Go Jim!/
Not so fast mister!

Martha was having a hard day. News of her plans to install a streaming web cam on her site had some how gotten out (it was probably that Jim Blau, he was alway a little too excited about this kind of stuff) and after 50,000 hits in 2 minutes, her site crashed. The first web-broadcast lily guilding would have to wait.

She sat quietly in her tastefully decorated home office and began to brood. "Damn that Jim," she thought, "that bad boy needs to be taught a lesson . . ."

Then Martha made the first steps to improving her day. She brewed a pot of chamomile tea, baked 3 dozen jam thumbprint cookies, carefully cleaned her red latex catsuit, and called Jim Blau.

"Jim? It's Martha. I need to talk to you right away. Can you come over? Yes? Oh, lovely. All right, half an hour. See you then."

Martha decided to use the time until Jim arrived profitably, so she pulled out some old cowhide she had been saving for a special occasion, crushed some cochineal bugs, dyed the leather a bright cheerful red, and stitched together a pair of lovely tall boots to match her catsuit. She was just pulling them on as the doorbell rang. It was Jim, right on time, as usual. He seemed hurried, and kept looking at his watch.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I can't come in. You see, I seem to have accidentally stumbled into the wrong story. I'm supposed to be in the next reality over, with Angelina Jolie."

He shoved a box of chocolates into Martha's elegantly, yet sensible, manicured hands and walked quickly away. "Sorry, running late," he said distractedly, pointing at his watch.

Martha slammed the door in disgust and stomped over to the couch. After sitting down, she noticed that the box of chocolates was already open, and that most of them had already been eaten. But Martha was not a woman easily discouraged; just yesterday she taught the whole world to sing, in perfect harmony. So while Jim was at the door she had Hobart, her Guatamalan debt peonage laborer, slash his tires. Jim tried to use his cell phone to call Triple A, but earlier that week Martha had refinished her wave scrambler system.

Jim walked back to the house where Martha was waiting for him. Little did he know that this was only the beginning.
           "Um, Martha? Some local hoodlum has rendered my car useless, and my cell phone doesn't seem to be working. I can't understand it." Jim stood on Martha's doorstep, looking remarkably like a lost puppy. A lost puppy in a leather jacket and sunglasses, true, but he made it look good somehow. "Can I borrow your car? I really have places to be!" He glanced at his watch yet again, in what was beginning to become a nervous habit.

Martha smiled sweetly, running one hand over her catsuit sleeve. "No problem, Jim, just step inside. I'll go get the keys."

He stood nervously just inside the door, awed by the intricacy and sheer order of Martha's entryway. The dried flower arrangements were just the beginning. He could hear an odd scuttling noise coming from behind one of the closed doors. It sounded remarkably like a very large squirrel. He shivered in spite of himself, flashbacks from his days at Smith College hovering on the edge of his consciousness. He wished he had a weapon of some kind.

Martha bustled into the room with a flat metal disc in her hand, engraved with indistinct markings. "Here we are, then. I don't think you've had experience with the kind of car I drive, so I'll take you wherever you need to be." She smiled broadly, anger and mischief warring in her eyes.

"Uh... All right..." Jim hesitated, still unnerved by the scuttling noises. They seemed to be getting louder.

"Wonderful!" Martha beamed and beckoned Jim towards her side door. He follwed her up a short flight of stairs and through a round silver portal. A pair of padded chairs was on the other side. "Now just make yourself comfortable," she said. He sat slowly down on one of the chairs and gasped as a set of safety straps shot out of the chair and tied him firmly down.

"All the latest technology, Jim. I'll bet you've never seen one of these before!" She hopped into the other seat, and he was somewhat relieved to see her get strapped in as well. She slid the disc into a handy opening, and settled into her seat as a deep rumbling began to shake the whole room. "And off we go!" she shouted above the din.

The last thing Jim saw out the window before he fainted was the roof of Martha's house, receeding below them.

When he woke up, Jim was alarmed to find himself strapped in a chair, apparently travelling through space (he thought he heard the theme from Star Track somewhere off in the background) and, unfortunately, at Martha's mercy.

Looking over, he noticed that Martha was no longer in her chair. He glanced around in terror, but could see nothing of Martha's whereabouts. But he could smell! The most delicious smelling meal was being prepared from somewhere behind him and to his left. He was startled when Martha's voice announced "Sorry, dearest, but dinner is almost ready. It just took me a while to grow the vegetables in the hydroponics lab."

Jim was now feeling a little more nervous. "Um, Martha? I don't suppose you could undo these straps and drop me off near home?"

Martha appeared in front of him. Wearing only an intricately looped and stunningly decorated sash. It almost covered everything it was supposed to, but somehow just didn't quite make it.

"I don't think I'll be letting you go just yet. You see, I'm not really Martha Stewart... at least not as you know her."
           "well, that's for damn sure," Jim thought as the domestic goddess approached him. Martha, surprisingly enough, was pretty hot stuff. That fact and whatever was happily cooking away in the kitchen smelled absolutely mouth watering was making it very hard for him to keep from drooling.

Martha saw the reaction in her captive, and smiled sweetly. "hmm," she mused aloud, "shall I have my wicked way with you now or wait until after dinner?"

Jim would have offered some helpful insight tho the dilemma, but in truth could not decide whether he wanted Martha to jump him or eat dinner first.

"Yes, perhaps dinner first." she smiled teasingly. "but then I have preparations to make." she disappeared from the room, leaving Jim to recover from his sensory overload. in about fifteen minutes she heard Martha's voice from the kitchen. "Oh, Jim, dear, you can come in now."

Jim pulled on his restraints, and to his surprise they came undone immediately. Stretching his sore muscles he wandered into the ktchen and stopped dead in his tracks. on the dining room table lay a sumtuous arragement of stir fried chicken, beef, and assorted vegetables with the occasional fruit thrown in. The food was laid out as a richly detailed mosaic depicting a forest scene where medieval hunters chased, and slaughtered a unicorn. this tapestry of food was also the only thing covering Martha's naked body.

Awed, starving, and aroused, Jim decided he had to escape as soon as possible. After all, he had a funny feeling that the whirring camera that hovered above his left shoulder was recording everything for an amused audience somewhere.

But before he escaped... Well, a fellow needed energy to fuel his daring escape, didn't he? And some of that food did look awfully inviting. He reached out delicately and swiped an apple from a convenient location next to Martha's lower left ribs.

"That's it, lover boy," Martha said in a low, sultry purr, "Eat up." She thrust her chest out, somehow not ruining the incredible scene she had created. Instead, her motion altered the lines subtly so that it now depicted the Garden of Eden. The apple was now missing from a centrally located tree in the scene. Jim hesitated with the apple inches from his lips. The scent of it filled his nostrils, evoking windy Massachusetts orchards in autumn. His stomach rumbled. His hand trembled. His salivary glands worked overtime.

Martha watched him with lustful abandon, her eyes riveted on the apple.

Jim's brain, which had until now been fogged with misdirected lust and near starvation, suddenly began turning over. (Maybe the saliva lubricated it, maybe not, but either way it was a timely intervention of sanity.) This was obviously not Martha Stewart. Or rather, no one had understood the true nature of Martha until this point. Maybe she had always been a lusty alien with incredible decorating skills. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot... But more to the point, why was she so intent on feeding him?

Jim had returned to sanity, but unfortunately not far enough, because before he could follow his train of thought any further, his arm overrode his better judgement and he bit into the apple. Martha smiled, sank through the table, and emerged underneath it fully clothed and looking very satisfied with herself.

"Well, Jim," she began, "You've fallen for my plan at last. My revenge is about to come to fruition." She laughed. "You are about to become one of us now..."

You too can add to the madness. What do you think should happen next? email your installment and send it to msfc@dragonsea.net, and we'll add it to the story!

Back to Collaborative Fantasy