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Dreamspit

I

Charlie took a deep breath, feeling her nose tickle and her gums tingle with a familiar ache--a trivial issue and one soon remedied. She ran her fingers through her short, acid-green hair, styled like a punk Peter Pan, before taking the strip of paper that she had rolled into a straw and dived at the small lines of loving white powder that rested on the hardwood table, her nose hissing and the black vinyl couch complaining at her sudden movements. Skinny Puppy was blaring from overhead speakers she had mounted there last month, echoing and vibrating in her head and along her bones. She had no fear of landlords, not when they were as hard up as she was, and she and Penelope were the only ones who lived on the ninth floor.

She sniffed up the soft powder with the subtle banana taste, going straight down the line. Once finished, she jerked her head upwards, scratching at her nose, staring into the shadows that the dim table lamps around her couldn't hope to reach. It was a small apartment but she had been in smaller ones, and this was just fine. Everything was just fucking fine.

The short mountain lion heard a door shut quietly, heard a lock click, the click reverberating and not wanting to stop. She turned her head to the kitchen by the door, her mouth hanging ajar, feeling as if the ends of her hair and fur were dancing, though that might have been the music. When Penelope stepped into the living room, carrying a pair of brown grocery bags, the powder had found her head.

"Hey, girl," the thin brown bear said from somewhere behind the bags, trying to talk over growling Ogre, her black hair melding seamlessly with her black turtleneck sweater.

"Holy shit!"

Charlie jumped up off of the couch, the buckles on her oversized olive green army jacket jingling with the ones on her boots. Penelope jumped, nearly dropping the bags--she turned to the side to look at the cougar with a surprised, fearful eye, her dove feather necklace twitching. Charlie started walking in circles around the table, first one way and then the other, her tail twitching. She looked at Penelope, her face in a wide smile. She looked like she couldn't decide whether to keep her hands in her jacket pockets or hold them flat against her red satin skirt.

"Hey, babe. How're things--did you go to the store?"

"You know I did. Don't tell me you're still on that shit, Charlie."

"Uh-huh. It's good--you want some of this?"

Penelope set the bags on the kitchen table and started taking things out, setting them methodically aside in categorical groups. Charlie had sat back on the couch, standing up again a moment later. The bear talked over her shoulder as she began putting things away, flicking her hair to the side.

"No thanks, I've already planned out my death. Would you turn that music down? I've got shit to do."

"What?"

"Turn the music down!"

Charlie swore as she stepped to the large stereo by the table, a no-cash purchase taken after the city had been stricken by another winter blackout, her boots pounding the floor. She pressed a button and instantly the music died, leaving a vacuum of silence. She jumped in place for a second, strands of her chemical green hair getting in her blue eyes, then sat back down onto the couch, accidentally bumping her purse to the floor. A mess of credit cards and food stamps scattered along the linoleum like playing cards, faces of people who had the recent misfortune to be walking down 23rdStreet alongside Charlie. She drummed her hands against her legs, playing thigh percussion to songs in her head.

"Is this what you've been doing all day?" Penelope grumbled over her shoulder from the table. "Doing cocaine while going deaf?"

Charlie rolled her eyes, tossing her body back into the noisily receptive couch. "Shit, would you get off my back, man? I've been doing other things."

"Oh, yeah, I've seen her underwear hanging from the lampshade."

"No, no. You know how you've been, like, going on all week about this place being too cluttered? Well, I took care of it; I grabbed a bunch of shit, carted it away and sold it. No big deal, dude. I got, like, five hundred for everything."

Penelope turned around, pivoting hard on her expensive heeled boot. She fixed one deep green eye on the cougar, the woman who was too childish for her to be categorized as a lover, too sexy and streetwise to be let go. The puma, her buzz already gone, scratched at her nose and looked out the window, the dark night barely lit by the field of fuzzy city lights. The bear grabbed the empty bags and began folding them. "First off, if you call me dude again, I'm gonna pull you up out of that couch and knock you back on your ass. Second, to whom did you sell all that stuff?"

"Frankie."

"Oh, not Frankie Loma! That bitch is the reason you're so shot every day."

"She's cool, Penny! She doesn't nag you when you do something right!"

Penelope turned at that, looking at Charlie looking darkly back at her. The cougar couldn't hold her stare, her body was too jittery; she kept glancing to the walls around her and back to her in a peculiar ocular dance. The bear let a smile break over her face; the girl had her faults, had them in swarms, but as she looked at the cougar in the low lamplight she remembered that, beneath the person who was gradually whittling herself down into a hollow, crumpling shell day by day, there was still a spark of animation and vivacity in there, behind pretty scowling eyes. The cocaine was scouring her existence, but Charlie Burroughs for damn sure wasn't going away anytime soon.

Penelope let out a sigh, too tired to let another night slip into a fight. "You're right, Charlie, you're right. I'm sorry."

"Whoo! Apology accepted! You ain't gonna ride me anymore for shit?"

"Only if you really, really deserved it."

"Fair dues." Charlie scratched an itch out of her butch cut, exposing light brown roots. She was about to jump back to the cirrostratus lines that marked the table in front of her, paper straw in her hand, but something, some piece of Charlie that was still in there, stopped, allowed the paper straw to fall through her fingers. She scooped up what was left on the table and put it back in the plastic baggie, bumping the switchblade she had used to cut it. She didn't see Penelope give her a soft smile. She scratched another itch through her purple t-shirt, wrinkling the white words that said "Ghouls Gone Wild." Suddenly feeling tired and itchy, she sat back in the couch, legs splayed, humming Riders on the Storm by The Doors through her ticklish nostrils, cradling the baggie in her hands like a swaddled child without realizing she was doing it.

After a time, Penelope came out of the kitchen, stretching in the middle of the living room. Charlie heard joints pop and crack, suddenly hungry for popcorn. She watched the pretty bear turn her head this way and that, looking about the room for something, walking from one shadow to another. When she spoke, it seemed too loud in her ears.

"Alright, babe, do whatever you want for the next hour or so, but just do it quietly. I've got things to take care of."

"Witchy things?"

The bear stopped for a moment, fixing a dark eye on the cougar before going back to her vigilant hunt. "I never should have let you look at those books."

"Well, you leave 'em all over the place, what do you expect?"

"Yeah, I guess that one's on me. While we're on the subject, though, have you seen one of my books? The one I'm always reading? It's the big thick one with birch bark all over the binding."

"You mean The Roads of Stars?"

Penelope wrinkled her nose at the English translation of the title. "Yes."

"I don't know."

Penelope stopped at that, standing in the center of the room, larger than life and with her turtleneck and hair she resembled a sliver of congealed darkness. The lamplight caught her form and made her shadow reach along the far wall and up the ceiling. When Penelope put her hands on the hips of her black jeans, the mountain lion knew she was in trouble. "Uh-uh, I know what it means when you say 'I don't know,' Charlie; it means you do know and you don't want to tell me. Now where is it?"

"I sold it."

The silence that followed Charlie's three words was like something from the grave, something from the darkness between the stars. Charlie's eyes darted from the bear's face to the walls, back and forth in a nervous dance. Were it not for the occasional blink, she would have sworn that Penelope had become a statue, petrified in her boots. After a length of silence fell through, Penelope's left ear twitched. She spoke quietly, her voice straining through a filter of emotion.

"You--Are you telling me that you took a book that has been in my family for generations, a book that symbolizes not just the history of my family but every family in White Hill and that of the town itself, a book that a lot of people would like to get their hands on, a book that has information about topics not even you can hallucinate...you took _that_book, knowing full well what it was, and you sold it?"

"Uh, yeah."

Penelope held her stare for a moment longer, her ear twitching again, the eye beneath it replying in kind. Charlie watched brokenly in wonder as the bear's face filled with anger, an infernal fire filling her green eyes before it vanished, shipped out to somewhere else. When she started walking over to the couch, Charlie felt like bolting up out of her seat, but something kept her feet rooted, filling them with lead.

The bear stepped over the table and leaned over her, looming over her, placing both of her hands deep into the black vinyl on either side of the puma's head. "You are not that stupid, Charlie," she said. "You might be sucking up coke the way an asthmatic athlete uses an inhaler, but you're not that stupid. Now, did you really, truly sell my book?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Penelope echoed her, nodding her head and staring into the corner, pursing her stout lips in thought. Charlie shrunk back, feeling through some phenomenal feat of perception something dark fill the space between them. Penelope turned away, walking around the table and back to the center of the room, one hand on her hip and the other on her mouth. There was another hush from the void filling the room, cemetery air.

"I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Charlie mumbled, rubbing at her gums. Penelope was silent for a while before she broke the quiet, her voice low and tired.

"Not to sound like I'm condoning this, but how much did you get out of my family heirloom?"

"A kilo. It's good shit, dude."

The bear stared at Charlie, trying to ascertain whether or not she had heard her correctly. Her eyes ducked down to the table, seeing stray grains of white that the puma had failed to rescue; she stepped to the table, running one long forefinger over her tongue and burying it into a pool of white dust.

"Hey!" Charlie complained. It was hers, Frankie had given it explicitly to her for her own use, and Penelope was barging in and taking her property. The bear stuck her finger in her mouth, her eyes closing for a slight moment, and when they opened again there was a look that passed anything resembling exhaustion or aggravation on her face.

"This is powdered sugar, Charlie. You're so far gone that you can't even tell the difference."

Charlie was a moment in understanding, but when it hit her she jerked up out of the imprint she had worn into the couch, sitting on her tail. She looked at the bag of white powder she held in her hands as though it had just slighted her. Fear and anger were competing for territory on her feline face, eyebrows knitted in worry. She opened the bag and mimicked Penelope's action, speaking as she did.

"No, no, no--she said this was top rate stuff. I know Frankie, she wouldn't give me the runaround. This is real!"

The bear shook her head. "Powdered sugar and banana extract, four dollars total at the supermarket. Like the fiberglass, she stuck you so fine you can't even feel it."

"Fuck," was all the mountain lion could say, and when she said it again, she seemed to deflate, falling back into the couch to stare at nothing. "That goddamn bitch..."

"You just sold the world for a bag of sugar."

Charlie watched her girlfriend--the woman she believed was her girlfriend--pace around in a tight circle, her black pants like curvaceous, flexible Doric columns in jet. She felt a twinge in her chest, not physical pain but metaphysical; something that she knew had nothing to do with the cocaine, though she knew she would be feeling that soon enough.

"Are you angry, Penny?"

Penelope stopped, facing the hallway that led to the bathroom and the bedroom. She let in a long sigh, held it for a bit, then let it out. She shook her head slightly, so slightly that Charlie had noticed it only by the wavering reflection of light in her silky black hair.

"Hmm...no. I'm not mad, Charlie. A woman of my mettle must learn to absorb constant disappointment."

She threw a look at the mountain lion, wondering if she would catch the jibe. Charlie only gave her a feeble grin, something that tried to be consoling but which only made her seem that much more pathetic and childlike. The puma scratched at her nose and stood up, her myriad buckles ringing.

"Alright, don't worry about this. I'll go back to Frankie's, get her to give me back your book, get back here, and everything's peachy. No problem." The mountain lion was already straightening out her skirt and checking her jacket, already heading to the kitchen.

"There _is_a problem, Charlie. Frankie's dangerous--just, just stay away from her."

"No, she's a creampuff. All that Aussie slut needs is one good poke!" Charlie grabbed her rosewood-handle switch from the table, pressing the button at the guard, the double-edge stiletto blade shooting open with a metallic snap, gleaming wickedly. Charlie sliced and stabbed at the air, her lower lip stuck between her teeth in an anxious smile, hair falling down around her eyes. Penelope watched her with a matronly expression, one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed over her chest.

"Charlie, she has drugs and guns, and she knows other people who have drugs and guns. You're strung out on banana sugar with a four-inch flick-knife. Don't tell me you can't see the folly in that."

"You really call it a flick-knife? You from the UK or something?"

"I've been there, Charlie, and you wouldn't last five seconds in south London. You're no chimney sweep."

Charlie shook her head, strands of acid hair flying around her sandy brown face, ovals of white above her eyes accentuating the passion that was rising in her mind. There was going to be some action tonight, and the excitement was bringing back the reserve of chemical energy that had been ripping through her veins earlier. She was bending at the knees and tapping her boots on the floor, eyes wide and hungry, her body ready to burst.

Penelope walked over to her, fixing her with the deepness of her eyes. She put her hands on Charlie's shoulders in a useless attempt to get her to ease up on the accelerator. "Charlie, don't go out tonight. Just stay here and rest. I've got plenty of other books, one isn't going to make any difference."

"But it's your book!" Charlie shouted, didn't mean to shout; she knew she still sounded like a little kid even at twenty-six years old, especially when her dander was up. She stopped bouncing, her short-lived buzz torn out and replaced with anger, anger at her own stupidity and Penelope's lack of desire to do something about it. She hadn't made the trade more than a few hours ago, and Frankie doesn't sleep during the night. Like her, she was a duskwalker, prone to nighthawking and streetlight gossip. It would be so easy to get back to Frankie's big terraced residence six blocks away and get that book, this way or that. Why wasn't Penny going along with it?

"Look at me, Charlie."

"I can get it, Penny, I can--."

"I know, I know you can, but do me a favor first."

"Yeah-yeah-yeah, what?"

"Calm down, sweetie. Calm down and rest up easy tonight. We have nothing to gain going over to her place at this time of night. Do flies talk to spiders?"

Charlie rolled her eyes at Penelope's motherly tone and the use of one of her lame sayings. Her eyes twitched from location to location while she shifted anxiously in the bear's grip. "No, they don't."

"No, they don't. We'll go over there in the morning; she'll probably be so fucked up from her own merchandise she won't know who we are. I know why you want to do this and I love you for it, but not now. Just stay here with me tonight, okay?"

Charlie looked at Penelope's face, seeing the seriousness in there. She shook her head for a moment before nodding, reluctantly giving in. "Okay. Alright, I'll stay."

"Give me a kiss."

The puma leaned in and up to reach Penelope's lips, giving her a quick, awkward smooch. When Penelope smiled down at her and rubbed her arms, she smiled back, shyly looking down at the floor. The bear let go of her, kept her smile, and turned and began walking down through the hallway. "I have to do some things in the bedroom, should take me a couple hours. Just lie down and watch some TV for a while."

"I'm not a fuckin' kid," Charlie complained from the living room.

"Oh, I know you're not." Penelope turned around and gave her a soft look, sultry crooked grin exposing large, near-white canines before turning back to the full, heavy shadows in the hall. Charlie knew that look wasn't genuine, it was just a trap to keep her here, to keep the leash Penelope had on her nice and tight. The sound of a door shutting closed echoed throughout the whole apartment, leaving only city silence. She glanced at the door in the kitchen, to the door in the hallway, to the crack at the foot of the wall corner in front of her. She was tapping her jacket with her knife, soft clink-clink-clink echoing along the dark like cave water. Her nostrils flared as she breathed quickly.

_ Thirty minutes, it'll only take thirty minutes. Penny won't know I'm gone. In and out, quick as a flash._

Do flies talk to spiders, Charlie?

"Fuck it." Charlie stuck her knife into a thin pocket she had stitched into the inside of her boot, grabbed her purse from off the floor, and headed out of the apartment.

II

Winter was not yet dead in White Hill. A frost-laced wind blew through the city down from the north, a succubus's kiss whispering against the steel and concrete of the more developed north-west sections and the older, tougher steel, brick, and wood of the eastern areas touching the nose of Lake Superior. Rogue snow drifts and icicles, unruly children of a monstrous eight-day snowstorm that had petered out and finally died only last week, were scattered throughout, giving the city the semblance of an abandoned dreamland, a Hyperborean metropolis lost to the scouring of time, a vague and fantastical daydream of Clark Ashton Smith brought into vivid reality. What lights that were on made the snow and ice glimmer with a flickering fairy-fire.

Indeed, there were not many lights on in the streets, there were hardly any people out driving, and Charlie was free to stomp through the thin mat of snow along the walk. A thousand songs reverberated within her head at the same time--she latched onto one as though grabbing a marble out of a barrel of marbles and gently sang out into the frigid night air.

"Amos Moses was a Cajun/ He lived by hisself on the swamp/ He hunted alligator for a livin'/ He just knock 'em on the head with a stump."

She did her best to impersonate a country-funk guitar twang as she skipped between the fenced-in trees, the streetlamps bulbous and watchful. This was the neighborhood she liked to piss around, dance and sing around and wonder what people who live in houses this big do for a living and if they're ever inside. She knew the one at the end of the street, knew damn well what she did in that gaunt three-story with its sweeping verandah and intricate clay statues, but apart from her everyone else was a mystery, more shadows that she'd like to put a light to. She skipped down the street, humming to herself and the leaves above her, feeling like the whole world was encased in ice and everything was fine.

No, everything was not fine. Charlie stopped dancing and just walked, normal night march, the song slipping out of her ears, teeth clenched as she remembered why she was doing this. Another tap went down into her reservoir of anger, making her cheeks hot and her limbs steadier, more controlled. That bitch was going to get what was coming to her.

No, you idiot, this isn't about the sugar. This is about Penny's book. Get the book first, then fuck her up.

She balled her hands into vicious tight fists, thinking about the knife in her boot. Would she really do it? There were pockets in White Hill that were dangerous enough for a knife to be warranted, but not here. This was wine and top hat country; if she were caught with a knife around here it would mean jail...again. If she were caught having attacked somebody around here, it would mean deeper jail. She stared at the finely kept array of houses as she walked forward to the extravagant building at the end of the street, wondering if she had the resolve inside of her to actually hurt another person.

She has drugs and guns, Charlie, Penny said in her head. Suddenly this endeavor didn't seem very practical.

Charlie damned the voices in her head and the fragments of conversation that whirled with them; she was going to do this for Penny. Her gums ached, her heartbeat pulsing in her teeth. She rubbed it away and focused on the tickling in her nose, her thick tail jerking with each step.

She passed each house, subconsciously noting what lay beyond each waist-high white-picket fence. Frankie's house continued to grow and grow with every step she took, and she muttered to herself when she noticed that her feet seemed to grow heavier the closer she got to it, as though gravity did not work properly here at this intersection. She stopped at the end of the corner where Toscano met Munster, scanning the streets for any vehicles or people, particularly any black-and-whites that might be prowling. She had always distrusted the law, but the recent controversies with public surveillance videos of police going overboard had turned her mistrust into full-blown paranoia. With a heaviness in her chest and a knotting in her stomach, she took one faltering step onto the pavement and crossed the street, walking quickly up to the black iron gate.

"The Louisiana boys gonna get you, Amos," Charlie muttered to herself. The gate was always unlocked for friends, day and night, and she pushed the cold iron open, the old hinges giving off an irate squeal like they do in films with Peter Lorre and Vincent Price. She slipped through the gap and shut the gate, her tail twitching excitedly in tempo with her heart.

When she was a child, she had always believed that things were different in the night than they were in the daytime. Things move around under starlight, shift and behave differently under the cover of darkness. With her vocabulary at the time she couldn't explain why, she just knew it did, knew with the absolute certainty of youth. As the years passed and she grew up, that concept had seemed so silly and nothing more than childish whimsy. Frankie's house, on the other hand, never failed to resurrect and force up those same sensations and feelings she had when she was younger, the same joys and terrors, and she found, many years later, she still cannot explain why looking at the world through a night lens is so much different.

A wide yellow-brick walk led from the gate through the spacious yard and up to the front terrace--she noted that the brick was not the deep sunflower-yellow she saw in The Wizard of Oz, but something paler and worn down, as though masonry could get sick. Shadows were long, and the clay statues that cast them, standing for the most part on stately plinths, were more intimidating under a night sky. She recalled looking at them in the daylight and imagining clumps of oatmeal or porridge coarsely solidified into vaguely anthropomorphic shapes and then painted reddish-brown, and Frankie had just the right lack of taste to buy them. But under a night lens the statues were different, more imposing; Charlie felt they had grown since the last time she had been here. Their shapelessness was cast into doubt as she looked at them now, seeing forms that could have been bighorn sheep and could just as easily have been squids. Though they had no eyes and Charlie did not know where exactly to set her eyes on them, she felt they were staring at her, seeing everything she didn't want to show. Her fur bristled, the back of her neck tickling with close-cut hair that stood up in apprehension, and she quickened her pace.

The center of the house's front terrace was dominated by a great and extravagant three-tier fountain. It was shut off now, of course, the bowls containing only icicles that hung over their rims like thick, translucent teeth. The small stone cherub that danced on the spike at the fountain's apex seemed sad and in pain, its wings chipped and face cracked with age. Charlie turned away and kept walking, feeling the agonized smile on the stone child's face burned into her eyes.

The door was not open as it always was during the other three seasons; it was shut tight and barred by a panel of chicken wire, quiet testament to Frankie's changing degrees of trust and suspicion. Charlie walked up the steps, her boots falling heavily onto the jaundiced brick with scratchy echoes. The brown and withered corpses of thistles, chrysanthemums, and roses were wilting over their red clay caskets surrounding the walk, a limb of Frankie's expansive garden curling from the back up to the front. In the wind, their mummified bodies seemed to gesticulate to the doorway, leading her and muttering dryly when her army jacket brushed up against them.

A thistle caught the back of her right hand, one particularly long spine embedding into the fleshy area between her thumb and forefinger. She grumbled and plucked out the thorn, rubbing at the quietly bleeding wound. She turned and swore at the dead flowers, who regarded her without movement or response.

There was a black doormat laying before the door, snow and ice lost in the fabric. Words in a big yellow font said "You ain't from around here, are you?" Charlie had never noticed the mat before, having always just walked right in. She felt a chill not borne from the cold make her spine dance.

She might not even be in. She likes hitting the streets at night, catch a movie or prey on tourists at the bar.

_ No harm in knocking, is there?_

_ Is there?_

Adrenaline coursed through her as she raised her hand to knock on the polished, glossy oak door, the color of frozen whiskey. Her hand shook, tried to fall, as though some invisible force were keeping her from contacting the woman inside. Charlie knew what it was, and she let her arm fall as she breathed through her mouth.

She was freaking out, her breath growing faster as the darkness around her began pressing forward. Shadows from her childhood and the things she imagined that slithered and writhed within them were coming back, their mouths sucking and gurgling in dream-hunger. She swallowed, feeling the saliva run down her throat and leaving her mouth bone-dry, dead-dry. She felt like running, but there was a long stretch of dark between Frankie's house and the nearest streetlamp. All the formless statues seemed to have turned on their pedestals to face her.

"Your move, sucker," Charlie said out loud to herself. She shut her eyes, feeling her stomach cramp painfully as she tried to will away the voices that sounded like the wind and the sounds of something old and wet slurping across stone. She bent down, putting her hands on her bare knees as she took control of her breathing. After a minute, the noise faded, the sound of her breath becoming the only dominant note. She stood back up and opened her eyes, realizing just how quiet the world was right now.

Stop going crazy and get back to work, she thought to herself, mimicking a number of teachers from high school. She tightened her hand into a fist and pounded on the door, the chicken wire rattling against the frame. The thorn-wound smarted as she rapped it on the hard wood, a thin rivulet of red spilling through her fur down her thumb.

"Hey! Hey, Frankie!"

She stopped knocking, waiting for an answer. She allowed eight seconds to go by before she attacked the door again, raising her voice so that it bounced along the walls. "Yo, you in there? Open up, dude!"

She waited again, listening to the quiet. She looked behind her to see if anybody in the other houses were opening their doors, but there was nothing, just silence. She didn't hear anything, no voices inside, no footsteps. Perfect, she thought. She turned around, ready to head down the steps and walk around to the back door, jiggling her lucky hairpin out of her skirt pocket.

When the heel of her boot struck the first step the door flew open with a metallic scream, making her jump and nearly twist on her ankle down onto her ass. A beam of rectangular, sickly yellow light spilled out from the opening and bathed the yard, forcing back the shadows of the statues and the cadaverous flowers.

Frankie was standing in the doorway, her well-kept fingernails digging deep into the doorframe. Her green sequin paperboy cap hung askew over her face, bullet casings of varying sizes jangling down from her long ears like post-apocalyptic wind chimes. A black shirt that just said "Year Zero" clung to her athletic, well-toned body, a little glass ball filled with something black and flaky resting in her cleavage, suspended on a golden chain. She had no pants on, just a pair of grey boyshorts, leaving bare her long, powerful legs. The kangaroo glared at Charlie, her tail whipping back and forth, making a disconcerting sound as it slashed the air. For a fleeting moment Charlie didn't recognize her; she always had on a pair of dark sunglasses to hide her bloodshot eyes from the hurtful light. They were brown, a deep earthy brown, something from a mountain's womb.

She's dangerous, Charlie. Just stay away from her.

"Oh, Charlie. How's the night treating you?"

Her voice was different under the night as well; it was clear and smooth, unhindered by a narcotic haze, the voice of radio DJs and phone sex workers. She had spent so much time in America that her accent was nearly gone, popping up only when her passions ran high.

A wave of heat washed over Charlie, an inviting warmth that made her want to walk right in. There were powerful scents in that air--she recognized them immediately, having smelled them frequently since she started living with Penny. She caught the smell of almond, bayberry, and bergamot. She remembered reading in one of Penny's books that bayberry was burned for protection and for one to become more receptive to psychic energies; bergamot, a little overpowering, was used for protection and attracting prosperity; and the almond oil was just used as a base to stretch out the other oils' effects. She was so sick of almond oil...

Charlie put a hand on the doorframe, her body becoming jittery in her excitement again. "I'm doing real good, Frankie, real good. Um, can I--can I come in for a bit?"

She bit her lip coyly, knowing that Frankie was bisexual and a total sucker for shyness. The kangaroo's eyebrows scrunched down as she stared into her eyes, looking for something, a lie or a bloodshot buzz. She didn't see either one, and Charlie watched as suspicion slowly darkened over her face.

"Take off your jacket."

"Come on, Frankie. It's so fucking cold out--."

"Don't I know it! I've got the door open! Now take off your damn jacket."

Eager to get into the house and angry that her plans weren't going as she had hoped, Charlie scowled and slapped the doorframe, stepping back and quickly tearing off her big army jacket, buckles rattling. She tossed it to the kangaroo, putting her hands on her hips and rubbing her legs together for warmth. She realized that not putting away the skirt for the winter had been a stupid idea.

"Spin around."

"What?"

"You don't spin, you don't get in."

Charlie glared at the marsupial as she held out her hands and twirled slowly for her. Frankie's eyes roved over her, looking up and down for whatever it was she suspected she had. That over, she took an annoyingly long time to go through her jacket, rummaging in all her pockets and the sleeves. Charlie scoffed.

"Dude..."

Frankie, finally satisfied, tossed her jacket back at her a bit gruffly; one of the buckles painfully slapped the side of her waist. She stood aside and gestured to the wide room and the light and warmth therein, her bullet earrings jingling. "Willkommen, kleine nachtvogel."

"Right on." Charlie snapped her fingers as she stepped through the doorway, putting back on her jacket. The smells hitting her so hard they seemed to force themselves into her nose and down her throat. She followed the kangaroo, giving her the hostess lead. She followed the sway of Frankie's hips with her eyes, bobbing her head to an imagined song. There was a skull and crossbones on her ass and it made her think of Rob Zombie.

The entryway led into a magnificent open area, with pearly white tile lining most of the floor, which fell away near the right-most wall in a half-circle of dark wood. Furniture three times the size of what Penny had in her apartment were all set facing a large fireplace, black and cold in dormancy, and useless with the hot air that blew up from vents in the floor. Charlie didn't know what kind of heating system Frankie had, and it didn't really matter because whatever it was it worked pretty damn well. There was no ceiling here, a custom-cut wooden stairway leading up to the second floor, and from there to the third. There were figures carved in the stairway, twisting things that were like reptilian tails. The only light was coming from an old-fashioned lampshade on a desk by the couches and chairs, inky darkness cemented high up in the ceiling.

Charlie though she could hear grunts and groans coming from upstairs and she wondered what was going on. Frankie was the physical manifestation of vice; aside from the network of drug trafficking and arms dealings she had a hand in, she was also a part-time director of porn, sometimes renting out her house to other directors. Charlie had never seen anything of hers, but she heard some internet numbers floating around and it sounded like the bergamot oil was really doing its thing.

She followed the roo to the row of couches, sitting opposite her, a grand, finished mahogany coffee table separating them. Charlie fell into the fine, amber-colored faux leather, resting one leg up on the seat with her. The whole place was a well-orchestrated slice of chaos using pieces of the past, the present, and the future, and there wasn't a single thing that made her eyes open in wonder. Frankie threw down her hat in the seat beside her, fanning her long brunette hair out and over her shoulders, shaking her head until everything was free. Leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, she grabbed a cigarette and lit it with a little gold lighter--another change in the night: it was a regular high-tar cigarette, not a doobie. She blew a smoke ring up into the dark. Charlie watched it rise up to the ceiling, away from the grasp of yellowy light and be swallowed by the inky black.

"You already finished that shit I just gave you? The mosquitos must just love you come spring."

The smile Charlie had on faded, suddenly remembering the other reason why she was here. She pressed her leg into the couch, feeling the cool bump of her switch in her boot.

"I'm not here about that, Frank."

The roo looked up at her, eyes narrowed in curiosity. "Oh?" was all she said, as if she didn't know what she had done. Charlie cleared her throat and wiped her nose before she began.

"When I was over here earlier I sold you a bunch of crap for cash and something else for the...for the stuff."

"Yes; sixteen items for five hundred dollars and one item for one kilo. I remember it like it was six hours and twenty minutes ago."

"It was a book--I want that book back, Frankie."

"Mmm, no dice. I don't do refunds; it's bad for business and for my reputation."

"What? But that's stupid, Frankie! Look-look-look, I wanted to sell it, but now I don't anymore. It's too important to me to give up."

"You still live with that girl down in Karhu Street, Prissy something?"

Charlie stared at the roo. Suddenly she felt her gums tingling, ticklish in need. There was a low and steady throb growing in the grey matter behind her eyes. She was looking back at her with those clear, clay-brown eyes with an unbreakable stare that seemed so alien and foreign on her. Charlie was used to her being all akimbo, all loose and brain-funny; this woman was from somewhere else, a harder and more difficult place.

_ Am I on the right planet?_She thought.

"Penelope. Her name is Penelope Pendle, alright?"

Frankie's eyes locked on her, her fingers clamped around her cigarette. There was something in those solid eyes that she didn't like, an interest of the highest intensity that sparked at the mention of Penelope, like the gleaming in those brown marbles could burn into her. What did Penny mean to Frankie? She tried to focus on that question, but the dull ache in her skull was starting to peter out to other veins in her head.

"Listen, I want that book, Frankie. I need it."

"You don't need it, little nightbird. What you really need can be found right here."

The kangaroo dug into the crease between the couch seats and came up with a tiny bag of familiar white powder. Charlie eyed it, emotions fusing. She watched as Frankie shook it to settle the material, then opened it, leaning forward and pouring the cocaine onto the smooth, shiny surface of the coffee table. She dug into the same crease and prestidigitated a gold money clip, a wad of cash clamped between its tight duck-bill. The puma wiped away a streamer of mucus that slid down her upper lip, which made an itch pop up on the inside of her right ear. She threw her legs off of the couch, needing to move her feet.

"No-no-no, Frankie, I don't want that right now, alright? I came here just for the fuckin' book, man."

"Bullshit. Your body is shaking as fast as you talk. You need to relax."

Frankie took a drag on her cigarette and blew a cloud up into the dark. She took a bill out of the clip, a crisp one hundred dollar bill; without hesitation she began rolling the bill into a thin straw. Charlie watched as the roo stood up out of her seat and stretched out the bill-straw to her, unspeaking, unresponsive to everything she was saying. She took it without realizing it, tossing it onto the table after she did. Feeling hate-energy filling her body she stood up out of the couch and flung her hand out, scattering powder across the darkwood floor.

"Stop fucking around! I came here for Penny's book, you dumbfuck conniving bitch, now give it back!"

Frankie was looking at her with an expression she couldn't figure out, and that didn't really matter because she wanted, needed that book and she was ready to resort to the four-inch secret she kept in her boot. Slowly, with tar-smoke and a casual air wavering around her she stood up, not once taking her eyes off of her. The mountain lion was bouncing on the heels of her boots, wanting to move around but she kept herself rooted in place as the roo spoke, her voice soft and slow. "Let me see if I got this straight, Charlie, I don't think my ears got a good grip on your words. You come into my house, don't even say hello, you insult me, in fact, and you expect me to give you back something that you intentionally, by your own will, sold? What would you have done if I wasn't in the house, huh? Break in and take it? Was that your plan?"

"Whatever it takes, Frankie. You grew up in the same street I did, and you go by the same philosophy. Now stop stalling and give it to me now!"

The roo held her stare, her damnable unblinking stare that was starting to scare Charlie in spite of the anger that was seething inside of her, making her blood rush through veins. Her head hurt more and she could feel her hands shaking, but they were minor issues compared to the one at hand. She watched Frankie, refusing to put a hand to her head as even the dim lamplight was becoming piercing to her eyes. After several moments of quiet contemplation, the roo stood up, a mixture of annoyance and anger welling in those subterranean pits, and began walking around the couch, disappearing back behind the furniture. The puma felt a stab of fear cut through her limbs; what if she had a gun? What if she was paging somebody a little more unsavory to take care of her? She felt her feet already heading in the direction of the entryway before she stopped and swore at herself. Frankie wouldn't do that.

She was a little more than half-certain.

The roo came back, supporting a thick and aged volume in her massive hands. Familiar, paled strips of birch bark covered the surface like a dust jacket as the corners of some pages, yellowed and brittle with age, peeked out like unruly children. Even though she was strong, she still grunted with exertion as she carted the book to the table. The sturdy mahogany groaned as it felt the beast settle onto its back.

"De Wegen Van Sterren. This is a pretty famous book, Charlie, really rare. Only one of these has ever been written right; poorly copied sister tomes with similar aliases keep popping up every eighty years or so, but there's only ever been the real one. This one is very, very old, and very real. A lot of people would like to get their hands on this book, a lot of good and bad people have tried."

"I'm not here for a history lecture, bitch. Give it here."

Frankie ignored her, opening the book with a slow, gentle reverence. She turned through several pages, her eyes roaming over every detail. Through the cloying aroma of essential oils cut the sharper, musty smell of lost ages, making Charlie's nose tickle.

"I've been reading this since you left, Charlie. You--."

"That's fascinating--I don't care. You give me the book now, like, right now, and I'll forget about the shit you pulled with the sugar. I should pay you back for_that_, but right now, I just want the book."

Frankie looked up at her, confusion lining her eyes, tilting one eyebrow upward to the dark ceiling. Charlie was hoping she would talk about the sugar, explain if it was an accident, if bags were mixed up, or something else, but the roo didn't oblige her. "Wait a minute...you have no idea what this is, do you?"

"It belongs to a woman I really, really like, and that's reason enough for me to kick your ass and take it back. Again, I'm not here for a history lecture and I'm a little pressed for time."

Frankie's eyes stared at her, mountain child eyes boring into her and probably seeing the pulsating ache that was crunching inside of her, making her teeth rattle and the threat of tears rise up to her eyelids. Charlie didn't care, she had a mission to complete, and there was nothing Frankie could do to deter her.

She looked at the powder scattered over the floor, glittering like snow, and she felt an ache in her chest.

Suddenly a noise was expelled from the kangaroo's nostrils, an explosive and forceful exhalation. Charlie watched her chest flutter, shoulders shake, and her brown eyes go a little bit wider. A fluttery sound escaped her lips, a sound that grew and developed into crow-like laughter. Charlie could only watch, feeling her anger rising up inside of her as the roo laughed at her, feeling the bump inside her boot as though the switch wanted to be pulled.

"You little idiot," Frankie laughed, one hand propping up her head and the other hanging between her knees. Charlie looked at her teeth, a shade somewhere between piss and milk, the little gleam of humor like cold stars in her eyes.

The mountain lion crouched down on one knee, her left hand disappearing into her boot. Feeling the deliciously cold metal in her hand and her heart beating faster, she leapt forward, one hand on the coffee table as she flicked the blade open and pressed the point up to the roo's throat. A smile creased Charlie's mouth as Frankie shut right the fuck up and gave her a wide-eyed, fearful look.

"You must really, really like that girl, Charlie."

"Mm-hmm. I'm taking this, and you're not going to do fuck about it, okay?"

Frankie raised her hands to eye level, fingers splayed. She nodded her head as well as she could with the blade pressing rather close to her carotid artery. "Sure, sure...everybody gets one, right?"

"Right."

Keeping her eyes stuck on the roo's face, Charlie shifted the book around, swearing in her head at the book's weight. Had it been as heavy as this when she brought it over from Penny's apartment? She pulled it onto her knee and pushed it up to her breast, struggling to hold the book in one arm and still look intimidating. She backed away from the table slowly, keeping her body facing Frankie in case she tried anything. She almost tripped over the raised floor, the weight of the book keeping her steady.

She had just turned on her heel and was about to sprint to the door when Frankie called from behind her. "Hey, Charlie?"

The puma turned around, instantly suspicious. Her ears were laid back, eyes narrowed, keeping a tight hold on the massive book as she watched the kangaroo slowly get up from the couch and begin walking toward her. She looked tired now, her shoulders slumped and her tail dragging. Charlie brandished her knife, shifting on her feet.

"I'm sorry, Charlie. Look, things just aren't going as well as you think they are right now. I made a few bad business deals with people I shouldn't have and...well, I'm in debt. Serious bottom-of-the-dry-ass-barrel debt, and if I don't pay up ASAP then the party is over. All of this shit is outski."

"Oh...won't the bank, like, let you take out a loan?"

"No, and besides, it's not the banks I'm in debt with. Banks don't send people cards that say 'We break thumbs, discount for knees.' All the streamers and balloons are falling, Charlie, it's just a matter of time before someone realizes what's going on. I've been getting sloppy--don't laugh at that--and I don't really know what to do. I know it was wrong with the shit I sold you today, that damn sugar. It was low of me, but in all honesty, it's all I've got."

"Wha...Well, if it's any consolation, I did get a rush on it."

"Really?" Frankie smiled at that, putting her hands on her hips. She chuckled and looked down on the floor, looking fatigued. Charlie let the book rest in both of her hands, sharing a smile with an old friend. She gestured to the powder on the floor.

"So that stuff is sugar, too?"

"Yeah. I've been completely tapped out for a couple days, now. I'm making about three skin flicks a day to keep up with the paper bills and the guys in dark suits with .45 caliber bills under their shirts. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to find people who'd want to have sex on camera in this city, but holy _hell_is it really."

"Huh, I was wondering what was going on up there."

Frankie smiled. "Yeah, I found a couple guys who don't mind going a few rounds in front of the lens. Truthfully, Charlie, I'm actually sweet on one of them."

Charlie raised one white eyebrow, tilting her head to amplify her disbelief. "I smell nonsense, Frankie. I've never heard of you being the dating kind. You're usually the, uh..."

"The screw 'em and dust 'em kind? Yeah, I know, but a few weeks ago I kinda came down from a high right in front of a mirror, and the first thing that struck my mind, out of everything else, was the realization that I was almost thirty. I'm almost thirty years old, Charlie. We used to make fun of people at that age."

"Yeah. Poor Mr. Whipple..."

"Anyway, this guy is real sweet and gentle, sort of an artist with some talent. He just moved from Texas, you know, so--."

"Sex."

"What?"

"I know you, Frankie, you always focus on the crotch and how people use 'em. How is he?"

"Pretty good. I'm teaching him a few things, so he's getting better. The thing is though--" Frankie moved her head up the stairs and around the room in case anybody else were listening, filling her with a tinge of pride. She leaned forward to hear the roo whisper. "--He has a thing for sniffing."

"Sniffing? You mean like..."

Charlie tried to demonstrate, but it was difficult with the book-shaped anvil she clutched to her chest. Frankie shook her head, bullet casings agreeing with their mistress.

"No, no, no, not like that. He likes perfumes and lotions, fruity shit. Actually, I just bought something online, another stupid waste of money I needed but I really like this guy. You know my sense of smell is shot, but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving a whiff. I have no idea if he'll like it."

"Oh," Charlie looked to the door; it was right there, not more than twenty feet away. Frankie was already stepping to a table and opening a small, bright yellow box. Penny might already have noticed she was gone, and once she got back she'd be yelling at her, book or no. She bit her lip and wiped at her nose, feeling her headache cycle between hibernation and insatiable hunger. She glanced at the powder, knowing it was sugar but hoping it was something else.

"I should be getting back, dude."

"This'll only take a second. Just a sniff and a summary is all I want; even with all the coke you've got a better sense of smell than I do."

The roo stepped to her with a little yellow perfume bottle, shaped like a gaudily-dressed vixen, with an old-fashioned squeeze ball attached to the head. She couldn't tell from the glass what color the liquid was, but it seemed clear.

"The site said it's supposed to be a really subtle smell, so you have to really inhale it."

"Right. That won't be a problem."

Frankie smiled as she aimed the face of the vixen at her. She squeezed the puff ball and released a fine mist of the liquid, spraying several times, rapid-fire. Eager to help an old friend, she breathed in the curious mist.

The mixture of chemical agents entered her circulatory system first, cutting into her bloodstream like monomolecular needles. Using the collection of veins and arteries as a roadmap, they filtered out to reach the action sites in her nervous system, doing what they had been made to do; to block carefully selected chemical receptors and neurons. The agents struck and clung hard to their territory, their brethren seeking out any and every target. The entire process took little more than four seconds. Even if she had exhaled immediately after breathing in the chemicals, it would still have been too late.

Charlie first felt her head become fuzzy, the hard throbbing there fading away like the lights of a passing vehicle. Her mouth was filled with cotton, her body shrinking under the weight of the book, which somehow seemed to be a big detractor of gravity. Frankie stepped in to take the book from her hands before she fell to her knees, her head seeming too heavy, as though she were a living lollipop. She became more aware of the beating of her heart, of the blood it sent out through her body, feeling everything inside and little out. Everything seemed to be relaxing, all of her knots and wrinkles smoothing out in several fluid motions, like anti-ripples. She tried to smile but her mouth wasn't working properly.

Charlie fell onto her side, her head hitting hard on the white tile though she could not feel it. There was only a thud and a stopping of motion at the same time, which she used to dimly deduce what had happened. Before she closed her eyes and faded away, she smelled the alcohol tang of Frankie's breath over her face, words from a thousand miles away trickling into her ear to echo the single thought that still remained in her fogging mind.

"You're an idiot, Charlie."

III

Charlie's body had come to before her mind; she found herself staring at a corner of the ceiling, painted a greyish-blue that seemed much darker than it was. Her first thought was that of feeling as though her whole body was the mouth of a man who had just left the dentist. The feeling, like much of her senses, was slow in coming, but it came eventually. She began to see edges and contours, colors becoming more definite.

Looking around, she found herself in a large, poorly lit room, perhaps ten feet by twenty and fifteen high, the walls and ceiling painted in a hazy shade somewhere between blue and grey, no windows. There was nothing inside of it apart from a podium of wide, grey stone standing by the far wall. The floor was black, jet black, making her feel like she was sitting in the middle of space sans the stars. Was this even part of the house? Wait...sitting?

Charlie looked down and noticed two things which were befuddling to her in equal amounts. The first was that she was seated in a hand-carved wooden chair with no arms, her hands held behind her back, tied to the backrest by plastic ties. The second was that she was naked; totally nude, not a stitch. This cannot be good, she thought.

She heard the sound of a door opening and closing. She tried to crane her neck around to see what was happening, but when she stressed her neck she felt a cramp break out, forcing her back.

"Okay, did you wipe the camera like I told you?"

"Yes, I did."

"What about the other lenses, did you get them all? Oh, where the hell are the lights?"

"I got all the lenses and you wanted natural lighting."

"Ah, right, good man. You remember the choreography?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Perfect. This is gonna be one long shot, so don't piss up. Lock the door and light the candles, Rodney, puh-lease."

Charlie groaned when the pain hit her head, the fog having now cleared and memories were allowed to return. It felt like a grenade had just been let loose in her head, her skull splintered into jagged shrapnel. The pain was such that she had to close her eyes, and she wondered if this was from hitting her head on the floor (did that happen or was that imagined? It felt like it was real) or if it was the vanguard of the approaching withdrawal symptoms. The sound of heavy footsteps seemed to cut through the drone of pain, coming close.

Frankie blew in beside her like a red river. Her black "Year Zero" shirt was gone, as well as her boyshorts, replaced by a strange set of clothes that looked like they were stolen from a seventies fantasy film. She wore only a skimpy metal brassiere that gleamed in the faint light like chrome, accentuating the curves of her breasts with a set of too-big too-fake rubies lining the underside. It moved when she breathed, and Charlie knew it wasn't real metal. Much like her loincloth; around her bare waist she wore a thickly woven chain, her crotch covered by a "metal" disc, which had been set sparsely with Hollywood rubies and fashioned into the face of a grimacing, bestial monster. Over her otherwise naked body was a crimson, bloody-hued robe, a hood thrown over her face. Her earrings were gone and her fur had been dyed to a pale white.

Charlie saw that the roo was wearing her boots. They were gilded with clipped-on metal panels, but she still recognized them.

"Hey, Charlie. How's the attic? Is there anything left in there?"

The kangaroo tapped a forefinger against her temple, setting off a fresh rocket burst of agony. She had to cough to get her throat to work, her voice ragged and dry. "You look like Suspiria had sex with Masters of the Universe."

The roo smiled as she sat rather heavily in the mountain lion's lap, falling down hard onto her knees. The jolt made Charlie's head rattle with nails.

"Your perfume sucked, man."

"I know, I probably should have told you it was a homemade anesthetic, but what kind of cunning megalomaniac would I be if I did? You understand, sweetheart."

"Mmm, no, not really."

Frankie started playing with her hair. Charlie tried to jerk away, but the movement made lightning bounce around her cranium. "Alright, no more lies. I guess you deserve it for the shit you've been through. My businesses aren't failing at all. Their veins are beating so hard they won't die for decades. White Hill is a northern vortex, just sucking in weak-minded people from all over country, and I'm in the center, watching everybody coming in with nothing and leaving with a little something that's either slowly killing them or will let them kill others. Not my problem, it really isn't. See, if the people who came to me actually had the mental fortitude to take care of their own problems, then I would be scuh-rewed. I'm a businesswoman, and I make my living on society's insidiousness and corruption, and if the world ended tomorrow, there would still be people like you to ensure the survival of people like me.

"No, Charlie. Things are damn good, but there's still a broken cog in my machine of inequity. It's the porn, Charlie. The porn industry is fading. It sounds insane, but it's true. In the old days, when a woman showed a bit of shoulder or a couple inches up from her knee, the town would go fucking 'nanas. These days a girl waves her tits around and everybody shrugs. She bares her ass in a stadium and people wonder what her grade-point average is. She seduces a priest and turns it into a media shark attack; the world wonders if she had any competition with the choir. Even in America, pussy loses its flavor. People want something different, something more, something that is so utterly mad that they just have to try it out, or, barring that, download it online at reasonable prices. That's where you're going to help me."

Charlie nodded groggily to everything, making a serious effort to try and understand what she was hearing. She coughed again, feeling the pain in her head start to press against the backs of her eyeballs.

"Oh, my god...I'm a sexperiment."

"Yep! We're going to film the beginning of a whole new wave of skinema. My little nightbird is going to be a sexcess."

Oh, shit, Charlie thought. Frankie ruffled her green hair, letting it hang wildly around her face. She reached behind her, taking out a pair of bright orange underwear. Charlie groaned, trying to remember if they were her own or not. Frankie waved it around her forefinger as she spoke.

"I'm still debating whether or not to keep your mouth open or have it shut. On one hand, the sounds would have been natural, but I can't risk having you give out my address. These panties aren't yours, by the way. Your purple ones would have been shit in this light, it would have been just another shadow. I think...I think I won't gag you. The microphones should be able to catch the screaming, there's nothing much in here--."

"You don't think this is just a little bit cruel, Frankie? I mean, come on, man. This isn't what Frankie would do."

The kangaroo smiled, a contained laugh making her chest quake. "Cruel? You know what would be cruel? What would be cruel would be to take a packet of real, ninety-percent pure coke, toss it into your lap, and watch you try to detach your head to try and get at it. It would be a fuckin' treat to camp out here for a couple days and watch you sweat, swear, and piss yourself to try and get relief that was only a foot and a half away from you, always out of reach. You're a sucker, Charlie; you always have been and you always will be. You _feed_me, Charlie, and I like my food hot and wet, not running and babbling."

"You're insane."

"Ha! I have a master's degree and you dropped out in ninth grade."

"Senior year," Charlie lied.

Frankie stood up, pocketing the anonymous undies and looking down on her with an unidentifiable expression. She leaned down, her cleavage like two full moons bridled by her not-steel bra. She put her hands on the cougar's knees, leaning down with all of her weight and digging her nails into her skin. Charlie rolled her head, letting a moan pass through her teeth as a fresh impact of misery struck her. Though she had closed her eyes, she felt the roo's hot breath on her ear, her voice like something from a Barbara Steele film.

"When we're done, and if you're still alive, you can tell that Pendle whore that it's my book now."

Charlie felt the nails scrape against her knee, her fur bristling all over her body. The sound of her boots walking away made a fleeting wave of joy break through her mind, disappearing into a black and red ocean.

This is going to suck, Charlie thought. She let out a sigh in her mind, and then one for real.

It took ten minutes in total for Frankie and her assistant to get all of their equipment set up and working to her precise specifications. Charlie could only listen to footsteps stop and start, like the thoughts in her mental fugue. After a time, there was a long stretch of silence before she heard the snapping of fingers, likely to announce the beginning of the shoot. Charlie shifted her weight, trying to flip the chair like hostages did in the movies. But then, hostages in the movies weren't usually tied to chairs that were bolted into the floor. She swore loudly, listening as Frankie started saying something that wasn't English. It wasn't French, German, or Spanish, either; it was an ugly language with guttural vocabulary and short, wet sounds that seemed to come up from the diaphragm or somewhere else. Frankie's voice projected from behind her, explosive in the room. Her voice reverberated across the walls, making the air quiver.

The noise was making Charlie's ears twinge, setting off a light muscle spasm in her shoulder. She growled, resuming her efforts to break out of her restraints to no effect.

This is a fine kettle of fish, she thought, thinking of a gnashing kettle of angry, sharp-toothed fish. The black floor was disorienting; she kept her head up, trying to ignore the discomfort in her back as well as her head. The voice continued for a while, a long and aggravating while, until all of a sudden it stopped. The sound bounced along the walls as though it didn't want to end, followed by the familiar sound of her boots pounding the floor.

Frankie came back in front of her with a dramatic air, her robe whispering along the black floor, wherever it started. She saw Rodney some feet behind her, a tall and goonish-looking brown rabbit hidden behind a bulky and expensive camera. Charlie glanced at both of them, not caring if Frankie wanted this to look like an actual film or something real. The kangaroo looked at her, her eyes covered by black contact lenses, making it seem as though she had two holes in her head. She held out her hand and Charlie swore loudly when she saw her rosewood switchblade shining in the candlelight. Charlie had enough time to see it glint in the air, hear it whisper, before the blade was stuck into her leg above the knee.

Charlie hoped there was some lingering analgesic component of the roo's anesthetic, but there was nothing, no wall to absorb the blow. The pain shot up from her leg and to her head, zigzagging back down to her leg and up again in a red lightning cycle. A sound that was neither a high scream nor a grunting shout exploded from her throat, stop and start. She whipped her head back and tried to wrench her hands free from behind the chair, struggling in her binds. More lightning exploded in her head when the roo gave a little twist. Frankie gave her a look before she walked away, Rodney walking quietly around her chair like a damn bird. She stared into the lens, a black eye reflecting her face.

"You bitch! You goddamn bitch! And fuck you, Rodney!"

Rodney gave her an apologetic look from behind the camera, saw him shrug his shoulders. She caught the gist; he was just a cameraman trying to make a couple bucks, but still...

She watched him move around her, the big black eye watching her and only watching as blood ran down her leg. Footsteps and throaty words were only blurry subscripts to the fire in her leg. She growled through clenched teeth as she heard the turning of heavy pages and smelled lost time. More vibrating words that were too loud and unimportant.

Charlie breathed through her teeth, trying to focus her eyes and ignoring the pace of her pounding heart. She had been cut before, once, in a bad bar fight, but that was little more than a papercut, and the other person had been just a little bit drunker then she. That was a little different than having three and a half inches of German steel stuck in your leg by your old childhood acquaintance.

As Frankie's words began to grow in pitch and frequency, the puma began to notice something at the far end of the room. For a moment, Charlie questioned whether or not it was another symptom of one of the shitty things that's been happening for the past few hours. She felt something running down her nose and wondered what it was. A light began to grow against the far wall, a sickly, pale yellow light, jaundice incarnated into a small, formless glow. It was like looking at a candle with no shaft, a fire that cast only light and no flame. It started faintly, just enough to make her see the lines where the floor met the walls, but as Frankie continued to shout the light steadily grew. Charlie looked for the electrical wires or outlets, or bulbs, but there was nothing.

I wonder what Penny's up to right now.

I bet she's not putting up with any crazy porn directors or bleeding limbs. I bet she's done with her meditation stuff and already eating. What did we have in the fridge? Oh, she went to the store.

_ What the hell is that?_

The light continued to grow rapidly in intensity and size until it began blanketing the contours between walls and quickly took on a curiously physical_quality. It was a shapeless thing rising from a semi-amorphous circle of three feet, a tiny blight on earth's physics; it was neither water nor fire nor air but possessed characteristics pertaining to all three. It bubbled up and fell in non-rhythmic, disordered patterns, shedding a dim golden glow. Charlie thought she heard Frankie say "Are you getting this?" but she couldn't be certain; she was mesmerized by the bubbling, roiling _thing that glowed with a hypnotic witch-light.

This is one hell of a special effect. How're they doing it?

Something was rising from the strange light, something that was simultaneously a part of the shapeless figure of luminescence and blocking it out, shunting it aside. Charlie breathed through her open mouth, realizing that whatever this shit was, it had all been planned for her.

A long, tawny appendage crept up from wherever the disc had come from, rising and curling up into the air before slapping down hard onto the black floor. Muscles rippled beneath a membrane of featureless, semi-translucent skin. The sound wasn't wet like she expected, it was heavy and dry, cementing the dream into reality. It was a thing that looked like it belonged to an octopus, albeit an octopus a thousand times bigger than anything she had heard of on the planet. She watched it writhe along the blackness, another one slowly rising up beside it.

Finally, a ball rolled into place and her brain found her voice. "What the fuck_is _this!?"

The foot-long tips of the tendrils twisted in mid-air to point at her as though they could hear her, or more likely had felt the vibrations of her voice in the air. They rippled across the floor as though through the darkness of space, murmuring quietly toward her. Charlie watched, breathing hard and heavy as the pain from the knife in her leg and the aching in her head became foggy under the wave of epinephrine. Repulsion filled the air, along with something that smelled like ammonia and cloves; as the tendrils crawled closer to her, Charlie's movements became more vigorous. Her legs had not been tied, and she kicked out against the floor, stomping hard as she strained and tried to shake herself out, the plastic ties cutting into her wrists.

"Shit..."

As the thing from somewhere else crept toward her she began thrashing, spittle falling down her lips. She could see an array of phosphorescence lighting up along the length of the tentacle. The nearest tentacles had stopped some five feet from her, the tip rhythmically rising and falling as though tasting the air.

"Frankie! Frankie, get me the fuck out of this!"

Frankie didn't say anything. There was only the rasp of the glowing tentacles. She kicked at the floor again, and the tentacle seemed to recoil at the explosive sound. She stomped on the floor, her feet hurting from every jolt. The tentacle jerked backward each time, but eventually it became used to her, to her dismay. It slithered through the air, coming within kicking reach; she swiped at it with her foot, catching it on the tip. The limb jerked back, the other right beside it.

The second tentacle flashed forward in a yellowish blur, stopping inches from her knee. She whimpered and kicked out when it seemed to point right at the knife in her leg. It took the blow, its membranous skin rippling, but for the most part did not retreat.

The first tentacle had already overcome its fear of her feet; it pressed forward, slithering through the air. Charlie kicked at it, expecting to feel the sickly dry skin under her feet, but it had felt her movements and twisted out of the way. The tentacle caught her raised leg, wrapping itself around her ankle. Upon contact with the odd, awkward flesh against her body she felt an abrupt wave of revulsion wash over her, her stomach feeling like it was ready to blow. The second tentacle crept further, its tip pointing to her stomach. She kicked out with her other leg and the knife that was stuck therein brushed against the receptive flesh of the tentacle, releasing a burst of fire. She let out a cry and watched as the second tentacle flicked through the air, up and down, up and down, smelling her. It pointed lower, inches down her belly. It stopped in the air as a flash of lighter gold ran along its length.

Oh, hell no_..._

At the end of the room, there were more appendages resolving into the yellow light, rising up and twisting around each other. The flesh was warmer than she had thought.

Suddenly, she felt the tip of the second appendage brush against her inner thigh, the flesh hot and moist, humid. She jumped in her seat, the plastic ties tapping against the wooden bars of the backrest; she felt the warmth rub against her labia. There had been some dim hope inside of her that all of this was some chemical fantasy that her brain had devised after downing overdoing something she shouldn't have, but as she felt the something from somewhere casually brush against her slit she understood the reality of the situation, and she screamed.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rodney hiding behind his camera. There was sweat beading on his brown fur, his long ears tied back with an elastic band, and he was breathing heavy and brokenly, hoping his sounds wouldn't be picked up in the audio. She looked at him as he ducked around the intertwining appendages, documenting every moment. "What the fuck're you doing?" she shouted. "Help me!"

Rodney gave a quick thumb's up and ducked back around the limb. There were more appendages still rising at the back of the room, writhing through the dark.

The tentacle at her crotch began to glow with a pulsating light cycling through varying shades of yellow. It was like hot and sweaty flesh, and as it began to press up and into her she screamed at the grotesqueness of its slickness and heat. The limb that held her leg pulled her further apart; she used her other leg and tried to kick away the smooth invader, to no success. It only made the other tentacles aware of her, and they began to squirm toward her, a total of five.

Charlie swore loudly, finding that her vocabulary was limited mostly to expletives. She jerked as the thing entered her, making her moist as it secreted a clear mucous from its skin. Fear and confusion danced arm in arm with each other in her mind.

One appendage flowed through the air by her head, tasting the wind about her and the vibrations coming from her mouth. She let out another scream, and when she saw the tip of the appendage dart toward her and she felt the humid flesh slip over her tongue, a fresh wave of terror took away the confusion. The taste was alkaline and very much like sweat-coated skin, but the aroma of ammonia made it awful. Charlie shook her head, which seemed to make the appendage in her mouth more daring; she felt another inch slide in, tickling the roof of her mouth. She bit down as hard as she could, and the tentacle responded by expelling more of the salty fluid into her mouth, as though she had bitten a sponge. The semi-viscous liquid fell out of her mouth, strands falling down her chin in lengthy, transparent strings. She coughed, feeling the liquid edge dangerously close to her throat.

The limb inside of her groin gave a furious twitch against her walls, making her gasp; the mouth-appendage slipped further into her mouth, producing more of the fluid. She choked, every cough making the fluid jet out of the narrow pathways it could escape from her mouth. Another tentacle came over and grabbed her other leg, holding it in place.

The liquid surged down her throat, almost instantly flowing into her bloodstream and hitting her central nervous system like a runaway train. The cyclonic storm of bewilderment, anxiety, and horror slowly began to peter out like a tide, leaving nothing in its place. Even the pain of the knife in her leg had already faded. Charlie could only watch, her eyes still wide, as the tentacles continued to touch her. The other tentacles had found her and began rubbing against her, brushing through her fur, and she felt no emotion. She felt the muscles in her body relax, kinks smoothing out as her legs jerked to the ministrations of the lower tentacle. It slipped in, pushing and probing against her vaginal walls before retreating slightly for a moment to probe again, the warm, thick liquid coating her and leaving marks on her thighs.

Soon, a new wave rolled over the bare lethargic beach of her mind. Charlie began to find the feeling of the muggy flesh attractive, the air on her sweating body as pleasurable as the limbs inside of her. She ran her tongue over the tentacle's skin, finding it thin and salty but with solid muscle and unyielding muscle beneath. She felt her mouth flooding with the saline liquid, strands falling from her chin, and she swallowed, tilting her head back against the top edge of the backrest.

Everything is just fucking fine.

The tentacle inside of her pussy twisted slightly, setting off sparks that no lover of hers had ever attained. She tilted her head to the side, enjoying the texture and taste and everything else, letting a moan escape her lips.

The tentacles all seemed to react to her note. They whipped around the air, their bodies thickening as muscles contracted. Several limbs retreated slightly before slashing through the air. Charlie heard the sound of splintering wood and felt the ground give way underneath her. She fell onto the floor and felt both of the tentacles inside of her slip out, leaving a hot emptiness. The back of her head struck the floor, setting off stars in her eyes.

Almost in an instant, there was a yellow blur and she felt the tentacles slowly rolling over her, hot, moist flesh in her fur, opportunity advancement. She felt her legs being lifted, watching her ankles rise up as luminous tentacles curled around them and caressed them almost longingly, adoringly. The puma breathed heavily again as the aphrodisiac struck her in all the appropriate locations, filling her arms and legs with a sensual heat that only added to that of the brushing appendages. She felt them grasp at her breasts, featureless skin grazing at her nipples and sending a jolt down, or up, between her legs. As her body rose up from the floor, she was dimly aware of the pale kangaroo and the camera-masked rabbit watching her with open mouths, standing far back by the candle-lit podium. She felt equilibrium leave her as the tentacles manipulated her so that she was upside down, moving her through the air toward the dim yellow glow. She watched as the familiar candlelight became smaller, the faces shrinking until they were very far away, the distance far longer than the room.

The grip on her ankles tightened as they pulled her further apart. It didn't hurt, though she could already feel a cramp setting in. Looking up, Charlie saw the bulky, featureless hump of one of the tentacles caressing her calf, another right beside it. They flowed down her leg to her thigh, leaving smears of the thick substance in her sandy brown fur. They both reached her entrance, homing in on her arousal. She felt one of the appendages touch her, spread her apart, and enter her with an absurd smoothness, filling and pushing against her pink walls with its heat and mucinous effluence. It touched everything it could touch and more, setting off hot spots inside of her that she didn't know existed. The other limb pressed and rubbed anxiously at her labia, scratching at her door to get in. A groan escaped her lips as the tentacle rasped on her hard pink clit. She let her head fall and her eyes close as ripples of pleasure ran along her bones, making her legs jiggle a mid-air dance.

There was a tickling air against her rear, a hot, moist pressure, and she felt herself tense as the intruder slipped inside of her ass. Her sphincter tightened around the limb, forcing it to produce more fluid as it slowly slipped into and out of her, mimicking the one that was already fondling every muscle in her pussy. Fluid ran down from her loins over her stomach, a steady, ropy river falling toward her face. Though she could not see it, she definitely felt it under the kiss of the warm air.

She opened her eyes to see another glowing appendage tonguing the air in front of her muzzle. She understood and opened her mouth, allowing the tip of the tentacle to reach inside of her. She tasted it as it passed over her lips, had tongue, and pressed loosely at the back of her throat, exuding its warm fluid and she realized that it wasn't at all unacceptable. At that moment the tentacle inside of her ass jerked forward, ramming itself into her; she heard something thick and wet fall onto the floor below her, fluid falling down her back. Not important.

Charlie moaned, feeling herself being used and taken to realms of lust she had never dreamt of prior to now. Pressure was building in her head as much as her groin, lightning being bottled. The one in her mouth continued to travel up her throat, climbing her esophagus and making her jaw ache, but she smiled as well as she could anyway; the pleasure was overriding the pain. The limbs pummeled her, ravaging her with luscious fervor, and as they touched off every imaginable spot on and inside of her she felt the pressure begin to rise, to make her whole body ache and quake. She felt her body ripple as she came, seeing blood vessels quivering in her eyes.

Her body shook, she groaned against the appendage that was pistoning into her mouth, and only dimly she became aware of the tentacles leaving her body. They violently exited her, noisily leaving their secretions and her own fluids inside to dribble out and onto her fur. The tentacles that held her legs let her drop onto the floor with a harsh bang. She fell onto her stomach, her mouth open, feeling what had been filling her fit to burst had finally burst, leaking out of her. The puma breathed in long, ragged gulps of air, her body overriding her mental state.

Charlie, with gobs of semi-clear liquid flowing out of her mouth, watched as the luminous tentacles retracted into the formless shape from which they came. As the series of muscular tips disappeared into a void, the misty light rapidly fading into the dark, Charlie felt exhaustion overcome her. As she too faded into the dark, she could hear an apprehensive, angry voice warbling behind her.

"What the f--where are they going? What happened!? Shit!"

IV

Charlie giggled as she stepped through the doorway, her mind still stuck in a pink haze. She shut the door as quietly as she could, turning the knob as she did so the catch wouldn't snap as it went into the lock. The buckles on her jacket tinkled merrily as she entered, stumbling lightly through the kitchen and into the tiny living room, her boots scuffing the floor. She giggled and shook her head; the tingly sensation had disappeared ten minutes ago, leaving more of a fuzzy cotton behind her eyes. She stared up at the ceiling, smiling, making an effort to try and remember had happened in the past couple hours. She couldn't, seeing only shades of white, black, and yellow, and nothing else. Even though her entire body felt like it had been struck by a trail, everything seemed so placid.

"Hey."

Charlie turned, feeling as though there was more weight in her head than her body. She saw Penelope standing in the hallway. She was dressed in a blue coatdress and a long skirt, looking pretty with a pair of glasses perched on her muzzle. The mountain lion stood up on shaky gelatin legs, smoothing out her skirt.

"Where have you been?"

Charlie opened her mouth, feeling something fall down her nose. She wiped it away, fingers drawing red. She cleared her throat, her mouth dry and scratchy. "Penny, do you know what I did last night?"

"You know what? I don't care, I've stopped caring. I'm done--I have to get to work, Charlie, and if I see you're still here when I get back, I'm personally kicking you out on your ass. You can pack away your shit, assuming there's anything of yours here."

Charlie watched as Penelope hoisted her purse over her shoulder and walked out the door, wondering what had happened. The door slammed shut, and she felt that something bad had happened, but she couldn't wrap her head around it. She could only smell some kind of woody incense in the air and little less. She sat back down on the couch with a heavy_whumph_, the vinyl crinkling angrily at her intrusion.

Her head hurt, stung with hornet-stings at the back of her head. She couldn't remember, and she hated to not remember. She buried her eyes into the palms of her hands, hoping the dark would help her see close memories, but nothing was coming.

Charlie took her hands away, looking around the room, feeling something familiar and foreign in the apartment. Things were different, but she couldn't even tell what things were what. She stood up, her tail hanging limp and dragging on the floor. She had to take off her jacket; everything just seemed to constricting.

Thump!

She looked down at what had fallen, had clattered loudly along the floor. It was a tiny disposable cellphone, black with the white silhouette of a flying bird on the back. She bent and picked it up, feeling her whole body ache as she leaned over.

Confused, she dug into her jacket pockets, feeling an odd lump in the inside pocket close to her heart. She reached in and took out what appeared to be a cylindrical wad of money wrapped in rubber band.

They were one hundred dollar bills. Ten of them rolled into a tight green barrel. She stared at them in wonder, thinking instantly that it was fake, even though she had learned to discern the divergence between real and fake money. Also attached to the band was a strip of plain notebook paper, reading red ink words written in a beautiful if spidery cursive scrawl.

"Hey nightbird, you did a great job last night. Things couldn't have gone any better than they did, but remember that THAT WAS ONLY ONE SCENE. I would love very much if you came back and did another shot with us, though I'd understand if you wanted to take some time off and think about it. Enclosed are a day's pay and a way for you to reach me. I'll give you a ring at noon; if you answer, then I'll know you're still in. If you don't, then I'll understand anyway. Love you--Frankie"