Under Covers

  MYSTICAL SIGN: VIRGO

  UNDER COVERS

  BY

  LEIGH ELLWOOD

  www.VenusPress.com

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  UNDER COVERS

  Copyright © 2006 by Leigh Ellwood

  ISBN: 1-59836-373-5

  Cover Art © 2006 by Croco

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without permission, except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  For information, you can find us on the web at

  www.VenusPress.com

  Chapter One

  The scent of the cinnamon candy offered to me hadn’t the strength to pervade the room and mask the aroma of the obvious afternoon delight my editor, Yale Barnes, had enjoyed with his secretary. The notion of those two—she the poster child for Goth Chicks Anonymous and he the twin brother of Jabba the Hutt—bumping uglies amused as much as it disgusted me. Yale was at least twice her age to boot; proof of God’s existence, or not, depending on your view of how things work.

  I closed the office door behind me and had to stifle a laugh at the image conjured in my head of Yale’s hairy ass bobbing in coitus, Alissa’s spindly fishnet legs trying to hook together at the ankles. No, I’ve not seen the boss’ tush myself, but it had to be shaggier than carpet; there certainly wasn’t much on his head.

  Yale popped three tiny red pellets into his mouth. I could hear them clacking against his teeth in a disjointed melody. “What’s so damn funny?” he demanded.

  “Nothing.” The word came out singsong through twisted lips.

  Yale grunted and snapped the proffered tin shut. He gestured me to the free chair before his desk with the other hand. It was going to take more than three mints to mask the flavor of Goth pussy from his wife, but I elected not to be a smartass and suggest that. Snickering in his presence was close enough of a career killer, and for all I knew he was about to give me a raise.

  Instead, the first two words out of his mouth were, “Ellyn Grizzard.”

  Then came the smirk, the Cheshire grin of a cat with a speck of feather caught between his fangs. This was the look that precluded an exclusive for the paper—pure, unadulterated dirt.

  “No.” Not Ellyn Grizzard. Getting a raise would be preferable to digging up dirt and using it to bury Ellyn Grizzard. Getting fired would be preferable.

  I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach. Ellyn Grizzard is a revered name in my parents’ household. Ellyn Grizzard hosts a daily Christian worship program that is syndicated nationally, though her ministry headquarters is located not far from here. Her devotional books and tapes are reported to sell into the millions. Imagine Oprah genetically spliced with Mother Teresa, add a pink Chanel suit, and matching heels, then top the whole thing with a pouf of silver cotton candy for hair. Ellyn Grizzard.

  It isn’t all a facade, either. Despite the aesthetics, Ellyn Grizzard comes off as very sincere, and I suppose it is possible for some people to look sincere and drive a Mercedes.

  Ellyn Grizzard collects canned goods and shoes for poor people. Ellyn Grizzard once sang “The Old Rugged Cross” with Johnny Cash, and used to have lunch with Billy Graham whenever he was in town.

  Far as the world was concerned, Ellyn Grizzard walked on water. The devious gleam in Yale’s eye insinuated that he wanted me, or rather Libby Hoffman, to grab Ellyn Grizzard by the ankles and pull. Yale wouldn’t insinuate such a thing, either, if there weren’t something concrete to prove.

  I cringed. Not Ellyn Grizzard. Scandalous behavior was only supposed to be indicative of male ministers, the Bakers and Swaggarts of this world. My mother would die to think that one of her idols might be hiding skeletons.

  “Ellyn Grizzard,” Yale continued, his head tilting at a confident angle, “is a great big bull dyke.”

  And maybe fucking them, too. Fucking butch, lesbo skeletons.

  “No.” That I could not believe. I had only seen the woman’s show one time, not by choice, and was subjected to a tearful thirty-minute explanation of why all homosexuals were doomed to wade without flotation devices in the Lake of Fire for all eternity unless they rejected temptations of the flesh. Her voice had such conviction; she quoted Scripture to back her claims, and actually thumped the damn Bible she was holding in time to the blinking phone number on the bottom of the screen.

  “Yes,” Yale insisted.

  “No,” I said vehemently.

  Yale nodded. “She’s a lesbo. A queer. A butch bitch. A friend of Dorothy.”

  “My mother goes to her church.”

  “She’s a breast woman, a carpet muncher, a sister of Sappho. Probably spells woman with a y and has a Melissa Etheridge CD in the dash of that Mercedes she bought with the tithes of a hundred little old ladies.”

  Did I mention Yale is an atheist? I doubt God believes in him either.

  “I don’t believe it.” I slumped further into the chair.

  “Believe it, girlie.” Yale stuck his fat hand into an open drawer and produced a tattered envelope. “Got a hot tip that ‘Miss Holier Than All of Us’ has been slumming the local dyke bars looking for the love that dare not speak its name.”

  “She better hope nobody says it on her show. It’s live you know, they can’t edit it out,” I muttered. This was something I could not picture. Ellyn Grizzard could have been one of the Golden Girls, if any of them had developed a habit of punctuating their speech with Praise Jesus in every other sentence. To hear this bit of alleged news was akin to learning that my eighty-year-old grandmother liked eating pussy. I shivered at the unbidden image burning in the back of my skull.

  “I hope not, either. If this lead pans out, I want the Spectator to scoop it before anyone else.” He upturned the envelope and three thin matchbooks fell to the desk. One was black and embossed in gold with a profile of a naked woman, not unlike she was of the truck mud flap variety. “Your cell has a camera feature, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Check the batteries and hit the bars. Try not to look conspicuous,” Yale said.

  I rolled my eyes. I only made my living as an undercover reporter, yet Yale never failed to coach me on a job I could do better than he had ever done. This is why Yale was the editor—he sits behind his desk and dictates. Then he shifts in his chair to allow Alissa deeper access when she’s kneeling underneath to suck his cock.

  “Good thing I had my khakis pressed,” I muttered, but he wasn’t listening.

  “I’d like to have seven inches of copy before we go to press. Get to it.”

  I waited for the inevitable joke about Ellyn Grizzard needing a good seven inches herself, but Yale simply folded his hands on the desk. No jokes, that meant business.

  I slid the matchbooks toward me and turned them in my palm. In three days I had to patronize such aptly named establishments as the Grecian Urn, Club Virgo, and Uncle Marge’s, all because of a tip claiming that maybe some senior citizen evangelist was grazing on the other side of the fence, fields in which I had never thought to step. Surely our readership would be more interested in seeing pictures of a sweet potato that looked like Paris Hilton. We had three submitted just this morning.
<
br />   The look on Yale’s face, the silent, urgent command that I take my assignment and get the hell out of his office, told me different. He was a man of few words, preferring to reserve his energy for the computer keyboard, and apparently for whatever he did with Alissa. My rebuttal went unspoken as his chubby finger pointed the way out his door to these greener pastures inhabited by women with crew cuts and Birkenstock sandals.

  Chapter Two

  My name is not Libby Hoffman. I picked that name out of the air. Actually, I have television to thank—in thinking of potential pseudonyms to use for my column, I found myself one day flipping channels with abandon, eventually ricocheting between Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and a documentary on ’70s television advertising. Three years later, the Libby’s jingle still rings in my ears at the most inopportune of times.

  I am an investigative reporter for the Weekly Spectator, a statewide tabloid founded upon the premise of printing all the juicy, borderline libelous stuff one would not expect to find in a respected publication. My readers know me through my nom de plume, undercover whistleblower extraordinaire. Like I’d ever put my real name on some of the stuff I’ve written for this rag.

  You’ve heard of the movie Fletch, with Chevy Chase? That’s me, with tits. Plus, I like to think I’m intentionally funny.

  Despite an impressive circulation of over two million readers, half of whom are subscribers, I might add, the offices of the Spectator hardly look representative of the money it makes. The air conditioning system, clearly installed by Satan himself, decided on that peak, balmy July afternoon to fail, leaving me sweating at my desk with barely the strength to pluck enough keys on my computer to update my resume. To the credit of the Spectator’s bigwigs, casual dress was not taboo, so at least nobody was sweltering in a three-piece suit.

  Mark Grimes, seated at the desk next to mine, certainly was feeling no pain with his portable fan turned on high and aimed at his chest. In lieu of lunch, he used the gym in the building’s ground floor reserved for all building clients. It was clearly an arrangement that benefited the both of us—Mark’s dedication to exercise resulted in a gorgeous body over which I could drool. That he had not changed from his tight, orange Miami Dolphins shirt and green shorts, allowing a grand view of the bulge underneath, only fueled further my fantasies of him.

  Spread-eagled on my desk, Mark kneeling before me with his tongue wrapped around my clit, fingering my pussy… The thought easily doubled the room temperature. And, as Mark would point out, it did little for my computer skills.

  He scooted his chair towards mine to read over my shoulder, a smile lighting his blue eyes as he shook his full mane of black hair. “Nobody’s going to hire a journalist who can’t even spell the name of the school that bestowed her degree.” He laughed.

  “Huh?” My gaze returned to the screen, which was filled with numerous spelling errors. My own name for one. McDonald’s would not hire the person submitting this.

  I closed the document and sighed. Damn Mark’s bulging cock and silver tongue, and the sweat of a hard workout glistening on his rippled arm muscles. He looked good enough to eat, even all sticky and sweaty.

  I shook my head. True, I was lolling through some downtime, but I needed to focus on work. “You turn in your piece yet?” I asked.

  Mark’s latest assignment was an interview with a woman claiming to be pregnant by a vampire. Bullshit, of course, but thanks to Buffy and her TV cohorts, this kind of bullshit sold papers, which in turn tempted enough advertisers to contract with us for years. We, in turn, are kept out of the unemployment line.

  “Just turned it in.” Mark drove the point home by rolling back to his desk and pressing the send command to transport his story via e-mail to Yale. He leaned back in his chair. “I think it’s the best one yet.”

  I laughed. “Come on! Two more articles like that, and you can compile them into a science fiction novel.”

  Mark shrugged “Well, it’s at least as entertaining as my pieces about the body snatchers living underneath the mall—oh, and the shape shifters secretly plotting with the governor.”

  “Yes, we can’t forget them,” I said dryly. The Weekly Spectator maintains a strict equal-time policy for all spooks.

  “How about you? What irons smolder in your fire?”

  I nodded toward Yale’s closed office door. Alissa had been summoned a few minutes ago. Mark and I watched their two silhouettes tangle on the frosted glass. Quite a bit of activity going on in there, and it hardly looked journalistic. “He gave me my assignment, hence my desire to jump ship.”

  Mark winced. “More celebrity sweet potatoes? A rutabaga, even?”

  I shook my head, already picturing the disappointment on my mother’s face upon learning her idol walked not on water, but with feet of clay. Big, lesbian clay. “No, what he gave me...was big.”

  “His cock, he wishes,” Mark snorted, and as I looked at him he laughed. “Oh, wait,” he rejoined quickly. “That’s probably the topic of his meeting with Alissa right now.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but that was as far as I got before Alissa burst from Yale’s office wearing a grin that could only have resulted from a quaking orgasm.

  It had been so long since I grinned like that. I wanted to grin like that right now. I wanted Mark to make me grin like that. Instead, I had to troll lesbian bars and fend off every Tonya, Dick, and Mary in a quest to out Ellyn Grizzard.

  Then a sobering thought surfaced. What if nobody hit on me? To be rejected by both sexes... What could be more humiliating than that?

  “Having a photo taken of yourself French kissing a sweet potato in a wig,” Mark supplied. I blinked. I hadn’t realized I asked that question out loud.

  Mark patted my shoulder. The mere touch rippled my insides. I twitched down below, as if my pussy demanded equal time as well. “You’ll do fine,” he said, as I finally revealed the assignment. “Besides, it’s not as if Yale asked you to investigate the bar scene in general. You don’t even like girls.”

  “No,” I agreed, “but it’s the principal of the thing. Wouldn’t you feel bad if a gay man told you that you hold no sexual appeal?”

  “I’ll let you know if it happens.”

  I propped my elbow on my desk and rested my chin on my knuckles. “I wish I had your confidence.” And your hands squeezing my tits. “And your knack for finding stories.” And your cock in my pussy. “You ever gonna let me in on your secrets?”

  “No,” Mark said with mock haughtiness. “I want out of here as much as you. And you know that a good reporter never reveals his sources.”

  Too true, and Mark certainly had the best sources in the state. The vampire baby piece notwithstanding, Mark’s work with the Spectator was good, quality journalism. In the past three months, his investigative reports on corruption in the state college system, and corporate embezzlements had garnered national attention. A real newspaper would snatch him up soon.

  I looked at my computer screen and closed the resume. Perhaps, too, Ellyn Grizzard could be my ticket to a better job if I wrote it correctly. Although, a part of me still wanted the accusations against her to be false.

  With a heavy sigh I rose and started for the vending machines, allowing myself a glance at sexy Mark to sustain me during the short trip. His strong legs were propped up on his desk, the shirt pulled tightly across his chest.

  “You leaving early?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I still need to go downstairs and shower.”

  The room temperature went up again.

  * * * *

  Alissa, our office manager, is a pixie of a Goth girl with dyed black hair, favoring red, red lipstick and nails which appeared all the more brighter against her powder-doughnut skin. She must have noticed my forlorn expression as I padded past her desk.

  She reached out and cuffed my forearm with a red-tipped hand. “You all right?” she asked, her brown eyes liquid and concerned underneath mascara-thick lashes. “He didn’t fire you, did he?”
<
br />   She smelled like cinnamon cum. Now there’s a tasty treat.

  “Worse.” My palm uncurled to reveal the matchbooks. “He’s making me switch teams to boost our readership.”

  Alissa leaned over my hand and tapped the green cover emblazoned with a funky-looking symbol—it resembled a lower case m and p fused together. Club Virgo.

  It occurred to me then that I was a Virgo, having a late August birthday. I held up the matchbook. Next time somebody asked me what my sign was, I could give him this. Course, that didn’t seem likely to happen unless I found a time machine to take me back to 1973.

  Alissa’s chatter brought me out of my self-imposed misery. “Ooh, you should go there tonight,” she said. “Two-for-one drinks after eleven, and they have live music tonight. And park on the curb near the gas station, there’s always glass in the gravel lot out front. I cut a tire there once.”

  “Wha—?”

  She snapped her fingers. “Oh, and watch out for Lana. Tall, short blond hair, looks like Wesley from The Princess Bride, mustache and everything. Make eye contact and you’ll never get rid of her.”

  Humming, she turned back to her paperwork, unaware that my jaw had dropped to my chest in disbelief. How would Alissa know a thing like that?

  Walking away, the thought came to me that if Alissa was indeed dabbling in the Sapphic arts herself; it was probably her way of cleansing the palate before each future “meeting” with Yale.

  If that were true, would I meet any of Yale’s other lady friends at Club Virgo tonight?

  Chapter Three

  I needed to clear my head and work out my frustrations over my job. I was learning to hate it with a passion. Writing for the Spectator made me feel like I needed to scrub myself raw with Brillo pads every night. I was above reporting this kind of pulp; this was beyond yellow journalism, this was neon, industrial yellow. Blinding, macaroni and cheese yellow. Big Bird was never so yellow.