"You're Dude Boy," I said.

"Pizzeace," said Dude Boy. "You been ripping me off."

" No I haven't." I fidgeted in bondage. "I don't even like you." I remembered when Dude Boy was on the cover of every magazine from Teen Beat to Rolling Stone, and that fucking song was on the air every minute. "Your song sucked aardvark tit. They played it so often I started hearing it when I brushed my teeth, which really --" Oh. Shit.

"See? You admit it. Thief."

"But --"

"And you never bought a copy, ya?"

"Yeah, but -- It sucked, man."

"It was just so catchy and hooky, ya? You had to have it, Mr. Sticky Fingers."

"Catchy's one word for it. You could also try 'annoyingly repetitive.' How many times can you say 'You're So Cute I Wanna Puke' in one song?"

"That's the hook, bo."

"So I always wondered what happened to you after that one hit. You dropped out of sight."

The agate eyes I remembered from VH1 came close.

"You killed my career, bo. You and all the others who used my song for your skull soundtracks until you got sick of me. I didn't ask to have my creation overexposed in your noggin. It's all your fault."

"So now you're working for these creeps?"

"It's a job until reality TV calls."

He kept staring. He'd always looked goofy, but never before scary. "We're like intimate, ya know. I seduced ya with my hookitude, and in return you copped a feel of the DB while I slept. It's good to be close at last." For a moment I feared he'd kiss me. I tried to turn away, but no dice.

Then at the last second he whipped around and kicked the wall. "You kidnapped my baby!" He turned back. Spit painted my cheeks. "So here's the deal. We take this thang to court, I nail your colon to the wall. Or you cop a plea. Small fine, plus an implant. You get off lightly, bo."

"Implant?"

"Yes or no?

" What implant?

" Last chance. Yes or no?"

Most of the time, the implant doesn't bother me. If I get emotional, like when I buried Moxie, it kicks in just as a tune swells inside me. Then instead of the music, I hear Dude Boy screaming, "Thief!" for like thirty seconds. It really screwed me up this one time I was giving a presentation at work. I was one of the first to get implanted, but now they're everywhere. It's become such a cultural phenom that a new hit song samples the sound the implant makes. They had to pay Dude Boy royalties, of course.