Chapter 6: “Friendly Competition”

 Eva pulled Chris into her cubicle (Yes it’s true, she’s Lou’s ‘personal secretary’) and tried to kiss him passionately.  He however had another idea and began to tickle her, something he knew she hated.  He wanted to have a serious conversation.

****T’s Talks**** yes I know that I just used the concept of Chris and seriousness in the same sentence, but hey, this is a work of fiction and I can do what I want.  ****

  “Shhh, Hon, they’re still here… and Lou still doesn’t know that I’m balling his secretary… plus I want to know what happened back there.  Some chick passed out at my feet and I tried to help her up.  Next thing I know you’re reaming me out for lying.  I swear I wasn’t going to do anything but check her out, you know to preserve the image that I’m single and ready to mingle.  And I promise that Busta started the whole thing.  I wouldn’t lie to you about something as humiliating as my dog picking up chicks faster than me.  I promise we’ll have some time alone later, but now we’ve got to meet with the guys about this female competition and how to break them.  If Lou’s signing them so fast and letting their lawyers read over their contracts and make changes, they must really be up and coming on the pop meat market.”  Chris had finally calmed Eva into submission, all the while thinking of the cute little brunette who had fallen at his feet not ten minutes earlier.

Ten minutes later, Chris had ditched Eva and met up with the rest of the guys in the “Executive Locker Room”

****T’s Talks**** read that last statement as fully functional health spa complete with basketball courts and video games, and a nail salon.  We all know that the guys have to have their manicures done somewhere indiscreet, where better than their own personal spa?  Back to the point…****

 “I’ve seen them, all of them!  He’s bringing in the Fems!  They’re cute and make really good whip cracking noises.”
 “Chris, what are you doing here interrupting my hair and nail session?  Yes, Lou is singing us a sister group . . .please, now that BSB is at Jive, we ALL know who rules supreme around here,” said JC calmly.
 “You mean LFO????” cried Joey in a terrified voice.
 “Joey, its okay not to act quite that stupid, there are no fans to try and impress around here.  Oh, that’s right, I’d forgotten, it’s not an act.  Why don’t you run along and play with your blow-up friend, that is if you haven’t popped her yet…” Chris was less than impressed by Joey’s glowing intellect.  “Has anyone seen Lance?  I need to ask him what the implications of female competition could do to us.”
 “I think he and Valerie took off to his dressing room, if you know what I mean.  Shouldn’t you be in your dressing room shagging the secretary, speaking of taking dictation…” Justin had just emerged  from the sauna and was ready for his massage.

****T’s Talks****  This is just a note for all of you that we confused with that last female name dropped into the Mix.  Yes, there are two Valerie’s in this story.  From now on when you see the name Val, we’re talking the one in the group.  When you see Valerie, that’s Lance’s girlfriend.  She is in no way connected to Val.  As I said earlier, I can do what I want with this story, so don’t mess with the narrator.****

 “What up yo?” asked Justin as he began to admire himself in a nearby mirror.
 “Justin, will you stop staring at your six pack!,” whined Chris.  He is VERY sensitive about his lack of abdominal muscles and Justin was really starting to get to him.  “Lou is going to replace us with a bunch of chicks!”

Chapter 7:  Lou wants YOU!  aka the big fat guy pointing a finger in your direction

 In the sake of time, we are now going to skip to three days later.  The girls have spoken to their respective lawyers, and are quite happy with the deal they have planned out.  And so, they marched proudly to Lou’s office with huge grins on their faces.
 “Read it and weep,” scoffed Kelly as she dropped the 157 page contract on Lou’s desk.
 “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” Lou yelled, showing a bit of his true self.
 “This Mr. Pearlman is our contract,” stated Carlee flatly.  “As you will see, everything is in order.  So all you have left to do is sign it and call in the MEN!”
 “The men?   You mean you think *N Sync is part of your deal?” Lou was getting nervous wondering if the girls had managed to discover the true nature of his plan.
 “You’ll find out as soon as you sign, Mr. Pearlman.  That is unless you don’t want us anymore.” Terri purred to the lard ball.
 Lou took his pen and reluctantly signed the contract without reading over any changes that had been made in the last few days.  He then picked up the red phone and spoke softly into the receiver so that the girls couldn’t hear.  Next thing they knew Terri, Kelly, Carlee, and Val were flanked by none other than Lance, Joey, JC, Justin, and Chris.
 “Girls, these are my best boys.  Their sole mission in life for the next three months will be to work with you on style, manners, dance, voice, and interviews.  There is nothing that they don’t know about being a successful group with groupies.  Allow me to introduce *N Sync.  I’m sure you know them, but its time for them to meet…what do you call yourselves anyhow?” Lou came to the realization that he didn’t know any of the girls’ names or their group name.
 Silence filled the room as the guys waited to hear the girls answer.  Sadly, they were all still in shock at meeting *NSYNC.  Think about it, no matter how cool you think that you are going to be when you meet them . . .does it ALWAYS work out that way?   Yeah, just checking.
 “We’re um . . .er . . .,” stammered Kelly.
 “Girl Thang!” exclaimed Carlee out of nowhere.
 “What the hell kind of name is that?” asked Terri as she awoke from the trance that was JC’s eyes.
 “I kind of like it…it’s catchy.”  JC turned to melt Carlee with his million watt smile.
 “I mean I love it…I’m glad we came up with it, right Carlee?”  Terri tried to regain some form of composure in the guys’ presence.
 “What do you mean WE?  It was me…all me.  Don’t you forget it.”  Carlee was rather indignant.
 “Val, back me up on this one.  It was all of us wasn’t it.  A group effort.”  Terri looked to her friend knowing that she wouldn’t have been listening to the conversation and would probably agree to anything short of marrying Nick Carter at this point.
 “Uhhhhhhhhhh….yeah…..”  Val wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and murmured her response, never looking away from Chris, this time sans ‘female companion.’
 “Ladies, we need to get back to business now that we’ve agreed on a name for you all.  As I said before, these are my best men.  They’ll be your instructors and escorts during your training.  We’ll start by introducing you to your style man…Chris.  Joey will be working on you in the dance studio.  You’ll be working with JC on voice, that’s both speaking and vocals.  Lance will be your mamma’s boy…uh manners expert.  And that leaves us with the Mouth.  Justin will be helping you master the interview session, as you all know, he’s an expert at monopolizing the conversation.  That’s planned…you’re not supposed to know that, but its one of out tactics.  Ladies, welcome to boy band obedience school.  You’ll be our first female recruits.”
 
Chapter 8:  Lessons with Lance

     “Hello ladies, I’d like to welcome you to your first lesson in obedience training.”  Lance stood up as the girls entered the room.  “I wanted to take this chance to introduce you to the my assistant and the most important woman in my life aside from my mother.  She’ll be helping me to demonstrate proper manners.  This is my girlfriend Valerie.”  Lance motioned for the slim brunet sitting to his left to join him.”
     “I wonder who wears the pants in that relationship” Kelly snickered under her breath to the rest of Girl Thang.  Val immediately poked Kelly in the side and stepped forward to introduce herself before things got confusing.
     “Hi Valerie, I wanted to take care of this before we start confusing people.  My name is Val…this is Kelly, Carlee, and Terri.  Together we’re Girl Thang, I guess.  Its some last minute name Carlee pulled out of her a….”
     “What Val is trying to say is that this is a last minute decision that we’re all trying to get used to, by the way, I’m Kelly.”
     “Nice save,” Val muttered under her breath.
     “Actually, it really was,” exclaimed Lance interrupting (yeah, who’d have thought?).  “That quick save that Kelly just did is a perfect example of one of the essential rules to pop group manners.  Always be on the ball to make sure that your group-mate doesn’t have a chance to say what is really on their mind.  Especially if it involves cussing.”
     “Did you just say ‘cussing’?” Val began to laugh.  “I know…its cause your from Mississippi, right?”
     “That brings me to my next point, thanks Val.  You should always have a back up reason for abnormal behavior, mine as Val has pointed out is that I’m from Mississippi.  Chris is the crazy one…JC is on crack…Justin is the baby…and Joey, well, Joey is the dumb one.”
     “Wait…did you just confirm the fact that JC is on crack?  Can I get that in writing please?”  Carlee was digging in her bag for a pen and paper.
     “Thanks for my next point, Carlee.  Never put anything like that on paper.  Leave it as a suspicion.  That way you’re not caught in a lie.  You can claim that it’s an unfounded rumor, and move on with your life.  For example you all just think that I’m some clean cut god-fearing boy from Mississippi… the truth is that I’m actually from Vegas, I’m 45, and I keep my woman sat-is-fied.” Lance looked out at the four girls who he had left speechless, and started laughing.  Valerie went into action and pulled out her Polaroid, snapping five pictures before Terri caught on to the faintly disguised lie.
     “YOU BAS…”
     “Oh, Lance…you big kidder.  What a clever deception, don’t you agree Terri?”  Suddenly Val’s tone of voice went from sugary to menacing as she aimed an elbow towards Terri’s ribs.
     “…yeah, I guess…” Terri was still unimpressed with her nearly shattered image of Lance.
     “Congratulations Val.  You just earned yourself a gold star.  You passed the pop paparazzi test.” Valerie and Lance handed Val a shiny little pin and each girl a copy of the pictures that had been snapped just after their jaws hit the floor.  “These are reminders of what you’ll look like when you see yourselves on the cover of the Enquirer or the Star.  Val here just saved you all the problems of the copy reading that one of you was carrying Michael Jackson’s bastard child.  If you upset the paparazzi, your fucked, and I mean that literally, it’ll probably be by an ape.  And it won’t be a classy tabloid either, you be on the cover of the Weekly World News as Bat Boy’s big sister or girlfriend. Well, that’s it for your first lesson.  I’ll see you all soon.”

Chapter 9:  So Sumi…

     The girls heads were spinning as they stepped out of the room after their lesson with Lance.
     “This is really odd. I mean manners lessons, not being able to say what we want.  What have we gotten ourselves into here?” Kelly said to the others.
     “I’m sure that it will change a bit after we break with our first hit.  If we ever do that is . . .  I mean all this sounds like it’s gonna be really hard!  What do you think guys?” Carlee asked.
     “I’m sure that if we really work hard, we’ll be rewarded for it!  To be honest, I don’t care if we get famous . . .I just wanna have my chance to jump JC!” Terri said completely straight faced.
     Val stopped shining her gold star pin to look up at Terri in shock. “Whoa, that was blunt. . . .I’m so proud of you!  Girls, I think that it is beautiful that even though we have a chance to bring joys to others through our singing, that is all secondary to our opportunity to seduce the single members of *N Sync!”
     “I LOVE YOU GUYS!” Kelly exclaimed.
     The girls then engaged in a huge group hug, only to be interrupted by a female’s voice.
     “Are you guys Lou’s new act?” the voice asked.
     The girls broke their hug to discover a tan, slender woman with hazel eyes, curly dark hair and a killer smile.
     “Yea, I’m Val.”
     “I’m Terri.”
     “I’m Carlee.”
     “And I’m Kelly . . .and together we are . . .”
     “Girl Thang!” they said in unison.
     “Okay that was kinda scary, you’ve been here for a day and you already have picked that up!  Maybe Lou is as good as he claims to be, but I really doubt that he . . .”
     “I hate to interrupt you lady, but who the hell are you?” Kelly demanded **see why Val got the gold star!**.
     “Oh, I’m sorry!  I’m Sumi.  Lou hired me to be your manager.  I’m really excited to finally have some more women here at TransCon.”
     “What about Innosense?  They’re girls.”
     “And you can’t forget LFO . . .” Kelly added.
     “I can see that I am going to like you girls already,” Sumi smiled.  “Anyone who makes fun of LFO is okay in my book.  If that troll Devon pinches my ass one more time . . .  Well, perhaps I shouldn’t start bashing your ‘transfam’ at least until you’ve met them all and initiated the whole process…”
     “TRANS??? Is that why there are so few girl groups, they get SEX CHANGES???  I’m outie.”  Kelly was not up for ritual testosterone injections.
     “Get your ass back here right now little missy.  You are NOT bailing before I get my chance to bone up on my JC trivia, if you get my drift!” Terri was adamant about meeting her man.
     “Well, that’s gonna have to wait, at least ‘till tomorrow.  I’ve been instructed to take you to the house.  You know, make sure you have everything you need, and make sure the red phone with speed dial to each of the guys’ cell phones and Lou’s desk is up and running just as you requested.” Sumi ended the potential argument before it started.
     “Wow, service is great around here. So, where’s the house and how did you get it so fast?” Val was impressed.
     “Funny thing about that, you see, it used to belong to *cough thebackstreetboys cough* but when they moved out we kept the property in case you or someone like you came along.” Sumi let the whole phrase out in one long breath, afraid of the response she knew was coming.  Instead, when she looked at the girls, all she saw were the four ashen faces, jaws on the floor, frozen in confusion.
 
Chapter 10: Home sweet home, sweet sweet home.

 The girls stood at the front door of the magnificent house, with leopard print curtains and bright pink couches, and a turquoise shag carpet in the TV room.  Little did they know that in the bushes crouched the four remaining members of *N Sync here to scope out their new neighbors and competition, the competition they were in charge of training.  Chris had informed the guys that Sumi was bringing the girls to the house (you knew he was bonking the secretary for a reason), so they had a chance to get there and plant some choice items in the new digs of Girl Thang and get good seats for the show.
 “Well ladies, this is it.  Welcome to the G-Spot!”  Val, Terri, Carlee, and Kelly drove a flag into the front yard, officially claiming the place as their own.
 “Val, I was just wondering what made you think to call this the G-Spot… it just doesn’t really sound like you.”  Terri was interested in Val’s sudden motivation.
 “Well, ya see, if I’m gonna be sleeping in Nick’s old room, I want to make sure that there is no way he’ll ever find this place again…”
 “Val, that’s so DIRTY!  I like it!”  Terri was smiling at the new Val…since the Chris incident, she had just been a new person.  “But are you sure that you are going to be okay sleeping in Nick’s old room?  You know, given your past?”** Read Canadian Bakin’ on our website **
 “Well, if it’s between Howie’s and Nick’s room . . .let’s just say that when it comes right down to it, Howie is just a whole lot scarier.  I have an idea of what I am in for in Nick’s room . . .besides I love that purple canopy bed he left in there.  At first, I thought that ruffles were just way too much, but it really is quite tasteful and appeals to my ‘ultra girlie’ side.  Lord knows what that says about Nick though.”
 “Well girls, it looks like everything is in order around here.  *N Sync’s house is that one on the left should you need anything… Oh, by the way, Joey wants you all to shower and meet him out front at nine tonight for your first lesson.  Dress for a club.  See you tomorrow.”  Sumi let herself out the gate as the girls went to further explore their new domain.
 “I can’t wait to use MY bathroom, how cool is that, we all have our own bathrooms and the house has anything we could ever need or want.  It’s a girl’s dream come true…and I guess the Backstreet Boys too…who’d a thunk it?”  Kelly was ready to go and get settled into her room.
 “Do you guys think we trash on the Backstreet Boys too much?  I was just wondering…” Val was suffering a moment of conscience.
 Everybody exchanged glances, “Nope!”
 “Good, just checking.  Glad we all agree.  To the showers girls!  We’ve got to be out front in less than three hours, and I’ve got nothing to wear.” Val laughed as she realized the stark reality of their lives.
 “Never fear, evidently our personal shoppers were here!  I checked out the closets and they’re full of stuff we’d totally choose for ourselves!  I love superstardom, and we’re not even famous yet!”  Terri went inside and the rest of the group followed.
 Joey, Chris, Justin, and JC laughed to themselves, knowing what was about to happen.  Ironically enough, Val started singing the chorus to ‘Blue (Da Ba Di)’ on her way to the shower.  The next thing they heard were four matching shrieks as the blue dye the guys had placed in the shower heads became apparent. The strange blue goo that was placed in their showerheads had managed to turn their entire bodies blue.
 “What the…I’m blue Da ba di da ba da”  Val started singing at the top of her lungs as she finished her shower.
 As the rest of the group got out of the shower they joined Val in their new anthem.  “We’ll all wear silver, I’ve always wanted to try something like this.  Maybe we can start a fad… it’ll be great!” Carlee was psyched at the prospect of the sheer shock value of the four blue girls.
 Outside in the bushes the guys started laughing thinking of the way they were going to force the blue girls onto the dance floor to prove just how much they want their stardom.
 “Let’s go get ready.  We’re meeting them in like two hours.  This is going to be great.” JC was already halfway home by the time he finished that thought.
 “I was hoping that I’d have time to ‘file some data’ with Eva before we go, so lets motor.”  Chris was right behind JC.
 “Wait for us…we don’t want to be caught anymore than you guys.” Joey and Justin ran behind their compatriots.