Listen ...Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire

JOCK STEWART AND THE MISSING SEA OF FIRE
by Malcolm R. Campbell
Available in Print and All Ebook Formats

Jock Stewart woke up this morning with an industrial strength hangover. An empty Scotch bottle lay on the floor next to an empty little black dress that wasn’t his. Last night, a fair amount of Monique Starnes wore it at the newspaper’s office party. Her cleavage, more out than in, was deep enough to kidnap a man’s dreams. Now, there would be hell to pay.

At first glance, he appeared to be alone in the bed. Maybe he stole the dress. Maybe he maxed out a credit card at an all-night Vera Wang shop, then came home and slung it on the floor in an ill-conceived pretense of having a life. “The second glance”—as Star-Gazer editor Marcus Cash always told him—“is always the beginning of trouble.”

Just past the far side of the bed, Monique lay face up on the floor in a forty-year-old birthday suit so worn out no Goodwill Store would take it. She looked like a corpse. Things went too far and he hadn’t bothered to conceal the murder weapon.

If more than one crime had been committed here, she was an accessory beginning with an illegal use of a little black dress—though many women contend that dresses don’t seduce people; people seduce people. When it got late enough last night for everyone to pair up with nobody cared whom—or was it “who”?—she dared him to dance with her. In spite of the chronic animosity between them she danced close enough to display her breasts in an arousing light.

The world resolved into a curious mix of limbo and dream after she said, “I like a man with a cocked weapon in his trousers.”

Now, the best approach to his future might be to draw a chalk outline around her before calling the police to report the accident. Chief Kruller would be pissed, not because he had any love for the newspaper’s gossip columnist, but because coming by the house to clean up the mess would force him to give up his space at the counter of the Main Street Krispy Kreme.

Though he wasn’t being interrogated yet, Jock had to admit that Monique was a voluptuous, saucy, black-haired she-devil if there ever was one. It was her mouth and her typewriter that bothered him. No ass kicking, hard-boiled reporter he knew (including himself) could tolerate gossip columnists. They dragged the whole damn paper down to their level. While exciting in bed, that level was bad for the newspaper business.

She did have nice breasts—for a probable corpse.

Even so, newspapering didn’t need columns called Hands Under Society’s Dress with comments like: “Democracy demands that we celebrate the election process at one ball after another. Just think, in some countries, the winners aren’t allowed to have any balls.”

Her luscious brown eyes popped open like they were controlled by a zombified spirit who hadn’t “crossed over” properly.

He jumped back in fear or what looked like fear.

“Jock!”

“Monique, what have we done?”

She sat up, partially covering herself with the sheer window curtain one of his former girlfriends with a name like Bambi or Barbie hung up in the bedroom either as a civilizing influence or to allow his neighbors the dubious entertainment of watching them (Jock and whoever) having sex during blue moons.

“We did what any self-respecting man and woman do when they find themselves drunk in bed,” she said. “Did I scream much?”

“Did I hurt you?”

“You gave me what I wanted.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Want to take another shot at it?”