**SWEET AS YOU ARE**

A Sequence of Alternate Actualities, Taking Place in _Some Other Time
Round_, the Darkside Bar Outside Continuity.

Caveat-Lectors:

1) Whilst this is chiefly an original CDWA meta-fic, some characters and
situations from _Doctor Who_ may have been unavoidably picked up during
processing. Readers with allergies, please take note!

2) There is no explicit sex &/or carnographically detailed violence
herein. However, this piece does treat of characters prone to routinely
violating each and every law of God, Man, or Nature at the drop of a
rusty hatpin; wherefore its accidents and implications may,
occasionally, fall short of the very chastest drawing-room
conversational material. The management accepts no responsibility for
attempts to use it in this manner, and recommends serious consultation
of _The Prudent Young Man's Companion in Etiquette_ (by An Earnest Well-
Willer; pub. Starcheson, Prisswyck, & Cuffe; Tunbridge Wells, 1898) in
all cases of doubt.

3) No spammers were harmed in the course of this production. We shall
try to do better next time...



*Previously in SOTR*

BKWillis wrote (_Significant Others_):
>
>"Hah!" laughed Selkie as she dropped down from the ceiling. "I
>know martial arts, too!" She slid the podium over away from the
>gaping hole as stagehands rushed out to tack plywood over it.
>"Now, it's _my_ pleasure to present the award for Best Character.
>The nominees are:
>
>"Adric in the 'Doctor Who'/'X: 1999' fusion, 'Doctor X', by
>BKHeartless..."
>
>The spotlights picked out Adric sitting alone, staring off into space
>and mumbling to himself, a strange basket-hilted sword clenched in
>his right hand. The song '1999', by Prince, began playing over the
>pub's sound system.
>
>"Belladonna in the Round-Robin 'Steppes of Unspeakable
>Terror'..."
>
>Another spot focussed on a slight, pale girl in the back, a kittens-
>and-cheese sandwich in her hand. She waved and flashed a fangy
>smile as the music changed to Queen's 'Killer Queen'.
>
>"Tegan in 'Falconry', by Graham Woodenclub..."
>
>Now the spotlight found Tegan, draped carelessly across her chair
>and done up in a tight latex number that seemed to be mostly straps
>and buckles. A hooded falcon was perched on the back of her
>chair, while Nyssa, half-naked and on a leash, sat at her feet. The
>music changed to 'F**k You Like an Animal', by Nine Inch Nails.
>
>"Ellia the Muse in Imran Insaneyat's meta-fiction..."
>
>The spotlight went to a pretty brunette girl sitting with the authors.
>She acknowledged neither the attention nor the applause, only
>giving a tiny smile when her theme song, Madonna's 'Frozen',
>began to play.
>
>"And Franz the Ogron bartender from the 'Dead On Arrival' series."
>
>The last spotlight shone down on the bar, where a gigantic Ogron
>in an old German infantry uniform -- complete with spiked helmet --
>was mixing up drinks. He grunted at the room in general and went
>on about his business as the sound system switched to the
>Ramones' 'Too Tough to Die'.
>
>Selkie shooed the stagehands and carpenters away and ripped
>open the envelope. "And the winner... Adric from 'Doctor X', by
>BKHeartless!"
>
>The clip began to roll as people began trying to prod the still
>catatonic-looking Alzarian toward the stage.
>




*Episode 1: Dirty Irrepressible Spam Gebbeth Boss of the Space Pirates!*


That form of flesh known as 'Graham Woodenclub' lounged greyly in his
chair, seemingly impassive to the, er, passing-over, of his, er, um,
h'mmm, masterpiece of delicate erotic psychology. His Muse Candie
(pronounced as 'twere two words for the price of one), with equally
admirable detachment, was busy scribbling in her reporter's notepad,
lest the white heat of literary inspiration evoked by this very award
ceremony should cool before burning its track like a smoking poker
into the vulnerable vellum of Artistic History! Since Candie's aspect
renders certain difficulties to your omniscient narrator, not least in
such inherently two-handed activities as touch-typing, we shall prefer
to concentrate on her Author until the bromide in our coffee has had
time to take full effect.

-- Okay, we shan't prefer, but we shall jolly well *elect* to, all
right? Anyway, since a quick shufty reveals that Woodenclub is not
presently energised by that force of primal evil known as Chaos Eddy
Stewite, we shall abide with him for as long as strictly necessary.

Consider, then, the 'Grey Stewite' of SOTR as he reclines in all his
sinister glory! Porky, jackbooted, clad in that simple yet coveted
uniform of charcoal-dark leather which no humanoid entity in the Two
Galaxies shall ever don without looking like some kind of kinky SS
chaplain, the Black Lens of Boskonia glints foully on his left wrist,
evil runes of the accursed speech of Eddore encircling it with that
message of all-dread import in every tongue of men, gods, and ineffable
space amoebae: V JRAG GB YLENAR VK NAQ NYY V TBG JNF
GUVF YBHFL JEVFGJNGPU!

Across his manly breast are scattered a few of his many decorations, won
in a thousand bloody wars against the accursed forces of having
anything the Stewite wanted. Here, the Dastardly Conduct Medal he'd
blackmailed out of the Puppeteer Hindmost; there, the Dark Force Cross
with Extra McRelish, hung around his neck by the reverend Emperor
Palpatite(TM) himself; there again, the Grand Order of the Winged
Trainers of Sir Robin, earned in the fury of Camlann field according to
the traditional rite. And withal many other orders and medallions
honorably ransomed from 'this bloke I met in a pub', and so forth. And
let's not even talk about the one that bears a remarkable resemblance to
a lithium battery, still less about its fell reputed purpose!

For here in very sooth and too bloody much of it was indeed the Grey
Stewite -- Man of Uranium! Not the dull serviceable grey of lead, nor
the gentle grey of an overcast Spring morning, but the glaring, the
irradiant, the preternaturally thanatic grey of purified U-235 treated
by whatsoever process will render it a sufficiently ominous hue for the
purposes of the present simile!! Such is the complexion of the ydrad
Woodenclub, beneath its eternal and disgusting lardy glister.

Yet in all that awful visage, worst and most intimidating by far are the
adamantine, ruthless, actinic grey eyes, so alive with that 'look of
cockatrices' described in forbidden ancient texts of primal ewwww, that
even the fabled harshness and cruelty of the Stewite finds it meeter and
more courteous to conceal them behind a pair of pitch-black one-way
Polaroids, lest the innocent and unlucky meet that gaze to their own
irreparable ruin! Or so he claims. Others think he's just the kind of
git who counts it cool to wear sunglasses indoors; but they are
fools, who know not the true complexity of that tortured anti-hero's
twisted motivations.

Oh, yes they are!

Dare YOU, my friends, wager your very lives and sanities that your
hearts will be strong enough to stand the shocking truth about FASCIST
DIRTY LOOKS FROM OUTER SPACE?!?

Righty-ho, then...

But what have we here? Yea verily and forsooth, here be an explanation
(were any needed) of the Stewite's imperturbable calm! For lo, the
onstage shenanigans concern him not at all, as the canalpentium inner
linings of those abominable shades are entertaining him with other
matter entirely. The left appears to be showing a piece of unspeakable
yatterporn 'satire' entitled _Ambitious Pollywog Dungeon_, whilst the
right... we scarce dare even report it... displays, with a coarse
indifferent brutality well worthy of the Overlords of Delgon if not Jim
Mortimore himself, a gang of coarse indifferent brutes savagely
committing... **str*l**n R*l*s F**tb*ll!!! Far from attending to the
awardly humiliation he is receiving amongst the general carnage on
stage, our master-villain is busy savouring the victims' screams from
both atrocities, hampered not at all by the fact that said screams are
conveyed only by way of somewhat substandard and rapidly-scrolling
subtitles, as:

AMBITCHYUS SALESNIFF, a VICTIM: I enjoin you to cease and desist from
this procedure, which is of a medically disrecommended nature for which
you shall be held fully liable!

FATSTAFF, a TERILEPTIL: Hardy ha ha, your injunction is nugatory!

AMBITCHYUS: I express extreme displeasure, and reiterate that such must
not and shall not be the case. {AND NOW... A SHORT WORD FROM OUR
SPONSORS!}

[Cut to an avalanche of adverts for various medical plans, personal
services, and surefire ways of making money through tachy.net. And we
won't even discuss what the Antipodean screen is showing. Let us not
forget that this is the *dark side* of... that sport!]

And so forth. To do him justice, the Stewite does round about now
suffer a gleam of human compassion and taste. With a casual-seeming
gesture, that to an uninformed and clueless observer would appear to be
for the sole purpose of brushing his close-cropped hair yet further away
from his eyes, he nudges the frame of his glasses, in such a way as to
banish the f**tb*ll completely -- thereafter returning to his gloomy
broodings on man's inhumanity to man, or Terileptil's ungentlemanly
conduct to woman, as the case rather was. Oh! the suffering
sophontliness!

Okay, after this little exhibition, we're not apt to be needing bromide
in our coffee for quite some time now. Ych o fi, oy, oh goodness
gracious me, we're not! Milk of magnesia would be very much more the
ticket, really. Let us, then, serene in the knowledge that our now-
morbidly-chaste thoughts will be fixated solely on the literary quality
and effect of our description of Madam Candie, place our proud pen in
the silken hands of that delectable Muse, and...

Oops.

We'll get our coat.


Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

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