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  Batteries Not Included

  By J.L. Merrow

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2014 J.L. Merrow

  ISBN 9781611526851

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  Batteries Not Included

  By J.L. Merrow

  “Holy shit, who the hell are you?”

  As wake-up calls went, I could think of better ones. At least, I could have if I wasn’t terminally sleep-deprived. I cursed the day I ever let Lilith buy me that voice-recording alarm clock—she must have been laughing herself silly when she sneaked in to leave that little message—and reached out to turn the bloody thing off.

  And hit flesh. Bare flesh.

  What the fuck?

  Suddenly more wide awake than if I’d been mainlining espresso all night, I stared into wide, grey eyes, surrounded by enough kohl to start a fire with. The face that went with them contained full, red lips, a cute little nose, and was topped off with spiky black hair with just a hint of purple.

  “Oh, thank fuck for that,” I breathed, relaxing. Because I’d just realized I was dreaming. Had to be, as no way was the real Cain Shepney, pop phenomenon and mega-star winner of Britain’s Got the Idol Factor, stark bollock naked in bed with me. “Come back over here, Cain,” I mumbled, reaching out for him.

  “Get the fuck away from me!” I felt a sudden chill as Cain ripped the duvet from the bed and wrapped it around his naked form, backing away slowly.

  Oh, bloody hell. It was turning out to be a nightmare. Which was odd, because usually my dreams about Cain Shepney were strictly of the pleasurable variety. You know, the sort where you have to change your boxers after, and possibly the sheets as well…is that too much information? My mates are always telling me I over-share. Then they meet Lilith, and they realize that actually, I’m pretty reserved, considering. I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. Maybe if I tried to direct the dream a little, it’d go back to being good? “Mmm, Cain,” I murmured.

  “Look, just shut up, will you? And, and tell me who the fuck you are, where the fuck we are, and just how the hell I got here?” Cain’s voice got higher and higher, and cracked on the last word. It was a good thing this wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been good for his vocal chords.

  I sighed. “Look, it’s a dream, okay? Just relax, and it’ll turn into that one with the teddy bears and the novelty condoms.”

  “You’re completely insane,” Cain muttered. “And depraved. Seriously, teddy bears? I’m calling my manager.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But you’re giving me back my bloody duvet first.” I made a grab for it, and Cain sort of squeaked. We had a brief tussle, which ended with me victorious and Cain sprawled on his arse on the floor. My mouth went suddenly dry. Bloody hell, he was hung like a cart horse. “Can I dream, or can I dream?” I said, smugly. “You sure you don’t want to get back into bed?”

  “What was it?” he demanded, getting up and grabbing the phone off the bedside table. “Rohypnol? Or did you just spike my drinks? Hello? Neil? It’s me. Cain. I need you to send a car for me right now. And some clothes, all right? And yes, I know it’s practically Christmas! Seasonal sodding greetings!” He broke off to glare at me. “What’s the address?”

  It was about this time I started to wonder. I mean, he was acting like, well, Cain Shepney, if he’d woken up in my bed. The real Cain Shepney. And trust me, I’d had the dream version in bed with me often enough to know the difference. “Er, 25, Eden Place?” I said cautiously. “That’s St Albans, AL1 4OT, for the satnav.” I paused, then swung my legs out of bed. They felt like my real legs, not dream ones—I could tell, because my right ankle clicked when my foot hit the ground, where I’d broken it playing rugby. “Um, are you really Cain Shepney? My name’s Sam, by the way.”

  He stared at me, the phone seemingly forgotten in his hand, and then he nodded.

  I sighed. “Oh, bloody hell. Did my mum put you up to this?”

  * * * *

  A lot of blokes my age moan about their mums, but I reckon I’ve got more reason than most. Not that people tend to understand it when they first meet Lilith. That’s my mum. I started calling her by her first name when I was about eighteen, and people started asking whether we were twins, and if not, which of us was older. It’s a bit creepy, really—I’ve got pictures of her with me as a baby, and she hasn’t aged a day since. Not one day. The only saving grace is at least we look a lot alike, so people are more likely to assume she’s my sister than my girlfriend.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love her and all, she’s my mum—but sometimes I just wish she’d get middle-aged spread, or go grey, or start buying frumpy clothes from catalogues like all the other mums. Just, you know, be a bit more normal? Not go round in tight jeans and a crop top, showing her tattoos and picking up blokes my age.

  I’ve never met my dad. Don’t know what he did, but Lilith said he had friends in high places. They split up when I was a baby, and he married some other woman. Lilith never talks much about him, but I wouldn’t fancy being in his shoes if she ever bumped into him again. I reckon I must take after him. Not the looks, obviously, unless Lilith actually had a kid with a bloke who looked like her brother, which is just way too creepy to even think about.

  I’m pretty sure he wasn’t actually her brother…Nope, not going there. But anyway, I reckon I must be a bit of a disappointment to her, personality-wise. I mean, Lilith’s got this whole rock-chick thing going on—or do I mean hippy-chick? I’ve never been all that up on chicks—different bloke every night, partying ‘til dawn, getting wasted on booze and drugs then getting up bright and early in the morning to go collect magic mushrooms in the morning dew.

  Me, I get hungover on half a lager shandy, and although I look all right—tall, thin, high cheekbones and wicked cool haircut, courtesy of Lilith, of course—I’m just not into clubbing and partying and stuff. I work at the animal rescue centre, mucking out cages and bottle-feeding hedgehogs. I like it. It’s peaceful, and the animals don’t take one look at you and expect you to be something you’re not. Not one of them, just to pick an example completely at random, has ever been out with me once, shagged me, dumped me and turned up, a bit shame-faced, to take my mother out the very next evening.

  Not one.

  * * * *

  I swung my legs off the bed, glad I’d slept in my boxers. “Um. Would you like some breakfast while you wait?”

  Cain glared at me. “You think I’m eating or drinking anything you give me? I should have you arrested. Bloody date-rapist!”

  We both jum
ped when the phone rang. Cain snatched it up. “Hello?” His face drained of colour, completing the Goth look. “What? What the hell do you—? No, of course it’s not a bloody hoax! Well, did she check? Neil? Neil?” Cain stared at the phone for a moment, then put it down without looking. It missed the bedside table and hit the carpet with a dull thud.

  “Look, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here,” I said cautiously, “but—car not coming, after all?”

  Cain looked at me, his eyes deep pits of despair, blacker than the kohl that surrounded them. “He said he’d rung my mum, and she’d told him the real Cain Shepney was snoring in his bed over at hers, just like he was supposed to be.”

  I gave him a sympathetic grimace. “Mothers, eh? Look, you’ve got this all wrong, you know. I haven’t got a clue how you ended up here, either. And, you know, I don’t think anything actually happened last night.” At least, I bloody well hoped it hadn’t. I’d be gutted if I’d shagged Cain Shepney and then forgotten all about it. And I’d seen enough to be damn sure I’d have remembered it if he’d shagged me.

  I stood up and stretched. Cain stepped back and pulled the duvet more tightly around himself. Possibly because, standing up, I was taller than him by around a foot. Or, you know, it could have been the raging stiffy that was doing its best to poke through my boxers in a way that could, in the circs, conceivably be viewed as threatening. “Er, sorry about that,” I said, looking down. “It’ll go away in a mo. I just need to think about my mother for a bit.”

  “You sick bastard,” he muttered.

  “Hey, not fair! Sick would be thinking about my mother to get a stiffy—” Oh, fuck. Thinking of Lilith had made me remember that bloody doll.

  * * * *

  She’d given it to me the previous night. “Happy Solstice,” she said, handing me a six-inch package tied up with green ribbon. “Go on, open it!”

  I hefted it in my hand. “It’s not a sex toy, is it?”

  Lilith tapped her foot. “Honestly, do you think I never listen to what you say?”

  We’d had a bit of a bust-up over my nineteenth birthday present, which had been a box containing, among other things, fur-lined handcuffs, nipple clamps, and a terrifyingly large purple dildo. And she hadn’t warned me. Even two years on, I wanted to curl up and die at the memory of opening it in front of my then boyfriend and his rather conservative mother and father, in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Needless to say, the boyfriend and I split up well before I reached twenty. Although come to think of it, I had managed to snag a date with one of the more adventurous of the waiters.

  Nervously I pulled at the ribbon, which slithered open like a snake uncoiling. Lilith always wraps parcels the old-fashioned way, no sticky tape involved—in fact, when I first saw the stuff at a friend’s house I had to be told what it was, which gave my small group of mates ample material to laugh at me about for years afterwards. And yes, before you ask, Lilith homeschooled me until I was ten, although as far as I remember there never seemed to be a lot of “school” involved. Plenty of cookery, though, and growing herbs of dubious legality on my bedroom windowsill. And I could spot a magic mushroom at ten paces, and roll a spliff before I could talk.

  Anyway, I unwrapped the thing. And stared. “It’s a Cain Shepney doll,” I said at last. And okay, stating the obvious, but with Lilith you never really know.”You do realize I’m not twelve any more, don’t you?”

  “Of course, silly! But you do like Cain Shepney, don’t you?” She grinned and elbowed me in the ribs. I could feel the blush spreading over my face. I mean, I’m twenty-one years old; it is definitely Not Cool to have a crush on a pop star. But there was just something about Cain, with his tight leather trousers, his spiky black hair, boyishly cute face and enough eyeliner to stock a medium sized Boots makeup counter.

  But it was more than just his looks. There was just something about him—the way he seemed to love what he was doing, the way he smiled at the camera as if to say he couldn’t believe he’d got so lucky. He just seemed more…real, than other pop stars. Plus he was actually gay, meaning it was theoretically possible we might one day get together, if you don’t mind talking about probabilities so minute you have to use the word “nano” to describe them. So yeah, I had a bit of a thing for Cain Shepney. Didn’t mean I wanted a doll of him. If it had been life-size, maybe…

  “—are you even listening to me, Sam?”

  “Er, yeah?” I said guiltily.

  Lilith rolled her eyes. “Okay. The short version. Tonight is the winter solstice; barriers between worlds are weakened; shit happens that makes a bad acid trip look like Disney’s Fantasia; you need to put little Cain on your pillow when you go to bed and—this is the really important bit—make sure you dream about him.”

  “And why is this so important?”

  She fiddled with the bit of discarded ribbon, which coiled round her wrist lovingly as if it were alive. “Just a little bit of mother’s magic, to help her darling find love.”

  Yeah, right. I eyed the doll dubiously. “Not sure dreaming about little Cain’d do me much good, anyway. I bet you anything they don’t make them anatomically correct.” I pulled his little fake-leather trousers down. “Nope. Fresh from Eunuchs-R-Us, poor sod.”

  “Which is why you need to use your imagination, silly. I’m sure you can dream up something to supply the lack. You do remember Ken, don’t you?” I cringed as she gave a wicked grin. Ken was the bastard who’d left me for her, and while I wasn’t exactly devastated by his loss I’d rather not be reminded I’d been shagged by the same bloke as my mum. “Just think of his very generous endowments—I know I do, frequently—and size down accordingly. Oh—and I got you these, to help fuel your dreams.”

  She grinned, and held out a stack of DVDs and magazines I’d have sworn hadn’t been in the house moments before. All featuring a certain black-haired, fresh-faced young pop star, naturally.

  “Um, thanks,” I said, actually meaning it a bit. “Oh, but I’ve got this one already.” I handed the mag back, but she didn’t take it.

  “Oh, I threw the old one out for you. The pages in the middle were all stuck together. You know, I hear some guys jerk off into a sock to stop that happening. Now, I’ve got to go, darling. Ken’s taking me out to a gig, so have a nice night—and wicked dreams! And make sure you come round to mine and tell me all about them tomorrow!”

  If there’s reincarnation, I swear I’m coming back as an earthworm. And it’ll be an improvement.

  * * * *

  I looked quickly back at my bed, which with Cain—real, big, life-size Cain—having grabbed back the duvet, was horribly bare of any kind of cover, even the very small amount required by a six inch high Cain Shepney doll. If he saw that, real Cain would hit the bloody ceiling. No sign of it though, thank God. Must have fallen out of bed. Any minute now one of us would probably step on it—don’t look at the floor, don’t look at the floor…“Right,” I said briskly. “Let’s get some clothes on and I’ll make some coffee—and taste it first, so you know it’s not spiked—and then I’ll give you a lift wherever you want to go, all right?”

  Cain nodded slowly. “All right. But if you come anywhere near me I’m calling the police, you got that?”

  “Well, yeah, okay—but just remember it’s a small house. If you’re going for a ten foot exclusion zone, you’re going to have to go next door.”

  I edged round him to the wardrobe, breathing a silent prayer of thanks that we were the right side of laundry day. “Um, do you want to borrow my underwear? Because I’d understand if not. I mean, clean stuff, obviously, not the ones I’ve got on, although they’re pretty clean, too, it’s not like I jerked off in them or anything…” I trailed off at Cain’s traumatised look.

  “How did we meet?” he asked, with a tone of total incredulity, his eyebrows almost vanishing into his hairline. “I can’t remember going out last night—and you’re not even my type,” he added with unnecessary harshness.

  “Story of my lif
e.” I gave a fake laugh. “Here, try these on. You’ll have to roll them up a bit, but they shouldn’t actually fall off or anything.”

  “Right.” He grabbed hold of the jeans I passed him and stood there for a mo, obviously trying to work out how to get them on without dropping the duvet and giving me a free flash of the clearly classified Shepney family jewels. I turned my back pointedly and pulled on my best jeans, the ones Lilith bought me that always get me a frightening amount of attention when I go out in them, which is why I rarely do. But what the hell, this was Cain Shepney, and he’d already made it perfectly clear he wouldn’t touch my arse with a proverbial, so I was probably safe. I topped them off with a vintage Grateful Dead t-shirt, and turned round hurriedly, it having suddenly occurred to me that someone as paranoid as Cain seemed to be right now might well have taken the opportunity to bash me over the head with a lamp or something.

  Cain was just standing there, looking beyond adorable in just my rolled-up jeans and his tatts. And the nipple ring, of course, which glinted enticingly in the morning sun that filtered through the curtains, just begging for me to give it a little tug—”Can I have a shirt now, please?” Cain asked shortly, folding his hands over his chest.

  “Right. Shirt,” I mumbled, turning back to the wardrobe. I handed over my favourite Queen one with mixed feelings—I’d probably never see it again, but at least I could dream of Cain wearing it next to his skin…In the unlikely event he didn’t just burn everything that reminded him of me, of course.

  “Thanks,” he said curtly, pulling it over his head. That lovely hair flattened for a moment, then sprang back into place as it emerged from the neck hole, the effect only slightly spoiled by the deeply suspicious look that emerged underneath it as Cain realized I was staring at him again.

  “Coffee!” I said just a bit too loudly, trying to clear my head of all thoughts of kissing those pouty red lips, which were at the moment veering dangerously close to snarl territory. “And then you can ring your mum, and get this all sorted out,” I added. After which I’d be ringing mine, because although I still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, it had Lilith’s signature all over it.