The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“Hey, Jackie!” Bob wandered into Mac’s Bar about 6pm on Wednesday like he always did—just time enough to get one drink before the singing started.

The bartender, Jackie, already had his shot of Jagermeister and glass of Dr. Pepper chaser waiting for him at his corner spot. “Hey, Bob,” she answered with a smile. “How’d work go?”

He was glad he hadn’t downed the shot because he probably would’ve choked on it. He gave a heavy sigh. Some people were still getting off work, so it was probably just her standard line.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot,” she said. He’d lost his job a few weeks ago, something she should’ve remembered. Oh, well, she thought, there goes my tip. To make up for it, she bent down to give him a better look at her rather large boobs, which hung a bit out of her low-cut black blouse as was pretty normal for her. ‘What I lack in tact, I make up for in lact’ was one of her regular lines. It almost always worked. Bob knew what she was up to, but he wasn’t one to argue with the view and grinned as he pulled out a ten spot and laid it on the bar as they shared a familiar laugh. Bob was cool that way. It was one of the reasons everyone at Mac’s liked him and why he could still afford to make it in on Karaoke Night—there was usually someone else around to buy him drinks, especially if he did requested songs.

Bob took a sip of his soda to wash down the licoroce taste of the booze and glanced around the bar as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He noticed a few regulars sitting at the bar; the end of the Happy Hour crowd who didn’t sing but were there to take advantage of the cheap drinks—and the view, of course. Jackie was getting a beer from the cooler with one hand and sweeping back her dirty blonde hair with the other. She was a piece of work, Jackie was—hardened barfly turned bartender mainly because she made money from the booze instead of spending it. Not much of a singer, but then no one much cared so long as her shots were big and the mixed drinks were strong. Mac’s was essentially a dive bar where most people came to shoot the breeze with people they knew, pass the time between work and sleep, and basically get shit-faced drunk most every night of the week.

Wednesdays weren’t a whole lot different, except the drunks drank to lousy singing instead of the jukebox. It was a fairly older crowd, too, but that’s the way he liked it.

Bob took his soda in his hand and wandered over to the karaoke booth to see if Jerry, the regular “karaoke jockey,” was working. At first he didn’t see anyone at all. Music was playing from the loudspeakers on both sides of the stage, so someone was there, but it didn’t look like Jerry’s set-up. A pile of red mylar-covered notebooks were sitting on a nearby table and Bob picked one up, sat down and flipped through it to see what the new guy had in his song collection. Almost all of the karaoke outfits were computerized, so it was getting less and less usual to see detailed “books” anymore as most jockeys had just about everything on MP3 files and the books only served to give the singers an idea of what was available. Bob flipped through the pages once and smiled. For some strange reason, the book contained nothing but Beatles songs. He glanced through the other books on the table and laughed. They were all exactly the same. Nothing but Beatles songs.

Suddenly Bob jumped a foot in the air as he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, I only had room for the Beatles collection.” It was an oddly smooth voice, low and rumbling. A voice you remember. Bob wheeled around and stared at the man who had appeared quite suddenly behind him. “I have just about every song anyone would ever want to sing, but I find that some people still prefer to pretend that they are looking for the perfect song.” The hair on Bob’s arm began to tingle and it wasn’t because the Jager was starting to kick in. The dude was weird.

And he was weird in a way Bob wasn’t used to. Having been in the customer service industry for most of his working career, Bob knew all sorts of bizarre, but this guy was a special kind of strange. With little mad scientist glasses, a jet black goatee and a white polyester suit right out of Saturday Night Fever, he looked like someone an underground comic book artist might draw after a bad acid trip. He didn’t look like he belonged in the real world, much less in a salt o’ earth place like Mac’s Bar. Running a hand over extremely pale and totally bald head, the tall man peered down at Bob and grinned as if he were totally used to the reaction. “Oh, sorry if I, eh, frightened you,” he said, pausing in exactly the right place. Bob swore he could smell sulphur as the gaunt figure in front of him continued. “I get that a lot.”

“I, uh, bet you do.” Bob fought the urge to back away slowly. Again, being in the service industry for so long, he had a certain kind of immunity to bizarre. He smiled. “I don’t really need a book. I have a pretty good idea of what I like to sing.”

“Good, good,” the tall man rubbed his hands together and Bob imagined he saw sparks, but he figured that was probably the Jager kicking in. Or, rather, he hoped it was the Jager. The man stretched out his hand.

“By the way, I’m Lucifer.”

Before that could sink in, Bob had already extended his hand out of habit and Lucifer took hold and squeezed. Bob felt his toes curl and the Jager pool in his tummy and a warm fuzzy feeling ran up and down his spine. “Uh...yeah.”

“No, really,” Lucifer smiled. His teeth were white as white could be. “The Devil’s Karaoke.” He mercifully let go of Bob’s hand and lifted his arms up toward heaven. At just that time, the recorded music blaring through the bar stopped abruptly and Bob throught he heard the sound of thunder somewhere in the distance even though he remembered it being a perfectly clear day when he walked in. “I can make anyone sound good, and I do mean anyone!”

“Mmmhuuuh...” Bob continued grinning, more out of habit than anything else. “Good luck with that.” Then he turned quickly and walked to the bar as rapidly as his feet would work, fully expecting to hear demonic laughter chasing him. Bob was cursed with a pretty active imagination.

When he got back to the bar, he noticed that a few of the regular singers had wandered in while he’d been busy keeping the devil company. Ordinarily, he’d have gone down the bar and shook everyone’s hand, but meeting “Lucifer” had been just a tad bit much. He was used to strange people hanging out in karaoke bars, but he’d never met Satan before. At least not while sober. He jumped on the nearest stool and waved to Jackie. “Hey, Jackie, another shot down here, please.”

“What, you don’t say hello anymore?” Gloria stuck out her right hip and nudged him on his stool. She was both a regular and a singer. Well, more a regular than a singer. She only sang three songs and all three pretty badly, despite a lot of practice. She was already slurring her words and it was only fifteen past six.

“Oh, hi, Gloria. I was busy talking to, uh, Satan,” Bob snorted as Jackie poured his shot. He nodded towards Lucifer, who was busy checking his microphones. “Karaoke is the work of the devil, you know.”

“What happened to Jerry?” Gloria asked, plopping her ample backside on a stool next to Bob. There were a lot of ample backsides sitting along the bar at Mac’s. Both male and female. Let’s just say that it wasn’t exactly a pick-up spot. Did I mention the drinks were cheap?

“Jerry’s sick,” Jackie interrupted as she sat the shot glass in front of Bob. “Swine flu, I think.”

“Hey, Bob!” Sarah called out loudly from the other end of the bar. She was a regular’s regular at Mac’s. Every Wednesday, unless one of her favorite bands were in town, then all bets were off. “Nice to see you could join us tonight.” Bob grinned in her general direction and downed his shot. Sarah posessed yet another ample backside. And frontside. And pretty much every other side. Sixty years old, to be generous, Sarah had a nice voice and knew her songs, as well she should—she’d been singing the same stuff every week regularly for ten years. Not that he could fault her for that. He’d been doing the same since he was ten. Sometimes, music is just like that. He simply smiled back at her and she nodded at him, knowingly. A song ran through his head, as they always seemed to do.

“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” Story of his life. He felt the booze run down his throat and settle down there in his gut, in perfect harmony with Sir Paul of the clan McCartney. And he couldn’t help but hum along.

“All the lonely people, where do they all belong?”

He looked around the bar and he smiled. Let out a laugh, despite himself. And knew exactly what song he was going to start the night with.

“Hey, handsome, a penny for your thoughts?” He felt a hand around his waist and a head settle between his neck and right shoulder. The familiar voice whispered in his ear as soft as possible, considering a long life full of whiskey, smokes and dozens of failed telephone calls on the morning after empty nights of drunken passion. “Penny Lane for your thoughts?” crossed his mind for a moment, considering those silly karaoke books, then he remembered whom he was hearing.

He wrapped an arm around her soft (and oh so puffy) midsection, closed his eyes and sqeezed for all he was worth. “Hey, DeDe.” She laughed loud and hearty, a sound he never ever would tire of hearing. He wasn’t much for phone calls, but she knew and respected that and it never stopped her from knocking (loudly) on his apartment door at 2am or even later. And Bob always answered. He was good that way.

“So, what brings you to Mac’s so early?” Bob asked, pulling her closer. Deb worked the late shift at one of the local hospitals, making sure all the respectable citizens went home healthy to hug their respective children, husbands and wives. “Off tonight?”

“Playing hooky,” she giggled and ordered a double shot of Tuaca. “Besides, you know I could never pass up a chance to do duets wit’ you.” Upon downing her drink, she grabbed his arm and hustled him over to a corner table behind the pool tables. “Who’s the new KJ?”

“The Devil,” Bob snorted as he made one last look around the smokey bar while they walked. The regular singers were coming in ones and twos now and “Lucifer” was finishing up his sound check by playing an all-too familiar Rolling Stones song. “And he takes his job seriously, too,” Bob laughed as they settled into their chairs. He couldn’t resist the urge to sing along with Mick. “I’m a man of wealth and taste!”

Sure enough, after the host clicked on the microphone and turned down the background music, welcomed everyone to the bar, he introduced himself and launched right into his own karaoke version, complete with corny “hoo-hoos” in exactly the right places. About halfway through, Bob couldn’t help but nod along. “Damn, if he doesn’t fucking OWN that song.”

“Kind of scary, actually,” DeDe added. “Where in the HELL did he get that fucking ‘70s throwback suit?”

“Exactly.”

She looked at him blankly for a moment before she got the joke. “Oh, yeah. Haha.”

One by one, people in the bar walked, staggered or shuffled over to the KJ booth to pick up song slips from the table with the song books on it. Some would pick up a book, flip through it blankly, then ultimately walk up to talk with Lucifer about singing something other than Beatles songs. Bob would look over there on occassion just to see their reactions. Some were puzzled, but most came away with a smile. Whoever the new guy was, he had an oddly charming way about him that put even the more grizzled karaoke vets at ease. Probably had something to do with the fact that just about everything was computerized nowadays, which made just about every song request available. Or, at least that’s what Bob talked himself into believing. The alternative was just laughable, even to a guy with an overactive imagination...

First up, as always, was Sarah. Just because. After being called and introduced, she shuffled over to the stage, grabbed the mike from the stand and started swaying back and forth even before the music started. Bob smiled, expecting the opening of “Somebody’s Knocking” to start because....well, because it was the song she always sang first. So it caught his attention when she made an announcement. “I don’t usually do Beatles songs, but our new KJ has SUCH a nice smile. You might even call it ‘devliish.” She started to laugh at her own joke, but the music started and she had to hurry to catch up to the words on the screen in front of her—being a bit tipsy, she missed the opening chorus and had to come in on the verse...

“When I was younger, so much younger than today...”

DeDe stuck an elbow into Bob’s ribs, ableit a soft one. “That’s SO fucking cool.”

Bob nodded in agreement as he watched Sarah continue to try and catch up to the song. They’d both known Sarah for years, as did just about everyone who came into Mac’s regularly. It certainly was a departure for her. She’d been married three times in her 60+ years, overcome cancer and numerous lousy relationships, including one with her only child who hadn’t spoken to her in going on twenty years. Bob couldn’t get that chorus from “Elenor Rigby” out of his head...

In the middle of the song, DeDe and Bob both turned towards the main door because it slammed open so loudly that they could hear it over the guitars of whatever studio musician was subbing for George Harrison on whatever karaoke version Lucifer had selected. A couple of fairly rough-looking college guys had made their way into the bar and were gawking at Sarah on the stage, their mouths open in obvious disdain. One of the two was even holding his nose.

“Assholes,” DeDe spit it out. “Assholes,” she said again, just in case Bob hadn’t heard it the first time. When the song ended, she made a point of standing up when she applauded, looking directly at the bar with an expression that made Bob want to hide under the nearest table. DeDe was not one of those people you wanted to upset.

As Sarah shuffled back to her seat at the bar, Bob watched the boys as they settled at the other end and chatted with Jackie. They certainly looked out of place. The only time they saw a lot of the younger crowd was when the sports bar down the street started shutting down and the employees raced over to Mac’s to end their night. But that wouldn’t happen for another six hours or so...

Lucifer called Gloria up to the stage. Gloria was a stumbler, having been in the bar for several hours, but Bob figured she probably stumbled into Macs before she even got served her first beer of the day. Bob always felt a little bad for Gloria. She always came in with a younger, cuter friend and there were the requisite lesbian rumors. But anyone who paid any attention whatsoever knew better. Unfortunately for Gloria. Her friend, Monica was a real looker, despite her age and all the guys hit on her after they had downed a few. Which left Gloria out in the cold most nights. The killer was that Monica probably WAS a lesbian, and Gloria ran interference despite not being one herself. The whole thing was...complicated.

In any case, all Gloria knew were Janis Joplin songs. By the time “Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz” came out of her mouth, half the men at the bar were competing for Gloria’s old bar seat next to Monica and you could read the pain on Gloria’s weathered face.

“Prove that you love me and buy the next round

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a night on the town.”

When she finished, Gloria stumbled off the stage and took her time rambling back to her barstool which, of course, was terribly man-free by the time she got there, Monica having long since excused herself and was hiding in the women’s room.

Bob let out a heavy sigh just before he jumped onto the stage. He was plenty in the mood for “Elenor Rigby,” but smiled nonetheless. He was never happier than on the stage with a microphone in his hand, even when singing the saddest stuff imaginable. “Here’s one by Sir Paul. Don’t take it as an indictment of anyone I know,” he laughed, lying through his teeth.

“Ahhh, look at all the lonely people.”

Bob hardly ever looked at the screen, unless he was dead drunk or the karoake version of the song was a lousy Thai or Korean rush job. He had what the local karaoke junkies call a “phonographic memory.” Half the time he couldn’t remember where he put his car keys, but damn if his defective brain cells didn’t retain every word to “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps. Among others. Many others. If the mike was cordless, he’d even go so far as to wander off the stage to try and impress the ladies in the audience by kneeling down and singing to them. Especially if they were buying the drinks.

And his voice wasn’t all that shabby either. He generally closed his eyes as he sang, but during this one he made a point to look over the audience. The college boys had somehow made it over to the other end of the bar and were actually talking to Sarah, one on each side. Bob had to smile at that. Monica had even made her way out of the restroom and was watching him sing as she made her way back to the bar. He winked at her from the stage and nodded over to Gloria, who had another beer in her hand and was smiling at him as if forgiving him for the joke. Bob just had that kind of way about him. He just prayed she wouldn’t ask him to dance...because he couldn’t dance. And even if he did, DeDe would use it as an excuse to drag him out on the floor to embarrass himself again just because she could.

When the song was finished, Bob hopped down from the stage and skipped back over to DeDe and his Dr. Pepper. Next up was Eddie, the bar’s resident Elvis. He was actually quite good, having won his share of prizes at various Elvis contests all around the country. His voice projected well. As usual, upon the first tones of “Burning Love,” the bar broke out in one big collective sigh from the women, followed closely by a chorus of whoops and whistles. Eddie hadn’t worn any of his many costumes this night, but the heavy black sideburns and dark glasses were enough to set them all off. The man wasn’t Elvis (who is?), but he was magic in his own right. And like a lot of professional Elvis fans, he lived The King 24/7.

Bob took a sip of soda and was just starting to get into the show when he felt that eerie warm hand on his shoulder again. Lucifer leaned back against the wall and stared down at him, that white smile plastered on the lower half of his face. It must’ve been some wicked magic that allowed him to talk through it. “Damn, kid, that was pretty impressive. You really have a feel for the crowd.”

Bob shrugged. “I do what I can.” He turned back towards Eddie, who was gyrating his hips and making mad mojo Elvis love to the microphone. “There’s the main man.”

“I’m dead serious.” The KJ put his hand under his chin and winked, somehow managing to totally ignore Eddie’s electrical storm on stage. “I’ve done shows everywhere, everywhen, and everyhow. It’s one thing to put on a show, it’s another to be able to run it. To own it. You can go up there and sing to an audience, but you don’t truly OWN a crowd unless you understand it. That’s a rare talent, son.”

Bob tried his best to tune him out. He really WAS fascinated by the hold Eddie (and Elvis) had on an audience. All this talk about mental vibes and such was just bullshit. It was all physical. Sexual. A five-foot five skinny goofball with glasses just couldn’t compete, no matter how good his voice and how nice his demeanor. He’d learned that lesson the hard way over his fifty years...

“You’re dead wrong, my friend. Watch and learn.”

Bob somehow managed to hear every word of it over the roar of the crowd as Eddie left the stage with a wave and a “thankuverymuch.” It was almost like it wasn’t actually spoken. He stood up to applaud with the rest of the house and looked around for Lucifer, but the KJ was up on the stage bowing to Elvis and introducing DeDe, who gave Bob a quick pat on the butt as she sauntered over and grabbed the microphone. Bob finished off his soda and walked away from the stage towards the bar, shaking his head as he went. This was shaping up to be an extremely strange night.

His back to the stage, Bob stopped in mid-step when DeDe started in on a version of “Please Mr. Postman” that he’d not heard in thirty years. Where the fuck did this guy find a Beatles version on karaoke? Hell, she even swapped the genders without thinking.

“Man, is that the Beatles version?” It was like someone was reading his mind and as far as he knew, there was only one person on the planet who could get that far into his head. Bob swung around and almost fell over. Skip stood there in his felt hat, his attention divided between Bob and DeDe singing onstage. “How’s it going, Bob?”

“Daaaamn, man, where’d you come from?” Bob stared at the taller man before extending his hand. “Hell, I thought you were playing tonight!” Skip, DeDe and Bob were like the Three Muskateers of Karaoke. Any song, any place, any time. If they didn’t know it, they’d gladly fake it and between the three of them, sound damn good doing it. But Skip was a pro and played and sang in an actual band when he wasn’t slumming.

Like tonight, obviously.

“Show got cancelled. Fats got the swine flu, apparently.” Skip took Bob’s hand and shook the life out of it. “Called Deb and she said she was skipping out from work to be here. Kismet, baby!”

“Just fucking AMAZING!” Bob laughed and pointed towards the stage. “This new guy is...well, he’s an original. Thinks he’s the devil. He’s on a Beatles kick tonight.”

“I can dig that,” Skip laughed, tipping his hat towards the stage. “You up for ‘A Day in the Life,” later?”

Bob reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. “Flip you for the bridge.” Chip pulled off his hat and ran a hand over his balding head, cueing Bob to do the same. The flip was an inside joke between the two. They always fought over who had to sing the “dragged a comb across my head” part of the classic before they hit the stage because neither had any hair left up there. It was lame, but in the world of karaoke, so was a lot of shit.

“It’s all about the FUN, baby!” They yelled in unison, causing two nearby drunken regulars to question their sanity. Skip wrapped an arm around Bob and they did the Ministry of Silly Walks towards the stage just in time for each of them to grab one of DeDe’s ebony arms as she finished the song and hopped down between then.

“Skipster!” she yelled, so loudly that the entire bar could hear. Together, the three of them fell about each other until they somehow managed to collapse into three chairs near the rear of the establishment. It may have been just a little world, but it was theirs.

Since no one else had joined the first rotation, Lucifer announced they were going to start the second and called Sarah back onstage. Bob looked up from the table and his eyes widened when he noticed that the two college boys who had displayed such contempt towards her earlier were following her like puppies as she shuffled to the KJ booth. Lucifer handed them each a colorfull plastic blow-up guitar and again flashed that queer smile as he watched them each grab the older woman by an arm and help her up onto the stage.

“Well, I had so much fun with that last Beatles song, that I’m gonna sing this one. Oh, by the way, this is Kurt and Johnny, and they’re gonna play air guitar for me. Ain’t they cute?” The crowd murmmered, with a few outright laughs mingled in for good measure. For their part, Kurt and Johnny were fawning over her like groupies as they pretended to strum a few licks and then feign feedback...

“My baby’s good to me, you know, he’s happy as can be, you know he said so.”

Bob stared at the stage and was just about to remark to Skip about how bizarre the whole thing was when Jackie appeared at their table with three shots of Jagermeister and a couple of Dr. Peppers in tall glasses. “Courtesy of the KJ,” she said, running her hand through her hair. “Hey, Skip, long time, no see.”

Bob tried to pay attention to the small talk between his favorite bartender and Skip (and the free drink would normally have set off alarms), but part of him was still drawn towards the stage. He was a keen observer. Just a part of his psyche, a part he couldn’t ignore. There was just something...off...about the two youths onstage. He swore they were mouthing the wrong lyrics as Sarah led them into the bridge...

“I’m so glad, I’m her little fuck toy, I’m so glad I’m telling all the world...”

He shook his head and closed one eye and tried to listen more closely the second time around. For some reason, his gaze settled on their eyes. Dark. Black. Unfocused.

“I’m so glad, I’m her little fuck slut, I’m so glad, I’m telling all the world.”

Bob felt a bit of a shudder down his backside and leaned over the table to catch Skip’s attention. “Hey Skip, doesn’t something up there seem a bit odd?”

“Aside from the fact that there are two college kids up there pretending to be playing plastic guitars and backing up a woman old enough to be their granny on a song written before their mothers were probably born—no.”

“Cool,’ Bob shrugged. He grabbed one of the shot glasses and devoured the contents. “I’m glad it’s just me.” He did notice (again, it’s in his nature) that instead of shuffling back to the bar, Sarah and her two new best friends sauntered past them and settled back in a darkened area underneath the dart boards. It was the first time that he could remember her sitting anywhere other than a stool at the bar.

Meanwhile, Gloria was again stumbling to the stage in her 123rd attempt to get through “Me and Bobby McGee” without missing at least half of the words and all of the cues. Bob noticed that Monica was walking with her, but balked at getting up on stage, settling for a chair near the dance floor.

Skip got up to go over and talk to Lucifer and hand in his song slip, though Bob wondered why he even bothered. He knew every song ever recorded. His “old thing” was going through karaoke books from cover to cover doing all the guy songs (and half of the girl songs) in alphabetical order. Since he got his new IPhone and internet connection, his “new thing” was going through the years and singing the top ten hits from number ten to number one. Wonderful invention, the internet.

“We sang ever song that driver knew.” Bob did his best to sing along with Gloria’s rather “unique” interpretation of the Kris Kristofferson classic, only to be interrupted by DeDe’s magical hand moving around between his thighs. “So,” she whispered in his ear, “busy tonight?”

“Never THAT busy,” he answered, leaning over to nibble on her neck. “Remind me not to get too drunk.”

“Mmmm, done.” She gave him a squeeze in just the right place as he took just the right amount of sensitive neck flesh into his mouth and pressed down with his lips. “Damn, you’re pure EVIL,” she squealed as sofltly as humanly possible under the circumstances. When it came to tune ups, he gave as well as he got. Skip started to walk back to his seat, but didn’t want to interrupt anything, so he sneaked over to talk to Eddie instead.

“Sorry, babe, you know my priorities,” Bob laughed knowingly as he finally broke away from DeDe’s love grip and stood up, straightening his shirt and adjusting himself. Lucifer had just called him out.

“No different than mine, lover boy,” she answered and blew him a kiss as he hopped over to the stage, stopping only to give Gloria a hand coming down. He handed her over to Monica, but not before giving her a peck on the cheek. He was in a reallly good mood, pretty much his natural state on karaoke nights, even when he wasn’t buzzed.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Bob announced over the mic and pointed down towards the small open space right in front of the stage, “Mac’s has a dance floor. It may be small, but it’s comfy and well worn.” He turned back towards Lucifer and gave a wink to the devil to cue up his song. “I like to do songs older than I am once in a while, just to remind me that there ARE some things older than I am. Here’s one from the Godfather, by way of John, Paul, George and Ringo!”

Then he turned his back to the crowd, such as it was.

“Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music

Any old way you choose it

It’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it

Any old time you use it

It’s gotta be rock and roll music

If you wanna dance with me!”

He smiled down at Gloria and Monica as he sang. Monica had started to walk her back to the bar, but Gloria was too caught up in the music to have it. She grabbed her friend around the waist and started dancing. About halfway through the third verse, Bob jumped down off the stage with the cordless mic and joined them. He wasn’t much of a dancer, but in a room full of half-drunk music lovers, he didn’t need to be.

“They’re drinkin’ home brew from a wooden cup.

They were dancin’ they got all shook up.”

Bob twisted and turned around the tables and chairs towards the bar like the tipsy tornado he was, only stopping for a second or two to make sure every patron was paying attention by singing Chuck Berry directly into their eardrums. By the time the song was almost over and he’d turned back towards the stage, he noticed DeDe and Skip had grabbed the plastic guitars and were duckwalking across the stage. It was kind of embarrassing, or would’ve been if it were actually possible to get embarrassed on karaoke night. But, as Skip was fond of saying, karaoke was like Halloween 365 days a year. You can get shit-faced and ugly, but NEVER embarrassed.

By the time Bob had hopped back up on stage to surrender the microphone, there were ten people on the dance floor, each and every one of them disappointed the song was over. Bob would’ve liked to think that was all him, but he knew better. You just can’t fight Chuck Berry and the Beatles

Scanning the crowd after he’d finished, he couldn’t help noticing that Gloria had taken Monica around the waist and kissed her full upon the lips in view of the entire bar and the two of them had retreated into the shadows under the dartboard to keep Sarah and the college kids company. A strange night, indeed

Lucifer grabbed Bob around the shoulders and raised a hand to the crowd. “A round on me! By the time the night is over, I want to see everyone on the dance floor!” Through the applause (certainly more for the drink offer than anything he’d done), Bob swore he could hear that thunder from outside yet again. He made a mental note to go outside and check sometime soon.

Eddie had made his way towards the stage in anticipation of his next song, but Lucifer waved him off and motioned towards Skip as he held the mic up to his mouth. “Right now, we have our first duet of the night.” Still standing beside Lucifer onstage, Bob shrugged down at Eddie, but Eddie was old school and simply grinned and added his applause to that of the crowd. Everyone loved Skip, and for good reason—hearing what he had decided to sing was always worth waiting a couple more minutes. “Skip and Bob are going to do one of my absolutely favorite songs.” The KJ walked to his booth and pulled out a second cordless mic and handed it to Skip.

Haltingly, modestly, Skip looked down at the stage more than the crowd he was addressing. “Hey, did ya’ll know that the Devil is doing our karaoke tonight? Yeah. Lucifer himself.” He grinned and looked over at the KJ, who was busy putting away the plastic guitars. “He’s got every song you’d ever want to sing, but he told me to let ya’ll know that he refuses to play ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ because he hates that song.”

Lucifer grabbed his microphone from the KJ booth and interjected. “It’s not so much I had to give up a gold fiddle or lost a stupid contest, but Charlie Daniels cheated me out of my royalties.”

He paused a bit for the crowd to react. “But, as always I get the last laugh. Now he’ll spend eternity having to sing the same one damn song over and over again.” Then he laughed long and hard. It was an obviously fakey laugh—almost a parody of what most people would think the Devil sounds like when he laughs—but when accompanied by the distant sound of thunder, Bob couldn’t even force himself to crack a smile. It was a small thing, but it kept nagging at him somewhere in the attic of his mind. It really wasn’t supposed to rain tonight.

Skip cleared his throat (lowering the mic, of course) and looked down at the video screen, not so much because he needed to see the words as much as out of habit.

“I read the news today, oh boy

About a lucky man who made the grade.”

For his part, Bob fiddled with his own microphone and scanned the bar. From his raised position on the stage, he had a pretty good view. The people at the bar were still lining up to take advantage of Lucifer’s quite generous offer of a free drink. Jackie’s tip jar was half full, which actually wasn’t all that bad for a typical night at a dive bar. The bar was filling quickly, for a Wednsday night, it was pretty busy. He noticed several younger folk wearing blue uniforms from the sports bar several blocks away, which was unusual for this early. But as much as he loved to observe and interpret, he had his priorities; he closed his eyes and claimed his low part of the heavenly harmony...

“I’d love to turrrrn youuuu onnn.”

Even as he sang, from somewhere inside his head, he heard that laughter again. And the thunder. It was a drug, karaoke. As strong as heroin, cocaine and whatever caused the line to be censored back in the day. Banned by the BBC, as Skip would say.

But the very thought of it made Bob hard, and he didn’t know why.

“I’d love to turrn youuuu onnnn.”

Before tonight, it was just another line in another song. Albiet a good song. One of his favorites, in fact. But it was 2008, not 1967. The speakers were channeling some Philipino guy playing a synth organ, not George Martin conducting an orchestra.

He glanced over to the dartboards. Sarah was leaning back in her chair, with one frat boy with his hands reaching inside her tattered blouse, the other on his knees massaging her thighs, his face moving up and in-between. Further away, Monica was sitting with Gloria in her lap, playing with the older woman’s hair as Gloria wriggled away in obvious lust, sticking her fingers one a time inside her mouth and using them to wipe away her perspiration. The scene was obscene, as DeDe might say. But Bob knew better. It was all a wet dream, sponsored by Jagermiester and a too-active imagination. Nothing like this could happen in the real world. It was a vision...

Or a bridge in a song.

“Woke up, got out of bed

Dragged a comb across my head.”

Bob ran a hand through what was left of his hair and glanced over at Skip, who never failed to laugh at this particular part of the routine. They had both convinced themselves that baldness was a sign of too much testosterone in the system. It was more palatable than the alternative...

“Somebody spoke and I went into a dream...”

And what a dream it was. Bob closed his eyes and took in the music coming at him from all sides now. It wasn’t just the recording arrangement, it was something more. Powerful. Sinister. He’d heard it on vinyl, 8-track, CD and MP3. From the Blue Album AND the good Sgt Pepper, but never felt it quite like this. Skip’s voice was all but lost in it. Drowning in it.

“I read the news today, oh boy

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.”

As Skip finished the last verse, Bob fell to his knees and cradled his microphone to get the best muffled effect he could, come the closing harmony. From somewhere behind him the thunder joined in and two voices somehow became three.

Or one.

“I’d love to turrrrn youuuuu onnnn.”

Finally fading off, overwhelmed by the music rising up and crashing down like waves that touched every inch of the bar, creeping into the dark and hidden places even the cigarette smoke couldn’t reach. Bob closed his eyes and grinned at the final note, the last sound on that amazing record he wore out when he was nine years old. He turned to look at the KJ booth, fully expecting to see the old devil grinning from ear to ear, or showing off that Pepsodent smile.

But he wasn’t. Smiling or grinning. He was standing with head bowed and eyes closed, taking in the music with the rest of the mere mortals in Mac’s Bar. Bob thought he even saw a tear, but that was surely that overactive imagination again...

Bob slid off the stage and made a beeline for the main door, even before the applause started. It was Skip’s turn in the rotation, after all. His song. His time. Eddie touched him on the shoulder as he went by on his own way to the stage. “Great job, Bob.”

Bob simply smiled and hurried past. He was curious about that sound of thunder and wasn’t too proud to question his sanity. Or at least his hearing. Just as he hit the door, it opened up and five or six late-night regulars from the sports bar down the street pushed their way past him. They were soaking wet, and none too happy about it. Bob chuckled and put a finger in his ear as he slid by them and outside into the darkness. Nope, nothing wrong with his ears.

Standing right outside the door was Huey, Jackie’s fiance, who doubled as the barback on most busy nights. He was staring off into the dark, wet distance.

“Man, this is just freaky,” he muttered to Bob as he lit up a smoke. “I coulda sworn there wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I got here a couple hours back.”

“Same here,” Bob replied, stepping to the side to make sure he wasn’t downwind from the cig smoke. “What’s with the lights?”

“Out all over, so far as I can tell. The folks from Dave&Busters say the power’s out for miles. Seems like we’re the only place that’s got any light. Not minding it, you know, but I didn’t plan to work that hard tonight. Now everyone’s headed over this way and I gotta go restock.” He flicked the cigarette out into the wind. “It’s just fucking freaky.”

Bob’s eyes followed him as he stepped back into the bar, then they turned to look out over the town. Mac’s stood in a strip center on a hill overlooking the city. He could see lights off in the distance near downtown, but nothing but darkness in the immediate vacinity of the bar. “Freaky” was indeed an appropriate word. A couple more cars pulled into the parking lot. Seems they’d only get busier from here on out, which didn’t exactly make him smile. More people meant more singers, and more singers meant a longer rotation. He drew a heavy sigh and re-entered the bar.

“Love me tender, love me true.”

Bob directed a smile towards the stage, noting that Eddie and the ghost of Elvis had managed to manuever three couples onto the dance floor and they were all dancing dangerously close to each other. Ah, the King. Long may he reign.

His first instinct was to head straight for the bar, but common sense got the better of him and he checked his back pocket to see how much cash he had left. “Fuck it,” he thought to himself and moved to stand at the open end of the bar to try and catch Jackie’s attention. Now the “open end” of Mac’s Bar was a place of priviledge, because there was no other way for the bartender (who was sometimes the only employee there) to get out and look after the rest of the place. If you stood there for any time at all, the regs all looked at you funny. The stool next to it was first in the pecking order and pretty much belonged to Mabel Johnson.

Every time Bob walked into Mac’s and saw Mabel sitting in her stool, he couldn’t help but think of an old Guy Clark line.

“Like old women with no children, holding hands with the clock.”

She wasn’t looking at him and was too lost in her sixth cup of Bud Light draft to notice much of anything at all. But he noticed her. He always did. In addition to the lack of close family and the inability to ever have any, they shared a great deal. She’d flirt with him and buy him drinks. He’d make sure she got safely into her cab every night they ended up in Mac’s at approximately the same time. Sometimes it all ended in a peck on the cheek, sometimes not—along with the appropriately cordial and civilized “Be careful” and “Take care” and “See you around.” At this point in their lives, neither expected a whole lot more...

He leaned over and playfully sung into her ear. “I’d love to turrrrn youuuu onnnn.” For better or worse, that damned John Lennon line would be stuck inside his head for the rest of the night.

“Oh, hello Bob.” She looked up at him for a split second; then ran her hands across a few bills in front of her, the change Jackie had set down next to her cup earlier in the night. “That’s an...interesting song. The Beatles, right?”

“Can’t put anything past you,” Bob laughed and slipped behind her to give her incredibly skinny, alcoholic frame a hug, his head nesting on her right shoulder. “How’s it going, gorgeous?”

She looked up at him, a dazed, beer-induced blase melted onto her face. “Oh, you know, still alive. All you can hope for, right?”

He spun her barstool around to face the stage. Eddie had jumped down and was now singing directly to the dancing couples. “Never give up, girlfriend,” Bob laughed. “That’s the lesson for today.” He knew to himself that he was lying through his teeth, but if just felt like the right thing to say under the circumstances.

“All my dreams fulfilled. For, my darling, I love you. And I always will.”

“Liar,” Mabel hissed in Elvis’ general direction as a round of applause greeted Eddie’s latest. Bob decided to leave that one well enough alone, for good reason. He had enough problems of his own.

“Hey, Bob, you want another?” Jackie had finally caught up with the rest of the bar and made it to the end. “I got plenty of young kids talking about how they need to come in here on karaoke nights more often.”

Bob laughed. “Blame it on the Devil. He knocked out the power everywhere else.” He started to reach into his pocket, but Mabel interrupted.

“His next one’s on me,” she said, taking another sip of her beer and re-arranging the green money on the bar in front of her.

Before Bob could thank her, Jackie followed up on his last comment. “Yeah, tell me about it. Half of the late-night crowd is in here already.” She nodded towards the tables in front of the bar, which were full. “Looks like a loooooong night.”

Bob gave Mabel yet another hug as he grabbed his drink and went down the bar, shaking hands and re-introducing himself to the people who had come in over the past half-hour or so. Elvis had moved from his usual stool by the stage and onto a chair around a long table, where he was in the process of being mobbed by a bunch of young lovelies, refugee employees from a nearby sports bar that had to shut down early because of the power outage. Bob shot Eddie a big thumbs up sign, but he was a bit preoccupied to notice. A tallish blonde was fingering his chest hair, apparently trying to see if it was as real as his sideburns...

Onstage, Lucifer must’ve opened up the rotation, because one of the new kids was doing his best to wail out “Come Together” ala Steven Tyler instead of John Lennon.

“Hold you in his armchair, you can FEEL his disease!”

Bob stopped for a moment on the dance floor and watched Lucifer as he smiled in self-admiration behind the stage. Well, maybe not “self-admiration,” but it was the first phrase that popped into Bob’s mind. Talking the teens into singing anything from the ‘60s was pretty difficult. The kid couldn’t have been older than twenty, but he damn sure knew the song.

Julie, one of the regulars who didn’t sing but loved to dance, ran up to him. “Hey, Bob, you gonna sing the Bee Gees tonight? Please?”

Bob wrapped his arms around her and walked her slowly off the dance floor towards his table. “Darlin’, you know I don’t need an excuse, but if you wanna dance, I’ll surely sing.” He looked over towards the table she sprang from and noticed a single, middle-aged man in a suit eyeing them both pretty closely. “Who’s he?”

“Oh, that’s Dave,” she giggled. “He’s my pastor. After four years of hearing me yakking about how cool it was here on karaoke nights, I finally managed to drag him out.”

“Oookaaay,” Bob grinned in mock amusement as he plopped down in his chair. Julie was a sparkplug, especially when she’d had a few.

She swiped at his shoulder. “Oh, it’s not like that, really. He really likes to sing, and I’m trying to get him to do something other than boring religious things.”

“Yeah, sure.” Bob winked and laughed. “All sorts of non-religious things.”

She huffed right back at him and turned her back to him. “Okay, that’s quite enough of THAT.” She started to walk away, but not before cocking her head to one side and letting go with a reminder. “But I’m still gonna expect to dance, mister!”

“You got it,” he laughed as she walked off.

The kid on the stage had finished his version of Aerosmith sings the Beatles and had run off the stage to get a bunch of high-fives from the rest of the college-aged youths sitting around his table.

DeDe had been talking to Skip when Lucifer called her onto the stage. DeDe was like Bob and Skip in that you really had no idea what she was going to sing before the actual song started. She did everything from classic Motown to current country, with a bunch of “guys songs” thrown in for good measure. Unlike Skip and Bob, she didn’t spend half her time showboating to the audience.

Well, most of the time.

“Sarah usually does this one, but she gave me her permission to do it for our new KJ up here tonight, ‘cause she thinks she’s gonna be too busy on her turn.” She nodded over in the direction of the dart boards. Bob turned around to see if Sarah was indeed still back there. Some of the bar lights had obviously gone out because that corner of the bar was darker than usual. He couldn’t see much of anything, but figured she must’ve still been back there with those two kids from earlier in the night. She deserved it, he thought, and promised himself to “accidently” wander back there later on his way to the men’s room, just to check it out.

Bob turned back to the stage upon hearing the opening chords to, sure enough, “Somebody’s Knocking,” the old Terri Gibbs song. Skip slid over from his seat to sit next to him.

“Damn, if that guy must’ve brought a couple extra sets of clothes with him,” Skip said, looking over at Lucifer, who had adjusted the sound and was now hopping on stage to show off his new duds as he danced up there along with the song—in jeans, western shirt and cowboy hat, boot scootin’ across the stage behind DeDe.

“Lord it’s the devil, would you look at him.

I’d heard about him, but I never dreamed.

He’d have blue eyes and blue jeans.”

Bob laughed. “I wonder how many costumes he brought with him?” Almost makes me want to do Shorty Long just to see what happens.”

Skip’s eyes suddenly stared off into the smokey distance as his brain fought to retrieve the required reference. Bob swore he could hear the gears churning away. “I dunno,” Skip grinned, finally. “I don’t think he’d look so good in high-heeled shoes and an alligator hat.”

Bob looked at Skip. Skip looked at Bob. They broke out in one shared fit of laughter and gave themselves the high five as they broke out in a shared chorus of karaoke geekiness.

“Devil with a blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devil with a blue dress on!”

Skip laughed and reached up to fix his black felt hat, which had threatened to fall off his head from all the head bobbing. “Hey, why don’t we do all ‘devil’ songs? Kind of theme night?”

Looking over at Julie at the table with her “pastor,” Bob shrugged. “I dunno. Seems most of those are heavy metal crap. Besides, I promised Julie I’d do the Bee Gees next.”

Skip was glancing at DeDe on the stage as she finished her song and stepped off the stage towards them. “Speaking of the devil...”

“Uh-oh, whatdidIdonow?” Bob tried desperately to hide behind his Dr. Pepper as the five-foot three black bowling ball of fury rolled from the stage and threatened to send their white asses hurling into the dark recesses of the alley.

“Okay, I coulda sworn I heard a couple of someones over here singing louder than I was!” She put her hands on her hips, which was Bob’s signal to smile. He knew he wasn’t much of a lady’s man, but he also knew DeDe intimately, and she wasn’t much of a lady...in exactly all the right ways.

“We were...uh...just talking about...about...” Bob sipped his soda, and looked over at Skip to bail him out.

“About how Bob was just waiting to dance with you.” Skip said, quickly turning away from them and was staring off towards the stage, where Lucifer had grabbed a microphone and was preparing to sing.

“Now, I usually don’t roll this way, but I got this special request...”

Bob downed his Dr. Pepper in one long gulp and glared towards Skip’s back. “Judus,” he muttered, laughing, just before DeDe grabbed one of his hands and jerked him roughly towards the dance floor.

“C’mon, loverboy, torture time.” DeDe giggled, yanking his elbow hard enough to twirl him around. Again, she wasn’t someone exactly someone you argued with. Bob was about to show some mock indignation, but when the first chords of the Skeeter Davis classic hit his ears, he melted.

As always.

“Why does the sun go on shining?

Why does the sea rush to shore?”

Bob nestled his chin on her shoulder, and he tried to let it go. But it was just too strange. “Did you...?

“Did I what?” She grabbed a butt cheek in each hand and dug in as she slowly spun him around, not especially caring who was watching.

“Why do the birds go on singing?

Why do the stars glow above?”

“C’mon, you had to request it.” He closed his eyes, half out of embarrassment and half because, well, that song just shut him down. Always had. Always would. She sung it most nights, but was the only one who did. Until tonight. Strange that it would take the devil...

“Sorry to disappoint you, gorgeous, but I didn’t say a word.” She paused for a moment, looked up at him, and kissed him full on the lips. “Now shut up and dance.”

And that, as they say, was that. He dropped his head back on her shoulder, where it fit as comfortably as the last piece in a thousand part jigsaw. He didn’t dance, as much as he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and let her do whatever she pleased with him. She was good that way. On the dance floor and pretty much everywere else; a support pillar, holding up the world of broken people surrounding her.

“I wake up in the morning and I wonder

Why everything’s the same as it was

I can’t understand, no I can’t understand

How life goes on the way it does.”

It wasn’t until he backed into someone that he was aware anyone else even existed. There, at that moment, their moment. Their song.

But not theirs alone. His eyes opened to the rest of the broken and brittle souls, feet shuffling along with all the others, the dance floor filled with the dead and barely-beating hearts being dragged along the polished wood; more than one reason they were all regulars at a dive bar at nine o’clock on a Wednsday night.

“Don’t they know, it’s the end of the world?

It ended when you said goodbye.”

He gave a heavy sigh and hugged DeDe for all she was worth. But even as the music stopped, she didn’t. He’d be disappointed if she did. Applause broke out throughout the bar, as it usually did for anything that could get so many lazy people off their drunken asses and onto the dance floor. Bob was going to join in as was his custom, but his hands were busy holding on for dear life as she continued to spin him around even as everyone else was stumbling back to their chairs or to the bar.

“And where exactly do you think you’re going?” she peered at him and grinned as he finally dropped his arms and looked towards the stage.

“I’m going to go tell the devil that he sings like a girl.” He smiled. “Seriously, I’ve never heard anyone but you sing that and never thought I’d ever hear a guy...”

“That’s why they call them ‘classics,’ gorgeous. I sing lots of guy songs.”

“You sure do,” he replied, suddenly noticing they were standing alone on the dance floor in the middle of a fairly packed bar. It was his turn to yank her towards their seats. “But you always manage to sound like you. He managed to sound like...” His voice trailed off and once again looked in the direction of the KJ booth. But Lucifer was nowhere to be seen. “...like he owned that song.”

From somewhere behind him, a voice whispered. “That, my dear boy, is because I wrote it.”