Kerry Allen

“Don’t sit. This won’t take that long. Ryder, I’m sorry but… I have to kill you.”

“What? Why?”

Didn’t he know soulful puppydog eyes had no effect upon heartless bitches? “You’re a Boy Scout. There’s no badness in you. No darkness. My diseased mind could only have created you for the purpose of cannon fodder. You’re the expendable good guy. You’re Ensign DiSposable on the away team. You have to die.”

“But you had plans for my future. How will my heroine live happily ever after if I’m dead?”

“I’ll take good care of her. A vampire boyfriend will generate some juicy family conflict. I had that scheduled for someone else, but there’s plenty of time to find her a different problem.”

“A vampire.”

“Don’t give me that look. You’re the supporter of vampire civil rights. Don’t be a hypocrite just because your coulda-been girlfriend is the one getting sucked on.”

“Of course not. Hypocrisy would be bad, and there’s no badness in me.”

“Exactly. You’re a nice guy. You know what they say about nice guys?”

“They finish last.”

“No, they get stompled by the bad guys and abused by wicked women. See, you have no idea what’s in store for you. I’ll be doing you a favor if I kill you now. It’ll be a mercy killing.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

“Besides, you see this chapter here? It’s sweet that you’re concerned about Jasmine’s safety, but your presence is fucking up the bad guy’s only opportunity to do his bad-guy thing. The whole rest of the book is ruined because you couldn’t have been hung over or watching internet porn that morning.”

“That’s where you want to kill me, and why? Um… I could totally be watching porn there.”

“You do not watch porn.”

“I’ve been celibate for a number of years. Trust me, porn and I are good friends. Furthermore, I find my stance on vampire right-to-life has shifted polarity in the face of personal threat.” He backed her against the wall, planted his hands on either side of her, and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “And I ate Gabe’s cupcakes.”

She gasped. “No.”

“Every. Last. One. They were delicious.”

Soulful puppydog eyes had been replaced with ravenous wolf eyes when she wasn’t paying attention. She gulped. “All that’s completely out of character.”

“My character isn’t carved in stone. I can be anything you need me to be. If I can best serve the story by jerking off to barely legal Asian lesbians gone wild* while the bad guy brutalizes people I care about, by all means, give me an internet connection and a squirt of lube, and I’ll amuse myself for however long you need me out of the way.” His fingertip teased the sensitive spot on her neck. “Say, there wouldn’t happen to be any naughty vid of you floating around, would there?”

“Glah.”

“So, what do you say? Let me live?”

“Okay. Sure. I can do that.”

His triumphant grin wasn’t one she recognized from his repertoire of stock facial expressions. “Just one more thing, carebear. Let’s keep this our little secret. I have my squeaky clean image to maintain.”

He fed the offending chapter to the shredder before taking his leave, solving one of her problems but creating a host of new ones, not the least of which was a craving for cupcakes and nice boys with hidden kinks.

He was gone only a few seconds when he poked his head back in the door of her office. “Oh, I almost forgot.  Tell anybody who sticks a fang in my woman, I got pliers with his name all over them. I’ll start with his teeth and work my way down. Good luck with that new chapter.”

“You manipulative little bastard,” she grumbled after his second exit. “Don’t forget who’s in charge here. Just you wait until your book. I’ll make you wish I had killed you.”

__________

* Let’s see how much spam that attracts…

Months later: Much to my surprise, this is NOT one of the 4 posts that is perpetually spammed.  <o,O>