Who Is Brian Quinn?

Fake Fur - The Gimp - To Die in a Dream

Reggie inspected his sleeping wife's face by lamplight then held the last remaining gold ring up to his eye. The ring he'd found on that finger, the ring that started it all, pulled from the river. He let his gaze wander over the strange writing, indecipherable squiggles like hieroglyphs. He sniffed and lay back on his pillow.

The thin long cut on his wife's jaw bothered him. Where had it come from? According to her she'd been here all day, sleeping. His visit to the station had proven unnerving. "This is all screwy," he murmured to himself. Come morning, I'll ask Madge about the ring, about her cut, he thought.

She must have tried the ring on, he said to himself. Put the ring on and who knows what happened. Need to find a better hiding place for important stuff, he thought. She knows about the shoe.

For a while he lay wondering, imagining where the ring might have taken his wife. Finally, the heaviness overtook him and he slept.

When Reggie awoke the next morning the sun was up and his wife was gone. Her side of the bed felt cold, like she hadn't been there all night. Reggie opened his hand, the hand that had closed upon the ring when he'd fallen asleep. Gone. The ring was gone. He swore and jumped out of bed.

Madge blinked. This time she knew what to expect. This time she knew where to go. She wore a pair of tall white leather boots that reached nearly to her thighs, a tight pink stretch top and a g-string. Her hair sat stacked upon her head, a bright blond pile of hairspray and bangs. She stuck a long curling fingernail, lacquered white, to her mouth and bit the nail absently. Standing in a dimly lit hallway she could hear voices behind the door. From further down the hall came the pulsing sounds of dance music.

"He's here, I seen him," a man's voice, muffled came from behind a battered door with a KEEP OUT sign. Madge stood head cocked, listening, trying to catch the words. "Well," began a slightly smaller, higher pitched voice. "If he is, then we're presented with a number of choices."

Sounds like a child, she thought.

Suddenly a paper thin shape came around the corner, casting a gaunt shadow. "Evie," came a wispy female voice. "What are you doing? You're almost up. Mandy just got off. She nearly got pulled. That lawyer from Denver's back and he's trashed."

Madge exhaled quickly and moved away from the door. "Okay," she breathed and walked toward the girl standing motionless in the hallway. Madge pushed a finger into the strap of her g-string and snapped it against her waist sighing.

Suddenly the door behind her swung open, emitting a bright red light. A towering man in a dark suit stood in the hallway. "You," he called. "Come here."

Madge turned, her breathing quickened, causing her chest to tighten against the tight sheer top she wore.

He seemed all shadow, standing with the light from the open door at his back. She couldn't make out any features, but she knew who it was, his hulking frame left no doubt. She suddenly wished Reggie was here.

He's still sleeping, she thought. Maybe awake. Wondering where I am. I wish I knew.

This second visit of hers had only been partially voluntary. She had felt compelled in ways she could not explain. Compelled to take the ring from Reggie's sleeping hand, to put it on her finger.

The day before, the day of her first visit, had been terribly disorienting to say the least. That shiny gold ring had been the cause of everything. Finding the ring in Reggie' shoe, thinking perhaps it was a gift meant for her, she'd tried it on. Instantly she had been gripped with a dizzying vertigo that seemed to swing her around like a rag doll, blurring her vision, skin tingling, a thick ringing in her ears, and then she found herself, or at least a reasonable facsimile of herself, seated on a red divan before a wide mirror. Her clothing had changed dramatically, her hair as well. She felt younger but somehow less fresh, sullied, like the worn shoe from which she'd pulled the ring. And the ring itself she noticed had disappeared from her finger. Gone.