Threeway, ch. 8, Authenticity, pt. 1 of 1
In which Mandy sexes things up, we get a birther joke, and the president's sex tape is altered. "Threeway" continues in serial form with a link to buy the book at the bottom of the post. To catch up on prior segments, start at the bottom of the blog. Enjoy. Tell your friends.
THREEWAY: A Short Novel for a Long Season
by
STEVEN LUBLINER
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogue, and descriptions are the author’s creations and are not to be taken as true. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All incidents depicting, suggesting, or referring to public figures or other historical persons are also fictionalized and are not to be taken as true.
Copyright © 2016 Steven S. Lubliner
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1530971292
ISBN-13: 978-1530971299
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue: The Personal Is Political i
1 Fillmore Pipp’s Boner 1
2 Big Mel Kriegman 16
3 Hi and Bye, Connie and Herb. 32
4 THE BROWN BAGGERS!! 40
5 Mittelpunkt 43
6 Mandy 51
7 Mandy In. Mandy Out. Mandy In. 66
8 Authenticity 75
9 Momentum 79
10 Brother Paul 88
11 Inevitability 98
12 Win. Lose. Repeat 108
Epilogue 112
Chapter 8: Authenticity (pt. 1 of 1)
How could America not love Mandy? She was what we all yearn for: to be nothing more or less than what we are. Mandy was a true girl next door with naturally blonde hair that was dyed even blonder and full breasts that needed no augment, but, thanks to her mama, were augmented nonetheless. “Made in America,” Mandy would say to great applause, though who knew if that was true.
A constitutional problem should have shut her candidacy down before it got started. Mandy was only 26 years old, not 35, the constitutional minimum to be president. When Pipp’s election had seemed certain, his opponents had sued, claiming he was ineligible. Pipp was 47 at the time, but his opponents argued that because of lower life expectancies at the founding, a man of 35 was like a man of 50 today. This went nowhere in the lower courts. The Supreme Court refused to save the day.
To get Mandy off the ticket, a lawsuit was prepared by an unbiased group committed to constitutional principle. Mandy was unfazed. She would tell cheering crowds, “If I’m willing to cop to 35, I should get a medal. Hell, I’ve probably got 35 years of mileage on this old bod.”
Mittelpunkt had Mandy do a web event in baby doll pajamas in which she said the president was mean. “He’s a mean man. Why’s he being so mean?” The Brown Bagettes cried with her, and the men looked for someone to hit. Mandy’s candidacy embodied the impossible dream that Mandy’s mother had, that so many have for their daughters: to fail them and still have them live the fairy tale, or at least its modern form where the girl in dire straits is redeemed not by a gentle madman’s Dulcinea fantasy but by her own reality show. That dream was not going to be deferred on a technicality. The lawsuit was scuttled. Mandy made it on the ballot in all fifty states.
The baby doll web event was a defining moment. Much more than Kriegman’s, Mandy’s candidacy was about American power played out as sexual potency. Traveling abroad, she met with ambassadors, ministers of state, and a papal nuncio. They came away feeling they could work with her. After the ambassadors made their reports at home, numerous world leaders begged an audience.
The campaign raised funds via strip video poker. Mandy appeared on screen, cooing about Brown Bagger talking points: control of women’s bodies, restrictions on the sex lives of consenting adults, and condemnation of Hollywood. Then, she dealt the cards. Sometimes, you won a hand. Maybe you won a couple, but Mandy never went past bra and panties. The money flowed in.
Mandy would not deliver the goods until she was elected and maybe not even then. There would be a second term to consider. That’s why the tape hadn’t been released. Eventually, it would be used for legitimate and well-timed extortion. Until then, it would stay locked in a safe in Mittelpunkt’s bedroom, to be taken out only when he needed to ponder his next maneuver or remember what they stood for.
While Mona Rules had been giddy hearing Pipp’s voice in the limo, her head cleared when Stengel suggested she do the job for free. Bullshit. Go bid out the job publicly, and good luck. They reached an accommodation. The price was still below what her celebrity, political, and clerical clients paid, so the job got back burnered. Stengel got her on the phone a week later and was uncharacteristically cryptic.
“If you haven’t watched the tape lately, you should.” He hung up. After seeing there were now two candidates on the tape, Mona called back.
“What?” Stengel answered.
“Don’t you want us to wipe her face out?”
“No.” He hung up again.
“Igor!” Mona yelled into the speaker phone. Bald and tatted and pierced, in black from head to toe, pen and pad at the ready, Igor glided in.
“Mistress?” She explained the job: one white, circumcised, middle-aged penis in varying stages of tumescence. Eleven to twelve inches erect.
“Merry Christmas! Who’s getting the makeover?”
“Bye, Igor.” Igor put his hand to his mouth.
“Oh my god! The president.”
“Thousands of powerful people who would want such a thing kept secret, and you leap to the president. Why?”
“You taught me. Aim high; hit the bullseye.” Igor sighed. “You can tell by how his pants fit. We all talk about it. He’s such a nice man. It’s a shame.”
The irritated look on Mona’s face told him he was right. Igor clapped his hands and marched off to the video room.
The agency had a scanning program that could recognize penises, breasts, vaginas, asses, assholes, whatever you needed. You entered details like size and skin tone, and it would spit out a range of possibilities. Igor knew how to run it, but today it froze up, and the IT guy was out sick. Igor called Mona. She said it couldn’t wait. He would have to go old school.
“You know how to look at penises, right, Igor?”
That he did, but scanning images manually was a dreary business. Igor would start with penises that shared his point of view.
By the end of the day, he had culled a thousand different images from a hundred different men. Mona made her selection and took it on a disk along with Pipp’s tape, to her chief editor, a 23-year-old tech nerd whom she knew would be discreet. The editor dwelt serenely in the virtual world and did not know what country he lived in much less who was president. In two hours, Mona had a finished product. Twenty minutes later, an ecstatic Stengel was taking more money out of her pocket by buying her dinner. Ninety minutes later, he was, at least in his mind, making it up to her.
Buy Threeway.
Read the review on Kirkus Reviews.
Read an article about the author.
Review Threeway on Goodreads.
Buy A Child's Christmas in Queens.
THREEWAY: A Short Novel for a Long Season
by
STEVEN LUBLINER
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogue, and descriptions are the author’s creations and are not to be taken as true. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All incidents depicting, suggesting, or referring to public figures or other historical persons are also fictionalized and are not to be taken as true.
Copyright © 2016 Steven S. Lubliner
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1530971292
ISBN-13: 978-1530971299
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue: The Personal Is Political i
1 Fillmore Pipp’s Boner 1
2 Big Mel Kriegman 16
3 Hi and Bye, Connie and Herb. 32
4 THE BROWN BAGGERS!! 40
5 Mittelpunkt 43
6 Mandy 51
7 Mandy In. Mandy Out. Mandy In. 66
8 Authenticity 75
9 Momentum 79
10 Brother Paul 88
11 Inevitability 98
12 Win. Lose. Repeat 108
Epilogue 112
Chapter 8: Authenticity (pt. 1 of 1)
How could America not love Mandy? She was what we all yearn for: to be nothing more or less than what we are. Mandy was a true girl next door with naturally blonde hair that was dyed even blonder and full breasts that needed no augment, but, thanks to her mama, were augmented nonetheless. “Made in America,” Mandy would say to great applause, though who knew if that was true.
A constitutional problem should have shut her candidacy down before it got started. Mandy was only 26 years old, not 35, the constitutional minimum to be president. When Pipp’s election had seemed certain, his opponents had sued, claiming he was ineligible. Pipp was 47 at the time, but his opponents argued that because of lower life expectancies at the founding, a man of 35 was like a man of 50 today. This went nowhere in the lower courts. The Supreme Court refused to save the day.
To get Mandy off the ticket, a lawsuit was prepared by an unbiased group committed to constitutional principle. Mandy was unfazed. She would tell cheering crowds, “If I’m willing to cop to 35, I should get a medal. Hell, I’ve probably got 35 years of mileage on this old bod.”
Mittelpunkt had Mandy do a web event in baby doll pajamas in which she said the president was mean. “He’s a mean man. Why’s he being so mean?” The Brown Bagettes cried with her, and the men looked for someone to hit. Mandy’s candidacy embodied the impossible dream that Mandy’s mother had, that so many have for their daughters: to fail them and still have them live the fairy tale, or at least its modern form where the girl in dire straits is redeemed not by a gentle madman’s Dulcinea fantasy but by her own reality show. That dream was not going to be deferred on a technicality. The lawsuit was scuttled. Mandy made it on the ballot in all fifty states.
The baby doll web event was a defining moment. Much more than Kriegman’s, Mandy’s candidacy was about American power played out as sexual potency. Traveling abroad, she met with ambassadors, ministers of state, and a papal nuncio. They came away feeling they could work with her. After the ambassadors made their reports at home, numerous world leaders begged an audience.
The campaign raised funds via strip video poker. Mandy appeared on screen, cooing about Brown Bagger talking points: control of women’s bodies, restrictions on the sex lives of consenting adults, and condemnation of Hollywood. Then, she dealt the cards. Sometimes, you won a hand. Maybe you won a couple, but Mandy never went past bra and panties. The money flowed in.
Mandy would not deliver the goods until she was elected and maybe not even then. There would be a second term to consider. That’s why the tape hadn’t been released. Eventually, it would be used for legitimate and well-timed extortion. Until then, it would stay locked in a safe in Mittelpunkt’s bedroom, to be taken out only when he needed to ponder his next maneuver or remember what they stood for.
While Mona Rules had been giddy hearing Pipp’s voice in the limo, her head cleared when Stengel suggested she do the job for free. Bullshit. Go bid out the job publicly, and good luck. They reached an accommodation. The price was still below what her celebrity, political, and clerical clients paid, so the job got back burnered. Stengel got her on the phone a week later and was uncharacteristically cryptic.
“If you haven’t watched the tape lately, you should.” He hung up. After seeing there were now two candidates on the tape, Mona called back.
“What?” Stengel answered.
“Don’t you want us to wipe her face out?”
“No.” He hung up again.
“Igor!” Mona yelled into the speaker phone. Bald and tatted and pierced, in black from head to toe, pen and pad at the ready, Igor glided in.
“Mistress?” She explained the job: one white, circumcised, middle-aged penis in varying stages of tumescence. Eleven to twelve inches erect.
“Merry Christmas! Who’s getting the makeover?”
“Bye, Igor.” Igor put his hand to his mouth.
“Oh my god! The president.”
“Thousands of powerful people who would want such a thing kept secret, and you leap to the president. Why?”
“You taught me. Aim high; hit the bullseye.” Igor sighed. “You can tell by how his pants fit. We all talk about it. He’s such a nice man. It’s a shame.”
The irritated look on Mona’s face told him he was right. Igor clapped his hands and marched off to the video room.
The agency had a scanning program that could recognize penises, breasts, vaginas, asses, assholes, whatever you needed. You entered details like size and skin tone, and it would spit out a range of possibilities. Igor knew how to run it, but today it froze up, and the IT guy was out sick. Igor called Mona. She said it couldn’t wait. He would have to go old school.
“You know how to look at penises, right, Igor?”
That he did, but scanning images manually was a dreary business. Igor would start with penises that shared his point of view.
By the end of the day, he had culled a thousand different images from a hundred different men. Mona made her selection and took it on a disk along with Pipp’s tape, to her chief editor, a 23-year-old tech nerd whom she knew would be discreet. The editor dwelt serenely in the virtual world and did not know what country he lived in much less who was president. In two hours, Mona had a finished product. Twenty minutes later, an ecstatic Stengel was taking more money out of her pocket by buying her dinner. Ninety minutes later, he was, at least in his mind, making it up to her.
Buy Threeway.
Read the review on Kirkus Reviews.
Read an article about the author.
Review Threeway on Goodreads.
Buy A Child's Christmas in Queens.
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