Page 20 of My Big Alien Bodyguard

Lyric

I can’t fucking believe he did that. I am riddled with heat and shame and the perfect orgasm. My ass is aching and my pride is stinging, and I am pretty sure I just put on an impromptu sex show. My gigs are all eighteen plus, but still. Zayne just called my bluff and turned me into his public punishment slattern.

I have to regroup, and quickly. I can feel the energy of the audience surging in strange ways. They don’t know what to make of what they just saw, because what they just saw was me coming hard over the dominating thigh of my bodyguard.

Thankfully, the next lyrics allow me to regain some of my self-respect with their rebellious content.

“MONSTER. YOU’RE THE MONSTER OF MY HEART!”

The crowd goes wild as I make a rude gesture to Zayne’s retreating back. They’re super amped after seeing more of my anatomy than I intended. I play it up, rubbing my ass.

“Oh wow, that REEALLY hurts,” I croon into the microphone. “When a guy needs some ass, he needs some ass.”

They roar with laughter. It doesn’t matter what I say, really. That’s one of the best things about music. Writing has to make sense, or people start getting salty almost immediately. Songs, though? You can say whatever nonsense you want and it still counts. One of my favorite ancient songs poses the question to the audienceHow Much Is the Fish? in a song that is clearly not about fish at all.

I have to play this off like it’s part of the act, because I know the audience doesn’t know any different. Anything that happens on stage has to look like it was meant to happen, including having my butt turned to molten lava by the dragon who seems to be able to read my mind.

I guess I deserved that.

I also know there’s no way I am going to let him get the better of me. So he smacked my ass. Whatever. It’s not going to kill me to have a sore butt. I’m going to make contact with this audience regardless. I’m not going to let that warning thrashing actually warn me. I’m going to push harder than ever before.

“Come on up!” I shout. “That’s right! Front row! I want you on stage with me now!”

The crowd surges forward, and there’s nothing anybody can do to stop the momentum of people coming up onto the stage. That’s the real secret of crowds. They’re like animals, staying behind fences they could easily clear out of habit.

At first, just a few girls and guys clamber up onto the stage with me. Yeah, there’s security down below, but of course there’s no real way for even the most powerful alien bouncers to keep them all back, not now that I’ve put this idea in their heads.

“Lyric! No!”

I see a flash of dragon skin heading for me. Of course he’s coming for me again. Zayne has to kill every buzz he encounters. It’s basically a compulsion at this point. I see him come rushing out, but there are more and more people coming up onto the stage now, like waves of them.

But he’s not catching me as quickly as usual. And that’s because I am moving away from him. Running away, you could say. In addition to my scampering attempt at avoiding his justice, I notice that the very front of the stage is starting to bow down, which makes it easy for the audience to climb up. More and more come, faster and faster.

I start to get the feeling I might have made a mistake, but it’s too late. They’re all around me, and the stage is starting to go down like a ship on a brutal sea.

I hear screams. So many screams. And not the good kind. Some of them are mine, being played over the sound system so the concert hall now sounds like the depths of hell. I am being grabbed and dragged down. I am falling, and not in the fun way. Bits of stage are breaking off into the crowd and moving through it like ice floes through an arctic sea.

Suddenly, I want more than anything to be saved.

8

Zayne

“Scenes of absolute chaos at the Lyric Walker concert today,”the news reporter chirps brightly.“After the starlet was spanked on stage by a hunky Thrakin, she called for fans to join her on stage, only to start a stampede which resulted in the collapse of the stage, and injuries to many.”

I look over at Lyric, who is lying in the infirmary with an actually broken leg, an injury so bad that we have to detour to a space station where she can be treated by doctors capable of doing surgery.

I will never forget having to slide into a crowd of people and drag her out, screaming at the top of her lungs. I will never forget the other people, the ones I was not paid to save, and the ones I could not save. People were hurt, badly, because of her reckless call and the human mob instinct that followed.

“You did well,” Scowl says. He has been on the open call for a while now. For a change, he is being something other than a complete asshole. “She’s alive, and the leg can be pinned. Thisis the most controversial tour I’ve ever run. We’ll be postponing and extending tour dates for possibly years. I’ll have to activate the More More More clause in the contract.”

I am barely listening, because I am too busy wondering how I am going to keep her safe when at every turn she chooses the most chaotic and destructive of impulses.

“She’s a rock star,” Scowl says. “They’re hard to keep in one piece. You’re doing fine, buddy.”

He’s so pleased, she’s generating so much publicity on her own he hasn’t had to plan any mass casualty events of his own, because evidently Lyric is happily causing them organically.

“I gotta go, Zayne. Keep up the good work!”

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