'The marvel was not how well the bear danced, it was that the bear danced at all.' –Russian Proverb.
It's taken nearly two months until Sebastian Shaw deigned to visit his branch in Las Vegas, but finally tonight he did. Last night now, if I want to be technical. As when I was imprisoned, I will write an account of this, just in case, yet with little hope that if something does happen, anyone will find it. Let me make it more plain. I do not like Sebastian Shaw, nor Emma Frost, nor his cohorts, I do not trust them, and for all their talk about 'our own kind', I do not believe for a moment that he wouldn't vivisect me, were he to gain by it. Here it is, then—the tale of this first encounter.
Working at the Hellfire Club, constant sexual harassment aside, isn't half as bad as working in the pharmacy during cold and flu season, and involves much less vomit. (Carefirst always hires an extra janitor for December through February.) Given that being a pharmacist requires a PhD and waitressing/hostessing does not, working there is actually quite easy in comparison. I mean, if you screw up a drinks order, the worst that happens is that someone gets miffed. If you screw up a prescription, someone may die of it. I admit I am not crazy about all the ass grabbing, but I can put up with it when all they're doing is copping a feel. Pinching I do not put up with.
I stopped the breast honking by putting a few artfully angled straight pins in the push-up pads in my bras. It only takes a few times for even the dimmest man to learn he's going to get a handful of 'Ouch!' rather than a handful of tit. An expression of surprise and an ingenuous "Is that where that pin went?" always gets a laugh from the onlookers. And I am cleaning up on the money. There is plenty of exploitation going on here, only in my case, I am exploiting them quite mercilessly.
But not all the women working here have my particular advantages, and when Andi stumbled out of Private Booth Two with the makings of a black eye and a swelling lip, I was reminded of that. Hooking was legal in Nevada, but not in Las Vegas; Andi was one of the 'entertainers' the Club hired to get around the laws. Holding her face, she stumbled and fell; some of the members jeered. I got her up and into the ladies' lounge, directed the attendant to fetch an ice pack and aspirin.
"I know it's not a lot, but I will put a twenty dollar surcharge on his tab and make sure it gets into your pay packet." I said. That was the most I could add without authorization from the shift supervisor, and twenty dollars back then was more like two or three hundred dollars of 2013 money. "I don't suppose that talking about pressing charges will do anything but make you laugh." Considering the prominence of the man who had hit her and thrown her out of the booth, it was so painful that laughing was the only release. This was 1961, and she was a sex worker. By the unwritten laws of the land of that day and age, she was fair game for any abuse up to the point of actual murder, and if she was murdered, no one would look very hard for her killer.
She did laugh. "Thr's a lot of desr't round Vegas," she slurred, holding her mouth. "Sand—d'gs real easy, for gr'ves. Ah!" The lounge attendant came back with ice, a towel, and the painkillers I'd asked for.
"Take these with water, not liquor, unless you want to wind up with big bleeding holes in your stomach," I instructed her. "I can't stay with you, they'll want me out front, but Mabel's here. Take it easy for a while, and I'll see about a cab for you."
"Th'ks, Jenny. Y'r alri'gt, n'mtter wha they say," she said, as I left the room.
Yeah, getting promoted so fast, over the heads of women who had worked there for years in some cases, hadn't won me many friends. But no one could say I wasn't capable or that I didn't work hard. The name 'Jenny' came from a misunderstanding over what I wanted on the ID I had purchased, probably for too much money, from a creature of the criminal underworld here in Vegas, and I didn't have to money then to change it.
No matter; Jenny's a simpler, more traditionally American name and helps offset my other strangenesses. I do feel odd about shedding the name 'Kaplan', disloyal to those who loved me, but my feelings for them are like fruit preserved whole in honey—suspended and crystallized. My father Joe Kaplan is just entering college, my mother Rosellen a skinny twelve year old with scabs on her knees, my sisters and brothers years from even being embryos.
I made the rounds once—at that time of night, most members who are going to arrive have already done so, but I check on them to be sure they're having a good time, pass on the name of a horse or some other bit of negotiable information, collect some money. Getting back to Andi, I walked her out the side door, and that was when the general manager, Mr. Robilotti found me.
"Jenny, Mr. Shaw is here tonight, and he's specifically asked for you to wait on him and his friends at a midnight supper."
"Aww, no, Paulie. Don't do that to the kid. Shaw and his friends, they look at you like you're something they'd wipe off their shoe," Anid said. "The Ice Queen's the worse, she looks at ya like she can read the label on your panties." The ice and aspirin had helped.
"It's all right, Andi," I told her. "Here, if that bruising isn't better by tomorrow night, go to a veterinary supply store, and ask for this salve." I scribbled a line on a blank receipt. "Trainers use it on race horses to relieve bruising and swelling. It'll fix you right up." (No, it hadn't been approved for use on humans, but horses are much more delicate creatures than people think and anything someone would use on a very, very expensive race horse's skin is usually fine for humans. A pharmacy secret.)
"Thank you—you got a good heart, Jenny. Be careful tonight, you hear?" She got in the taxi. Mr. Robilotti and I were left looking at each other in the richly fragrant (not in a good way) alleyway.
"Go to the roped-off booth, the first one on the right," he instructed me. "Close the curtains behind you and turn the lighting fixture on the table. There's a private suite back there."
"I was wondering why there was so much less space on the concourse floor than the other levels," I observed. "I will do that."
"Good girl. Don't worry—he did send you here, and I told him what a good job you've been doing." So Shaw knew about my fiction? The only way to deal was to throw myself on his mercy, then. Or seem to, while staying in control of the situation.
"Thank you, sir. "It was about ten-fifteen then, so I went back to hostessing for another hour and a half before I used the mysterious secret entrance, and I have to admit it was pretty cool. One moment I was in a decadent and hip nightclub, the next, in a private office, quiet except for music coming from the next room, Edith Piaf singing about the sadness of life and love in a throbbing, passionate voice. "Is that you, Miss Song? Come on in here and join the party."
I crossed the room and paused in the doorway. First of all, I saw the couple, she blond and blue-eyed and almost as beautiful as Raven Darkholme, he bronzed and beaming with a loose Ascot knotted at his neck. My first thought was: Sleazy. Sleazy. Sleazy. Porn movie producer sleazy. And that while she was beautiful now, there was something wrong, something cruel about her mouth, something that in ten years time would take over her whole face. Another man, with hair much longer than was fashionable even among the most avant-garde lurked around to one side, while a third man frowned at a glass of something that looked like water but almost certainly wasn't. Seeing him made me very happy because he had bright red skin and certain demonic features like pointed ears and a long, prehensile red tail. It was the first evidence I had that Shaw really was involved with mutants.
All of that I took in, in an eye-blink. Then a warm sentiment crept over me. Why, this handsome, charming couple wasn't sleazy at all. They were lovely people, quite the nicest I had ever met, and I liked them very much. These thoughts were so foreign to my nature, and they jarred so against my normal judgment, that they had to be something imposed on me from an outside source. Andi had mentioned that 'the Ice Queen' looked as if she knew what underwear you were wearing—was she the one messing with my head? I shoved that thought under, reminding myself 'it's not a lie if you believe it,' and spoke before anyone else could.
"Good evening, Mr. Shaw," I made eye-contact with the man in the Ascot. "You know, of course, that I used your name and lied to Mr. Robilotti to get a job here. For that I apologize, and hope you will forgive me. You see, it was the only way I could think of to get into contact with other mutants."
"How could I fail to be moved by such a well-spoken and heartfelt apology?" he asked rhetorically and after an exchange of glances with the Ice Queen. "Especially when it comes from such a sweet young girl. But you have the advantage of me—."
"Oh, I doubt that, sir."
He smiled. "Obviously you know who I am, whereas all I know of you is your name and that you're an excellent employee! First, though, let me introduce my associate, Emma Frost." (What a good name for her.) She inclined her head slightly, acknowledging the introduction. "The long-haired young man over there is Janos Quested, but we call him Riptide, don't we? And that moody fellow there is Azazel. Isn't his make-up grand?"
"Ah," I said, approaching them. "You're testing me. That's not make-up, it's his natural coloration and his natural features. All make-up has some scent, even the fragrance-free kind. For example, Miss Frost wears Coty Air-spun Powder, just like I do, and theatrical make-up smells even stronger than the kind women normally use. He would smell so strongly of grease-paint the whole room would stink of it, if it were make-up."
Azazel muttered something surprised –sounding in a Slavic language and knocked back the rest of his vodka.
"His appearance doesn't bother you?" Shaw asked.
"No, not particularly. Should it? I might add that up until recently, I've been institutionalized and on some very heavy psychopharmaceuticals, so I may well be clinically insane or else delusional from withdrawal. That's not a reflection on you or your character, sir," I said to Azazel. "just a statement of fact."
"She's not lying," Miss Frost commented. Yes, she had to be a mind reader of some kind. Indeed, I was being quite careful not to lie.
"You are starting to really intrigue me, Miss Jenny Song," Shaw said, regarding me closely. "Why don't you fix us some pre-dinner cocktails, so we can all be in the proper frame of mind when you tell us about how you learned my name or about the mutants around me? I fancy a touch of the Green Fairy, don't you?" He was asserting his control over the situation, not to mention me.
The Green Fairy, huh? Well, I saw Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge along with everyone else. "With pleasure," I smiled. "Just point me to the absinthe, the spoons, and the sugar cubes. When will the fifth member of the party be joining you?"
"She already has," Shaw said, looking at me. I think he expected me to be ignorant as to what the Green Fairy was, let alone how to prepare it. "Riptide, show her the wet bar, will you?"
Riptide did, leaning a little too close and staring at me a little too long. He was a nice-looking guy, but he had a less than pleasant body odor.
I gave him the smile I save for special occasions, the one which says I would cheerful saw off someone's foot with piano wire, if I took a fancy to, laughing with girlish glee while I sawed, and he backed down a little. The absinthe bottle was very crusty, and the label was in French. It said it had been bottled in 1855, which meant this was the real euphoric hallucinogenic deal.
Uh-oh. I probably shouldn't be drinking this stuff. Neither should they, but their habits were none of my business. Ah, there were the funny shaped glasses and fancy slotted spoons. Shot of Absinthe in the bottom of the glass, put the spoon over it and the cube in the spoon…
They were staring at me while I worked. I didn't like that. Didn't I get enough 'See the Dancing Bear' among humans as it was? Did I really need to take this from my supposed 'own kind' ? What was more, they were smirking. So to fill the empty air, I chatted amiably as I filled a pitcher with water and ice."If you have any mamushizake here, I could make Green Dragons instead."
"Mamushizake?" Emma Frost asked. "What is that?"
"It's the Japanese name for a rice-based liquor where you drown a poisonous viper in the raw spirit and bottle them together. They have to leave the snake in, that's how they can tell it's the genuine article." The Green Dragon cocktail was something I just made up, but not the liquor. Kind of beats a tequila worm all hollow, doesn't it?
"Really?" Shaw asked. "By the way, what is your mutant power?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," I turned and gave him a smile over my shoulder. "I was hoping you could tell me."
"You really don't know?" he persisted, this smarmy smile pasted on his face.
"Not at all." I said.
"Perhaps you should pay better attention to what you're doing," he suggested. "Because you're missing more than you know."
I looked down at a pitcher of ice water that was floating in mid air, and I did not have my prosthetics on. "What? No, it has to be a trick!"
TBC…..
