by Tanai Walker
I felt my face burn with anger and embarrassment.
“What sort of establishment is this? I didn’t come here to be mistreated.”
“You came here.” He pointed to the ceiling. “You’re a stranger to me and you want me to kiss your ass. Jimmy should have explained.”
I paused, stared at him, and remembered Jimmy’s warning. He hadn’t just been giving me a hard time. This was his domain, snarky and sleazy, not mine.
I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he shouted. “Are you leaving? Without seeing Leda?”
Claudio had already noticed my urgency and adroitly played it against me. I turned back and glanced down at the flyer.
“How much?”
He gave a mock shrug as if he were not sure. He then turned down the corners of his stubble-covered lips. “You want an unscheduled private show? That’ll be three hundred.”
“Dollars?” I balked at the price. “Highway robbery.”
“Look, lady, you want to come back for a scheduled show?” he asked. “It’s only one fifty.”
I imagined being faced with strangers, all of them looking at Leda, and I shook my head. I’d had the foresight to go to the ATM and withdrawn as much as the machine would allow in one transaction.
I reached into my satchel again, this time to remove my wallet and count out the bills Claudio demanded. He took them between two fingers as stubby and fat as sausage links.
“Wait here. I’ll get Leda,” he said and disappeared down the dark hall to the back.
I paced the entranceway, barely able to keep in my excitement. If the girl, Leda, was indeed the one from the pictures, how could I be sure? Was such a thing even possible?
“It couldn’t be,” I muttered under my breath.
For the first time, it occurred to me to do the math. If the picture had been taken between the early 1900s and 20s, that would make Leda over a hundred years old. She didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
Minutes later, I glanced at my watch, then resumed my pacing, my eyes pasted on the dark hall up ahead. Heavy footsteps sounded in the distance. Claudio appeared at the end of the hallway; his silhouette lightened as he neared. He carried a large Styrofoam cup, a plastic dome lid on the top. He paused, took a sip through a straw, cocked his head, and studied me.
“Are you black or what?”
“Excuse me? What does that have to do with anything?”
He waved his hand as if that would dismiss the subject. “I was only curious.”
“I was curious about your place on the human evolutionary ladder, but I was courteous enough not to ask.”
Claudio rolled his eyes and took another long sip of his drink. He patted his chest and rattled out an even longer belch.
“Come on back,” he rasped.
He led the way, his form filling the hallway as he lumbered along. I could hardly see where I was going as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The hall bent to the right, and there were suddenly naked bulbs above us. They gave off a faint glow. Partially faded, old wallpaper adorned the walls. Chrysanthemums on a leafy background.
Doors, almost invisible, as they too were covered in the same wallpaper, were marked only by small knobs. I could barely make out their outlines. As we passed, I counted five. Up ahead, the hall bent left, but Claudio didn’t take me that far.
He stopped at the fourth door and opened it.
I peered in and saw a room no bigger than a closet, with a chair in front of what looked to be a tall, narrow screen.
“Well, go in,” he told me.
I studied him. In the light, his skin was remarkably smooth, hairless, his jowls as heavy as Atlas’s. I peered back into the closet-like room and wondered if it would be the scene of my undoing. Claudio could push me in there, strangle me, and no one would be the wiser.
He eyed me back impatiently. “If you’re having second thoughts, I don’t give refunds.”
I took a breath and entered. He closed the door behind me. I spun around in complete darkness. I made my way to the chair and placed my satchel at my feet.
I heard the mechanical whir of tiny motors. A thin horizontal beam of light appeared in the vicinity of the screen in front of me. The light grew as the screen lifted to reveal a pane of one-way glass.
It was like peering backward through time. Beyond the glass sat a full-sized antique bed with a frame of metal in the shape of curling vines. Next to the bed stood a privacy screen painted with birds. A wooden stand affixed with a mirror held a washbasin and a pitcher. The same wallpaper from the hall covered the walls of the room.
She stood next to a closed door in a wraparound coat that came to her knees and a cloche hat covering her eyes. Her arms were crossed in front of her, and thin, pale hands clutched the lapels of the coat. She waited, still, as if she were posing.
I felt the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end. This was not like looking through time, I decided. It was like looking at one of the postcards hidden away in my rolltop desk, and it coming to life in my hands. I felt my breath hitch in my chest and realized I had been holding air in my lungs since the screen lifted. I turned my attention back to the scene beyond the glass and waited.
Slowly, she began to move. She opened her coat, revealing a slinky, champagne-colored dress. She hung the coat on a hook mounted to the door and walked forward, the hat still covering her eyes. She stopped in front of the basin and bent to peer at her reflection in the mirror. She removed the hat and tossed it on the bed.
For the first time, I got a clear view of her face and saw the heavy-lidded eyes, the long, straight nose and full lips. Her hair was dark and cut short, with straight bangs.
On the other side of the glass, Leda slowly straightened. She turned and stepped close to the bed, raised one leg, and put her foot on the bed. The hem of the dress fell back to reveal a rolled stocking nearly the same color as her flesh, held on by a garter. On her foot she wore a stout-heeled shoe with a strap. She undid the buckles and slipped off the shoe, which she unceremoniously tossed on the other side of the bed.
She then slid off the garter and rolled the stocking down over her short, shapely leg. She straightened, turned, and sat on the bed. She brought up her other leg and undressed it of shoe, garter, and stocking.
Not once did she look at the glass that I sat behind watching her. I wished I would have brought one of the postcards, as I doubted my own eyes. It was the strangeness of the situation, the antiques and the clothes, all the artifacts of the past, one of my postcards come to life. I felt dazed, drugged, and my heart beat so fast I felt as if its clamor could compel my spirit to rise out of my body and float away.
In the room, Leda pulled the dress over her head. Beneath, she wore a chemise just a shade paler than her skin, and beneath that, through the one-way glass, I could see the pink of her nipples. Once again the breath seized in my lungs.
Leda returned to the basin and removed a sponge and a vial. She poured a bit of the vial’s contents into the basin. She then retrieved the pitcher and poured water into the basin and used the sponge to stir it.
She gathered the chemise at the waist and lifted it over her head. She turned her back to the glass to reveal a myriad of tattoos. There was a hazard trefoil in the shape of a heart on her wrist. In the middle of her back, stretching from the base of her spine to her buttocks, was the Hanged Man from the tarot, bound upside down by one leg and clutching two small sacks. On her right shoulder was something written in what looked to be Aramaic script, and on her left buttock, a bunch of chrysanthemums that trailed up her side to her ribs.
I felt a pang of disgust. To me, tattoos were vile, the art of the ignorant, and I hated that Leda had possibly ruined her once-flawless skin with them. I put the thought in check as a clue that this could not possibly be the same girl. Leda was of this generation all right.
At the basin, she dipped the sponge into the water, brought it to her stomach, and began to bathe herself. The water dripped down her hips and
between her thighs in clear rivulets.
In the mirror, I could see one of her breasts, small and pert, and tipped with an almost translucent pink nipple. I felt the glass under my palm. Without noticing, I had leaned forward so close that my breath fogged the glass in short puffs that disappeared as they made their mark.
Leda reached behind her and wiped the small of her back and below. The sponge left the area beaded with water, and the roses on her ass looked as if they shone with dew. She looked over her shoulder, right at the glass, then away again.
I sucked in an anticipatory breath and watched the woman on the other side of the glass turn completely around. There were more tattoos, a black widow spider beneath her navel, a red feather between her breasts. The hair over her sex had been trimmed down to a single strip on her mons in a pornographic style, not at all like the girls in my postcards. Still, I could have sat there long into the night watching Leda’s birdbath.
She left the basin and went to the bed. She climbed onto the mattress and kneeled. Her legs parted, revealing the dark reddish-pink of her secret place. She began to sway slowly as if to some unheard music. As she did, she caressed her small breasts with her hands.
I gripped the armrests, felt that they were threadbare, and knew I was not the first to hold on tightly to them, to hold my breath there in that room. The thought of someone else sitting there in my place, watching Leda’s show caused the contents of my stomach to slosh uncomfortably.
On the other side of the glass, Leda’s hands traveled down her sides to her hips. She brought the fingers of one hand to her mouth and wet them. I could almost hear the sigh escape her lips and somehow travel through the partition to my ear. In one smooth movement, Leda bent backward, while her wet hand slid down between her breasts and over her stomach and parted the folds of her sex. The stretched skin at her pelvis rippled as her fingers played in the slick pink beyond the folds.
My face flushed hot. This could not possibly be right. I was a long way from my pristine little secret room and sanctuary. It felt unholy, an upside-down pentacle, a mass chanted backward. Live pornography for men like Jimmy and Claudio, who, I realized, was nothing but a glorified pimp. How he had taken my money with such glee.
A blunt force overtook my body. I doubled over, the beast suddenly upon me without any warning. I fell to my knees still gripping the chair, fighting the change. A groan tried to escape my body, but I held it down my throat where it pulsed like water in a plugged geyser. Through my narrowed eyes, I watched as Leda continued with her show, her fingers teasing deep.
At the sight of this display, the beast seemed to surge forward, challenging what little control I had left. I stood on rubbery legs, leaning on the chair, which toppled under my shifting weight. I shouldered a dark wall to support myself. My entire body ached from the threat of the change. The muscles in my jaw spasmed as I clenched my teeth from the effort of fighting back the beast.
I groped through the semi-darkness and fumbled at the door until my hand found the cool, metal knob. The soft light from the hall flooded the small space, and the beast faded back fast. When I realized my error, I looked over my shoulder to see Leda upright on the bed staring straight at me.
I slipped through the door and quickly made my way to the exit. As I reached the podium, Claudio stepped out of nowhere to block the way.
“Where are you going? The show ain’t over.”
I moved to go around, and his bulk sailed in front of me, blocking the path out.
“There’s been an emergency at work…” I doubled over with the pain of the transformation. “I must go.”
“No refunds,” he barked.
“Fine.”
“You a fucking cop?” he asked. “You a fucking narc?”
I sank to the floor, knees first. This could not be happening. I should have stayed at home and waited for Sandra to return and pamper me. She seemed a lifetime away now.
Claudio put a meaty hand on my shoulder. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
A throaty growl escaped me. It gave me strength enough to stand on my own two feet. My shoes had split from their soles. The black claws curved from the hairy sinew at the cuffs of my pants.
Claudio stepped away from me. There was fear in his eyes, but he did not flee.
He began to change.
A black mist began to rise from his shoulders in swirling tendrils. Claudio threw his head back and the same shadowy fog rolled between his lips and down his chin. The mist solidified as it curled around his body giving it a different shape.
Not wanting to stick around to see his new form, I tried to scramble past. He lunged, and we bowled into a wooden-paneled wall. He pinned me to the floor, his beard a mass of vines, grass, and root-like protrusions. The smell of earth and decayed plant life was just as overpowering as his brute strength. His eyes were dark caverns in the rocky slope of his forehead. Nothing human remained.
He tangled his short, gnarled fingers into the patches of fur at my shoulders and rose to his bark-covered feet, taking me with him. Thick vines extended from his sides, snaking up, winding around my chest and back, binding my arms close.
The new appendages tightened with the swiftness of a noose. In a wheezing gasp, my lungs squeezed the air they held out of my muzzle. I struggled in vain, my clawed feet shredding organic debris from his body.
“Claudio.”
The command came in a voice slightly louder than a whisper, deep and smoky, but definitely female. Our horned heads turned together in the voice’s direction.
Leda stood wrapped only in a short, flimsy robe.
“What the fuck is going on?” she asked.
Claudio tightened his grip, and a pitiful whine escaped me.
Leda stepped forward. “Drop her. Now.”
The vines slid away and I fell to the floor, human again, my clothes in near tatters. I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs in an effort to cover myself. My eyes were glued on the girl from my postcards, alive and in color. Speaking to me.
“Who sent you?”
“Jimmy,” I stammered.
She took a step forward, puzzled. “The goat man?”
“He showed me the flyer,” I said.
She moved closer and stooped, placing a warm hand on my shoulder. Leda’s eyes were an extraordinary shade of violet, more on the red spectrum than blue.
“Can you stand?”
Slowly, gingerly, I got to my feet.
“What’s your name?”
I hesitated.
“Maybe if Claudio asks, you’ll tell him.”
He took a step forward and gave an unnatural growl. I had been so enrapt with Leda that Claudio’s presence was forgotten.
“Tinsley Swan,” I blurted, offering a small smile.
Claudio chuckled, a whispery sound like water grass in the wind. I shrank away from him, expecting him to attack me again.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of him,” Leda said. “He is only a leshy. You, my friend, are a dragon among dogs.”
To illustrate her point, she whipped her head toward him.
“Get the fuck out of here,” she said scathingly. “I don’t want to see you until you’re presentable.”
With the tortured groan of a falling tree, Claudio stumbled off, his gnarled limbs swaying with each step. Clumps of sod fell to the floor as he went. Leda regarded the clods with a crinkled nose, as if they were the most disgusting thing she had ever encountered.
“Dumb animal,” she said and reached out her hand. “Come to the back. I can get you some clothes, and while we wait, there are things we must discuss.”
I hesitated, afraid to touch her.
She laughed and our eyes met. She snatched my hand and I gasped at the contact of warm, dry, soft skin instead of…whatever my imagination anticipated. Her fingers were strong around mine.
“There,” she said, pulling me along. I followed, clutching my torn shirt with my free hand. She took me down the dim hall, and we turne
d to a large room with a beaded curtain instead of a door. The room was crammed with low couches and a bar where two women in their twenties sat on stools smoking from a hookah.
“Rose, bring tea,” Leda said. “Snow Geisha.”
One of the girls hopped off the stool and walked behind the bar.
We passed through the area and stopped at a door that Leda opened to reveal a smaller room with a patio beyond several panes of glass. I followed her inside and scanned the space. There were shelves, a desk in the Art Deco style detailed in various shades of wood, and several overstuffed chairs. My eyes fell on what looked to be a round bed covered in pillows of various shapes and sizes, and I deigned to speculate on what happened there.
I sat on one of the chairs and watched a smirk creep onto Leda’s lips. She sat across from me, sinking low in the chair as she regarded me with eyes familiar to me through photographs decades old.
“How is it that you have what is mine, Tinsley Swan?”
“The beast, you mean,” I said.
“Yes, my familiar,” she answered.
“It’s not by choice. This curse was forced on to me by my mother’s family. The Tinsleys. I am named after them.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know any Tinsleys. I do know the woman who robbed me of my power…You carry her blood. I smell it.”
My heart doubled its pace. That explained everything. Leda was a vampire, and here I was in her clutches, weak from the transformation, as if I could hope to escape the undead after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast.
“Alexandrine,” I gulped.
The door opened, and the girl Leda had called Rose entered. She couldn’t have been more than twenty in appearance, but I doubted my own eyes. She had caramel-colored skin and wore knee-high leather boots and a very short tunic dress. She carried a silver tray with an English tea service clattering lightly as she went. She threw me a lascivious grin before turning her attention to Leda.
“What happened to her clothes?”
“She met Claudio’s other side,” Leda said.
“No shit,” Rose said blandly and set the tray on a low table. “And she lived.” Leda crossed her legs, revealing a stretch of skin at her inner thigh.