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Charley looked at this stranger and her eyes widened a bit at the sight, but
she remained passive and blank. "Mistress want Shari give comfort?" she asked
innocently.
But Boday was still hypnotized by the jewel and couldn't respond to anyone but
Sam. "Oh, God! I'm sorry, Charley!" Sam sobbed in English. "Everything I do
turns out wrong! All I do is hurt people! I'm not fit to live!"
Charley looked at the stranger and frowned. "Jesus Christ, Sam! Is that you?"
she exclaimed in perfectly understandable English.
"Yeah, it's me," Sam sobbed. "Big and fat and-what did you just say?"
"It is you! Jeez! I didn't recognize you! How the hell did you get to look
like that?"
Sam was in shock. "But-but-you're talkin' normal plain English! You sound like
yourself! The potion-it was there! It was empty! I-"
Charley yawned. "Sam, if I'd known it was you I wouldn't have put on Shari.
What's the big deal about the potion?" Still shaking and sobbing, Sam managed
to tell her the story. "Shit! Good thing things turned out the way they did,
then."
She looked at Boday. "She's hypnotized, huh? Well, leave her. Come on up on
the bed and get hold of yourself. Jeez! I been wondering if you'd ever show
up!" It took some time for Sam to get a grip on herself, and when she did it
was true confession time. She told Charley everything-all of it, right down to
the demon and the curse. Charley just nodded and shook her head. God! She was
beautiful!
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"Sam, you can't completely blame yourself. You can't. Damn it, you just
weren't prepared to grow up so quick." She sighed. "I guess I was."
"But the potion-how did you . . . ?"
"Sam, I didn't trust her from the start, but I knew it had to be done. I
figured she was too loopy yet to pull anything, so I went along with all that
back in the loft. But when it wore off, I sat there and I thought about it. I
thought real hard about the life I lived for those first weeks. Then this nice
girl, maybe all of fourteen, dressed all in white, you know, with the mask and
all, came by and delivered the little jar of potion. I looked at it and then I
came back here and I lay down right here and I went over every single day of
'Shari's' life and every one of the clients. It was easy to do-there isn't a
whole lot there, you know, in memories, but there's more otherwise than you
think. A lot more. My first impulse was to send the bottle back when the
cleaning people showed up, which would be the signal to come pick me up, but I
couldn't bring myself to do that. Then I opened it and looked at it and knew I
couldn't bring myself to take it, either. I left it there in front of me and
thought some more."
"Why didn't you just get out of here?"
She sighed. "Sam-that was the thing. I didn't want to go back there. I-this
may be hard to understand-didn't want to give this life up. I'm sure it wasn't
any of Boday's tricks. I liked being Shari. I used to lie in bed some nights
and fantasize about this. Being beautiful, glamorous, sexy. So beautiful that
men would pay a fortune for just my company. It was more of an Arabian Nights
meet
Las Vegas kind of fantasy, but this was it."
"But all those men ..."
She smiled. "Yeah. I always figured if I ever did wind up like this I'd get
the bottom of the barrel types-ugly, middle-aged, stinking breath and
drooling, the whips and chains types. But they weren't like that. It was more
like my fantasy.
Some were middle-aged, sure, and some were younger, but they were mostly
nice-looking men with good jobs from their looks and manner. Successful types
with something missing in their lives. All of 'em probably had those forced
blind marriages. Hell, some of 'em were so inept in bed you kind'a wonder if
they had any sex life before. Some wanted a few things-oral stuff, mostly-I
guess they just couldn't get. A couple of the young ones, I think, wanted some
experience before they got married so they wouldn't seem fools. More than one
just wanted to be babied, or hold someone. It didn't go all the way every
night.
One guy just clung to me on the sofa out there and talked and talked and
finally cried his eyes out. That's all he wanted. Didn't make no difference I
couldn't understand but three words he said."
"Jeez! That's weird!"
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"No, just a little sad. They had no place else to go, nobody to unload on, to
get the tensions out. Oh, I'm not saying there weren't a couple with odd wants
in sex, but I kind'a liked that, too. I sat here and I realized that I really
liked the sex. But the main thing was I was doing something these guys needed
and they were willing to pay top money for me. Me! I knew I should feel real
guilty about it all, but I just didn't. I still don't. So, finally, I poured
the potion down the sink and washed it away and decided I'd try it cold. I
just wanted to see if I was really nuts."
"Yeah?"
"It was better. With a little practice I discovered I could shift to Shari,
actually thinking in that language, and just tune out and go along for the
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ride.
But it was easier with the whole me there. I could figure out the clients
better, give them more of what they wanted and maybe some new things, too. In
a way, I turned the tables just like Boday did with you. I was in control. I
could handle the bad ones cleverly without pissing them off and I could give
the good ones extra. And when I got off, I really got off! Weeks went by and I
still wasn't tired of it. I'm still not. But it was kind'a dull on the off
days and in the days. I wanted a way to get out, to be completely in control
of my destiny, and I figured it out. It wasn't that hard. They paid the money
to the account, right? I never saw that. But they also left tips-bigger tips
after I stopped the damned potion, if you want to know. Every day the White
Virgin would show to collect, but I knew she wasn't no unmarried virgin. In
fact, I ain't even a hundred percent sure 'she' was a 'she,' and that gave me
an idea. So I started holding out on the tips. Didn't take long to build up a
nice little nest egg. I
knew the golden ones were the sarkis and I could count."
She got up and walked to a closet, opened it, then went in. Sam followed, not
quite over the shock yet and not knowing what to say.
In the closet, a walk-in type, were lots of sexy outfits all designed for
Shari, but well in the back and hidden was another, which she revealed and
brought out.
It was a white robe, white hood, and face mask. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
