The next day, her
pain somewhat relieved by Dave's visit, Rachel changed the colors of
her room to pale delicate yellow and blue. When Alice woke up, she
noted the change with delight and adjusted her half of the room to
match. She was so relieved about Rachel's recovery that she said she
was ready to return to her studies and, when she failed, she didn't
even cry, just shrugged and suggested they play cards instead.
Rachel hesitated, not sure this would improve things as Alice was not
terribly good at cards either. She selected Aegyptus Rodens Fuck, a
game focused more on fast observation and reaction time than strategy
to avoid calling too much attention to that fact, but need not have
bothered because they had barely started the game when the station
of pop music for new hires that Alice had been listening to on the
streaming service switched over to a commercial break that included
an ad for some ridiculous fashion fad among its target demographic
called jelly sandals, “now in limited edition glitter pink, only
from FOMO Fashions,” and Alice was so caught up squealing about how
absolutely amazing they sounded that Rachel was able to slap three
doubles in a row before she even realized what was happening.
“Why is the
game called Aegyptus Rodens Fuck?” asked Alice once the commercial
had ended and she had started paying more attention to the game
again.
“No one really
knows,” replied Rachel with a shrug. “I know rodens are supposed
to be some kind of animal. I think I might have seen stuffed ones in
the hall of animals and they looked totally adorable and cuddly.
Anyway, the legend that goes around is that the double cards are
rodens trying to have sex and you have to slap them to make them
stop.”
“That's quite
abstract,” said Alice, scrunching up her brow in confusion. “And,
anyway...why?”
“Something I
don't really understand about how if you let them, it will enable
them to create more rodens.”
“But why would
anyone want there to be less animals?” wailed Alice more
lost than ever. “If you could have a self-replenishing supply of
them, you could make a fortune, especially if they're adorable and
cuddly.”
“Well don't ask
me,” Rachel snorted. “Our ancestors were really stupid.”
Distracted by her smug superiority she missed the the pair of eights
in the discard pile until too late, as Alice won her first slap of
the game and grinned at her.
Over the days
that followed, Rachel and Alice spend a great deal of time together.
They played games, lay on their beds listening to music, like the new
selection of folk music Alice had persuaded Rachel to buy for her in
the hopes of learning the songs on her harp, and went out for dinner.
Just like with her new fortitude regarding training, during their
outings, Alice did her best not to make a fuss regarding her black
virgin's hood. One day, they took a trip down to the river. In most
places, the Blondie was horribly polluted. But in this area, it had
been painstakingly purified by Chief ConFluE Lvl so that wealthy
people could pay to come and relax in the surrounding exclusive park.
Flowers made of garishly colored plaZtic lined the edge of the
water, together with matching animatronic ducks, programmed to open
and close their mouths so the visitors could toss bread crumbs into
them. Every week or so a duck would get too full of bread crumbs to
work anymore so it had to be thrown out and a new one put in its
place. There were also unprofitables whose job was to come by every
morning and clean up all the pieces of bread people had thrown that
had missed the ducks. The sight of the fake flowers and mechanical
ducks gave Rachel a sad feeling as she and Alice took their seats on
one of the elaborate wrought iron benches in the park and the duck
ambient sounds were giving her a headache but she cheered herself by
pondering if Dave could make better flowers. Besides, if the rest of
the park was unpleasant, the sky and the water were pretty and
relaxing.
Afterwards they
went downtown for lunch at a little pizza place on Navona plaza with
its very ancient fountain and the hideous, much corroded sculpture of
some huge squatting animal made from flat metal sheets,
affectionately called Chi-Pi by guidebook writers and people in
general who were clearly much less creeped-out by it than she was.
Despite the centuries of damage, the horrifying long thin face in the
center with its single, two-pupiled eye in the middle was still
clearly visible and, when she was young, the thing had given her
nightmares. Rachel's only comfort was that she had read somewhere
that it was extremely stylized, meaning there had never actually been
any animals that looked like that. She had also read that it had
once been located far away, across a vast expanse of water and had
been brought here during the Centuries of Crisis when all remaining
people had returned to live only in Her-Babylon. Why, out of
everything possible, did they decide to save that?
Because it was
such a beautiful day, they decided to sit outside. Rachel smiled
over at Alice as she pushed the button to call the waiter. Nowadays,
most restaurants let you order through a touch pad menu at the table,
but the wealthy still liked the old-fashioned personal attention of a
waiter. Still, they didn't like waiting for it, so all the tables at
better restaurants had buttons they could push to instantly summon
the waiter. Not that waiting would be so bad today. Someone
had sponsored the most perfect blue sky and fluffy white clouds, but
Rachel did not care to find out who it was and didn't bother to look
for the silver lining, the metallic text always scripted on the
underside of one of the clouds, saying who was responsible for the
weather. Unfortunately, their table was located directly across the
square from a large video board mounted on the side of a tall
building. Currently, on the giant screen, a man was dancing about
crazily, chanting “when in doubt, just whip it out,” over and
over, while waving a bottle of “manliness pills” that he had,
conveniently, whipped out from somewhere inside his very minimal
short-shorts, proclaiming they would turn anyone who swallowed them
into a “true man.”
Rachel glanced
subtly over at Alice from behind her menu to see how she was
responding to the ad. On the one hand, she might take comfort in it
as it was an indication that a man's lack of response was not always
the woman's fault, which could relieve some of the pressure Alice
constantly felt to be perfect. On the other hand, no man would every
want to admit this and so would be likely to blame the woman even
more violently as a cover and, given her history, Alice was likely to
take the attitude that, in her case, she was always the one to blame,
even if this wasn't true in a general sense, an attitude the rest of
the brothel was likely to have encouraged. But, when Rachel looked
at her, Alice was bent forward over her menu spread on the table, her
hood falling forward so her face was impossible to read. Rachel
gritted her teeth and hoped the commercial would end soon, both to
avoid the risk of upsetting Alice, and because its repetitive chant
was so irritating.
“I wish we
could get custom made artistic pizza,” Alice sighed, after they had
completed their orders. By this time, the video board had,
thankfully, moved on to a much more sedate news report on the current
company rankings, so Rachel could hear Alice properly.
“This place was
so conveniently located,” replied Rachel with an ease she did not
feel. “And, because it's on the square, its fashionable in its own
way. Definitely not to be missed on a nice day, like today.”
“I know but...”
Alice cut herself short, as Rachel put her hand before her face and
coughed loudly, making a gesture with her hand that from a distance
would look like she was asking Alice to wait until she stopped
coughing but to Alice it would look more like she was putting a
finger to her lips for silence. The girl still had many skills to
master, not just in the bedroom, but also involving how to conduct
herself in public. There were people seated at the next table, just
a few feet away. It would be easy for someone to overhear their
discussion indicating that custom made pizza was too expensive for
them. Which it was, Rachel thought sourly. After all, it was only
the most expensive type of food in all of Her-Babylon, owing
to its numerous tiny components that had to be molded, flavored, and
then assembled individually. A restaurant like the one they were
currently sitting at, got its pizzas ready made from a factory and,
usually, such commercial pizza was a homogeneous entity all molded in
a solid piece with a generic “pizza flavor” throughout. Though,
at places that were high end enough, like where they were now, the
restaurant would make the effort to add a couple of separately made
toppings, or at least scatter some concentrated spots of topping
flavor around the pizza, but the crust, sauce, and cheese were always
a single pre-made slab. Only the very best restaurants, like Praetor
Pizza, made their own individual pizza toppings and used them to put
together a pizza from its different components, the way it used to be
done. It was the same way with burgers, but pizza was even more
frightfully expensive because it was made of far more tiny pieces.
Rachel's face
twitched in a rueful half-smile, suddenly remembering Restaurant
Run. She wondered if the game offered the option to assemble
complex multi-component food from scratch and, if so, how extensive
or realistic it was. She would have to ask Dave about it next
time.... She caught herself with a small start. It was never safe to
assume there would be a next time with a client, especially this
early in an association and, even if he did not treat her in the
normal way, that was what he was, a client, who could walk away if he
wanted and there would be nothing she could do about it. It would
not be good for her to forget that.
“What is it?”
asked Alice, sounding a trifle whiny. “You've been sitting there
without saying anything for ages.”
“It's been
barely five minutes,” said Rachel glancing at the time on her
pager. After the incident at the library, she had gotten her pager
sent in for professional repairs, claiming she had dropped it in a
fountain at the park, so she could more easily prolong her stay in
the future.
“Well, your
eyes went glassy awfully fast then.” Alice crossed her arms in a
pout and Rachel debated whether to chide her for it. Some men would
find the gesture irresistibly endearing, but many would find it
annoying or transparently manipulative. To curtail it would be to
rob Alice of one of her very few natural assets...in the limited
situations where it would be an asset, as opposed to all other
situations where it would be a liability. Alice started tapping her
fork against her water glass and Rachel frowned. Regardless of
whether clients would find this specific behavior cute or not, Alice
had a much bigger problem. Clearly she could not stand being ignored
for more than a few minutes and that was completely unacceptable in
someone whose job would sometimes involve waiting quietly to be
called for hours...or days...or weeks...or months. Suddenly all the
memories of the times she had sat around Esteban's house waiting in
this way came crashing back over her and she slumped forward, putting
her face in her hands. No, there was no way she was going to expose
Alice to that grim reality.
“Hey, check
this out.” She was startled out of her morose thoughts by a sharp
nudge on her hand. Looking down, she saw that Alice was poking her
with the folded edge of a bright green and candy pink flier. “I
picked this up from the message board at the entrance to the plaza.
I thought you might be interested.” Thinking that Alice was
becoming impatient again and pushing for attention, Rachel started to
scold her. Then she saw her innocent, wide-eyed look and realized
Alice had noticed her looking upset and that, whatever her other
motives might be, she had chosen that moment to produce the flier in
the hopes that it might distract Rachel from her troubles. “So,
what do you think,” Alice prodded.
Trying to look
interested, Rachel unfolded the flier and turned it over to find the
words “The MRVL Gallery” scrawled across the top in fancy
curly-cue font. “A feast for the senses,” it said lower down, in
more sensible lettering. “Step into another dimension where
nothing is as it seems and everything will make you see things in a
new way.” It took an effort for Rachel not to make a face since
seeing things in a new way immediately made her think
of Dream-journeying
for Self-Determination
where this somehow meant interpreting everything in a way that
was supposed to be revolutionary but, at the same time, lined up
fairly closely with the same old repressive values that everyone else
was endorsing about just not letting things affect you.
However, the flier also sported several glossy photos of things like
laser light rooms, stainless steel globes, and even a mini-weather
chamber where people were blundering about in a fog, so it probably
was actually harmless and “seeing things in a new way” really
meant having weird sensory experiences, not tricking your mind into
“getting over it.”
“You want to
go?” Clearly Alice wanted to go or she wouldn't be so insistent.
Rachel was hesitant. This looked like the kind of thing she would
have loved when she was younger and, even now, it sounded appealing
if it would really deliver on what it promised. The idea of being
transported to a magical land where everything was beautiful and
amazing and she could forget about dull, pointless reality would be
something. But it was so hard to feel enthusiastic about anything.
Still, she wanted to make Alice happy, and she hoped that Alice's
happiness might rub off on her.
“Sure, let's do
it,” she said with a smile that was only partly forced. “We'll
go right after lunch. No never mind.” She looked more closely at
the flier. “Apparently we need to buy tickets online for a
specific date and time so I'll look into that when we get back home.”
Doubtless, thinking she had succeeded in lifting Rachel's mood,
Alice was happy and giggling again but Rachel still felt full of
guilt for failing Alice, both for getting angry at her when she was
just trying to be kind and for failing to point out her earlier
missteps, thus making her dreams, like the trip to Praetor Pizza
harder to achieve.
Fortunately, the
food arrived soon and Alice was deferential and sweet while they ate.
She made one off-handed comment about how this was really good for
mass-produced pizza, but that was all. Even then, she was so sincere
and so obviously enjoying herself as she practically drowned her
pizza with Parmesan from the glass shaker on table, that Rachel found
she couldn't help wishing she could find a way to give Alice
the experience she wanted. In ordinary circumstances, she could have
offered the possibility as a post-Sacrifice treat, like her own trip
to the Metal Brain concert but she quickly stopped herself before she
could attempt to verbalize this. With Alice there was no way of
knowing when, or if, she would ever get to that point so it would be
cruel to hold out false hope. Of course, many of the other women,
she didn't want to name names, Elissa, would endorse dangling the
option despite, or even because of Alice's precarious situation.
After they had finished eating, wanting to prolong the good mood
despite the gallery not being an immediate option, Rachel agreed to
Alice's excited request to go down by the super maglav platform so
they could watch the trains come gliding in, their cross-pieces
hovering above the suspension cables and the cars themselves hanging
down below, while Alice munched big sticky handfuls of caramel
popcorn Rachel had bought for her from a street vendor. Even as they
headed home, Alice was practically skipping with excitement and, to
her continued surprise, Rachel still found it charming, rather than
annoying.
©Amanda RR Hamlin 2025
