Annie CXX: Your beep is important to us...

(Chronological index: Raynnie, Dennet dating)

Ray was rubbing the spices into the meat when Denise knocked on his door. He waved them in, holding his hands over the raw meat.

Denise came in, carrying Pet before her, but close to her body. Both of them looked around the kitchen anxiously.

The couple kissed, and Ray welcomed Pet.

"Where's, uh, where's Annie, Ray?" Denise asked.

"I haven't seen her for a while," he said. "You can call. I'm just about to put the tenderloins onto the barbecue, but I'm sure she's around.

"For that matter," he said softly, "she should have come running out when you drove up."

"She isn't being punished, is she?" Pet asked. "For anything she's...done? Notthatshedidn'tdoitwell! " she added quickly. Denise rubbed Pet's back supportively.

"Oh-oh," Ray muttered. He eased the pork onto a platter and moved to wash his hands. "What has she done, now?"

"Nothing!" Pet said, still looking around at floor level. Ray nodded, wiped his hands on a towel and moved to the counter that had the pass-thru to the dining room. There he lifted the towel off of the answering machine. There was a light blinking.

Without checking the message, he opened the control panel and replayed machine's greeting.

Annie's voice belted out of the speaker. [i]"Help! Help! He’s forcing me to record his answering machine message! After the beep, PLEASE tell him I left a good message, or he’ll make me wear puce!"[/i]

He smiled and shook his head. Pet chewed her lower lip as he took the tape out of the machine and placed it next to the speaker.

"Annie is fine, Pet. She does this to amuse herself from time to time." Pet smiled back but it looked a little forced. Ray nodded.

He opened a drawer next to the oven and pulled out a plastic box. "I'm going outside to start the meat. You guys should play these tapes in the machine."

"Need help?" Denise asked.

"I've got this," he said. "You can come out when you've heard all the messages. It'll help Pet put it all in perspective."

"Thanks," Denise said. Ray's attention to her sylph always struck her as a nice surprise. Too many dates had either ignored the young pet or tried to use Pet to get into Denise's pants. Few treated her like anything but an extension of Denise.

Ray treated Pet at least as well as he treated Annie. Without the discipline, of course, but Pet didn't need it all that much.

So she poured them each a drink, sat where she could look through the window to see the chef, and started playing the tapes.

[i]"We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should answer the phone. Suddenly, there was a terrible beep coming from all around us, and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and beeping and diving around the phone, and a voice in the distance was screaming: Holy Snake Knots! What are these damned animals? And then it was silent. And Master, he said: Annie? Did you say something? And I said, No, sir. No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will hear the beep soon enough. [/i](lengthy silence) [i]*BEEP*"[/i]

[i]

"Whoops! You missed us. We’re at the vet’s. Seems I’m smarter than Ray and the inglorious masterd can’t stand that. And since he can’t make his brain bigger, they’re going to shave mind down a notch. Leave a message, but please, I warn you, try no tto sound smarter than Ray. For your own sake."[/i]

"He kept that one?" Pet asked softly.

"He kept all of them, I think," Denise said.

"I could never say I was smarter than you, Denny."

"I could never say I was jealous if it turns out that you are, Pet," Denise replied. Pet gave her a knuckle hug.

"(really loud) [i]HEY! CHEMISTRY IS FUN! WE CAN’T COME TO THE PHONE BECAUSE WE”RE CLEANING UP THE DAMAGE! DO NOT COME OVER UNTIL YOU HEAR THE ALL CLEAR WHISTLE. AND THIS BEEP COMING UP? THAT IS NOT THE ALL CLEAR WHISTLE!"[/i]

[i]" Captain’s Log, Stardate...hang on, let me roll the dice. Stardate 11111. Oh! Yahtzee! Cool. "[/i]

[i]"Captain’s Log, Stardate...2345.6 The ship is currently suffering a strange dimensional overlap with an entity known only as Master. The Master seems to predate upon helpless, beautiful women. We are attempting to find a way to contact this ‘master’ and blow his ass to smithereens and put his ‘sylph’ in charge of the ship’s chocolate supply. Unfortunately, we’ve only been able to interrupt four extra dimensional telemarketers. Hopefully the next ‘beep’ will give us information we can use for targeting the torpedo."[/i]

[i]

"Hello, this is the Foster residence. We can’t come to the phone right now, because I’m a sylph and Ray is still recovering from rather extensive surgery. Leave a message at the beep and as soon as the swelling goes down, he’ll return your call. Oh, and update your Christmas Card list. Ray is now ‘Veroinica.’"[/i]

"The surgery changed his name?" Pet asked.

"Like Ms. Cadolfo?" Denise reminded her.

"Oh. OH! Ooooooh!"

[i]

"Hello. I just HAVE to tell you about my day. I’m a sylph, so every morning I get up and sit in my cage. (long silence) And that’s MY day! What was your incredibly riveting message you just had to share?"

There was one tape marked 'only one incoming.' Denise shrugged and plugged it in. "You know what my favorite answering machine message was? ‘You’ve reached’ and he gave his phone number, you know, and then said ‘Why?’ Because really, what else do you need, am I right? It’s the 80’s. We all know what answering machines are and do and sound like and there’s enough there to know if you go the wrong number, and an invitation to leave the message. Not a long, boring discussion of where we might be, or why we’re not answering the phone, or some suggestion that we ARE home so burglars can’t feel assured that we’re gone by calling us. And no cutesy celebrity one liners. Simple, direct, efficient. All you really need, know what I’m saying? Some of these people, they go on and on and I’m practically waiting for some guy in a cheap suit to come in from the side and say, “That’s why you need the New!’ and then sell me a product that’ll solve protracted phone machine messages. Some people change the recording every season and it’s like a bloody family infomercial. And on those digital machines, there’s no upper limit for the amount of blah-blah-blahbity-blah! At least on an old fashioned tape-driven machine there’s an automatic cutoff when the message exceeds *BEEP!*

"Hi! Lord and Master can’t interrupt the ritual to answer the phone, but once the Lord and Lady accept the sacrifice, and grant their holy boon, placing Master on the Earth’s throne to oversee all humanity’s return to the Proper Religion... Well, by then your message probably won’t matter so much, will it? But, hey, leave it anyway. He may have gotten some of the ritual wrong. Here’s hoping, huh?"

"NO! Not the BORER WORMS! *BEEP!*"[/i]

"EEK!"

"It's okay, Pet," Denise said. "It's a line from Flash Gordon, remember?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah...."

[i]

"Hi! You’ve reached 1-800-NEW-CASH. We’ve got some fresh $20 bills rolling in the dryer for that nice, relaxing ‘circulated’ feel. Our regular subscribers will receive their shipments by the end of the week. New customers should contact our business office before trying to access their accounts at this number. And Treasury Department employees should ignore this message and, um, wrong number. Sorry!"[/i]

Pet giggled at the idea of the Treasuryers ignoring the message.

[i]

"Heep biggie Master, him Bwana, him no home. Good fella, Bwana, him return message quick-like, you bet. After tone, talkie-talk into the speakpiece for whatta you want from Bwana." Denise laughed outloud. Despite the grammar, the entire thing was done in a very lofty British accent.

"Hello, this is Annie, Ray’s phone-service-sylph. Be sure to compliment me in your message or I’ll delete it before Ray gets home. "[/i]

"She would, too," Pet nodded.

[i]

"Hello, you have reached the phone of RAYMOND FOSTER. If this is about the orgy, please let us know what to bring and what to wear. If this is about his account at Adult Video, he will return the slave-women movies on the Saturday following your call, and the zombie fetish stuff on the next Monday. If this is about... that thing... Tell us where you left... the thing... and we’ll leave the money in the usual stall at the bus station. If this is Mom and/or Dad, Ray is being a good boy and you shouldn’t worry. DON’T VISIT! But don’t worry.

"Hello. No one can come to the phone right now because Ray is at work and Annie is watching CSPAN as the leaders of this once great nation discuss sylph rights. Leave a message at the tone and I’ll get back to you when the debate is over. Please be prepared for my mood at that time.

"Hi. This is Annie. I can’t reach the phone, but I’m probably on the floor under the machine. Please speak LOUDLY and CLEARLY and state your business. And chances are, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it until Master gets home."[/i]

"That's it," Denise said. She restored the original tape and put the rest back in the box. "I'm going to go hug Ray for being wonderfully tolerant of his sylph."

"Yay!" Pet said. "I'm going to look for Annie!"

"And tell her what?"

"That she's FUNNY!"

"Okay." She helped Pet to the ground, then went outside. Pet turned a slow circle in the doorway. She spotted Annie leaning against one table leg.

"You're funny!" she shouted, running across the floor to her friend.

"I am, aren't I?" the other sylph admitted. They hugged and Pet tried to describe her forty favorite lines.

Annie listened, then asked, "You wanna help me make another one?"

"Can we?"

"Pet, if Ray didn't want me to, he'd have moved the machine years ago."

"Years?" Pet asked. "I thought you'd just gotten silly for one day! And were hiding from the puce!"

"Nah. Whenever the mood strikes." She started walking towards the rope ladder up to the kitchen counter. "Let's see. How'd you like to be a pirate, Pet?"

"Arrrgh?" Pet asked.

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