Death by Cliché by Bob Defendi Page A

the type to hang out in a tavern.”
    “I might surprise you.”
    “I doubt it.” He said casually. “I have you figured out.”
    “Oh, do you?”
    “I can read you like a game manual.”
    “And what do I say?”
    “Handle with care.”
    She laughed and groaned, then got back into character. “Then why aren’t you?”
    “I don’t like being told what to do.” He found the bad movie dialogue delicious. Up until that last line, she might have been giving Carl a hard time, playing him for a laugh. But that last line… Damico couldn’t be charming enough for it to show with Carl as a conduit, could he?
    She stared into his eyes, and he was just considering whether to transition into a more teasing mode when she rose to her feet. He met her gaze casually, a smile creeping across his lips.
    “I’m going to bed,” she said.
    “I have that effect on women.”
    She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, and he turned into it, meeting soft lips. It was amazing how soft. She lingered. When she pulled back, her eyes smiled down on him.
    “Good night,” she said.
    “I know it is.”
    She squinted at him, as if trying to figure him out, then she walked away. He watched her leave, but didn’t follow.
    When she was gone, he collapsed onto the table. He took a deep breath and groaned.
    He stood and headed toward his own room, but he stopped to look at Barmaid Barbie. She stared at him, her smile vacuous, her head tilted to one side, her eyes searching in horror.
    He walked back to her, his heart full from the kiss but aching in sympathy for this woman. She watched him approach and flipped her hair at him, her eyes still deeply disturbed.
    “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “But you can fight it.”
    The Barmaid looked at him, her eyes hardening now, her smile still vacuous. With what seemed like a supreme force of will, she nodded, the motion jerking and awkward. Damico understood so little of this, but felt somehow she’d won a personal victory. He hoped he’d had something to do with that.
    He walked away, stopping when he saw Lotianna had come back down the stairs.
    She stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed, watching. He thought she’d gotten the wrong impression, but then she smiled and nodded before walking up the stairs. Dammit, he’d passed another test.
    He grinned and headed to his own room. It’s none of your business whether or not he slept alone.
     

Chapter Thirteen
    “Where’s my thesaurus?”
    —Bob Defendi
     
    amico’s mind filled with dreams.
    This is typically the point in the novel where one of two things happen. Either I put in a dream I pass off as real life, tricking you into thinking something horrible is happening in a cheesy bait and switch, or else I toss in a dream full of deeper meanings and symbolism, laying out the deeper (I need a better word), darker meanings of this entire narrative.
    This narrative has no deeper ( dammit ), darker meaning.
    During Damico’s dream, he wandered through a palace made of corn chips, the tapestries and paintings woven from old report cards. The furniture was all naked women posed into living chairs, and in the background, his drunken grandmother sang a torch song.
    Keep your opinions to yourself, Doctor Freud.
    Sleep had felt good. It felt right. It felt exactly how sleep was supposed to feel, all sleepy and restful and such, which wasn’t surprising, he supposed. Damico had to inhabit a character of some kind, didn’t he? Characters in games and stories needed sleep just like anyone else. The Human characters, at any rate. So Damico had slept a solid night’s sleep, although in the real world, Carl had probably said something like. “You sleep that night. The next morning…”
    That next morning Damico woke alone, got dressed, and headed downstairs. Everyone else already gathered around the corner table, Gorthander working on a beer, Omar and Lotianna drinking juice. From the smell, the juice was about seven proof down