Undead - One Foot In The Grave Part 7

"I'm curious about the business angle," I clarified.

She just looked at me and smiled.

"Well, the Playboy clubs and their upscale like have long since disappeared from the American landscape. The only places one expects to find topless dancers, these days, is in seedy bars and-"

She held up her hand. "First of all, we do not employ topless dancers."

I glanced back down. "One of us either needs to check our eyesight or our definitions."

She laughed. "Yes, our definitions. Fantasies employs exotic dancers." Emphasis on exotic."Ah. I see." I smiled. "Topless dancers are bimbos who take off their tops and wiggle. Exotic dancers are artists who engage in interpretive performances involving music, lighting, and costumes-costumes with removable tops."

Suki smiled right back. "An interesting if not entirely original distinction, Mr. Csejthe. But I think you will find that our definition of exotic exceeds your expectations. Come, let us walk while we converse."

I followed her out of the room and down the hall.

"I'm afraid I didn't answer your original question."

"Which was?" I didn't think I had gotten around to actually asking it.

"You were going to ask about the dichotomy of an obviously upscale club like Fantasies utilizing low-brow entertainment like topless dancers."

"Exotic," I said.

She hesitated. "What?"

"Exotic dancers."

"Um, yes. Well, to fully answer your question, I'll introduce you to the dancers individually. But a part of the answer lies in the fact that there are still upscale clubs in existence that do cater to a wealthy and hedonistic clientele."

"Private clubs. Exclusive members.h.i.+ps with low profiles."

"You are a quick study, Mr. Csejthe."

"You should see me ride a unicycle."

"What? Oh, I see. I was warned about you."

"And what did they warn you about?"

She merely smiled and kept walking.

We toured the library-three large rooms claiming to hold thirty-five thousand books and a fourth room housing a microfiche viewer, three computer on-line services, and two CD-ROM readers. I looked around carefully, asking pertinent questions about the facilities: if permitted, I would be camping out in here with some regularity.

"How do you get away with it?" I asked as we exited and started down another hallway.

"Get away with what?" She actually batted her eyelashes. "We get away with a great many things: you will have to be more specific."

"Seattle doesn't strike me as being the sort of city that would support your organization."

Once again she cut me off with a simple hand gesture. "First of all, our clientele comes from many places besides Seattle. More than a few are from out of state. Some come from even farther away.

"Secondly, Fantasies is not the demesne's only source of income. But I believe you are mainly wondering how we can operate so boldly with minimum scrutiny?"

I nodded.

"There are, of course, feminists and clergy and certain types of politicians, media crusaders, and community leaders who have initially disagreed with the Doman's business philosophies. Stefan makes it a point to always meet with any concerned individuals to try to speedily resolve those concerns."

"And once he has met with these concerned individuals," I extrapolated, "looking deeply into their eyes and explaining how unimportant or misguided their concerns really are-those people leave and forget that they ever had such concerns."

Suki smiled. "As I have said, Mr. Csejthe: a quick study."

We walked on.

The medical facilities were small but quite extensive: small in that they were set up to easily handle up to three or four patients at any one time and extensive in that every aspect of medical need imaginablewas provided for. None of the Doman's subjects would ever have to risk exposure by going out for medical, eye or dental care. There was a private pharmacy for in-house prescriptions, therapy rooms, even an MRI unit shared jointly by the medical and research labs. And so on.

"Who pays for all of this?" I asked. "You're not funding this kind of equipment with the kinds of tips that line your dancers' g-strings."

"You'd be surprised at the amount of money that Fantasies generates," she said. "But there are other sources of income, as well. The Doman himself has a number of investments that he has managed over several human lifetimes."

At that point we were pa.s.sing through one of the labs and ran into Dr. Mooncloud.

"Chris! You're just the semi-vampire I've been looking for. I need to run a few quick tests. Open your mouth."

I looked at Suki. She looked at Mooncloud. "You're the doctor," Suki said.

"Here," Mooncloud said, poking a U-shaped lump of soft plastic in my mouth, "bite down on this and keep your mouth shut until I say otherwise."

I obliged, feeling soft, warm goo mold around my teeth and gums. There was a hard, plastic straw set between the upper and lower impressions that allowed me to breathe normally.

"Now up on the scales; I want another check on your weight and height." The ever-ready clipboard was already in her hands. Next I was de-s.h.i.+rted, affixed with electrodes, and ordered onto a treadmill for a five-minute EKG run. The straw proved a more than adequate airway and the goo, now hardened, didn't come out until I had my s.h.i.+rt back on.

"So what do we know, now, Doc, that we didn't know ten minutes ago?" I asked.

"I'm compiling info for the big picture, Chris; I don't like to jump to conclusions." She studied her clipboard. "But I think it's safe to say that your strength and stamina are still increasing and your sweat glands have either shut down or are becoming unimportant to your body's cooling processes."

"And the goo?"

"Dental molds," Suki said. "I'm sure they'll prove helpful in checking the development of your fangs."

"Or lack thereof," I muttered. "Nice stuff, though: it set in only ten minutes."

"It actually sets in a minute-and-a-half."

"Hmmm," Suki said, "I have a feeling that you'll probably be taking dental impressions on a daily basis, now."

"Maybe hourly," Mooncloud agreed.

They both laughed.

I didn't dignify them with a response. Eventually the amus.e.m.e.nt subsided and my tour continued.

There was a great deal more room underground, thanks to the knockers. Suki cla.s.sified them as mining boggarts from England, Wales, and Scotland, closely related to the gnomes. Emigrating to the Pacific Northwest, they entered into a symbiotic arrangement with the Doman. The diminutive tunnelers had carved an immense s.p.a.ce out of the bedrock: additional living s.p.a.ce; parking, recreational facilities, including pools, hot tubs, saunas, and a good-sized gym. There was also a dungeon.

Dungeon?

Well, two dungeons, as it turned out. One which served as an extension of the demesne's private law enforcement system. And the other-well, the other was an extension of the services provided by certain rooms upstairs.

Rooms upstairs?

Although Suki's explanation was brief and very generic, I was able to fill in the blanks without too much mental effort: prost.i.tution. With a variety of kinks."So you have a pseudo-dungeon for those whose 'fantasies' include a little S-and-M?"

She shook her head. "There is nothing fake about the facilities. One of the strong suits of our operation is the absolute believability of our 'illusions.' "

"And the s.e.x? Is it simulated or real?"

"Fantasies provides a number of services to its clientele, services which can always be obtained elsewhere," she said with barely noticeable defensiveness. "The difference is, here, we guarantee safety and satisfaction for all partic.i.p.ants, quality service and surroundings, and experiences that exceed anything you would find anywhere else."

An old excuse: if they didn't come here, they'd just go someplace else. And regulated prost.i.tution, at least, has some built-in medical safeguards. But. . .

"Vampire hookers?"

She shook her head. "With a few exceptions, most of our professionals are human."

"And the exceptions?"

"Well, one exception, for example-since we are pa.s.sing by the dungeon area-involves the CEO for a major conglomerate. He likes to come down here every so often and be whipped until his back bleeds."

I made a face. "He pays you to do that?"

"His fantasy is completed by having one of our pros lick the blood from his wounds."

"Sounds like Liz Bachman."

Suki muttered something low and indistinct that sounded suspiciously like "very quick study," then said more audibly: "Do you see what a perfect exchange of services this is? He even pays an exorbitant amount of money for his fantasy and considers himself very lucky, indeed." She studied my expression.

"Can you fault the logic of such a barter?"

"Logic is a p.i.s.s-poor way of evaluating the worth of human interactions."

"So you question such transactions on the basis of ethical or moral difficulties? No one is really harmed. The act is completely consensual-demanded, in fact, by the client."

"Consensual," I said. "The Kevorkian defense."

"Let's go back upstairs."

I waited until we had ridden the elevator and were wending our way through a chain of offices before returning to the topic.

"And the prost.i.tutes upstairs, the human ones. . ."

She turned to face me, her eyes intent on my face, on my words. She was quick, as well.

" . . . do they know that they're working for the undead?" I finished.

The ensuing silence was as telling as the words she finally uttered.

"The ones who service us do," she said.

A young man of heroic proportions sat on the stage playing a syrinx: a set of multireed panpipes. His only costume was a leather thong that left very little to the imagination. Indeed, his s.h.a.ggy hair, beard, and considerable body hair provided more coverage than the wispy little bit of leather that was tied about his waist. The portion of his anatomy that drew the eye, however, was his forehead, where two small horns projected through his dangling forelocks. In spite of all this there was something vaguely familiar about the man-if he was, indeed, truly a man in the human sense.

The stage was equally stark, dressed only with the rock that the goatish musician sat upon, a large wicker basket at one end, and a lone tree at the other.

The tree looked natural and realistic-nothing like a prop tree of papier-mache and silk. Natural until its two major branches began moving in time to the music, that is. Fascinated, everyone in the main room stared as those two branches twisted and bobbed. And rippled! And, as their form flowed and flickered, the silvery bark became pearlescent and they became limbs of a different aspect. The branches became arms, human arms.

Now a face was forming amid the leaves. The trunk began to writhe-bulging here, constricting there, also moving to the rhythm of the music-until it was a human torso. Of feminine aspect.

The remainder of the trunk split to become a pair of shapely legs and suddenly the tree was gone, replaced by a dancing nymph with alabaster skin and green hair. On closer examination, her green "hair"

turned out to be green leaves up above and green moss-well-in every other aspect she appeared fully human.

The Panish piper, seemingly oblivious to the transformation occurring behind him, began to turn around. Instantly, the dancing woman turned back into a tree. This was greeted with laughter and applause by the bar's patrons and more than a few whispers of "how'd she do that?"

"Holograms," stated a voice to my left.

I turned and studied the occupants at the next table: an impossibly young, MBA-type wearing a dark, pin-stripe suit with a red power-tie and an older, rumpled salesman in brown slacks and a beige sports coat with gravy stains on a necktie of indeterminate color.

"They're using some kind of holographic projector," Power-tie was saying. Gravy-stains merely grunted and continued to stare as the piper turned away and the tree became a dancing girl, once more.

"I read about stuff like this in Omni," Power-tie continued. "They project a three-dimensional image over the dancer to make it look like she's changing into something else." Gravy-stains grunted again and continued to stare at the girl, apparently fascinated by the tree-woman's burl-like formations.

I turned back to Suki. "So, is Junior-Achievement correct?" I nodded at the dancing nymph: "Holograms?" It was the first question I had asked since Suki had dropped her little bombsh.e.l.l nearly a half hour before.

She smirked. "Fantasies employs a vast array of special effects and it is against company policy to divulge any of our secrets."

It was a non-answer, but I hardly noticed. My mind was still on the follow-up questions that I hadn't asked, nearly a half-hour before. Like: what kind of "services" do the living perform for the dead? My imagination wisely refused to theorize.

The dance continued with the piper making occasional attempts to look behind him and the dancing woman reverting back to an arboreal state each time.

The next question beckoned: how did the Doman guarantee the secrets of his demesne if these humans were allowed to come and go? The obvious answer was that he couldn't. So, a.s.suming the best-that there wasn't a constant turnover in staff and those who occupied the rooms upstairs were long-term occupants-that still meant the prost.i.tutes had to be virtual prisoners.

With no likely hope of parole.

As I sat there and watched the "entertainment," I found myself getting more and more upset. Or maybe upset wasn't the right word-more like something between agitated and uncomfortable. It was a feeling that was both emotional and physical.

Now the top of the basket popped off and a slender, brown arm rose from the opening like a sinuous snake. The pipe music changed from a pastoral tune to something with a Middle Eastern flavor as a second arm twined the air beside the first. A head appeared. Long, coal-black hair framed a dark face with brown, sensuous features. As she continued to rise from the basket, little details began to catch my attention. Her fingers were tipped with long, clawlike nails. Her eyes were golden and slit-pupiled like those of a cat or snake. She wore nothing but brief wisps of snakeskin. Here and there her dark, l.u.s.trous flesh was overlaid with patches of black, brown, and golden scales in banded patterns, most noticeably about her wrists, throat, shoulders, and ribs. As she reached the point where she might have steppedover the basket's brim, the scales returned in greater form, flowing from the hipline to curve across the nether region of her belly like the drooping waistline of an incredibly tight leather dress.

Except it was no dress. As she continued to rise from the basket, the lower portion of her torso eschewed human legs and continued as the trunk of a great serpent.

"Holograms," Power-tie muttered off to my left.