by Gina Ranalli
There is no time for Pawn to answer because in the next instant the gorillas shove us through the swinging doors and our makeup session begins.
32
Inside the makeup department, we’re all led in different directions.
I find myself in what appears to be an old-fashioned beauty parlor where no less than four people are suddenly attending to my beauty needs. They take Nemesister away from me, promising to treat her well and then I’m stripped out of my new plaid dress, told they will wash and press it, along with polishing my patent-leather orthopedic shoes. I’m dunked in a mud bath, rinsed and wrapped in a towel.
When I try to ask questions or struggle even the slightest, the response I repeatedly get is, “You’re a wreck!” Eventually, I stop asking.
They wash, dry and style my hair, give me a facial, a manicure, a pedicure and apply so much makeup to my face that I feel like a drag-queen. They spray me with some florally perfume that causes me to sneeze several times and then they wipe my nose with tissues and tell me I’m a wreck.
Once I’m finally clean, polished and redressed, I have to admit I do feel somewhat better, despite the makeup, bumps, bruises and lip wounds I’ve acquired over the course of our adventure.
Nemesister is returned to me, freshly polished and sporting new strings and tuning pegs. She seems happy as a clam, purring furiously as I sling her over my shoulder, relieved to have her back and uninjured.
All four of us meet up again in the same place we were separated. We stand there eyeballing each other as if we’re meeting for the first time.
Whey’s wild beard has been trimmed, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail. It’s immediately obvious that he’s wearing a bra under his tie-dye tank and his breasts are quite impressive, the kind most guys go ga-ga over. There’s also a new bulge in his pants, but not the kind typically made by testicles. The poor guy is wearing a pad, which is uncomfortable enough when you’re female. I can’t even imagine the humiliation he must be feeling but it’s clearly substantial because he can’t bring himself to look any of us in the eye.
It’s harder to say if Dose has cleaned up as nicely as the rest of us, since he’s still nothing more than shimmering fumes, but now he has more presence because he’s been outlined somehow. It’s as if he was told to stand against a wall and then had his body traced with white chalk. He still had no features to speak of, but now his limbs, torso and head are more defined and he’s more easily visible. No more sneaking up on various monsters, strippers or creepy old ladies for him.
Pawn looks almost the same as she did before, though her skin is shinier and her hair is cut pixie-style. She looks cute but doesn’t seem as rejuvenated as the rest of us.
Before we can speak to each other, the old woman is back and shooing us out the doors. “You can’t keep the Metal Priestess waiting any longer,” she says. “And don’t forget to bow!”
I utter a chuckle, but one glance at her face tells me the old bag isn’t joking.
The gorillas are back and lead us through a maze of silent corridors. The place is now so quiet that it’s hard to believe that there was a concert going on not long ago. I can’t even hear the muffled sounds of a dispersing crowd, as I would have expected.
“Here we are,” my personal gorilla says. “This is as far as we go. Good luck.”
We’ve reached the end of a particularly wide hall, with huge arched doors at the far end where we are. This is puzzling but I think we’ve all learned to accept the weirdnesses that keep happening. We shrug it off and bid our escorts goodbye.
Once they’ve disappeared from sight, the four of us turn to face the doors. They’re carved with ornate decorative symbols that I don’t recognize, and huge brass knockers hang in the center of each one. There are no handles on the doors at all.
I take a deep breath and say, “Well, this is it, guys.”
“We can finally get out of here,” Pawn says.
“We can get our bodies back,” both the guys say in unison.
Doing my best to ignore the acrobats in my belly, I grip the knocker in my fist. It’s heavy and cold to the touch but I barely notice these things. I bang it against the door exactly three times and then release it and take a step back as though I’m certain that whoever has done the knocking is surely the one to be punished the most severely.
Nothing happens.
We wait.
Maybe thirty seconds pass and Dose says, “Knock again.”
Whey moves behind Pawn and says, “Maybe no one’s here. Maybe we should just go.”
“Where are we gonna go?” I ask him impatiently.
“I don’t know. Maybe that makeup lady can tell us something.”
“You’re such a pussy,” Dose tells him. “Ro, knock again. Louder this time.”
Reluctantly, I do, banging the knocker a total of five times.
Again, our knock goes unanswered and I’m just about to suggest finding our way back when a small, previously unseen mini-door opens at the top of the large door.
An impossibly handsome guy with a goatee peers out at us and then takes a bite out of a slice of pizza. “Yeah?” he says, his mouth full.
It takes me a second to recover from my surprise, but then I say, “Hi. We’re here to see the Metal Priestess.”
Chewing, the guy says, “No one sees the Priestess after a show.” He slams the little door closed and that’s that.
“Well, that was rude,” Pawn says absently.
“Pisser,” Dose adds with disgust. “Knock again.”
His command is half a second too late since I’m already doing it, harder and faster this time.
The little door opens immediately and there’s the handsome guy again, still chewing. He sounds annoyed when he says, “What?”
“We have to see her,” I say, trying to sound firm.
Pawn points at me and says, “She was on stage with her. The Priestess is expecting her.”
“Us!” Dose corrects.
The door guy shoves pizza crust into his mouth, eyeing me carefully. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I remember.”
“You do?” I say, sounding surprised even to myself.
“He’s the guitar player,” Pawn whispers to me.
“Really?” I look at the guy and shrug. I hadn’t even glanced at the band during the brief time I was on stage with them, so I have no idea if what she says is true or not, but it doesn’t seem to matter anyway, because in the next moment the door is swinging open.
We see that the pizza-eating Adonis has been standing on a rolling ladder the whole time. He’s shoved the ladder away from the door and stands on the fourth rung staring down at us as if we’re particularly repulsive insects. At first I think he’s up there because he’s exceedingly short, but then I notice that everything in the room is exceptionally large, especially the Metal Priestess who’s seated directly in front of us on a huge white sofa, her enormous metal boots propped up on a white marble coffee table.
She grins at me, blocky silver teeth shining. “You look ridiculous,” she says in a throaty guttural voice. “What happened to you?”
Since she appears to be addressing me, I reply, “The makeup department.”
The Metal Priestess lets out a booming laugh that seems to go on and on. I quickly glance around the room, taking the place in. It’s a fairly standard backstage area, with the band members sitting around eating or drinking or messing with their instruments.
Pawn gives me a slight shove and hisses, “Bow!”
I make a face. I’ve never bowed to anyone in my entire life and I’m definitely not crazy about doing so now, but I have to admit, the Priestess does seem to be eyeing me expectantly and pissing her off doesn’t seem to be the best course of action at this point in time.
I grit my teeth and offer her a slight bow, Nemesister’s neck twisting around my shoulder like a curious snake.
The rest of my band follows suit, Whey going so far as to actually curtsey.
The Priestess
watches us, her eyes flashing with amusement. When our bow is done she lets out another of those booming laughs and the rest of her band laughs along with her.
“That must have been painful to do,” she says to us. “It goes against everything that punk stands for, doesn’t it?”
None of us reply and I wonder if we all sense that it could have been a trick question. I know I do.
“I didn’t like it either,” the Metal Priestess continues.
Whey immediately curtseys again, assuming she has criticized our bowing, but the rest of us remain still, only watching and listening.
The Priestess sighs, as if bored, and recrosses her huge feet on the coffee table. “You want to go home, I presume?”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “How did you know?”
She waves a dismissive hand. “That’s what everyone wants.”
“We were told you can help us.”
“It’s true,” she says, examining one of her vicious claws. “I can. But the real question is, can you help yourselves?”
I shift my weight uncomfortably and say, “How do you mean?”
“It seems like a fairly straightforward question to me,” the Priestess replies. She quickly rises from the sofa, towering above us all and bellows, “Can you help yourselves?”
All four of us recoil, taking several steps back. The Priestess’ band immediately stops their chuckling and freeze in whatever they were doing, regarding us with deadly seriousness.
There is something wrong with them, I see. Something not immediately apparent, but there just the same. My mind races to place a finger on what that something might be, but at the same time, I try to focus on the Metal Priestess who is now moving around the table and coming towards us.
“Are you unable to speak?” she asks calmly. “Do you not know words?”
She fixes me with a gaze that makes my nerves tremble beneath my skin. “I think we can help ourselves,” I say quietly. “But, we were told—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you were told!” she yells, shaking me to my core. Then she suddenly smiles and adds, “I only help those who help themselves.”
“Like God?” Pawn asks, surprising me. For a second, I’d forgotten that my friends were standing behind me.
The Priestess’ eyes tick from me to Pawn and the room is so quiet that you can literally hear her metal eyelids blink. A soft clicking sound.
“Exactly like God,” she tells Pawn.
Whey lets out a whimper and I pray he doesn’t piss himself and humiliate us all, but at the same time, I could hardly blame him if he did. The Metal Priestess is turning out to be one scary chick.
I swallow the lump of terror in my throat and ask, “How do we help ourselves?”
Her eyes tick back to my face. “I was hoping you’d ask that.” She smiles again and seems to relax slightly. Or as much as a ten foot tall metallic priestess can relax, anyway. She paces in front of us, her huge boots thumping like the devil’s heartbeat. “You want your band to be a huge success, do you not? You want to be the biggest punk band since…who? The Sex Pistols? The Clash?”
I look at Pawn, hoping to see the right answer in her eyes, but she only shrugs, easily as lost as I am.
“We don’t compare ourselves to any other band,” I say at last. “Our music is our own and we want no part of the corporate machine. Hence our name.” I cringe, waiting to be skewered by those long knife-like nails.
The Priestess stops her pacing directly in front of me. “Is that so?”
I lift my chin. “That’s so.”
She cocks her head, eyes narrowing, seeming to debate whether or not she should bite off my head and suck my salty juices out through the stump of my neck.
“Hmm,” she says after a moment and resumes her pacing.
Air hisses out of my lungs through clenched teeth.
“I could help you,” she says. “Quite easily in fact. But, as I’m sure you’ll understand, nothing in life is free.”
“What’s the catch then?” Dose speaks up from behind me.
The devil’s heartbeat stops once more, her head swiveling in Dose’s direction. Again, there is the feeling that she is having trouble deciding if she has the energy or desire to even continue this conversation. Killing us would be so much easier and probably fun to boot.
She smiles and the sound of her cheeks rising is something similar to crumpling tinfoil. “Since you ask,” she says, “the catch is simply this: I want the demon.”
My stomach drops. “The demon? You mean, Wanda? That demon?”
Her grin widens. “The very one.”
“I don’t understand,” I say honestly. For some reason, I’m thinking she means she wants the demon sexually, which is pretty much a nasty visual that I don’t need in my life right now.
“And you want us to bring her to you?” Pawn asks.
“Exactly.”
I hear gagging and turn to see Whey backing up a few steps and holding his belly, his face drained of color. I feel a little like puking myself but set my jaw and straighten my spine, trying to hold it together, at least for a little while longer. Instinct tells me that allowing this metal freak to see weakness would be a grave mistake.
Pawn shifts her weight and asks, “Why do you want the demon?”
“There are a couple of different reasons,” the Priestess says. “The main one being that she just pisses me off.”
All four of us nod emphatically: we can certainly understand how that could be.
“So, how the fuck are we supposed to get the demon?” Dose asks, moving forward to stand beside me. “We just go knocking on her door, tell her to come with us? Say pretty please?”
“Frankly, I don’t care how you do it,” the Metal Priestess replies. “Nor do I care if she’s alive or dead, in pieces or whole. I just want her here. Then and only then will I give you what you wish in return.”
Maybe ten seconds of silence pass, all four of us staring at her with slack jaws. At the instant of the eleventh second, we’re all asking questions simultaneously.
“I repeat: how the fuck are we supposed to do that?” (Dose)
“Where can we find her?” (Pawn)
“Won’t she just kill us first?” (Me)
“Do you happen to have a bathroom I could use? I think I’m gonna pee my pants.” (Whey)
“Quiet!” The Priestess bellows. Immediately four sets of lips zip and when she’s satisfied that none of us intend to open our mouths again, she addresses Pawn’s question. “She has a condo not far from here. Molly will draw you a map.”
“A condo?” Pawn asks.
“Molly?” I ask, glancing around at the band members, all of whom appear to be male. “Which one of you guys is…Molly?”
The ridiculously handsome one who let us in steps forward, stroking his goatee self-consciously. “That would be me.”
I study the guy for a second, realizing that he is way beyond handsome. He’s beautiful. Flawless porcelain skin, long lush lashes fluttering above sparkling cobalt eyes. Ruler-straight nose, full, pink pillow lips. I tilt my head, my gaze trailing down his slender neck to his slim shoulders, tiny waist and slightly rounded hips.
“This dude’s a chick,” Dose blurts out. “Check that shit out. No Adam’s apple. No tits either, but no Adam’s apple.”
“I didn’t have tits before,” Molly snaps at him. “Asshole.”
“But…” I point at Molly’s face. At her beard.
“You changed too,” Pawn says. “When you came to this place. You all changed.”
The Priestess folded her arms over her chest. “Did you morons just think I was born a ten foot tall cyborg?”
I gape at the rest of Chemical Gardens and see all the little things I couldn’t quite put my finger on a few minutes before.
One of them, the bass player who I’d thought was just messing around with his instrument, I now realize is his instrument. The body of the shiny black bass has welded itself into the guy’s torso, mostly his lo
wer belly and right hip, while the neck is melted into his left forearm, giving his wrist and fingers access to no more than the first few frets. The guy is a human guitar.
It’s a disturbing sight and I quickly look away at the drummer, who I see has a similar problem. He has no arms or hands to speak of. From just below his elbows he is all thick drumsticks, tapering down to where his hands would be if he still had hands.
I’m starting to feel woozy and push past the Priestess to collapse on her over-sized couch.
Dose has wandered over to the bass player, examining him with a palpable kind of disgusted admiration. “Man, that’s nasty,” he says. “Hope you remember to unplug before you take a shower.” Dose laughs but the bass player doesn’t seem to see anything amusing about his predicament.
Neither do any of them, judging by their expressions.
“This is really fucked up,” says Whey, the man who would be a woman, eyeballing the woman who would be a man.
“I kind of like being a guy,” she tells him. “We’ve been like this for almost a year and I haven’t had a single period.”
Whey bursts into fresh sobs and moves away from the pretty boy to lick his wounds in a corner.
“Enough chit-chat,” The Priestess commands. “We have business to discuss.”
“I agree,” Pawn says. “You haven’t told us yet what the demon has to do with any of this.”
“She keeps the key with her at all times,” The Metal Priestess replied.
“The key?” I say, rising from the couch. “What key?”
“The one that unlocks the right doorknob.” The Priestess’ voice is bored, as if we should already know whatever it is she’s talking about.
“The right doorknob?” Dose says. “What is this, like, some kind of riddle or something?”
The Priestess sighs. “The doorknob attached to the door, of course! Did you people fall down and bump your heads?”
For about the hundredth time, Pawn and I exchange a glance and then I say, “Well, now that you mention it…”
Dose comes over, saying, “Can we just get back to the fucking door, please?” He turns to the Priestess, craning his neck to look up into her face. “You’re saying there’s a way out of this place, right? A special door that will get us back aboveground and on our merry way?”