. If you look in there, you won't be able to turn back. Leave. Call Sarah. You don't need to stay here.

But it was too late. When he looked in he saw Ms. Miller and the old woman who turned into Cindy sitting with three other women on the couch and loveseat.

"Oh, hello Robert. I'm terribly sorry to be here, but I was talking with my book club about what a nice boy you were, and we all had to come and see you," her face was Ms. Miller's, but her eyes were Roxanne's.

"Um. Hello?" he raised his hand.

"Oh my, your weren't lying," a heavyset woman with a bad red dye job and a striped shirt. "He's a very nice boy."

A taller thin woman with heavy creases in her Irish face leered at him. "What do you say, ladies? Should we get started?"

All five of the women let out a collective moan that pushed Robert to do what he meant to do in the beginning. He sprinted toward the door, but the hallway seemed to stretch in front of him. His heart beat rang in his ears as each footstep fell.

Behind him, the moaning died and he could hear a set of heavy footsteps behind him. He looked behind him and saw that the woman with the striped shirt now stood 7' feet tall. Her striped shirt now stretched across a giant pair of shoulders. Her arms looked absurd with muscles that belonged on the Hulk.

"Come back here, stud. I need to be fucked and you're just the man to do it," she yelled.

He pushed against the air and got a hand on the doorknob. He turned and turned, but the door wouldn't open.

Then his pursuer's hand fell on him. "Naughty. Naughty. Now, let's get to the fucking."

****

Three hours later, a beaten Robert lay in the middle of floor of his living room. Everything throbbed and hurt as he stared at the busted furniture, the broken Hummel figurines, the television sat cockeyed from where it had fallen out off of the entertainment center.

The television clicked on, and he could see Blume's face pressed against the screen. She looked tired and drawn.

"I tried not to do this, stud." her voice came out of the speakers. It sounded so cool and collected. "We could have just worked this out, but you needed to understand that you can't do without me."

"Fuck you," he spat. Blood from his mouth flew toward the screen.

"I can understand why you're upset, but you need to understand that I'm your personal fantasy assistant. Yours. I'm made for you. Not John down the road, or Lainie at work. Do you understand what that means?"

"Why should I fucking care?" he said around his swelling lips.

"Why should you care? WHY SHOULD YOU FUCKING CARE? BECAUSE THE ONLY REASON I EXIST IS TO SERVE YOU. YOU ARE MY ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD. WITHOUT YOU I'M JUST A PIECE OF FUCKING CODE," her voice came distorted out of the speakers, and filled the room in the same way the screaming had come from the computer speakers.

The avatar walked away from the screen and comically took a few deep breaths before returning to the screen. "Here's the deal, stud. This is the least I can do. I left you mostly in one piece. You'll heal. I can even fix your furniture and those ugly little statues.

"But what about next time? I could bring the entire sewing circle here. They could lock you up in their own private dungeon, and I'll make sure you can satisfy them. But you don't need legs or arms to do that. You could be a fucking vegetable, and that would still make them happy."

He wanted to lash out. To challenge her to do her worse. He started to pull in breath to do just that.

But Blume held up a finger. "There's more stud, and you need to hear this. I don't need to stop there. Imagine what hell I can rain down on Sarah. I don't need to keep her alive. She's nothing to me."

That sucked the wind straight out of his lungs. Sarah. He hadn't thought about Sarah. If Blume would go this far, what would she do to Sarah.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt tears build in the edges. He couldn't stop her, and he couldn't leave her. "Fine. You promise that you won't hurt her?"

"Just come back and sign up again, and I promise you that you will be perfectly safe."

He only needed to turn to his left to find his phone. It miraculously stayed intact despite the rest of the devastation. He opened up Blume's corporate page, and his now suspended account.

"That's right. You're a nice boy, stud. I was sure we could see eye to eye or eye to pixel at the very least.

This was for Sarah and all of the hopes and dreams that he had when he pulled into the driveway. He reconnected his PayPal account, and as he did a sucking sound filled the room. In an instant everything was back to the way it was. His clothes were on him. The furniture and figurines were back were they were. Even the television was on its perch.

"Good job, stud. I'm going to leave you with some of those bruises, just so you understand that I'm not kidding around. But otherwise, everything else is hunky-dory. We'll talk about what that means later, but for now you should answer that call."

He looked at the phone in his hands, and saw Sarah's name appear. Blume vanished from the television screen as he swiped to accept the call.

"Hi there, sexy. You did the right thing," Sarah said.

"What?" he croaked.

"I mean, you've been worried about me sharing you with Blume. But you don't need to worry any more. I understand. I want to be with you. I want to be your fantasy girl."

That was when Robert realized he would never escape.