Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Leslie Munch hates Steve Smith. She has been ranting about him being the pen behind the fake face of Essie Smith for almost two years now. And while pretty much everyone in Raylen’s reader group thought she was a paranoid schizoid and this theory was bullshit, both Angela and Elaine did have to concede that Steve kind of, sort of, had acted like he was the one writing those books in the panel today.
Which is what they share with Leslie. Or, to them, Raylen.
And by the time they are dismissed, Leslie’s burning rage is in check and is now laser-focused toward the bullseye that is Steve.
She goes to the bar by the slots, claims the center living-room configuration, and orders herself a celebratory drink. Then she waits.
This is her chance. There had to have been hundreds of people in that Reader Rants panel. And that means hundreds of witnesses. Leslie is smiling with glee.
They would’ve seen him. Heard him. So when she outs him this time, in the Pen Names and Page Games panel later this afternoon, some of them will be there. They might even gasp.
Giving voice to a not-so-secret secret like Steve being “Tank Watson” (what a stupid fucking name) will have been nothing compared to the bomb she can drop now.
Leslie starts uncontrollably giggling. And before long she’s cackling.
She does that for three more hours, drinking, and laughing, and eating. Biding her time as she watches the minutes tick off on her phone.
At five minutes to three, she downs her final drink, stands up, straightens her skirt, and walks to the panel room.
When she enters, she stops, looks around, goes back out to read the little sign next to the door. Yep, this is the place. Pen Names and Page Games. She goes back in and becomes confused.
The room is empty.
Well, not completely empty. There is a single maid vacuuming, doing a little dance to the music in her earbuds, ignoring Leslie completely.
“Excuse me.” Leslie is trying her best to be patient, but she’s fuming again. That little bitch. Essie changed the room on her. And of course she did. Essie wanted Leslie to walk in late and look the fool.
The maid is ignoring her. Or—even Leslie gets a good idea every now and then—couldn’t hear her. The earbuds. So Leslie walks right over to her, pulls the earbuds out, and demands to know where everyone is.
The maid squints at her. “¿Qué?”
“Oh, that’s great. That’s just great. You don’t understand me?”
“¿Qué?”
“Where”—Leslie talks slow and loud, because everyone knows that if people don’t speak English, if you just talk slow and loud, and they understand you anyway—“is. Every. One?”
The maid shrugs. “Cancelado.”
“Cancelado!” Even monolingual Leslie is able to figure this one out. “Cancelado! You can’t cancelado my panel!”
The maid shrugs again, puts her earbuds back in, and continues her dance, ignoring Leslie until she leaves.
Then the maid snickers, shaking her head, and mutters, “Leslie Munch is a bitch.”
And so now Leslie is heading… well, she’s not sure. She’d been invited to the convention last-minute, so she doesn’t have a private party planned. But how hard can it be to find them? Surely fans will give up room numbers. She will visit all of them. And she will out Steve to every single crowd. She bulldozes her way towards the main signing hall where there should be some lingering fans for her to confront.
But when she gets there, there is no one.
No one. Not a single person hanging about outside the signing hall.
Just another maid vacuuming with earbuds in.
Something is going on here. It’s Essie and Steve. They are trying to make her look like a fool. But that’s just fine. Just fine.
Leslie will find those parties herself.
Just as she approaches the bank of elevators, one of them opens for her. This makes her smile, like fate is finally on her side.
She gets in the elevator and punches the floor for the main lobby. She will start there.
The doors close, she leans back against the mirrored walls, sighing and smiling. Because she is finally gonna get her say and knock those two frauds down two dozen pegs.
But then she notices that the elevator isn’t moving.
Has she forgotten to press the button?
No. It’s lit up.
She presses it again. Nothing. And again. Still nothing. Then she presses the ‘door open’ button. Nothing.
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” She opens the panel where the phone is, only to find it disconnected. “What the hell?” She presses the emergency button. Nothing happens. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
But she hasn’t moved. She’s still on the lower level where the signing hall is. The abandoned signing hall.
“Hello!” She screams it over and over again.
But no one comes.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’ve never seen a pussy get so wet,” says Trance, shoving his face in between my legs even further and biting at my clit like a rabid wildebeest.