Coulrophobia

"But... that's not the Deal. You CAN'T just step in and take over."

"Aw. You're so cute I just wanna put you in my pocket. But yer Right, the Deal still stands. You ain't such a maroon, ya might still figure it out, but I sure as shootin' ain't gonna TELL ya! I'm havin' too much FUN." She poked the tip of my nose with a HONK. "In the meantime, we're gonna hafta make some changes 'round here. Besides..." she scowled at the eggshell fragments on the floor, "... ya owe me, jabronie. Ya owe me Big Time."

She did a dramatic pirouette. "I'm gonna make like a fetus and head out. See if maybe I can get my hair did. You sit tight and lube up your lil brown balloon knot for when I git back, so... maybe don't sit so tight. I'll be home before ya can say 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' Huhhuh-Hee!" Then she was gone.

***

I spent the next few months in the deepest chambers of Hell.

I'd thought things were bad when Monica lost her sex drive. Back then, I was merely in Limbo. I didn't know where I stood with her, what was going on, what would happen, or what would become of us. The uncertainty was the hardest part.

Now, there was nothing for me but dread and despair. Trixie came and went as she pleased, while Monica was somehow unperturbed. The 'roommate' in her body had somehow become her BFF. Several hours after I broke the egg, the woman returned with her hair professionally dyed at a salon in Trixie's rainbow style, long, straight, and shiny, always in bouncy loose pigtails. The wig wasn't needed anymore. She'd also re-done her fingernails and toenails in bright acrylic primary colors... but this time her nails came to sharp points, like little claws.

They both treated me as nothing more than the plaything in Trixie's increasingly insane hijinks. I was a monkey in a diaper, then a man on fire, then a kitten stuck in a tree. I was a customer in a restaurant that served nothing but shit and hair, complaining about the soup to Trixie's condescending french maitre d, and I ended up washing all the dishes with my tongue. She fired me out of a cannon and into a tree. She strapped me onto a rotating wheel and threw knives and axes at me. I ate the circus peanuts she'd stuffed up her butt as she pooped them out into my mouth. Sometimes I was allowed to eat nothing else.

The mistreatment was bad enough. Being disregarded was somehow worse. Snake and his friends came around again, several times. Once, they made me watch. Trixie stepped up her activities beyond that little circle, too. She bought herself a handheld CB radio, and another wig to put over her rainbow hair. It was a brilliant, sapphire-blue, just like the clown girl in that porno Monica saw a million years ago. I heard her talking to the long-haul truckers, and she'd go out, spending long nights in the bathrooms at the highway rest stop eighteen miles from our house. She always came back well used, dripping with every kind of bodily fluid, and made me clean her up. Then she'd be Monica again, and act like nothing had happened.

Daniel and Rebecca had ghosted the house. They'd made themselves scarce before, merely when things were tense, but they made a decisive point of refusing to witness my abuse. There were days I wondered if I'd ever even speak with them again.

Every time the clown would rape, ridicule, neglect, and torture me, my wife would feign sympathy, pet my head, and tell me to be strong and carry on. I learned to hide the bruises, the lumps, the welts from the riding crop and rubber tubing, the rope ligatures, the fire cupping, and the donkey punches. I cringed and went into a cold sweat every time I heard the music from the ice cream truck. The smell of cotton candy or powdered sugar made me retch and vomit. I'd probably spend the rest of my life walking funny, and I gave up hope of ever having a normal bowel movement for the rest of my life.

There would be no end to this torment. All I could do was play along and try not to make it worse.

***

It wasn't until September that I got the phone call.

"Mister Bailey?"

"Yes?"

"This is Janice Overstreet. I'm Monica's editor at Hypertrophia publishing. I think we met once at one of her launch events."

"Yes. Yes, that's right. Janice. Okay. Well. Lovely to speak with you again."

"I'm calling because I can't get in touch with your wife. She's missed three preliminary deadlines already and she hasn't returned my calls or emails. My boss wants to remove her project from the publication schedule. I just want to know what's going on? Is she all right?"

"She's... what?"

"Is she ill or something? Or missing? It's not like her to miss a deadline, I've worked with her for years. And she always takes my calls. What's happening with her?"

"She's in her studio. She's been working steadily for months, just like always. As far as I know."

"Well, as far as WE know, she's fallen off the edge of the earth. Can I talk to her?"

"Sure. Hang on. I'll hand her my phone."

The door to her studio was closed. She had a little sign with a chart on it, indicating her availability. The left side meant "Come on in, happy to see you," while the right meant "Don't you dare so much as knock unless the house is on fire." She'd kept the little magnet on that end pretty much since she'd gotten the sign. I went in without knocking.

"Christ, Mike, you know not to come in here while I'm working!" Her desk faces the door. I couldn't see what was on her screens. Whatever it was, she was totally absorbed in it. She barely looked at me.

I waved my phone at her. "Janice Overstreet needs to talk to you."

"Who?"

"Your editor. You know. For the work that you're allegedly doing."

She looked at me blankly, glassy-eyed. Then there was a brief moment of alarm. She grabbed the phone.

"Lo siento. No hablo inglés." She ended the call.

I calmly took my phone back. I absently noted the open bag of circus peanuts on her desk.

"How long have you been pretending to be Monica?"

Trixie shrugged carelessly. "I dunno. It was right after I fired my agent. He was kind of a crook, y'know. And it was right before 'Steak and Blowjob Day.' So, like, the second week of March, I guess?" She looked up at me and rose from her desk. "APRIL FOOL!!!" Then she blew her little curly paper horn at me; "Pffffwweeeeee!"

"April was five months ago."

"Yeah, but you SHOULDA figured it out by then, ya nincompoop. Sheez. I said you weren't a TOTAL maroon, but you're a reaaaaaal dark fuschia. Huhuh-Hee!"

"Where is my wife? Tell the truth."

"Bland Betty's where she always is. She thinks she's sitting at that desk, bangin' away at her book ten hours a day. She's been dreamin' that she checks in with the rugrats, puts on the feed bag with you, and honks your horn twice a week, just like her regular life. BOAAAR-RING. Gotta give the chickadee some credit, though. It's not a bad book. S'all about the paramilitary culture ascendant in american domestic constabulary. Pity it only exists in the ol' grey puddin' up here." She rapped her skull with her knuckles.

"Let her out. Wake her up."

"Not gonna happen, bro. She's happy. I'm happy. You're happy. S'better like this. Unleeeeeeeesssss... you wanna make another Deal....?"

"I AM NOT HAPPY!"

"Aw, yer jus' sayin' that. Sure, you still got some feelings for the ol' ball and chain, but c'mon, I do a pretty decent Monica impression, don't I? It kept you fooled. I can do Mae West, too!" She put her left arm behind her head, pushing her breasts forward. "'Why doncha' CUMMUP an' see me sometime?' Pretty good, right? I oughta get back into show biz, whaddaya think?"

"You're, you're, you're... crazy. You're out of your fucking mind."

"OF COURSE I'm crazy! I'm a CLOWN, remember? Seriously, what'd ya expect!?!? An insurance claims adjuster, maybe?"

"This.. this is... no, no, no, NO! LET HER GO! LET HER GO!"

"NOW yer talkin,' Yummydraws! Ta be honest, I'm tired of putin' on the Monica act all the time. You got yerself a FULL TIME Trixie now!"

"No! Give her back her body!"

"Meh." she waggled her arms and shook her hips. "I dunno. This one ain't bad. But yer right, it might be time to trade up. Let's see if we can't find us another bendy betty. Huhhuh-Heeh! We should go younger next time. OOO! Maybe we could bag some hot tomato who's already got her own UNICYCLE!" She looked at me with stars in her eyes.

"You want to... wait, what?"

"Ditch this chippy. Leave her at the bottom of a river. She's nearly tapped out anyway. Yer a good lookin' fella. We'll charm the panties off some young thing with smooth skin, big ol' boobies, a tight lil' snapper, and nothin' but fluff between her ears. I'll install the Ultra Dee-Luxe Clown upgrade package, a.k.a. Yours Troolie, then it'll just be You an' Me. Whadda ya say, Mikey?"

I staggered back. Trixie wanted to... KILL Monica? And invade some other girl's body? FUCK.

I couldn't speak. I could barely stand. I wobbled out of her studio, down the hall, and out the door. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I just needed... to be... FREE.

"You'll be BAA-ACK! Huhhuh-Hee!" She shouted after me.

***

She was right, I'd be back. It took me four days. I had a lot of preparation to do.

I was broken, beaten, and humiliated. Every cell of my body wanted to get away and stay away. I could flee, to like a battered-spouses shelter, or something. I could get a lawyer and divorce her. It wouldn't surprise Daniel and Rebecca. I didn't even want to keep the house, or anything in it. I just wanted the nightmare to end. I couldn't handle even one more minute of torment and abuse.

Except for one thing: Monica was still alive, and she had never betrayed me.

If Trixie had taken over Monica's waking life when she said she did, then I hadn't seen or spoken to the real Monica for something like six months. My wife had been buried under layers of unconsciousness and non-being long before 'Snake' showed up in his goddamn van. All the platitudes and unimaginable behavior I'd seen from her had been Trixie's mockery.

But she was still in there somewhere. And now, Trixie wanted her dead.

I knew that it was beyond my ability to even try to control Trixie. I also knew that I had no choice but to do it, SOMEHOW. I couldn't afford to fail. Monica's life depended on it.

***

"HUNN-NEEE! I'm HO-OHME!"

I watched the stranger enter my house, announcing his presence as loud as an air raid siren. I caught a glimpse of him in the hallway mirror as he passed. He was wearing a white-and-silver sequined jumpsuit with bands of black lightning swirled around the arms and legs, open to the chest, and spangled platform boots, size seventeen-and-a-half double E. His hair was a shock of kinky red nylon, curled into something like horns, his face white as marble, with green, blue, and black marks around his eyes and mouth. His nose was a big red rubber cock.

"Mikey!" Trixie appeared at the end of the hall, her tits bouncing in anticipation. She saw the stranger and halted. "Mikey...?"

"Mikey's not HERE," said the stranger's voice, from what used to be my throat. "My name is TWISTO! Twisto MacGillicruddy! PLEEZTAMEECHA!"

***

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Sex Ends.

But the FUN just NEVER STOPS!

HAAH HaaHAAHeeHoo Hoo Hoo HA Hee WOOHOO WOOP WOOP HEEheeHa WHEE HEE HOO HAA HEEhee WHOOPIE WAH Ha HAH HeeHOO HOOHA WEEHEE Ha!

***

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." -Kurt Vonnegut