by Tom Leonard
FIRST THREE CHAPTERS
CHAPTER 3: THE HOTEL DE WASH
Slim and Ket caught up with Prince Alfredo and Lady Jemima on the bridge to Fantasia at the very moment that the night-train to Cajamarca screeched noisily overhead, while hurtling along the magnetic rail towards the coastal villages of Lismore way behind them. Slim thought that the intrusive Maglev train was bisecting his frontal lobes and separating his left brain from the right. But when his neurons flew into a dreadful tizz, Ket calmed him down with a shot of Van Winkle Wort.
"There'll be a few drunken deadbeats on the night-train to nowhere," said the prince."They're still mixing the gin with the gas in the Barber's Closet."
"And with a splash of crank," added Ket. "That den of iniquity used to be a Speakeasy during the Prohibition. The sharp-beaked hoodlums from Windy City went there to ply their trade and the Apollo Skunk TRIAD took care of the snitches."
"Maybe we should slum it in Rick's instead," said Lady Jemima, tongue in cheek, "though I'd need to change into my half torn breeks."
"Who on earth is Rick?" inquired Slim.
"They called him Tricky Rick, since he was into conjuring tricks. He was an icon of the Gay Liberation Movement, but he died of the insidious green pox."
"And he took a few of his pretty boys with him," added Prince Alfredo, with an inane grin.
"And a third of his customers before him," added Lady Jemima, with a grimace. "Enough of the young 'uns survived to bury him on the Mount of the Purple Bay Leaves. The Loud and Proud choir lauded him to the Heavens."
"But it's much too grimy down there," complained Ket. "It's like a feckin cesspit. They throw beer all over each other while they're flouncing on the bar."
The prince gave Slim the cringe-making glad eye. "Why don't we let Mr. Quick here choose our first port of call?" he suggested, with a hint of a royal sneer. "Before we ascend the Barbary Pirates' staircase to the more subtle delights above."
"I just want to mellow out," moaned Slim, feeling quite insecure. "If you're up to that sort of silly junk, then please don't include me out---I mean in."
When they reached the western shore of Wash Creek, a huge edifice disrupted their view of the mysterious walled city beyond, and the immense shining dome of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre that rose above it.
The Hotel de Wash had been built Gringogothic-style four centuries previously to provide accommodation and sustenance for the wealthy tourists on the Maglev trains during their first stopover on Fantasia. The station hotel had long since gone into decay, only to be renovated some fifteen years previously with a broader clientele in mind. The funding from the Scarlet Mafioso didn't go amiss, and the hotel had that sort of seedy look about it, Indeed, the local Mafioso baron often projected himself as a businessman of repute there; he was well protected by his two leather-clad, gun toting henchmen who offered their dubious favours to anybody who could be taken advantage of.
The Fritalian owners of the Hotel de Wash were, nevertheless, much respected pillars of the community, They regarded the hotel as as a 'social complex' with a range of facilities which might appeal to all sorts of special tastes. And it certainly did!. The High Court Judge in high heels and the dominatrix with the diamond-studded cat o' nine tails and the live, spitting snake for a whip could attest to that.
(The Hotel de Wash was almost identical in appearance to the Hotel Washington in Berzerkeley U.S.A, which was destroyed by fire in AD 1996, after its proprietor and a large proportion of his customers had perished from AIDS/HIV. The replica on Fantasia was built, and dedicated to the Heroes of the Alamo, by the mixed-race descendants of two Texan survivors of the fire. The Texans had teleported to Qinsatorix following the mysterious disintegration of the Twin Towers in New York City in AD 2001, for reasons that they kept to themselves.
In 1984 a highly eminent Professor of Ceramics predicted, while smoking dope with the horny lads in Rod's, a drug-ridden leather-bar in the basement of the Hotel Washington, that "the human race will go to the stars". Unfortunately, he passed away during an overnight gay acid party in his house on Pickford St, a few years later, and turned into very minute particles of dust which were buried in a casket in his weed garden. Nevertheless, the homo sapiens on Qinsatorix are living evidence of the validity of his extremely insightful statistical prediction.)
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Ket suggested entering the iconic complex via the colourful Club de Quash (where the Slapper Group Qincunx Unafraid was beating its drums). But Slim preferred to head for the hot and sweaty Cafe de Palms. There they met the younger of the brothers who owned the hotel, an exceedingly handsome, dark-haired hominid from Fritalia, who had a reputation for being as hard-boiled as the Seven Sirens of Sinicula and then some. He said that his camera-handy big brother focused on the 'film-making' and 'special events', though he was hesitant to say exactly what these activities entailed.
The handsome Fritalian went on to explain that his very own, much older, husband was the director of 'Bedlam', the Lunatic Rehabilitation Centre on the nearby Isle of Jung. Moreover, the Club de Quash served, on an informal basis, as one of his hubby's several 'waiting rooms'(where the 'loonies' hung out until they got sectioned).
The younger proprietor, who had a hyper-manic look about him, recommended the soft spider crab with laced piglets'' eyes, and the four party goers quickly polished off a large, ornate silver platter of this delicious concoction, before moving on to the imaginatively spiced Neander fillet steaks.
Slim wondered for a moment whether he was turning into a cannibal, but decided not to be fussy. After a few tentative bites, he felt like throwing up, which made him suspect that his steak was well past its due date.
Slim was distracted when a pair of white-furry-coated creatures answering to the names of Kev and Bev came in and completed a four-fisted recital on the grand piano which made the walls shake. Kev and Bev were weighed down with enough rubies and sequins to light the room, and they could have easily been mistaken for the Liberace brothers,
"Those bozos are much too much macho for my liking," complained Lady Jemima. "A touch of genuine femininity wouldn't go amiss."
"I'm completely the opposite," reacted Prince Alfredo, picking his teeth. "I prefer twinkettes with a sniff of the tomboy about them."
"I admire your versatility, " replied Lady Jemima, trying to look boyish. "But wither next should we wander? I could relax in the Giggling Girls room, while you guys take Slim downstairs for his initiation in Rick's."
"I don't wanna be initiated!" protested Slim. "I'd prefer to dance the night away in the Smart Town Disco."
"Whoopee! Let's dance the Donna Shalala together! I'll leap around like a boomer, while you flip into one of your cerebrally innovative flat spins,"
Prince Alfredo gave Lady Jemima an encouraging nod and a meaningful wink. "In the meantime, I'll roost around in the nether regions, to see what's up, Maybe we should drop in on the Giggling Girls before we talk to the Two-Timing Ticklers. Whad do yer think, Ket, old bean?"
For reasons best known to himself, Ket twisted his fist into his right eye-socket and compressed his eyeball towards his brain. "Don't forget that we have something special lined up in the Celebrity Suite, old chap, You're wouldn't want to tire yourself out too quickly."
"I enjoy tiring myself. It gives me strength! Now let's get ready to roll!"
Lady Jemima sighed, and powdered her nose. "You're always in a slap-happy rush,Your Magnificence. They still haven't brought my raspberry mousse au chocolat au lait."
"You're so selfish, Jemima," snapped the prince. "You've already eaten half of my frog and Gorgonzola poupette."
When Slim emerged into the bell-shaped vestibule, a stump-legged ogler with two large earrings stomped up. "And what are you into, bright boy? Would you like to sandpaper my leg?".
Slim felt mighty irritated by that, and he was relieved when he and his three companions finally ascended the dingy Barbary Pirates' staircase together, having already stopped off in the multi-sex loo for a well-timed pee(Slim didn't give a toss when his missed the toilet bowl and his pish splashed up the wall). But when Slim and Lady Jemima headed through the first floor fire-door, Ket Martingale and Prince Alfredo continued up the, now plushly carpeted, stairs, towards the bat-infested rafters.
The Smart Town Disco had opened to great fanfare a few months previously. The intention was to attract the sorts of civilised gay people (in particular the twinks and twinkettes) who didn't want to risk misadventure in Rick's, or on the Metal Frame, or in the Tele-Hologram room, in the sleazy basement way below (though a trip down the VIP elevator to the Barber's Closet did facilitate access, through a concealed doorway, to everything the basement, and the S&M dungeon deep in the lithospheric crust, had to offer).
The head bartender of the disco was thickset and grizzly-faced with an unkempt black moustache and an exaggerated sense of his own importance, so grizzly that even the most assertive of the lanky bar-elves ran to his bidding. The awkward Neander-Erectus took an immediate dislike to Lady Jemima, who he regarded as an alien object and a threat to his space.
"When's the show starting, my fine hominid--I mean, fellow?" inquired Lady Jemima, after the appalling creature served up two very short measures of gin and It.
"When Miss Eagle Princess does the fecking bong-splits on the podium," snarled the bartender. "But he's still away taking a shit."
Lady Jemima and Slim retreated to the dance floor where they danced the Jackson Rumba to the tune of Trystonian River Dance, and hand-in-hand with a pair of cocky Pelimodes from Oceanville, After they'd tripped the light fantastic with four abundantly cute Apollo Swans during the fabulously orchestrated Return of the Yeti, Lady Jemima seized Slim in her arms and waltzed the Que Sera, Sera with him, in ever increasing circles. But they came to a grinding halt when Slim accidentally trod on the foot of an outrageously attired drag queen from Trinkville.
"How dare you stamp on my lovely tootsy-tootsies?" shrieked the drag queen, taking a hefty swing at Slim's shining cranium with his rainbow-coloured handbag. Slim felt as if a volcanic eruption had turned his grey matter into shards of red hot glass.
"Tootsies, my left foot," howled Lady Jemima, giving the drag queen's ear a stern twist. "Crab-lobster claws, you mean, you stupid Trinkie twink!"
The grizzly head bartender bounded over full of strop, and seized Lady Jemima by her left antler. "Any more of that nonsense, you trumped up slut, and you're out of here and barred for a week."
The kick that Lady Jemima promptly delivered to the bartender's crotch came with the expertise of a dominatrix out of Basin Street. The unfortunate fellow fell to the ground roaring in agony, rolled over, and went completely inert.
Everything got a bit tense when six clean-limbed bar-elves ran up, pinned both Lady Jemima and Slim to the pink, laminated floor, and sat on top of them spitting venom. However, at that very moment, Ket Martingale most fortuitously appeared on the scene. He arrived in the nick of time!
After ten minutes of intense diplomatic discussion, and a perfectly legal transaction involving a hundred guinea Imperial Bank of Trivoli note and six gold pieces, Lady Jemima and Slim were released into Ket's custody, and the bar-elves put the inert bartender on a makeshift stretcher and carried him downstairs to wait for the super-medics.
As soon as they were through the door, Miss Eagle Princess ( in real life a local, highly studious historian of note) leapt onto the podium, performed the bong-splits with a loud bang, and the real show began.
Ket took his much dishevelled companions down to the Barber's Closet in the basement to sort themselves out. The five customers there quickly finished their drinks and left, and the waitress went to hide in the kitchen.
Lady Jemima needed time out to fix her falsies and straighten her twisted left antler. "At least I sorted out that hominid mother fucker. I was hoping he'd spill his guts all over the fake Eagle Princess"
"A touch of decorum wouldn't go amiss," snarled Ket Martingale. "We're supposed to be putting on an aristocratic image for the prince, and just look at you! You're behaving like that Whore of Babylon when she ruled the whole feckin planet with her legs in the air."
Lady Jemima smiled, coyly. "She and that bitch in Revelations had nothing on me, darling. I've taken more in a night than the Empress Messalina."
"Jesus wept!"
"They bounced all over me,and hurt my orchadeus," wailed Slim. "What's more my brain feels as if its full of dum dum bullets. We should call the Rozzer police!"
That set Ket off, though only because he was in a right rage already. "Much good that would do you! The pigs would track back on your record and laugh."
"What? What on earth do you mean by that? You're trying to confabulate my perfectly well-balanced mind!"
"Stop fooling yourself, you brain-blocked numpty," raved Ket."I know exactly what you did when you were eleven! You're as innocent as a boogy-goblin from Hades and you've deserved everything you've got since."
Slim's face contorted, though only momentarily, in anguish. "Aaaaaaaaaarg! Mother! Father! Granny! Come back to me and save me from my ghoulish fate!"
"I do believe that you're connectome detached."
Slim stared blankly into space. "No I'm not! My connectomes are in my gut."
The Apollo Deer waitress felt quite stressed when she came in with three large mugs of chocolate-spiced Cappuccino. But when the three unruly customers took a gulp, they began to look a bit drowsy, and she realised that the powdered chocolate had done the trick.
"Prince Alfredo's going to give me a ting on my ear-mobile when they're ready for you two philanderers in the Celebrity Suite," announced Ket Martingale, gritting his teeth, after several minutes of muted silence,
"I need to take a very long pee first," declared Slim, heading for the concealed door.
Slim's head was feeling a bit better when he emerged from the washroom, though his orchadeus was still in painful disarray. But he was perturbed to hear a gross mixture of anguished screaming and horrifying wailing that echoed, quite surrealistically, down a dark eerie corridor. He ventured nervously along the corridor, since he somehow felt responsible for finding out precisely what was happening. He found it difficult to believe that he wasn't just 'hearing' the screaming and wailing within the confines of his very own skull.
Upon lurching through a purple nyloid door, Slim found himself inside the synthetically colourful Tele-Hologram, and felt bemused by the images of the mythological beasts that thronged around him.
"I'm Pan," whispered a delightful Pegasus, galloping up, "Would you like me to take you for a ride?"
"No thanks," replied Slim, as a gigantic Faun also tried to fawn up.
And when the divine Jovius descended through the ceiling, disguised as an ape swan, Slim howled, "I'm not into horses, goats, or horny god-heads," and headed for the bright red swathe of light, whether real or imagined, that he perceived somewhere ahead.
Slim was soon to discover the source of all the diabolical screaming and screeching. Several naked customers, all moderately cute newcomers to Ricky's, had been strapped in various curious positions to the three-dimensional Metal Frame (that was even larger than the Berzerkely metal frame of yore). Around the frame stood seven well-hung bar-elves, all wearing black leather jackets and nought else. What they were doing to with their instruments of torture to the unfortunate customers was too hedonistic for any humanoid or beast to want to describe.
Slim reeled in the stench and choked back his vomit. When he recovered his senses, he stood there transfixed, and stared at the gross animalistic ritual, and all the dripping blood, like a fixated Vampire bat-owl.
How disgustingly horrible! he concluded. But this is my chance for a sort of redemption. I was pure evil when I was eleven, but the creatures in leather are much more evil than even I can imagine in my totally filthy mind, I will therefore shed my guilt about what I did when I was eleven, and try to handle my remaining evil thoughts in a mature way and turn myself into a good person, henceforth and into the future.
"Here's another cute new customer!" gurgled a gigantic Apollo Gnome, attempting to grab Slim by the scruff of the neck. "La creme de la creme de la creme."
But Slim ducked, twisted, and fled for his life.
A couple of minutes later, Slim thought that he was crashing through a brick wall, only to discover that he was inside the Barber's Closet once again,
"You've kept us waiting, Mr. Quick," complained Ket Martingale, peering at his swat-watch. "More seriously, you're keeping his Royal fucking Highness waiting. Now away with you to the Celebrity Suite! I'll be drinking with the loonies in the Club de Squash when you and Lady Jemima have finished."
"And tuck in your t-shirt!" demanded Lady Jemima. "You wouldn't want to look like a scruffy peasant."
When Slim and Lady Jemima exited into the vestibule, the stump-legged ogler was asleep in a wicker chair in the corner, with a Hunky Man magazine on his lap. So up the two long flights of stairs they went only to encounter a stern Apollo Octopus, sitting behind an ivory and whale-bone desk on the bluish-green laminated landing.
"Welcome to the Celebrity Suite!" announced the octopus, with a courteous enough smile. "Please put your valuables into these leather pouches, just in case they get nicked."
When they entered the plastically palatial Celebrity Room, Prince Alfredo was reclining on a Penrosian chaise-longue, drinking rye and dry with a muscular humanoid with hairy limbs and a baboon-like face. They were both wearing silver jock straps and scant else. Slim was shocked out of his mind, but Lady Jemima didn't bat an eyelid,
The muscular Apollo Baboon grinned like a fully-fledged baboon. "Greetings, playmates. I am the Head Theropithecus of this sordid Establishment. I will gladly take you into the Fritalian Harem, so that you can select your very own love puppets. If you plan to stay here longer than the scheduled 75 minutes, then who may wish to choose Extras who might suite your fancies for a further 30 minutes. Sub-humanoids of the fourth and fifth gender cost extra, but those of the seventh gender, and all monkey spankings, come free,"
"What if I want to be spanked by a monkey?" asked Lady Jemima, in apparent jest.
The Head Theropithecus carefully eyed the good lady up. "For you, that would be fifty cents,"
Prince Alfredo burped, and licked his lips. "But seriously, folk. What sort of scrubber do you think I should hit on tonight?"
Slim thought that the prince's attitude was utterly appalling. If the prince wanted to regard his potential tricks as scrubbers, then where did that put him in relation to the remainder of humanoidanity?
Lady Jemima took several seconds weighing up the options. "I do believe that you're in your raving heterosexual mood tonight, Sire. Would you like a human bimbo, or maybe one of the Icarian blondes with cubes for breasts?"
"I guess I'll try a homo sapiens lass this time, if there's a sleek, ginger-haired one like Slim. And bring him a plump Icarian. Would you prefer a sexy lass, Slim, or one of the cute lads from Manessa?"
Slim felt tempted, but realised that he was in the wrong place. However, there was a sudden rush of blood to his head, and he felt tempted again.
"I'm not fussy," he replied, while not wishing to say what he actually wanted,
The Head Theropithecus grinned. "There's no need to be bashful, Slimmykins. We'll bring you one of each."
Slim felt confused, and didn't know which way to turn.
Ten minutes later, Lady Jemima and the Head Yin returned from the harem, with a slender human redhead, a plump, golden-skinned girl with sextagonal breasts, and an exceeding rotund youth from Manessa with large floppy bunny-rabbit ears. Slim noticed that all of love puppets' eyes were glazed, and didn't realise that this was caused by the high doses of haloperidol which they received by daily injections into their spleens.
"I've changed by mind!" slobbered the prince. "I'll try the redhead and Willy Grunter both together. Bring them here and make them kneel at my feet."
While the prince was anticipating something sophisticated, complicated and reasonably pleasing, his plans were thwarted by a very rare occurrence, for that harem at least. Despite feeling 'brain-fogged' by her anti-psychotic medication, one of the'love-puppets strenuously objected to the proposed agenda.
"No, shan't!" shrieked the redhead. "And certainly not with that sweaty, greasy son of a bitch,"
"Please leave her alone," howled Slim, but to ears that were, by and large, as deaf.as a granite gravestone.
"Thanks for trying," sobbed the girl, only for Lady Jemima to grip the her arms, and push her towards the foul-smelling chaise-longue.
"There's absolutely nothing to be scared of, darling," asserted the hard-nosed Madame.. "Here! Let me show you how to do it. I always like to show my girls what pleases His Highness most."
"That's because you enjoy them yourself, you dirty slut," chortled the prince. "Beware the roving hand of the devious Sunkists from Hell!."
"The only thing I inherited from my Daddy was my thirst for nature, the creative, and the divine,." objected Lady Jemima, angrily.
"No!!!!!" wailed the redhead. "Shan't! Ever!"
The prince frowned like King Herodius the Second when his favourite dish of lampreys and Byron burger came overcooked, but he recovered his composure and eyed up the fat youth. "I guess I'll have to make do with Willy Grunter then. And put the Icarian one on the green-spotted sofa. Slim deserves his bit of fun too,"
Slim was about to throw off his clothes and rush over to the green-spotted sofa, when he remembered the promise he'd made to himself in the basement when he saw all the horribly evil stuff on the Metal Frame, the promise to stop being evil and to try to live a better life.
Slim therefore re-buckled his belt, strode over, imperiously, to the smelly chaise-longue, and confronted the dumbfounded prince. "I have just felt tempted, Your Highness, to become a predator like yourself, one who abuses his sex objects without regard for their sentient feelings, a person who preys on youngsters for his own evil purposes. But I would prefer to live a better life, and only wish that you, in your highly privileged position, would follow my example."
"Bravo, sonny! What a neat little speech. What should we do with him, Theropith, old bean? Should give him to the bar elves or throw him to the shark-lions?."
The Head Theropithecus thought, very pensively, for at least fifteen seconds. "I'll need to ask the Apollo Octopus in reception about that, Sire. Now why don't we all relax and do something entirely different?"
When Slim made good his escape from the Celebrity Suite, he rushed straight down the stairs and headed for the Club de Quash. Most of the customers seemed to be staring into space, but Ket Martingale was propping up the bar while surviving the company of a loquacious lady from Garten Parmisch-Kirchen on the Dnieper with a tic in her tongue,
"I didn't know you had such a nice little friend," purred the elegant lady. "Isn't he a darling?"
Ket was already pissed off with the flirtatious lady. "He purrs like a pussy cat, and now we're on the way home to beddy-byes."
"Whoops! I didn't know what you're really like. In that case, I'm away to play 'Snakes and Ladders' in the roof-garden. In the meantime, it's Gute Gesundheit und auf Wiedersehen, until we meet, once again, on the mystical plains of Hegor!" !"
Ket and Slim crossed the bridge to Lismore together without uttering a word. When they reached the Hotel Las Fuentes they headed to their rooms on the second floor. When they reached Room 222, Slim invited Ket in for a mug of hot chocolate, and before his head even hit the pillow, the confused youth was purring like a boss-eyed puma.
This is my reward for being good, he thought.
CHAPTER 4: THE SHINERS REACH A CONSENSUS
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