cleanin'
you tell the barmaid. Now, you get this straight. You want more of a wardrobe,
you earn it by goin' over your quota. You don't handle money, never. You want
somethin', you come see me or one of my people and you convince us you're
worth it. One way is to follow all our rules. You all got the same rules. You
follow them and you'll learn fast enough. You break the rules, any of 'em, or
you see one of the other girls breakin' the rules, and you get real hell."
He was really enjoyin' this. It was a real turn-on for him. I hated his
stinkin'
guts. The only thing worse than big Hitlers was little Hitlers.
I was unchained, unlocked, and left on my own. I didn't know if there was any
guards around, but I never saw none. He didn't need 'em. Brandy took me under
her wing, though. "Can't call you no Brandy, too. Both of us'll go nuts," she
noted.
"That's okay, just call me Beth. I kinda feel like I come full circle on this
case now anyways." And that's the way we agreed it would be.
In a way, it was worse, 'cause now I was the property of two masters, one
allegedly human, the other inside me. I found out what that was like real
quick.
First, my sniffles, which I'd had since God knew when, just went away, as did
all of my old sinus problems, but that was only the tip of it. You sure
followed a routine, like it or not.
When you was supposed to eat, you got hungry-and I mean hungry. It became an
overpowering urge, the only thing you could think of till you ate, but it was
a little specific. You got more irresistible and otherwise repulsive cravin's
than a pregnant woman. Pumpkin washed down with pickle juice. Raw hamburger
with chocolate sauce. Steamed fish a la mode. Now, it wasn't always that way,
but it often was, particularly the first few weeks. The other girls swore to
me that it stopped after a while and only popped up after that occasionally,
but until then
I could tell one of the bar staff what I wanted and they'd hold their nose and
go get it. I had to fix it myself, though, in a neat but antique kitchen they
had. And when you wasn't hungry, you couldn't even look at anything at all.
The upstairs of the club went over into the row house next door, I found. Even
after workin' there I hadn't knowed that before. They was kinda like dorm
rooms, but each one had a double bed, small closet, a switched speaker that
would bring the bar music in with volume control, and some fancy lights. There
was two bathrooms with both tub and shower on each floor, one attach end. The
sheets were pink, purple, or crimson satin with down comforters. We was all
responsible
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w%20Dancers.txt (84 of 146) [1/19/03 4:19:23 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20G.O.D.%20Inc%202%
20-%20The%20Shadow%20Dancers.txt for keepin' our rooms absolutely clean and
neat and perfect, and either Eddie or one of his boys could pop in at any time
to inspect them like some Army sergeant. All of us was responsible for keepin'
up the inside of the house, includin' scrubbin' halls and common areas,
vacuumin' with real antique-style cleaners, kitchen, bathrooms, and the rest.
On the top floor was a room that was somethin' of a gym, with weights,
exercise machines, and all the rest. That was 'cause this thing inside us
wanted a perfect house to live in, which was us, so just like the meals you
got these-well, not urges, really, more like compulsions. To run, to lift
weights, exercise every part of your body you could every day. It wasn't easy
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at the start, but when you did what this thing wanted you got little pleasure
jolts;
when you didn't, you got misery. You did it.
Likewise, I no longer wanted cigarettes. Couldn't stand to have one in my
mouth, though it didn't bother me none to be in a smoke-filled bar. You could
drink, but the more you drank the more you went to the bathroom and you never
got drunk or even tipsy.
And when it decided you was to have sex, you got so tense and worked up that
nothin' else mattered. You had to have it. Male, female, horse-I don't think
it mattered none. Only the knowledge that you had to turn two tricks to get
the juice kept your mind in the act.
Of course, I was still a naughty and disobedient girl at the start with
anything this shit inside didn't force me to dp, like Fast Eddie's rules, but
they took me down a few pegs in a hurry. They let you go real deep into
withdrawal, just to the edge of where it might really start causin' brain or
nervous system damage, then they'd stand there and keep insistin' that you
repeat all the rules and swear to obey 'em. There was no way you couldn't. The
sickness was bad enough and got worse and worse and you knew it could never
get no better but that you could be all well and feelin' great in just a
minute or so if you swore on your mother's grave to obey, and then that thing
would start pushin' the pain button in your head slowly down, more and more,
till you couldn't stand it no more.
You didn't get that far but once.
They reinforced it when you came out of the pure pleasure high and loved the
world by havin' somebody there whisperin' all the rules and havin' you repeat
'em and swear to act just that way. One day you just wake up, and doin'
everything their way is the most normal and natural thing in the whole world.
You know it's not the way you used to do it or think about it and not the way
other folks do, but it's the norm for you and you do it automatically. It
wasn't like no hypnosis or conditioning they could change the rules any old
time and that would be the new normal thing.
Turnin' two tricks in Atlantic City deep in winter wasn't always possible no
matter what the decrees. There was snowstorms and power outages and bad rain
and ice storms, and not many people. Christmas through New Year's was great,
though, with lots of parties and winter getaway specials and the like,
although it was real depressin' for us to see the Christmas lights and
displays and people shoppin' and feel isolated, alone, and left out.
By "us" I mean Brandy two and me. The other girls, they didn't seem none too
touched by Christmas or much else. They didn't seem to remember no past at
all, no growin' up, nothin' but bein' what they were. Even with the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]