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A VP, Part Five

I

My heart and the tasty green paste in my belly emerged from Areba’s parlor room. The salon had become markedly quiet. The gauntlet of thralls had vanished. Cora beeped away at the point of sale machine to ring out credit cards. The register drawer beside her fluffed up nicely with fives, tens, and twenties. A pen between her teeth indicated to me that she had no interest in speaking to anyone at the moment.
Muffled chatter and laughter animated from behind the door to the employee break-room. I knocked first. Andre open the door with a foam cup in his hand.
“Heeey! It’s the hero! The hell you knocking for? Getcher ass in here!”
My ass entered. Warm air from vents in the floor welcomed my ass. Bianca and Raven sat on the chair and the coffee table next to it respectively. Andre closed the door behind me. Everyone’s faces glowed with crimson cheer.
Hiii, Tully,” chorused the twins.
Andre laughed suddenly upon glimpsing my face in the light. “Where the hell were you just now?” He turned to his cohorts. “Lookit this guy! He’s got a scratch on one cheek and Areba’s polish on the other!“
“Areba was here?” asked Raven.
“Yeah, look, he’s got green on his face!”
My embarrassment licked my lips. They all laughed.
“I’m just fuckin’ with you, champ. You want a drink?” Andre inquired.
“Could I get a beer?”
“Soitenly! And a chaser for the creature?”
“What?”
“Would you like a water with your alcoholic beverage?”
“No.”
He opened the fridge and revealed a collection of differently sized plastic jugs full of red liquids on the shelves. Beer both distracted and cooled me.
“It’s warm in here,” I observed.
“Cora turned up the heat a couple hours ago,” replied Andre, “We got like BTUs and shit.”
The refrigerator’s decompressor concurred with life.
Raven clicked through her phone. “Hang on,” she clicked. Different colored lights flickered against her pale, white projector screen of a face. She turned her phone around to display the top of a lovely tanned foot with different colored toe rings and gemstones. “That’s the Baroness of Jiamorna Haiyess.”
“Baroness?”
“Yup, she owns all of the woodlands west of town and half of Jiamorna Monts. This,” she turned her phone again to show me another foot, “Is one of my favorites. Her toes are beautiful!” They curled upwards so you could see both the underside of her big toe and the other toes pressing their faces against the floor. I hardly could stand breathing calmly!
“For Pih’D’sake, Raven, you’ll give the poor guy a heart attack!” Andre laughed.
No one else laughed. Obstreperous silence forced both the foot image and our foot camaraderie from my mind. Cora had told them “the heart condition” story. I feinted for some gulps of beer. Raven smiled at the images on her screen. Andre gaped at the numerous feet that cascaded across Raven’s phone. His tipped cup revealed its red, wine-like contents.
“You holding out on me, Andre?” I questioned amusedly.
He looked confused. “Huh?”
“Where’s the wine?”
His eyes blipped about as though they had missed a joke. “There is no wine.”
“But there’s wine in your cup!”
Andre swirled the red contents of his cup and looked at me. “This ain’t wine.”
“What is it, then?”
“Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Yeah, smart-ass, I’m drinking blood.” The twins watched Andre incredulously. “You know what I am, what Raven is, what Bianca is, what Marla is. This come as a shock to you?”
His bluntness quietened my joking. He paused briefly before laughing.
“Tull-eeee.”
Bianca crossed her hands behind her back and wore no shoes. Perceived inadequacy heightened my blood pressure. Her toes wiggled knowingly.
“Yeees?” I replied.
“Did you give any VPs today?” she squeaked.
“Vee pees?”
“Vampire pedicures?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“You would paint my toenails with blood.”
“Aygava! That’s terrible!”
“You think so?”
“It’s… not ethical.”
“It’s what a lot of Qapaqaras like. I get a VP every week.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Raven interjected with authority, “the blood likely came from someone who deserved to be the donor. At least that’s what the Qapas here do.”
Cora suddenly popped through the threshold. “Are they all gone?”
The others sighed and affirmed. Cora decided it safe to refresh herself. “We actually didn’t do that bad. Everyone paid up. Some things got broke here and there but no serious damages. My baby!” She suddenly wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “It’s over! It’s over!” she cried.
Her hugging determined how I moved.
She pulled away. “And no Brotherhood! No standoffs, no shows of strength, no bullshit! We actually could not have made out better!”
“Oh, if they showed up,” quoth Raven, “none of them would have left.”
“Those thralls weren’t so bad either!” Cora mused aloud, “Can I use them as bodyguards next time?”
“We may have a few hidden guns among the bums,” rhymed Andre.
“My mind is RACING!! This could work! Now, we need five slammed days a week to make up for our losses, then FOUR slammed days a week for profit. Those idiots keep coming back, and we’re golden! What’s that on your lips?” She looked directly at me.
“My lips?” I replied innocently.
“Why are your lips green?”
My loss of words surrendered a confession.
“Is that nail polish?” she asked tersely.
“No.”
“Did someone put her foot on you?”
“What? No, no.”
“Did she put her toes in your mouth?”
“No, nothing like that!”
“Don’t lie to me, Tully! I know when you’re lying! Was it Areba? Did that woman get zombie’d here!?”
“Luop!” Bianca exclaimed, “Luop did it while you were airing out the lobby! She knew she had an opportunity!”
Cora stormed the messenger. “WHO IS SHE? Thrall? Qapa!? Tell me! Never let her back in here ever again! Where is she? I’ll kill her!”
“Come meet me downstairs,” whispered a voice. I failed to register who spoke. Everyone else rocked from the procession of Cora’s explosion. My hands seized the doorknob and muffled my escape.

-
II

Marla’s little throne carried no stewardess. The red room presented lower light and more golden highlights among the maroon plush. A black, stringy flame hovered from the ceiling. Marla smiled coyly from the air duct.
“Hi Marla.”
She scooted down and soundlessly returned to the floor before hugging my midsection. The clothes she wore, the same clothes she wore last night, remained unsoiled by the air duct. I deduced that the air duct was not functional. “Mmm, did you have fun?” I hesitated to answer assuredly.
“Mm. ”She released. “I heard Cora yelling upstairs.”
“Yeah, she does that.”
“Mm hmm.”
“You needed me?”
She seated herself. “I would like a VP tonight.”
“…I see.”
“Tell me. Have you experienced any shoulder pain today?”
I touched the sore spot. Suddenly, a tickle sensation bubbled up around my love handles. Her present mischievous visage reminded me of how she looked last night. “You bit me last night.”
She smiled and perched her feet on the footstool. “My company hasn’t been too obtrusive, has it?”
“You mean your devil on my shoulder? No.”
“I mean has the pain been too bothersome?”
“No.”
Her stirruped toes tapped their perch. “This opens. Could you take out what’s inside it?”
She wanted me to work for it. The weight of her feet depressed both my lifts and tugs. The footstool eventually yielded a vial of viscous red liquid.
“A vampire’s pedicure,” explained Marla, “requires that you paint my nails with this vial.”
And I got it. The vial contained blood and she drank blood. Indeed, the vial released a faint metallic odor. I normally had no scruples with handling strange substances but the blood disturbed my equilibrium. The malice of my appointed task weighed heavily on my hands!
I proceeded immediately. The vial likely contained both crimson blood and Areba’s “polish”. Each drop reflected the wall lights with red pupils. They broke from the brush like no liquids I ever had seen. My cheeks vulcanized precipitously. Marla silently fixated her gaze upon me.
The number of repetitions that prior experience had required guided my hand movements. Andre and Raven both precluded unnecessary contact with the customer as they worked earlier today. Come to think of it how did they handle so many customers at once? Marla’s right foot shimmered murderously with polish.
“Whose blood is this, may I ask?” I asked.
Marla remained silent and inched her left foot towards me. I knew not whether she heard the question.
Meanwhile, raucous laughter echoed from above. Cora apparently forgave both Areba and me for our previous indiscretion together. She likely worried that my naivety resulted in inappropriate intimate contact. Little did she know how inexorably that contact elevated me from the depths of iniquitous toil!
The fellowship of all who worked under the Tootsie’s roof that night comforted me. Yes, they were malevolent creatures. They likely suborned many people. Cora, and I by extension, maybe were bewitched. No pleas or wherefores exhausted my gums. No thoughts of escaping disparaged my head.
Nothing interrupted my peace.
Both of Marla’s feet bore the spoils of their aesthetic savagery.
“Could you blow on them for me?” she murmured dreamily.
I blew over the tops of her toes. The polish mostly had set. Her nails solidified into a morbid lacquer.
“Harder.”
I blew harder.
“More.”
I blew more!
“More!”
Ah!
“NOW!”
Her feet lithely planted over my lips. The toes paused dangerously close to my orifice.
“Servant! Sycophant! Product of fools!”
I looked up and shuddered at the glowing purple in Marla’s eyes. Her predatory leer coerced me towards the precipice of final reckoning! I felt the crumble of death beneath my legs. Someone possessed Marla, and her bloody nails prowled near!
“Does my intrusion unnerve you?” quoth Marla’s possessor. “Ha hah! Your terror pleases me! How close you are to the Qara Qista! How scrumptious the dessert! Now, my darling Marla, what will you do?”
Dread proceeded from these words. The possessor was talking to Marla, not me. I had lower priority.
Marla lowered her left foot to press her toes against my chest. Her right foot suppressed my lips. I dared not move with the blood on her nails so close to my mouth. “You’ve trained him well, little one,” remarked the possessor, “he does not crave blood! Shall I conclude his pledge to your majesty? From the beat of his heart, he seems reluctant to proceed. Shall we temper him more?”
Her foot shoved me backwards flat onto the floor. The floor beneath me crumpled with a series of cracks. My blood went cold. Marla stood up and approached my prone body. The purple in her eyes glowed venomously against the silhouette of her face.
She suddenly grimaced and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, why do you resist me, you lilliputian twit? How valuable is one man when all of Jiamorna Haiyess would grovel at your feet?”
I held my hand up. “Marla, wait! There’s something wrong with the floor!”
“SILENCE!” she growled. She deflected my hand and dangled her foot above my eyes. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I won’t minshhhh words with you,” she hissed, “Little Marla won’t subjugate you, as she rightly should, but I am not so lenient! What less than an eternity of devotion to Marla do you deserve? Her little feet should bask in your subordination! I’ll show you!”
Marla’s possessor commanded both the lift and Marla’s foot and its plummet. Its ball pinpointed my gut. The total force overcame the threshold of the floor. I knew that it was weak! I, Marla, her throne, the cabinets, the edifices, the decadent facades, the warm golden center of everything, all fell through the floor.
-

III

A cacophony of cracks summarized our collective landing. The crash echoed around me for some time. My shoulder groaned with pain after I landed on it.
I detected light but the darkness had thickened tremendously. The debris around me settled and quietened. No light shined from above. The floor felt cold and earthy.
“Marla, Marla,” croaked a voice.
I heard her little feet shuffle against the ground. Their scuffles led me to her prone body. “What - happened?” she groaned. “Where - did - the - light - go?”
The infinitesimal light I detected came from a lamp on the wall some distance away. The lamp silhouetted a series of bars that enclosed Marla and I.
“Have - you - fallen - into - a - trap?” heaved Marla.
“Bars,” I wheezed, “there are bars around us.”
“Mmmm, how - appropriate - for you - my little - mouse.”
She prodded my back with her foot. Suddenly, arousal furiously usurped my attention! I wanted to caress that foot with obsequious passion! The pain in my shoulder elicited such desperate abandon that I grabbed her foot and nuzzled my face against it. The beautiful dirt that clung to it smeared onto my lips as I kissed.
“My - head - no - master,” Marla groaned, “I don’t - want him - to kiss - let me - stop - no.”
At last, her soles graced my lips! I had to sustain this moment forever!
“Tully - stop - kissing!” She started wriggling. I gripped tighter. “I - said -
“STOP!”