"What do you expect me to do with... That?!" Magenta flung her right hand dramatically towards the mess that lay crumpled and bleeding out over the tiled floors. Tiled floors she'd spent all morning mopping!
Frank laughed at her irritation. "Well, I don't know, do I? Do I look like the help?" He drawled sarcastically as he reapplied his glossy dark lipstick. It had been a long night of exploring many new pleasures with his astoundingly fit creation, and apparently without him there to hold their hands and guide their every move, the work of his servants simply ceased to happen.
"We could always feed it to the dogs," Riff Raff suggested with a malicious little sneer that curled up the right corner of his thin mouth.
Magenta shot a dark look at her brother. "There's nothing there but blubber!"
"Come now, Magenta," Frank shut his mirrored compact with a resounding 'click!' "Granted, he's no Adonis, but there's bound to be a bit of muscle under there... Somewhere."
"I am NOT feeding that to my dogs!" She put her foot down. They might be foolish, slathering, ridiculous beasts, but she didn't hate their presence. At least, she enjoyed the way they were always excited when she went down to the kennel, and she wouldn't see them hurt on purpose.
Not to mention, the idea was simply grotesque.
"Fine then," Frank put his hands on his hips. "Prepare it for our guests. I'm sure they could use a bite after last evening's... festivities." The smile on his painted lips turned smug and self satisfied.
Magenta gasped at the ghoulish idea.
"What? Problem?" Frank's eyes locked on her pale face, waiting for an an answer.
The domestic glanced at her brother, disgusted and at a loss for words. Riff spoke up.
"Master, Earth customs are unlike our own, but I do not believe they eat their dead," Riff Raff told him in a matter of fact tone. They certainly didn't do any such thing on their home planet of Transsexual. The idea was perverted and criminal to the highest degree, even by their much looser standards. Earthlings were a savage, primitive lot, but he had read nothing to indicate the consumption of human flesh was customary, or even remotely acceptable behavior.
"No, Riff Raff, they do not," Frank regarded the handyman with a cruel smile. "Consider it a lesson, then. This is what happens when you cross me!" He looked at each of his loyal servants with a viciousness they had never seen before. "I think it sends the message loud and clear, don't you?"
Magenta glanced at her brother again, and he looked back at her with hard eyes. He nodded, and she sighed in resignation.
"Yes, Master," the siblings spoke in unison.
"Very well," Frank's painted face took on it's customary air of gloating superiority. "I think I shall retire to hot bubble bath. Keep an on on Rocky, would you?"
"Certainly, Master," Riff said automatically as Frank strutted away, leaving them to clean up another of his messes.
Their eyes both fell on the slumbering blonde man for the barest of moments. The creation slept peaceful, oblivious of the grim conversation happening less than fifteen feet away from where he lay chained to the bed.
Magenta's lovely mouth fell into a heavy frown, an expression so common on her since coming to Earth one might have believed it was her natural state of being. "I don't like it."
"Mm, nor do I..." Riff turned back to his sister. "The Master's depravity seems to know no bounds."
"This is going to far!" His sister scowled at the corpse on the floor, detesting the orders she'd been given. She didn't want to touch the body in order to throw it in a ditch, let alone prepare what remained for a meal.
The image of Columbia's face shrieking in terror as Frank plunged an ax repeatedly into her lover's back filled Magenta's mind. The poor girl had been inconsolable. It had taken ages to finally get her to calm down and sleep.
"She won't like this," Magenta thought aloud with a heavy sigh.
"Who?"
"Columbia," she said, anger marring her beautiful porcelain white face.
Riff raised one thin eyebrow at his sister. "What difference does she make?"
Magenta shook her head. "You didn't have to try to put her to bed after all the commotion. She'll be impossible after this."
He rolled his eyes. "You care about the Earthling's well being?" It was nearly an accusation.
"I don't," she lied. Columbia was an annoyance, loud and shrill and unable to sit still for even a moment, but the domestic had grown fond of her all the same. It was a strange thing, and she didn't profess to understand it, but she didn't particularly want to hurt the young woman. This would most certainly hurt her. She didn't fully grasp human emotions, but she knew that much.
"I don't see the point in punishing her further," Magenta told him simply. "What did she do that the Master hasn't done a thousand times himself?"
"Hm," Riff considered that for a moment. His sister was right, of course. The Master took new lovers constantly, sometimes more than one at a time, often nearly every night of the week. He'd tired of Columbia weeks ago, so it was no surprise the girl had found a new toy to amuse herself with. "Be that as it may, he gave us an order. I don't particularly want to be the next to wind up on the menu." He turned and took his sisters hands in his own. "We must keep up appearances, my most beautiful sister. At least," he favored her with a diabolical little smirk. "Until I can find a way out."
Magenta rolled her eyes, thoroughly disgusted. "Fine. Help me get this to the kitchen.
x-x
x-x
A hacked up hunk of meat sat on the counter in front of her. Riff Raff had been kind enough to do the hard work, all she had to do was throw it in a roasting pan and put it in the oven. Maybe slice a few carrots and an onion to accompany it.
She'd never been much of a cook anyway, but the idea was nauseating. Watching her brother hack and saw into the delivery boy had made her ill and left her shaken- though she did a damned fine job of not letting it show. No, she was not so weak as to let her disdain and revulsion show plainly. She stared and stared but could not bring herself to do what she knew must be done next. Instead, she found a bottle of red wine and uncorked it.
Her beloved brother was right, though. If she didn't do this, Frank may well make good on his threat and make her the next example of what happened to those who disobeyed. She knew he wasn't above punishing his servants, rather, he took great pleasure in the act. Sadistic fuck. She pondered their ill fate to wind up employed to a homicidal egomaniac as she drank straight from the bottle.
Magenta lit a cigarette and sat down at the table, unable to quit staring at the meat that had once been a man. She took a long drag and blew a wispy cloud out into the kitchen. Her elbow rested on the table, smoke standing at the ready, and she swallowed more wine. This would never do, she thought. Something much, much stronger was required for this kind of endeavor. She considered breaking into the Master's private liquor cabinet or raiding his candy bowl. He was bound to have something to put her out of her head, something to make her forget... Or at least not mind so much. Darkly painted lids lowered over her light brown eyes and she tried not to think about it.
Her mind kept wandering back to Columbia and all her crying. Magenta had never seen tears before and she found them as peculiar as rain, neither of which they had on Transsexual. The memory of those endless tears streaming down Columbia's pretty painted face, ruining her make up and turning her eyes a violent shade of red... She'd hated it. Hated the feel of those hot drops of liquid as they splashed over her fingers when she'd touched Columbia's face to try to console her. Most of all, she hated the way the other girl's pain tore at her heart and stayed her hands.
The bizarre range of human emotion had a peculiar effect on her. She didn't pretend to understand how they felt or what it was all supposed to mean, but...
Columbia called them friends. Friends look out for and take care of one another, the tap dancer had told her. They pal around and share secrets, according to Columbia. They'd certainly done plenty of that- not entirely by Magenta's choice, mind you, and not that she ever told the girl much of anything. It was impossible to get a word in with that one, not that she ever tried very hard. Columbia usually seemed happy enough just having her ear.
She supposed she felt about Columbia the way she felt about the dogs they kept on the property. They were silly, foolish things, but she was used to them and didn't begrudge their presence. In some regards, she even rather enjoyed the young woman's company, though mostly she was a pest.
No, that wasn't entirely true. She would be lonely without her around. Before the groupie had come to the castle she'd been forced to spend most of her days and nights alone. Frank kept her brother so busy, she rarely saw him for more than a few stolen moments here and there. Though Columbia's shoes were always clacking away on the tile floors and she never shut up, Magenta would prefer dealing with the noise to tolerating the endless silence.
It had taken nearly an hour to calm the girl down after Eddie's untimely return and sudden demise. The way she shrieked! She would never get that sound out of her head. Columbia had clutched at her desperately, her uncontrollable sobs making it hard for her to breath. Magenta had reluctantly held her until she'd calmed down, hot tears soaking the front of her black uniform.
"I hate him! I hate him, I hate him!" Columbia had shrieked in her grief.
"As do we all," Magenta had admitted as she'd stroked the girl's bright red hair.
"Eddie never did nothin' wrong!" Columbia sobbed. "He loved me!"
"Mmhm," Magenta sighed. She wasn't exactly sure that the Earthling's idea of 'love' was exactly the same as the way they used the word on Transsexual, and it seemed to change every time the human girl tried to explain it to her. It seemed at once similar to the way she felt about her brother but completely different. Full of lust, brash, illogical, much more mercurial, excitable, always shifting and changing; Columbia's definition of love often it seemed to her more like simple desire, thought it possibly involved babies and white picket fences, depending on the day of the week and who Columbia was talking about... It was all very confusing. Though, maybe that was just the influence of the person who'd done the explaining.
Still, she couldn't help but put herself in Columbia's sequined tap shoes. If their places had been reversed, if it had been her dear brother that Frank had taken the ax to...
It had been awful enough to see her brother whipped by their Master. Too many nights she'd gone to his room to find angry red lashes cutting across his back. Seeing him in pain was a torture for her. The thought of life without her brother was impossible, and she imagined she would die without him. If Columbia felt even a fraction of that need and devotion for her Eddie then she found she quite understood her grief, even if she didn't understand her tears.
So she drank more wine. When the first bottle was drained, she opened another.
Magenta gnawed on the knuckle of her right pointer finger, staring at the gruesome hunk of meat. She exhaled and fluffed her deep red curls with her hands, trying to figure out what to do.
x-x
x-x
"Did you do it?" Riff asked her when she wandered back into the lab with a mop and bucket. He could tell it was her simply by the sound of her steps, and he kept his eyes on the machinery he was working on.
"Yes," she said. Magenta dipped her mop into the hot bleach water and began scrubbing away the evidence surrounding the blonde creation's rainbow colored tank.
"Good," he said, smiling at his younger sister. Though her expression was serene and perhaps even chilly, she seemed to him somber from the events of the evening.
The siblings held each other's gaze for far to long, unspoken thoughts flowing between them. They'd always shared a deep bond, words were seldom necessary between them. He could feel the weight of her unhappiness upon him, and he could tell just by looking that she was drunk. They both were, to varying degrees. It wasn't a thing either had done much of back home, but life in the castle was more bearable with a bottle of something to ease them through it.
A sinister light crept into his smile and curled it into a devilish sneer as an idea to lighten her mood her popped into his mind. His sister's eyebrows went up in approval, and she leaned against her mop, watching him. The briefest of smiles lit upon her blood red lips.
Riff slunk across the laboratory silently and stepped into the Master's chambers. He lifted a candelabra and thrust it forward, letting hot wax splash across the well-muscled back of the newest plaything to inhabit Frank's bed.
The blonde man awoke in shock and recoiled from a dozen tiny flames like they were a blazing inferno.
"Hssss!" Riff shoved the candles at the cowering creation, menacing him. He laughed, and Rocky strained to break free and flee. "Hssss, oooh!" Riff cackled, his voice full of sinister glee.
The creation wrenched at his chains until they finally gave way, the canopy over the bead collapsing behind him. He ran for the elevator shaft and scrambled down like a big blonde ape. Riff Raff laughed again and threw a lit candle down after him.
His sister joined him and they stared after the handsome monster, both of them laughing quietly at the little trouble he'd caused.
The sound of her laughter was captivating, and Riff pulled his sister into his embrace. He kissed her roughly and let his teeth dig into the side of her throat, hard but without puncturing her delicate skin, in exactly the way he knew she loved.
x-x
x-x
Magenta wandered back up to her room feeling a bit more relaxed after seeing her brother, though desperately in need of another cigarette.
"You're awake," she said, surprised to see Columbia sitting upright in her childish little day bed. And clutching a teddy bear, even. Such a child! She stepped into the room they shared and peeled herself out of her maid's uniform in favor of something that matched her mood a bit better.
"I couldn't sleep," Columbia squeaked like she was a real mouse and not just wearing ridiculous mouse ears.
"Hm," Magenta ignored her and rifled through her scant few belongings. She pulled out a silky, sheer black robe with feathers around the cuffs and slipped it over her skimpy black under things, luxuriating in the slippery feel of the fabric across her skin.
"I can't get over him doing that... And then runnin' off with Rocky like nothin' happened," Columbia shook her head in disbelief.
"Mm," Magenta barely heard a word. She laid down on her bed and sunk back into the pillows. She wanted to forget the day, wished her brother had more time for her. She felt a great need for his strong arms around her tonight, but he'd had only a few moments to spare.
"How do you put up with it?" Columbia scooted onto the bed next to her and began unlacing her right boot.
Magenta glanced up. "What are you doing?"
"Paintin' your toe nails. I gotta new color you'll like."
"Mm," Magenta dropped her head back into the pillows and let her continue. She said nothing when the groupie's hands slid up her thigh and unfastened her garter skillfully. She rather enjoyed the feel of Columbia's delicate, soft hands on her. So unlike Riff's rough, firm hands.
"Why's he gotta be so heartless all the time?" Columbia went on. "What did any of us ever do to him except love him?"
She glanced over at the girl through the narrowest slits in her eyelids. "Love," she fairly spat the word. She had NEVER loved Frank N. Furter. She was here because she couldn't bare to be apart from her dear brother, nothing more.
"What's wrong with love?" Columbia's eyes verged on becoming teary. "I loved Frank. I loved Eddie. I love you."
Magenta rolled her eyes at her. She hated it when the girl said such absurdly sentimental things. It was all meaningless to her. She got up and went to her discarded uniform, rummaged through the pockets. She pulled out her hand and opened it, revealing two little white pills. "Take one."
"What is it?"
"Something to make the night pass more pleasantly," Magenta said, not knowing the name of the drug she'd pilfered from Frank's room after she'd tidied it up. It would either put them both to sleep or perk them up, and she didn't really care which.
Columbia reached out and took one, popped it in her mouth and dry swallowed. Magenta followed suit and sat back down again.
"You like the color, Mags?" Columbia giggled sweetly. She'd managed to paint one big toe and pulled away so her friend could inspect it.
The color was a rich, sparkling shade of crimson, and Magenta did indeed approve. "Mmhm," she nodded for Columbia to continue painting.
Magenta flipped on the monitor in her room, scanned through the cameras planted throughout the castle until she found something worth pausing for.
"Look..." Her eyes widened at a black and white image of Janet Weiss poking around the lab, looking dreadfully afraid and out of place.
"Ugh, what a square," Columbia rolled her eyes.
Her eyes went back to the screen, and she watched with waning interest as the visitor to the castle lamented about her bad luck and wish to find someone sane to help her. She was nearly about to change camera feeds when something caught her eye.
So that's where he went, the domestic thought when the runaway creation appeared from his hiding place in the tank.
Columbia giggled as Janet ripped her white slip into bandages. "Look at those britches!" They'd seen the girl's under garments before, of course, but they were still rather funny. They were stark white, like virgin snow, and hiked nearly up to her belly button. "Granny-pants," she snickered and went back to painting Magenta's remaining toe nails.
Magenta laughed under her breath and managed a smile at her room mate.
"I was feeling done in. Couldn't win," Janet told a captivated Rocky as they watched. "I'd only ever kissed before..."
"You mean she..?" Columbia gasped at the thought.
"Uh huh," Magenta grinned a tad sadistically at the screen as the young woman's confession turned into a fumbling attempt at seduction- one that managed to succeed somehow. Probably because Rocky was a half wit with just as little experience as Janet herself, she mused.
As things on screen heated up, she found her pulse racing. Columbia's eyes were glued to the screen, but her hands kept creeping up her thigh.
Suddenly they were singing, mocking the sticky fumblings happening on screen as they took place in the lab below. Her blow dryer in hand, she aimed it and blew hot air into Columbia's wide open pajama shirt. The dancer giggled and lunged at her, kissed her neck and groped her playfully.
"Touch-a touch-a touch me!" Columbia sang in her squeaky voice, parroting Janet.
"I wanna feel dirty," Magenta countered in her much huskier singing voice. They giggled, playing at something heavier. Magenta's hands went up over Columbia's small, firm breasts, squeezing them. The dancer's mouth connected with her own again, and this time they let the kiss linger.
Drug- induced jubilation swept through the pair, and suddenly they were kissing in earnest. The couple on screen long since forgotten, Magenta pulled Columbia's few buttons open and stripped her of her shirt. The groupie pushed her back into the bed and their lips connected.
It was so different from all the kisses she'd shared with Riff. Where he was sharp and angular, Columbia was smooth and soft. She cherished the feel of rough stubble of her brother's chin, but equally enjoyed the baby soft feeling of Columbia's cheek pressed against her own. Her teeth sunk into her friend's lower lip and caused her to moan.
She didn't know about love or friendship that Columbia constantly went on about, but she relished these moments together. Sometimes the time they shared was the only thing that kept her going.
x-x
x-x
Hours later she found herself back in the kitchen. The roast had been cooking a good long while, and she surmised it must be done by now. It smelled... well, not unappealing, and not burnt, either. Both good signs by her estimation. She slipped on her oven mitts and had a peak inside. The hunk of meat looked brown and well glazed on top. Magenta pulled the overly large roasting pan from the oven and admired her handy work. The Master would be pleased with the meal she'd cooked up for their guests.
She sauntered down the hallway and picked up the golden gong on her way to the newly formed hole in the lab's wall. They were all there, save for Columbia. She could hear them speaking loudly. Magenta stepped through the make shift doorway and pounded hard on the gong.
"Master, dinner is prepared!"
x-x
x-x
"Stop crying!" Magenta commanded her, but Columbia was either ignoring her or unable to get herself under control.
She sat down next to her on the bed and placed a hand on her sloped shoulder. "It's not all bad."
"Not all bad?" Columbia sobbed. Her face contorted into an expression of horrified astonishment. "Not all bad?! First Frank kills Eddie, and then you serve him up like Thanksgivin' dinner! You people are sick! And you ain't even people!"
Magenta rolled her eyes and frowned at her. "Listen to me," she pulled Columbia's face around and held it between her two hands. She leaned closer and whispered into Columbia's ear, "The Master wanted me to cook your Eddie, but I couldn't do it. I cooked a ham instead. I didn't think he'd be able to tell the difference, and I was right. You can't tell anyone or he'll kill us all. It's a secret." It was the most words she'd ever spoken at once to the girl. She prayed the word 'secret' held all the importance to Columbia that she'd said it did.
"A secret?" Columbia sat up, blinking stupidly at her, in shock. Magenta had never told her a secret. "You mean..."
"You didn't eat Eddie," Magenta told her in a grave, hushed tone. She'd wracked her brain for a solution before it had occurred to her that the Master had never dined on human flesh. He wouldn't know what it should taste like, so how would he know she hadn't served 'filet of Eddie'? Especially with Riff to back her up and Eddie's mangled corpse right there, hidden under the table cloth. Her brother had carved a roast of similar size to the ham she'd served, she doubted even he would have realized her deception- except that she'd told him. She told him everything.
Still, it was a cruel trick. This was a foolish thing, admitting to a blabbermouth like Columbia her outright disobedience, but she needed her to know the truth.
"You disobeyed Frank? Why?" Columbia asked, wiping her eyes on the back of her pajama sleeves.
There were so many ways to answer that. She found the whole thing repulsive, she detested their Master and got off on little rebellions, but mostly it boiled down to one thing.
"The Master should never have asked such a thing," she said. It was like he'd become completely unhinged in the last several weeks since beginning his most recent experiment to create the perfect man. Indulging in one's wanton lust was one thing, but wholesale slaughter and cannibalism was a far cry from anything she and her brother had signed on for. Their mission on Earth might be a complete and utter failure, but even they had their limits. Another weighty frown fell across her blood red lips and with much reluctance she confessed, "I could never do that to that to a friend."
Columbia stared into her eyes for a long time, like she was trying to see through her. In all the months they'd been locked together in the castle, the maid had never once said anything so nice to her. Mostly she told her to shut up or leave her alone. Her face broke and tears poured down her cheeks for the third time that evening. Columbia wrapped her arms around Magenta's neck and squeezed her tightly, holding onto her in relief. "You mean that?"
"Mmhm," Magenta coiled her arms protectively around her trembling cohort and let her eyes close. The last twenty four earth hours weighed heavily on her, and she felt they still had much to go through before they found any measure of peace. "My brother is working on a plan to free us of Frank's insanity. Just bear with it a few more hours." That may have been a stretch. Her brother didn't care about Columbia at all, but she knew she could sway him. She intended to see Columbia freed along with herself and Riff Raff.
Columbia's eyes lit up with surprise. "Oh my gosh, you really mean that?" New tears spilled down her cheeks, but these ones were brought on by the first glimmer of hope she'd felt in weeks.
Magenta nodded. "It's a secret. Don't say a word of this to anyone."
"A secret," Columbia nodded, beaming through teary eyes. "Gotcha!" Impulsively she kissed Magenta on the mouth. She pulled away grinning, "I knew you liked me."