JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Artwork by Jason Moss. Used with permission.

The Defenestrations
Chapter 5C
by Roni Matienzo

For mature audiences

1.

“Ma’am?” Melissa tried to make sense of what Teepee was saying. Then she laughed at herself for trying to understand the insane.

“Hija, muchas gracias for everything. I need to go as I’m famished!” Teepee left before Melissa could say anything.

Teepee proceeded to the über chichi Chez Manille in the next building and ordered enough food to feed an orphanage. She was staring at a head of salmon when one of the waiters approached her. “Uhm, Ma’am, is there anything I can help you with? It’s just that you have been here for four hours…Perhaps you want dessert? Or the bill?” It occurred to Teepee that Inigo never paid for his meals, there were people who vied for the honor. She had connections, her family had influence, therefore she was an influencer and could refuse to pay for a whole salmon when they’d only served half.

“Get me the manager, gar?on. I want to do an ex-deal.” She didn’t actually know what an ex-deal was, she only heard the term from Iñigo. Where was her bag, did she leave it in the car? She didn’t know where her keys were, either. Maybe Claudio had them. Claudio, her darling husband.

“Hi! Teepee, nice to see you again, amiga,” Lee the manager said. Knowing the names of all 500 members of Chez Manille and acting like they were all his close friends was his schtick. The Villa-Reals were old rich, but according to the grapevine the family fortunes were dwindling.

Illustration for Faust by Harry Clarke, @publicdomainrev

2.
Teepee was paying him no heed as she was distracted by a fly that had been buzzing around her head for the last hour. Maybe it was Iñigo trying to tell her something. She would give everything she had just to have her baby back again. “Amiga, is something wrong?”

“I’m not paying your restaurant a cent. I’m a Villa-Real and I won’t pay for trash.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It means that you should comp the meal since the food did not taste as good as advertised, and I won’t badmouth your restaurant in exchange. Also, your spittle is all over my Chanel sunglasses and they might be damaged from all the acid in your personality.”

“What the…? Just pay your packing bill! Pay. Your. Packing. Bill!” In his rage he forgot to enunciate the f-word and shed his pseudo-American accent altogether.

Teepee saw the fly enter Lee’s mouth.

“Are you just going to stand there? Where’s your wallet? Pay up!”

Teepee stared in horror as the fly multiplied and swarmed all over Lee’s face, then his body. The swarm ate all of Lee even as he continued to shout invectives at her. A single fly separated from the body and flew towards her. It landed on her vintage Patek Philippe watch. She took it off and threw it across the room. Another fly tried to land on her Harry Winston ring. She took it off and threw it as well. The swarm of flies that were formerly Lee caught it mid-air. She took off everything she could take off, including the La Perla set that she had made-to-measure. She dashed out the door before the swarm could eat her as well.

Artwork by Egon Schiele, @WikiCommons

3.

His name was Apinya Chadesakan. I learned his name post-coitus, after I took advantage of the hotel service that the Tawan Spa offered. God knows I tried to resist, but it was so long since I felt like a beautiful woman, and each smile he gave me told me that I was. I felt like this was how an x-rated high school romance should be, and I found myself addicted to the way he made me feel. I could go on and on about his smile, the way his eyes disappeared, the way he touched me, but to talk about him is to end it. I knew it was not love, I’m not a fool.

It ended when I received a condescending response to my email telling him I was pregnant. I was so angry I wished I was in Bangkok so I could push him out his apartment window.

Book cover from @publicdomainrev

4.

Melissa and her boss Nick Romero were outside their building when they saw a very naked Teepee running and laughing. “Oh my God! Boss, that’s Iñigo’s mother! This could be a PR nightmare! Help me get her!”

Melissa felt she should be given stock options, the way she’d saved the company’s ass today. Running after a crazy woman in the middle of BGC. They caught her, but could not find out where she left her clothes or her shoes. What were they supposed to do with the crazy woman?

What happens next?

A. Teepee is admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
B. Teepee is locked up at home until she comes to her senses.

Tune in next week for the continuation.

Treasure Island (2018), embroidery on sackcloth by Jay Lozada. Used with permission.

Have you been following our group novel? Have you caught up? Are you confused?

Good.

The Defenestrations is a novel by different authors: Jessica, Allan, Roni, Patrick, Deo, Don, PJ, Allan A, and many others. The core group is composed of people who went through Writing Boot Camp. We post a new chapter every week, in daily installments here, on @jessicazafrascats, and on this blog’s Facebook. At the end of each chapter, we give the readers two options to choose from. The option that gets the most votes will be posted first, and the other option will be posted the week after that.

In short, the novel is proceeding forwards and sideways, resulting in not one novel but several. Here’s a helpful chart.

Got that? Here are the previous chapters.

Version A

Chapter 1 by Jessica Zafra. In which our protagonist Iñigo Villa-Real, the latest in a long line of Villa-Reals who have fallen out of windows to their death, falls out of a window in Prague Castle in the Czech Republic.

Chapter 2A by Allan Carreon. In which Iñigo mysteriously lands in Chiang Mai, but despite having survived the fall is still douchey.

Chapter 3AB by Patrick Limcaco. In which Iñigo finds himself alone, hungry, penniless, with no identity and no knowledge of Thai, in Silom, Bangkok, and has to get a job.

Chapter 4A by Patrick Limcaco. In which Iñigo becomes an inept worker in the sex trade.

Version B

Chapter 2B by Roni Matienzo. In which Iñigo has died, and in Manila his mother Teepee must deal with the funeral arrangements.

Chapter 3BA by Deo Giga. In which Iñigo’s mother Teepee surveys the detritus of her social-climbing, and is haunted by her dead son.

Chapter 3BB by Angus Miranda. In which Iñigo’s mother Teepee goes mad with grief.

Chapter 4B by Don Jaucian. In which Iñigo is a ghost..or is he?

Chapter 4C by PJ Caña. In which poor Teepee’s life may be in danger.

Chapter 5C by Lord Fernandez. In which Teepee meets a mystery man who may or may not be her dead husband.

Yes, it’s kind of a surrealist exercise, inspired by Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch. I’m the general editor and I work with each author for the next chapter so the story doesn’t get too far away from us and turn into ungovernable chaos. Our goal is governable chaos, and to have fun while writing.

Ask him questions about your future and he will answer them here, on the Facebook page, or @jessicazafrascats.

The Baleful Head by Edward Burne-Jones, @WikiCommons

The Defenestrations
Chapter 5C
by Lord Fernandez

1.

“Mrs. Villa-Real, would you mind if we make a quick stop at our warehouse? I just need to grab something from my office.”

Teepee recognized the gray building as a warehouse. As far as warehouses were concerned, there was nothing special about it—except the absence of security guards.

“This warehouse is fully automated—we don’t need security guards because it’s locked electronically,” Nick explained, as if he’d anticipated Teepee’s question.
(more…)