No Laughing Matter
By Hugo Prosperio
A Sequel of Sorts to Don’t Make Me Laugh
Commissioned by Bahamad

Part Three

---

“Don’t you fucking touch me!’’ Claire Renfield said as the odd clown stood before her. He had been trying offer her a seat, but she backed away.

“I mean you no harm.” Chuckles the Clown said as he pulled his gloved hands away.
“Bullshit! I saw what you did to those two girls yesterday. You call that “no harm”?”
Chuckles was taken slightly aback. “You saw that? you saw the shop before just now?”

“Yes, I’ve been investigating a disappearance and my clues led me to your shop. and since then things have been astronomically weird.” she said with a sigh.

“That explains why you are seeing things. Look, I know what you saw me do to those girls, and usually you’d be right, I’d have every intention of making you someone and something else. It’s in my nature, but now I can see that you are part of something that I am not sure is good or supposed to be happening.”

“Hey, the town’s police chief just turned into a grotesque clown and tried to force himself upon me, and now I am seeing clowns in cop cars. I just want answers!”

“Humans are not meant to perceive this store when it comes in and out, and In being present for the vanishing of it, you were exposed to magic. Strong magic of the deep portal between your world and mine. A world of clowns. The magic reached out and attached itself to the nearest thing when the portal closed, that thing being you.”

“So I am seeing things because I’ve been hoodwinked by magic?” She said, exasperated.
“Not everything you’ve seen is a hallucination. I could be wrong, but I think your police chief was really a clown. Something gave him a taste of clown magic, and your contact with him finished the job.” Chuckles said as he paced around the store.

“I don’t want to be a clown.” She said softly. “I don’t want any of this. I was just trying to do my job.”

“And you won’t become a clown on my watch.” Chuckles said, causing her to look up in surprise.

“But you said it’s what you do.” she said, wary of his words.

“Using my magic on you would be very unwise. It would make you too unstable, and I don’t think any of us want that. I just need to figure out a way to break whatever magic is on you and get you back to your life.”

“Boss, you can’t be serious?!” the bobble head on the counter spoke. Claire was starting to get used to the strange surroundings, but this was still so strange to her.

“I am. 100 percent serious.” he said curtly. “Me attempting to turn her would only cause major problems. I have enough craziness to deal with between Jezzy and her ilk, and whatever is causing this weirdness. She won’t be a clown on my watch.”

“Sorry to question, Boss. Just curious is all.” the toy said in a quiet voice, as if he had just been slapped.

The store then shifted and shuddered. Gag gifts and props fell off shelves, Bobble fell over.

“Oh what now?” the clown shouted as the store continued to groan and creak.

“I don’t think having her in here is such a good idea.” Bobble said as his head rested on the counter, unable to move.

The store then shifted to it’s side, knocking Chuckles to his ass, and causing Claire to fall out of her chair. She began to slide downwards on the floor, towards a curtain of gaudy plastic beads. “Hey! Help!” she shouted.

Chuckles reached for her, but his hand missed hers by a split second. The store tilted even more, causing her to slide even faster. As she went through the beads, she saw a door coming up fast. She feared she would smash into it, but suddenly it opened, and she saw a swirling pool of colors like a wall of tie dye. She marveled at it for a second before she realized she was quickly approaching it.

“No! No!” She shouted, but Chuckles couldn’t stand to reach her, having been tossed into a rack of costumes which tipped over onto him. She felt her feet enter the wall of bright colors, and it felt like she was being dunked into pudding, the colors sucking her in slowly.

“Help! It’s got me! The colors have me by the legs!”

“The Portal!” Chuckles gasped, trying to scramble to his feet. He managed to get up, but his balance was thrown off, so he could barely move.

When he made it through the curtain, he saw Claire’s head disappear into the void, screaming for help until she was gone.

For the first time in many many years, Chuckles uttered a curse word. One that humans can’t even really comprehend.

---

The colors swirled around her like a Crayola tornado, and her mind swam to her childhood readings of Alice in Wonderland. She knew she was falling, but it felt a lot like floating, drifting slowly towards her fate at the bottom of this vortex.

“Oh christ, what the hell have I gotten myself into.” she thought as she felt the wind picking up.

Then it ended. The whole ride came to a quick and sudden stop. She found herself sitting on a bench in the middle of a city. The city, however, was not what she expected. It wasn’t full of tall buildings cutting like sharp knives into the sky. The buildings were of shapes and colors she had never seen, curved like a surrealist paintings. It was like a dream or a drug trip, Claire wasn’t sure which thought was worse. Her attention was ripped away from the strange city as she felt a presence sitting next to her on the bench.

“Mind if I join you?” asked a very high pitched voice, followed by a long giggle. A clown girl with curly daffodil yellow hair tied into two pony tails smiled at the girl. Her lips were redder than any lips Claire had ever seen, and her teeth were perfect and oversized, causing her grin to look almost freakish.

“You must be the detective!” she said. She seemed fidgety, always shifting, and always emitting some sort of giggle. “He said you’d come looking for me.”

“Who?” Claire asked. “Chuckles? That son of a bitch tricked me.” she added, grinding her teeth.

“Oh no, Mr. Chuckles had nothing to do with this. I don’t know his name, but he’s helped me immensely since I came here. He introduced me to my new friends and I’ve been so very happy.”

Claire looked at the girl, then pulled out her photo of Caitlin Scott and gasped. There were some prominent differences, mainly the bright yellow hair, the red nose, and the huge grin, but it was clearly the same girl.

“You found me! Isn’t that swell!” the girl said.

“Caitlin. What happened to you?” she asked before realizing that was a stupid question.
“Well, my name isn’t Caitlin. Not any more. I can hardly remember when it was!” she said.
“Your sister hired me to find you and bring you home.” Claire said, hoping she could talk some sense into this girl. “This isn’t who you are.”

“Oh yes, it is. I’ll say that perhaps it wasn’t before. Still not really sure about that, but in this case, yes, it is indeed who I am. I am happy. And you can be happy too, Detective!” she giggled.

“That she can, Giggles.” said another voice. Turning around Claire saw a cartoonishly curvy clown, Hips twice as wide as hers, and a huge bouncy chest, cleavage spilling out of a low cut blouse in thick amounts. Purple hair spun up into a beehive style, and the skirt she was wearing made it look like she was wrapped for Christmas.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Clown.” she said in a mocking voice. “Well, it’s nice to meet you two, Detective. We’ve been looking forward to you joining us. Now then. If you’ll come with us, we can get the party started.” she said. Giggles grabbed one of Claire’s hands, and the other clown grabbed the other, and she felt as if she were being lifted off the ground, lighter than air. In a flash, they were gone, and now they were sitting in a living room on a huge padded couch, which looked ugly as sin.

Across from them, in a large armchair sat a very fat clown, who giggled.

“Ohh, she looks lost. Hehehe.” she said as she kicked her huge feet up on the coffee table.
Claire wanted to scream, but cooler heads were trying to prevail.

“Don’t mind Bubbles. She’s quite stupid and won’t be bothering us.” the purple haired clown said. She sat in a wooden chair opposite the fat clown and smiled at Claire and Giggles, who still sat beside her.

“Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. I’m Knockers. Normally I am not quite this clear of mind, but I am a lot clearer than Bubbles usually is.” she said. “Giggles used to work with me. I remember that much. I used to be a police officer. Beyond that, it gets all fuzzy. I kissed her as I left one day, and my silly nature spread to her. She couldn’t avoid it, and then we learned of you. The woman who saw the portal and lived to tell the tale.”

“My boss, he is friends with a powerful clown who knew right away you were special. He said to collect you and make sure you were welcomed properly. It’s something I am very good at now, so welcome, darling.”

She stood up and walked over, before Claire could do anything planted a huge kiss right onto her lips. She even felt tongue. At first she was horrified, trying desperately to break away, but suddenly she felt numb all over. Her mind shouted. What had happened to them was going to happen to her. She wanted to fight it, but the numbness had given way to prickly tingles that were so lovely she almost wanted them to stay.

“There, that’s it. That’ll get things rolling.” Knockers said as she watched Claire’s lips get thicker and turn red. They began to stretch upward at the corner into a wide grin.
“No. I am here to investigate a disappearance...you can’t do this to me.” she said, trying to frown, but it didn’t work.

“You found the missing person. She’s sitting right next to you. Case closed!” Knockers laughed as Giggles planted a kiss on Claire too. This kiss felt even better than the previous one. She began to kiss back.

Knockers clapped her hands. “Oh yes, come on, this feels so good, don’t let your stuffy human mind make you miss out.”

She pulled away and looked at the busty clown. “Listen here!” she wanted to say, but what actually came out was “Nice titties.”

“Well, thank you.” She said. “Would you like a better look?”

“No, you whore!” she thought. “You bet!”  was what left her lips, however.

Taking her by the hand, she led Claire to her bedroom, which was pink and purple and had a big heart shaped bed in the middle. She took a finger, licked the tip and ran it down the front of Claire’s oufit, and as if she were cutting through, the fabric fell apart at the seams and dropped to the floor, leaving Claire naked.

“I prever Birthday Suits to fancy ones, don’t you agree?” Knockers said with a wide grin and a loud laugh. She pushed Claire onto the bed and walked over to her drawer. She pulled out a thin plastic looking tube, glittering in pink.

“This was made just for me. It’s going to show you a world you probably didn’t know existed.” She said. She then placed the tube on the lips of Claire’s privates, and pressed a switch on the back of the tube. It began to move, and stimulate.

Claire about shouted from the instant wave of pleasure that was sent across her body. She had used her fair share of vibrators, but this, this was something else. She knew that if she gave in, this would be the last step to her downfall. She’d become one of them. She tried to hold off, she tried to stop enjoying it, but she felt the part in her brain keeping her sane snap, and she reached down and grabbed the tube from Knockers and plunged it into her pussy. She found the switch on the bottom and turned it to the highest setting, and sensations rocketed through. Her whole body bucked up and down on the bed as it began to change. Spreading out from her crotch her skin turned white. Her nipples puffed up and popped into little round balls about the size of gumballs, becoming shiny bright red.

“Oh my fucking godddddd” she screamed. She took one of her free hands and tweaked the new nipple and moaned even louder.

“See, we clowns do everything better, especially the sexy stuff.” Knockers said as she slid into the bed next to Claire. She pulled the changing girl closer and began to kiss her deeply, like she had never been kissed by man or woman. Claire felt her hair changing on the top of her head, growing out and longer, removing her sexy pixie cut, and taking the one pink stripe and spreading it to take over the raven black locks. She felt her hips getting wider and her waist getting thinner, becoming the definition of curvy, and she knew her breasts were getting larger, although no where near as large as Knockers, whose chest now spilled out freely onto the bed.

“Not as bad as you thought, now is it?” She said.

“No...not at all.” she said, almost whispering, her body still quivering from the vibrator humming in her privates. Knockers switched it off and pulled it out, setting it aside.
“He said you would be easy, that the work was already done for me, I just need to push you. I had no idea you’d push yourself.” she giggled.

“This...isn’t right. I shouldn’t like any of this.” she said.

“That’s because inside your head is a small little bit of you hanging on to that boring old life. It’s trying so hard to fight, to break free and save you, but the truth is, once you go clown, you’ll never ever frown. It can’t be helped. Even if that little bit could do something, you’d just succumb later.”

“But...the case. Caitlin’s sister.” she said.

“Normally the loved ones who we leave behind tend to forget about us. Her sister remembers now, but soon, Caitlin Scott will be merely a forgotten dream. As will Claire Renfield.”

“No, you can’t do this to me…” she said softly, her hand making it’s way to her privates, aching to touch. “Chuckles promised me I wouldn’t be touched. He’ll come to….” she said, as Knocker’s placed a finger to her plump lips, silencing her.

“Chuckles has no say over you anymore, my dear. Once you were delivered into my hands, any chance of his help ended.” She giggled as she pulled out a purple bottle. She unscrewed the lid and pulled it out, revealing a long stick with a circle at the end, made for blowing bubbles. “I think it’s time you really saw things through the eyes of a clown, dear.”

She blew several bubbles that floated softly towards Claire, she wanted to reach out and touch them, but she kept staring. “Please stop.” she whispered.

“Nope, not a chance, sweet cheeks.” Knockers said with a wicked laugh.

The bubbles began to circle her head, and then one by one, they flew into her ears, which got a bit larger with each one. She let out a sound of surprise as she felt them working around in her head, as if they were digging for treasure of some kind.

The bubbles then worked their way out of her head, each one with an image in the middle. Images of her old life, her past. She saw herself studying to become a detective, her dating her ex-boyfriend, even aspects of her personality like the punk streak that caused her to cut her hair short, and her experimental phase in college where she ended up with several tattoos.

One by one, these bubbles called to her, and she poked them with her fingers, causing each to pop, and when the bubble was popped, the memory was gone. She was erasing her own mind, and she couldn't stop it. She whined as she hovered the image of her with her family, realizing that it would start the process of making her think she was always a clown. Her finger hit the bubble and she watched the soapy texture change, and then it popped, splashing a little water onto her nose. It began to puff up and swell into a round ball, the size of a golf ball, and she began to giggle loudly.

“There, all those boring nasty thoughts all went bye bye, now didn't they?”

The clown nodded, her wide grin even wider than before, joined by new colorful designes on her face over her eyes and on three red dots on her cheeks. She was adorable by any standard.

“Good. Those are cute.” She said pointing to the dots. “Remind me of Cherries. Let’s call you that. Cherries the sexy little clown minx.”

Cherries smiled. That was an excellent name for her. Far more fitting than boring Claire.
The two embraced and Knockers smiled. “He said that I could have you all to myself if you made it through. I am so glad you did.”

The two kissed, and then the two fucked. For hours it seemed to both Giggles and Bubbles, both of whom tried to drown out the moans with the sound of the television.

---

“No sign of her anywhere in Clowntopia. I can’t even sense a bit of her. It’s like she was swallowed up.” Chuckles said.

“Highly likely she was turned into a clown.” his girlfriend Jen-Jen said as she poured him a cup of hot chocolate.

“Yes, I know! But that could be very bad for all of us.” he said.

“Really? She’d just be like any other clown. No memory of her old life.” she noted.

“That’s my worry. She was able to see the store arrive and leave. That’s very rare, and now that she’s a clown, what kind of a danger might she pose? I just don’t like it.” he said as she gave him the cup.

“Well, nothing you can do right now, so might as well put it out of your mind and join me for Hot Coco and snuggles.”

His frown turned into a smile and he nodded. “That sounds wonderful.”

---

SOME TIME LATER

Jezzy Belle, as wicked a clown as you are likely to meet, walked into her club. The club was located in a fairly non-descript building (if entering from the huamn world.) She basked in the silence of the place during it’s non-operational hours. She was greeted by one of her large muscled hobo bouncers, this one a girl named Jolt.

“Boss, someone is here to see you. I had them wait in your office.” she said.

“Just what I need right as I walk in the door. Thank you, Jolt.” Jezzy sighed as she walked upstairs to her office.

As she entered, she was greeted by a slender clown wearing a top hat at a jaunty angle. He was mostly hidden by shadow.

“Hello, old friend. Didn't expect to see me, did you?” he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat, teeth looking bright and sharp in the afternoon sunlight.

“I didn’t know you were around still.” she said, attempting not to seem shaken.

“Oh you know me, popping in whenever I please. I am here on business. I need you to do me a favor.” he said.

“Nightshade, why would I do you any favors? I owe you nothing.”

“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.” He said with a chuckle. “and of course, our prior debts are paid, no question about that. I simply have a favor to ask and I can promise that in the long run it will be beneficial to you as well as myself.”

“Well, what is it? I don’t like your fanciful beating around the bush.” she said with gritted teeth.

“There is a girl, currently being looked after the fellow owns the Big Top Club.” he started.

“If Punch is involved, then I am not. We do not work well together.” she said sharply.

“Hush. As I was saying, she is currently being looked after by Punch, yes, but I need her kept safe, and somewhere where the snooping of Mr. Chuckles T. Clown won’t become an issue. All I ask is that you provide her with lodging and work, and when the time comes, I will come to claim her myself.”

“What is this all about.” Jezzy asked, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“For years, there has been one guardian of the portals. Oh yes, he lets you have your fun, but he still controls your portal here at the club, does he not? Chuckles believes he holds the one and only key between our worlds, but what if he was wrong, what if there was a skeleton key that could unlock their world to us permanently and irrevocably?”  
“You mean…”

“Oh, I do.” he said, stepping out of the shadows, revealing pale white skin, and black splotches around his eyes, his grin equally dark and sinister. “If my plan succeeds, Chuckles and his little gang will all get what is coming to them."

“I’m in.” Jezzy said extending her hand, but Nightshade was gone, only his laughter left behind, echoing through the entire club.