Alex in Pornoland Ch. 07

"Are you going to do it?" a voice said from behind me. I turned to see the man in black walking slowly towards me.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm scared."

"I understand," he said, coughing slightly. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you don't step off that ledge, I don't think you've got much time left."

"How can I be sure?" I asked. "You're telling me one thing, Daphne's telling me another. It's all so confusing."

"I know, man, I know," he said. "You've come this far, though - - you obviously know what's right otherwise you'd be downstairs banging your mom."

I sighed. "I guess you're right."

I climbed up on to the ledge, wobbling slightly. Strangely, I couldn't bring myself to look down.

"Just one more step, Alex," the man in black said, standing right behind me.

"I - - I don't think I can," I said. "I'm scared. Can you - - can you push me?"

"No can do, Alex. It has to be your decision." When I stood there, hesitating, not moving, he said "Why not turn around and lean back? It'll save you looking at the ground."

Carefully, oh so slowly, I did as he said and turned around so I was facing away from the drop, looking back out over the roof.

"Oh fuck," I whispered, scared to hell.

"Just lean back, Alex," he said. "Let gravity do the work."

I swallowed, closed my eyes and leaned back, further and further and further - -

"SHIT!" I screamed as I reached the point of no return and fell back, pinwheeling my arms round and round as I slid off the ledge and into thin air, falling, falling - -

The man in black reached out and grabbed one of my arms, halting my fall suddenly. I stopped and swung forward, smacking into the wall of the building, looking up at him, my legs flailing, the only thing holding me up were his hands.

"What - - what the fuck?" I gasped.

"Fooled you!" the man in black laughed.

"What? What?"

"I lied, Alex!" he said. "Everything Daphne told you was true! I'm the liar! If you'd fucked your mom, you'd have stayed here in Pornoland forever!" He laughed like a cheap movie villain.

"What? Then - - why tell me - - what the fuck?" I managed to ask, my free hand frantically trying to find a hold of something. "You were sick - - the coughing - - the blood?"

"Make-up and stage blood you dumb shit!" he cackled. "I'm like you, from the real world. I just didn't want the competition, man!"

"You - - fucker! You made - - me jump!"

"Oh no, that bit was true - - it had to be your decision and you made it, not me." He let go of one hand, just holding me with one. "I just didn't want you to go without telling you how fucking stupid you are!"

He laughed in my face and let go of my arm and the last thing I saw in that world was the man in black receding and laughing as I plummeted down to the hard asphalt of the parking lot.

† † † † †

"Mr Taylor? You're awake."

I looked around at the sterile, cold room of a hospital, an old, wrinkled man standing at the foot of my bed, looking up at me, dressed in the white coat of a doctor.

"You had quite an accident. Can you remember your name, where you live?"

I paused for a moment then gave the name and address I'd used in the Old World. He looked down at some notes on my chart and smiled back at me.

"Good, Mr Taylor, that's very good. Nothing wrong with your memory, then." He walked round the bed and started poking and prodding at me. My arm was in plaster, my ribs hurt, one leg was suspended over the bed by cables.

"I'll telephone your mother and sister," the doctor said. "Let them know you've woken up."

"Great," I croaked, my throat dry.

It took a couple of hours for them to arrive and when they did, I wasn't surprised - - disappointed but not surprised - - to see the grossly overweight versions of my mother and sister that I thought I'd left behind.

"Well you look like shit," my sister said to me with an evil grin.

"Chelsea, enough of that language," my mother said as she looked at me. "Though you're right, he doesn't look good."

The doctor stepped forward. "Alex will need a good deal of help when he gets home - - bathing and dressing and so on."

"Fucked if I'm washing him," Chelsea said.

"Yeah, I'm sure he can manage," my mother said.

I really was back in the Old World, it seemed.

† † † † †

A couple of days later, after more tests and pokes and prods, I got home. By taxi because neither my mother nor sister bothered to come and get me.

The small house was just the same - - full of mom and Chelsea's rubbish, dirty and unwashed dishes in the sink, the smell of fried food hanging over everything. The only new thing was a large cardboard box about six feet tall, three feet wide and six inches thick that stood in the hall, near the base of the stairs. A label on the front was addressed to me.

"What's this?" I shouted out.

"How the fuck do I know?" Chelsea shouted back. "It turned up the day after you woke up."

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and started to open it. As I cut through the address label, a delivery note fell out. Opening it, I read "I'm sorry. Come back. D."

"Did Darla send this?" I asked aloud, wondering why my agent would send me this thing, whatever it was.

"I don't know," Chelsea said, standing in the hall, watching me slice open the box. "Come on, hurry up, I wanna know what it is."

"You want to help me, then?" I asked, pointing to my arm in plaster. She shook her head and laughed as I turned back to the box and cut it open, Chelsea stepping next to me as the box fell away.

It was a large mirror, the perfect, silvered glass surrounded by a stylish steel frame. My sister and I were reflected in it and I couldn't help but smile.

In the mirror, I was taller, better looking, had muscular shoulders and what looked to be a very impressive bulge in the cargo shorts I habitually wore. Beside me, Chelsea stood with her hands on her hips, a tiny skirt not reaching the tops of her stockings, her huge, round, fake tits straining against the cropped shirt she wore.

I looked across to my sister who snorted. "Great, just what every fucking wannabe actor needs, a giant fucking vanity mirror," she said, clearly not seeing what I was. She wandered off, losing all interest.

In the mirror, the New World version of her hung round a little longer before walking slowly away, flicking her tiny skirt up over her butt as she did.

"It was real," I whispered, looking at the New World version of myself. The place the man in black had referred to as Pornoland was real. I looked again at the delivery note.

"Come back. D."

It wasn't Darla who'd sent me this mirror - - it was Daphne.

"Come back. D."

"How do I get back?" I whispered aloud. I reached out to the mirror, my Pornoland version doing the same, and watched amazed as my fingers slid into the glass. "Oh my God," I whispered, meeting the gaze of my alter ego who nodded and smiled.

I withdrew my fingers and looked at them - - they were undamaged, as if they hadn't just moved into an alternate world or different dimension or something.

"When you're done admiring yourself," my mother shouted from the front room, "you can order us a takeout. We're starving."

If there was one thing neither she nor my sister were, it was starving. And, despite my injuries and just getting out of hospital, it was clear things were going to head back to exactly the way they were before my accident - - me running around after them with no thanks, no regard and no respect.

I thought back to my Pornoland mom and sister, how they'd been so happy to see me get released from the hospital, how they couldn't do enough for me and how they genuinely liked me.

"Fuck it," I said, taking a deep breath and stepping into the mirror.

I was going back to a better life.

I was going back to get revenge on that bastard in black for lying to me.

I was going back to fuck the hell out of my mother and sister!

THE END