Mistletoe Threeway

Howard finally surrenders his cherry in a post-"Party"verse fic. Starring Vince, Howard and Dennis the Head Shaman.

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Chapter 2

Contents

New Permutations of Voyerism! Comin’ atcha

Author’s Notes: This part by easilyled


“Think this have connection to Head Shaman’s visit?” Bollo asked Naboo shrewdly over his shoulder as he chased the little colourful beads that were rolling all over the floor, disappearing into every hiding place they could find, trying to escape the broom’s bristles.

They’d just been treated to the sound of Vince hollering as he rolled down the stairs and the sight of him landing on his arse at the bottom, staring at the customers gawping at him through the beaded curtain, then trying to use it to pull himself to his feet, which had sent him sprawling to the floor even more brutally, beads spilling on his head and over his shoulders.

Naboo, Bollo, and the customers had then watched in silent horror as he tried once again to right himself, only to slip on the beads when he took a step forward on a platform heel, and crash painfully to the ground again, landing this time flat on his back.

At this point Bollo had recovered from his shock enough to step forward to offer Vince a hand.

Of course, he slipped on the beads as well and landed on his furry back, groaning.

“Berks!” Naboo shook his head. He pulled a whistle out of his smock, blew on it, and traffic-directed the perplexed customers out of the shop until they had the situation sorted.

But even after he managed to get both Vince and Bollo on their feet at the same time, Vince refused to tell him what had made him go spastic.

“I’m running away!” was all he’d say. But, seeing that his way was blocked by the customers, who were now loitering at the front of the shop and staring through the windows, he headed for the stockroom instead, slamming and locking the door behind him.

It did, indeed, seem like the logical outcome of the sight that had greeted them when Naboo and Bollo had come home from the club early that morning, a few hours after Vince. Dennis had ducked out Howard and Vince’s room as Naboo and Bollo were heading down the corridor to theirs.

“Alright, Dennis?” Naboo had asked, managing to convey extreme skepticism without altering his blank expression.

But the expressions that played over Dennis’s face in rapid succession – the shiftiness changing to shock changing to guilt changing to elaborate heartiness – made Naboo frown deeply.

“Oh… Naboo, Bollo!” he greeted them. “I was just… looking for you!”

“Here I am,” Naboo said, and waited.

“I had a fight with Methuselah and she tossed me out.” Dennis made a pathetic face at Naboo.

“You’re not staying here,” Naboo answered immediately. “Get out.” He pointed towards the stairwell.

“But, Naboo….”

“Have some dignity, man!” Naboo half-snapped, half-pleaded, losing his patience. “You’re supposed to be our shaman leader, ya bald tossbag.”

“You’re right… alright, then. I’ll be off. See you at the next meeting, eh? And, erm, keep up the good work… yes!” Dennis hurried down the corridor, seemingly relieved.

“He agree to that far too quickly,” said Bollo as Dennis disappeared down the stairs.

“I know,” Naboo agreed. “And he has no dignity to appeal to.”

“I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Oh, really? Come on – let’s get some sleep, we’ll need it.”

When Howard and Vince didn’t get up in time to open the shop, Naboo and Bollo did it instead, not wanting to disturb them and uncover something they’d rather not know about. It was bad enough wondering what Howard and Vince did in their room at nighttimes, besides crimp. But they’d both known that some kind of emotional storm was coming.

“You get all them?” Naboo asked Bollo, who was still pushing the broom around.

“Bollo think so.”

“Good, coz I’ve got to let the customers back in. It’s almost Christmas. I’m running a business here, not a circus.”

“Uh… Bollo know how to juggle.”

“I said I’m not….”

Howard’s plaintive voice traveled down the stairwell. “Naboo? Bollo? Help! Anybody!”

Naboo brushed past Bollo. “Find out what’s wrong with Vince. I need him on the floor sharpish. I’ll go sort Howard. And then fire the ballbag,” Naboo announced just as he slipped on a stray mischievous bead and went crashing to the ground.


“Go ‘way,” Vince mumbled, sniffling, in reply to Bollo’s tentative knocks.

“Come on, Vince. It almost Christmas. Bollo need your retail genius. And… uh… for Vince to show Bollo how to use cash register.”

“Don’t care about Christmas,” Vince replied. “And I don’t remember when I ever cared about retail. I’m leaving here for good as soon as I come out of this stockroom.”

“When that be?” Bollo asked, hopeful.

“Never!” Vince replied, and burst out crying again. Bollo gave up and left, facing the now large group of customers outside the windows with a perplexity equaling their own.

Vince couldn’t get the images out of his head. His usually cheerfully blank mind hadn’t developed any resistance to the kind of dark thoughts and memories now assaulting it. He’d never felt so helpless. Well, actually, he had, the night before, and now it was still going on, differently. He wished he had a poncho, but all he’d been able to find after going through the boxes in the stockroom was a sarong with a bird-of-paradise print. It did turn him on slightly when he put it on, but didn’t help with his mood at all.

One moment, he’d been sitting on the floor of his and Howard’s room, leaning against the door, trying to think how he could possibly make Howard’s first time special for him when a big bald man (albeit with a smallish head, relative to his body size) was going to be standing over them with a sword, perving. The next instant he was watching himself climb on top of Howard – seeing his own skinny white back, with its prominent spine, from above. He recognized himself and didn’t recognize himself at once. He’d used many mirrors to see himself from many angles over the years, but he’d never managed to glimpse that one. And yet, the… body’s movements were so intimately familiar, he recognized them with something other than his eyes. But to see it, when it wasn’t “attached” to him… that was a whole new perspective.

It wasn’t attractive, really, that almost transparently thin body, the spine almost grotesque, its movements like watching silver mercury darting in a petri dish. Yet at the same time he was fascinated by that silky spine and its slinky, serpentine movements, which he watched intently as though it had some secret to reveal to him.

It took him several moments to realize that beneath that form, Howard and the body were snogging.

The body sat up, its shaggy black hair concealing any clue to its expression. “Mmmmmm, good,” it said. “You like it?”

“Howard!” Vince screamed from the ceiling. “Howard – wot you DOIN’, you silly prick? That’s not me, is it? Don’t let him touch you! Get him off you, the creepy little mollusk!”

His voice was so loud it seemed like it would shatter him. It was louder than he’d ever used it in reality. And yet, even as the sound came out, surprising him, he knew that Howard couldn’t hear him. That he was, in fact, making no sound.

And it began to occur to him to wonder what he was, exactly, at this moment. He thrashed his body violently, desperately, trying to feel something, or draw attention to himself. And yet he knew that he wasn’t moving it at all. Which made sense, after all, since he had no body to move. It was down there.

He’d always sort of wanted this, to float free of his body. But he’d never imagined it this way. Particularly he’d never imagined that he would be watching his body, doing things to his friend, underneath him.

As that thought came to him, he started to wonder just how exactly his body had got away from him. It seemed clear, at least, that his body had left him – he hadn’t made the decision to leave his body. How long had it been planning this mutiny? And had it always wanted to do things to Howard, things that Vince had also sometimes thought he might like to do, but he wasn’t exactly sure? Was that, in fact, why his body had chosen to go its own way, and leave him to his own devices? Or more accurately, really, without any devices.

Vince’s attention was returned to the drama unfolding on the bed, as the body struck Howard across the face, hard. He gasped (or would have), and (didn’t) bite his lip (he had none), and felt, if possible, even more alienated from the thing on the bed.

He was sure he’d never wanted to do that to Howard.

“Howard!” he cried again, but this time his voice was small, faint, more of a whimper.

He couldn’t stop commenting on the action on the bed, now, however, as useless as it was.

“Stop it!” he told himself. “Vince, what’s the matter with you? He doesn’t like that… you’re hurting him. It’s Howard – why are you hurting him? God, Vincent, you’re one sick puppy. When I’ve got control over you again, we’re going to see a therapist quicksmart. STOP IT!” he shouted helplessly. He wished that if he couldn’t cry he wouldn’t still feel like he wanted to… terribly. It was all the worse, in fact, for not being able to.

And it worked, this time. The treacherous body had withdrawn its thumb from Howard’s anus – with one last painful wrench that made Vince wince. And then, for both Howard on the bed, and Vince on the ceiling, there was relief.

But then the body shifted its position, and Vince watched, goggle-eyed (not very fair, that, that he would have to see this although he had no eyes), as it shoved his cock (it was still Vince’s cock!) in Howard’s mouth. And heard the sound of his cock sliding in and out of Howard’s mouth, the slippery smacking noises, and Howard’s muffled moaning and difficult breathing.

And now, although he still wanted to cry, in fact more, something else was happening to him, over which he seemed to have no control.

Without his body, it felt like every defense had been stripped from him. He was alive with arousal. Straining, yearning. Yearning to feel and taste what he was seeing. Or feel and taste anything. And yet, he couldn’t touch himself, even if there’d been anything to touch.

It was horrible – he felt so guilty – that he should be getting off when Howard was getting mistreated that way – and by him, though not through any fault of his own. He tried to fight back the feeling, but without any body, there didn’t seem to be anything he could do. There was no stiffy to fight off by thinking of Bob Fossil in a baby bonnet. He was all unfocused arousal, and there was no way to distract himself from the scene playing out in front of him.

And then the body clambered off Howard (to Vince’s relief, though also disappointment) and Vince gasped and gaped in shock now that he had a clear view of Howard for the first time since – whatever – had happened.

“Howard, you kinky bitch!”

Howard was liking what Vince’s sick freak body was doing to him.

And that turned Vince on even more, although he hadn’t known it was possible to be more aroused than he already was – especially without any way to satisfy it.

And then the creepy sensation of being watched came over him, and he tore his gaze away from Howard’s erection to find that Howard was looking directly at him.

His heart leapt, mistaking the look for recognition.

“Howard!” he called. “This is a trick, yeah? You’ve figured out that that cheeky monkey’s not me. It’s just my body got away from me – I think, I’m not too sure. I don’t have it anymore, anyway. Anyway, make it come back to me. It won’t get too far without me. The looks, plus the personality – that’s what makes Vince Noir, and the looks oughtn’t forget that. What’s next – are my clothes going to start thinking they can pull by themselves? Hey – Howard!” Howard wasn’t looking at his face at all. He was looking at Vince’s shoulder – where his shoulder would be – whatever. And not actually at that at all. “Howard? Howard! Howardhowardhowardhowardhoward – HOWARDLOOKOUT!”

The body was standing over Howard with the Head Shaman’s sword raised as if to strike him.

“Vince, you psycho!” Vince cried desperately. “Don’t do it – that’s Howard, your mate, you love him!”

Vince apparently heard him, or somehow had to obey him – because the sword came down at Howard’s ankles, and didn’t chop off his feet. Instead it cut him free from – Vince’s throat made a little wounded constricted sound as he realized it – the remains of the mirror-ball suit.

And that’s when the suspicions started.

Vince’s body might be enough of a pervert to do unspeakable, painful and humiliating things to Howard, that Howard liked.

But no part of Vince would ever conceivably do That to the mirror-ball suit.

The realization took its sweet time fully dawning on Vince, while in the meantime Dennis finally succeeded in deflowering Howard’s arse. As Vince watched Howard lose his virginity to someone other than himself (“when I cross that physical barrier it’ll be forever, sir” – Howard’s words from that night on The Roof briefly darted across Vince’s consciousness like a colourful fish in an aquarium, then out of sight), the thing-that-wasn’t-him turned and glanced up at Vince, over his shoulder – the expression in his eye pure malevolence, wearing a wolfish grin. And then turned back to his business – ignoring Vince so flatly, it was like he wasn’t even there.

And it all fell into place.

And at some point, as he continued to have to watch, all of the strange new feelings of helplessness and violation and humiliation and rage all mixed up with lust turned into just plain rage… all of it directed at Howard. Howard, who couldn’t even tell the difference between Vince and Obviously Not Vince. Howard, who’d clearly liked all the vile things Dennis had done to him.

Nothing Dennis had done to him was nearly enough.

And his mind turned to fantasies of just what he would do to Howard when – if – he got his body back.

He’d fucking actually kill him.

He woke up after an interval of unconsciousness to find himself shivering and naked in bed, the sticky, repulsive remains of the acts he’d had no part in all over his body, which still felt strangely not his own. Howard, also not his own, was asleep next to him, still bound and murmuring with a creased brow.

Vince raised himself up weakly on one elbow that felt funny, watery, like when it goes numb before pins and needles. He looked at Howard. The immediate urge to kill him was gone. He just felt exhausted and weirdly empty and didn’t want to do anything except cry.

And wank himself off.

Both of which he was doing now, in the stockroom, as long as the images kept coming at him. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it would have been doing it while it happened, but considering that the images were of a nearly hallucinatory quality, it was better than most fantasies. But his face wore a look of repulsion as he watched his hand working his cock, as though hand and cock were something detached from him. He wondered if he were ever going to feel at home in his body again.

When he was finished, he felt a bit calmer, if only because it seemed to make the mental replay stop. He found a dirty cloth and wiped up the mess as best he could, and did up his flies. Now he could hear the yelling in the shop.

He opened the door to find Naboo reaming out Howard in front of a shopful of gaping customers. Howard was pale, staring, and disheveled. He seemed to hardly know where he was or what was happening.

“If you and Vince want to play kinky sex games with my married tossbag of a boss, that’s completely disgusting, but all I ask is that you try not to take it so far that you put my best salesman out of commission – especially during this time of year. What the hell is the matter with you?”

Howard, watching the customers stare at him, their faces appalled, was smiling faintly, brokenly, like some mechanism inside had snapped. Vince noticed the bruises on his wrists from the hours of binding, and there was a large one forming on his face as well, where Dennis had hit him. He winced in involuntary sympathy.

“I’m not even going to bother to turn my back on you,” Naboo went on. “It’s wasted on you. Just get out.”

Vince stepped out of the stockroom, and the customers turned to look at him, which caused him to blush faintly, but he was so distressed and angry still, he barely registered them and their looks.

Howard saw him, and their eyes met.

Howard stepped toward him, then faltered, and stopped. “I’m sorry. Vince. Please….” He attempted a smile, but his anxiety made it into a grotesque, twitchy parody, and fear screamed out of his eyes.

Vince’s face darkened, and he legged it out of the shop, pushing past the whispering customers.

Howard went after him.

“Vince!” he called. He started to run, but slipped on the wet snow, and fell on his knee hard. That would be another bruise. “Please! Just let me talk to you!”

Vince didn’t stop, but his awkward platforms and the continuing sense of being out-of-synch with his body made him slip as well, and fall on his bum for the fourth or fifth time that morning.

Howard was almost inclined to giggle, but luckily suppressing it. He used the opportunity to catch up with Vince, and held out his hand to the prone, pathetic figure.

“Let’s go somewhere and talk, yeah?”

Vince folded his arms across his chest, refusing to move although the cold wetness was fast soaking through his thin drainpipes and his bum was going numb. “I don’t want to talk to you ever again.” He stared up at Howard furiously, the look in his eye accusing. “You’ve got no idea what I’ve just been through.”

“What YOU’VE been through, you selfish bitch?” Something in Howard snapped, and he grabbed Vince by the arm and pulled him to his feet. Vince, surprised, said nothing and offered no resistance. It was then they both noticed that not only had their argument drawn the attention of several passers-by, who’d stopped to watch it, but the crowd from the shop had followed them outside, many of them accompanied by balls of mistletoe floating over their heads, some of which drew the attention of the passers-by.

Howard found himself paralyzed by their attention, his flicker of righteous anger lost like a howl of frustration in the existential void. It was Vince who led him by the hand into the nearby alleyway, and then told the gawkers who followed them to fuck off.

“Okay, Howard,” Vince said with an appearance of reasonableness that Howard well knew to distrust. “You’re going to explain it to me? Make it good, then, alright?”

Howard opened his mouth, but nothing came out. How could he put it in words Vince would understand? How could he put it in words at all? Was he going to say that he apparently had no will where Vince was concerned, and that’s why he’d let him… or no, that other one… do all of those things? Wouldn’t knowing that disgust Vince even more than he was disgusted now?

Instead he found himself gazing blearily at Vince’s outfit. Vince was only wearing some kind of silly thin T-shirt that was too small for him, exposing a white strip of navel where his low-slung jeans failed to meet it, and a short leather jacket – Howard took them both in, finding them ludicrous, in themselves but also as a protection against the cold. Although he himself, not having expected to find himself outside, only had on a short-sleeved shirt, and in his haste to get dressed after Naboo had untied him (making gagging noises that Howard feared weren’t just to be cruel), he’d done up the buttons wrong. Vince noticed this now as well, and his hands reached out and started to undo the buttons, starting at the bottom.

“What are you doing?” Howard asked, although they were less words than sound, and sound not with the purpose of communicating, but just to fill up the silence.

“Fixing your shirt,” Vince replied, in the same fashion. And then he looked up at Howard all of a sudden, big-eyed, and pressed his cold lips against Howard’s tenderly.

Howard hadn’t realized how much tension he’d been holding in his body until it all fell away at that touch. Vince was going to forgive him – it didn’t matter now that it hadn’t been Howard’s fault anyway. Or maybe it had – or why did he feel guilty this way? But that didn’t matter now either. Still, he pulled back just a little from the kiss, which had been growing deeper, and Vince, just as automatically, put his hand up to Howard’s face, to keep him there.

“Ow!” Howard shoved Vince away instinctively, hard. Vince nearly slipped again.

Howard’s hand was raised to his bruised cheek, not touching it, but shielding it protectively. As if, Vince realized, Howard was expecting him to strike.

“How could you not know?” Vince asked. His dismayed voice sounded unnaturally clear and real in the silence that had fallen between them.

Howard just kept staring at him.

Frustrated, Vince grabbed Howard’s arm more roughly than he’d ever done before. “I’m not going to hurt you!”

Howard didn’t know what he’d done until he saw Vince sprawled on the ground in front of him, looking up at him in shock, blood bright on his lower lip. Blood that was also on Howard’s throbbing knuckles, which he was rubbing with his other hand.

There was no possible explanation now.

Howard ran out of the alleyway, and didn’t stop even when he heard Vince call after him. He didn’t stop until the cramps forming in his abused limbs forced him to. He bent over, wheezing.

“Look, Harold, it’s one of those crack addicts!” he heard a disgusted elderly woman comment to her uninterested husband as they walked by.

“Thanks very much, madam,” he nodded to her, baring his teeth in a grin so unpleasant that she gripped her husband’s arm tighter and hurried him along. Just before they turned the corner he noticed she was adorned with of Vince’s mistletoe gadgets. Unless he’d started seeing things.

The snow had started to fall, and he was wet and shivering and bruised and aching, and he wondered where he was going to go. He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets to warm them, but pulled one out immediately, encountering something unexpected. It fluttered out and he grabbed it out of the air before it could land.

The business card read: “Dennis Winthorpe, Head Shaman. For all your shaman needs.” Under the neat print were a phone and fax number. He turned it over and started at the sight of a hand-written note on the back. It said, “Call me if you need a place to stay. I’ll always repay a good turn done to me. Love, D.”

Howard’s hand flexed automatically, and the card fluttered into a dirty pile of slush.

After staring at it a moment, he retrieved it. The ink hadn’t run. Well, it was shaman-ink.

After all, he reflected, was he above this? Was he above anything?

And where else did he have to turn?

He shoved the card in his pocket, and set out with determination – to Lester Corncrake’s.