Den of Iniquity

by J G Jerome

  I start with her design and change it up to make it ‘BPAg’ stacked one on another. I do it with pen and paper about five times. Then, I practice it five times in the air before I gently push some life and death together to make the white ‘soul’ energy. I draw the glyph in the air, adding a 3D aspect to it.

  I shiver slightly from the chill of the energy transformation as I explain, “This is combined life and death - essentially soul energy.”

  Josie says, “it looks like what I use for thaumaturgy.”

  Bernadette looks at me. “Will, I would rather have your glyph than Lafayette’s. Would you please replace mine?”

  I agree, “Certainly, darling.”

  I stand and walk behind her. I see Lafayette’s glyph - it’s all life energy. I place a hand on the base of her skull and suck the energy out of the glyph. Once it is gone, I replace it with mine drawn in soul energy.

  Bernadette gasps as I lock it in place.

  Rebecca asks, “Is that how he ensures no one can claim me?”

  Bernadette answers, “Yes; although, as you can see it’s not insurmountable. His solution with you is probably harder to overcome because he feeds energy into it continuously. There is a visible rope of soul energy connecting William to each of you.”

  “Really?” I say. “I created the link with Rebecca using growth energy. Audrey’s was growth energy, too. I never actively created one with Josie and Marissa.” I open my second sight. “Yet, there is a rope of soul energy as thick as my wrist connecting me to all four of my ladies.” What’s more surprising is there are ropes nearly as thick running to Bernadette, Viktorija, even Clarice and Vanessa. A couple more run off into the distance. I see them running to me and my ladies from Bernadette and Viktoria. There is a fairly strong rope from Clarice to Audrey and myself while thin lines run to my other ladies.

  Bernadette says, “You see them?”

  I drop my second sight. “Yes. All of them.” We lock eyes. I see the pain and loneliness in Bernadette’s eyes, her fear over losing Viktorija, her worry of Clarice’s future, and a desire for me.

  Rebecca says, “Mark me, William.”

  “Me, too,” Josie says.

  I get up and mark first Rebecca and then Josie.

  Marissa asks, “Will, can Audrey and I have it too? It could be our wedding vow.”

  Audrey’s eyes open wide.

  Bernadette holds up her hand. “Not unless you want him to remove your soul first. He can mark Rebecca and Josie because he created their bodies. I recommend wedding tokens of some other sort. I know an artist that makes beautiful jewelry.”

  Vanessa murmurs, “Sir, would you please do that to me when you take me out of me.”

  I nod. “Of course, sweetie.”

  Clarice’s tablet pings. Viktorija launches to her feet, and Clarice picks up the device from the table beside Bernadette. She taps it a couple of times and nods. Viktorija relaxes.

  Clarice looks to Bernadette, “Aun…, excuse me, Mistress. Luis and Tanu are on their way from the kitchen with coffee service.”

  I think, ‘That’s strange. Clarice has called her “Auntie” a couple of times, but acts like it’s a secret.’

  “Oh, how nice,” Bernadette enthuses. “Let’s have coffee. Go ahead, Clarice.”

  “Yes, Mistress.” Clarice taps on the device and the screen in front of the door rises only moments before there is a knock on the door. Viktorija opens the door and Tanu leads Luis into the room. Tanu is wearing an orange and gold sari that contrasts with her burnished brown skin beautifully.

  She stops in the middle of the room and executes a graceful, low curtsy. “Coffee is served, Mistress.”

  Bernadette responds, “Thank you, Tanu. Please serve our guests, my darling.”

  I'm always surprised by how beautiful Tanu is. Having worked in the Information Technology field for many years, I have worked with a variety of folks from India. They are delightful people as a group and as individuals. I generally don’t find the Indian women working in the Information Technology field particularly pretty. Tanu is another story. She has a beautifully sculpted face and a lean, yet voluptuous, figure that draws my eyes. She has a nearly permanent smile on her face, and she seems fun. All I know about her is that she studies information technology at Arizona State, and she looks beautiful in that sari.

  Her top is a rich orange bandeau. Her skirt rides low on her hips revealing abdominal cuts. The whole outfit is then wrapped in a transparent gold veil that gives tantalizing peeks at the firm flesh of her abdomen. Her long black hair is done in a twist, and she has some sort of ornament hanging just below the point of her widow’s peak. She is stunning.

  Tanu serves coffee to each of us that desires one. Each delivery is a short performance where she kneels in a low seated bow at the feet of the person about to be served. From that position, she inquires about ‘your desire’ for coffee. A negative response yields a ‘Thank you’ and a ‘yes’ results in a ‘one moment please.’ If coffee is not desired, she repeats the performance at the feet of the next guess. When she does get an order, Luis pours a cup which she presents on a small tray with a small cream pitcher and bowl of sugar cubes from that same low posture. The guest adds cream and sugar as desired and uses the small spoon on the saucer to stir. After the guest has sampled the result, Tanu bows nearly to the floor before moving to the next guest.

  We all watch the graceful performance, and nearly everyone has coffee in their hands when Tanu and Luis depart, leaving the cart near the sideboard. Clarice taps her tablet and the screen drops.

  Audrey gushes, “That was beautiful.”

  Bernadette said, “Tanu had this idea for a coffee service ceremony. She is already adept at the Japanese tea ceremony, and she thought something nice for an Indian-influenced western coffee service would be a service we could provide. She has been practicing with the staff. You are the first guests she revealed it to. Luis’ training as a butler makes him the perfect partner.”

  “It was absolutely lovely,” Marissa says over the lip of her coffee cup.

  I chuckle, “I’m more of a ceramic mug kind of guy, but the performance was mesmerizing. Please pass on my thanks for letting us be the first to experience it.”

  Bernadette murmurs, “Of course, William darling.” She seems pleased.

  Josie asks, “Bernadette, how did you get to Phoenix? You were in Denver, right?”

  “Well,” she says. “That is a whole different story.”

  7

  Bernadette arrives in Phoenix

  She finishes her coffee and sets it aside. “That really starts with the arrival of my succubus self on this plane. Where to begin?”

  Bernadette strokes her lips with her fingertip and looks at me before beginning. “The politics at home were unbelievably complex and dangerous. I had been embroiled in enough of my sisters’ schemes that I finally had enough. I secretly put my name in at the contracting office with the intent of possessing a host to escape for a while. My eldest sister, the heir to the throne, had been gone for a little over seventy years by that point. I decided to follow in her footsteps. I was summoned by the sorcerer Laurence Clement.”

  Josie murmurs, “Another familiar name.”

  Bernadette nods, “I’m sure. Julius and he struck up something of a friendship. Irrespective of all that, I was summoned, and Babette was attending Mr. Clement when he summoned me.

  I don’t think he knew he was summoning a royal. It takes a special kind of death wish to summon a royal succubus. We’re not known for our...forbearance. Despite his surprise, Laurence contracted me for sex with a client. My price was to possess the beautiful empty human behind him. He struck the deal. I fulfilled my part of the contract in my natural state, and then Laurence banished me, and called me back for the possession. He got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted. I’ve been in this body ever since. I worked at that brothel for ten years until I had an accident.”

  She shrugs nonchalantly. “A favorite customer,
a Norweigian miner named Lars Christiensen, visited me as frequently as his funds would allow. He first came to me in October 1880. He would visit me whenever he was in town and stay until the money ran out. Each time he professed his undying love for me.

  It was stupid, but I was fond of him. I even gave him a freebie once in a while. Then I made a grievous error in judgement - I used my powers to re-energize his manhood.”

  She stares off into the distance. “He kept asking me to do it again. I kept doing it until I reached a feeding frenzy. I fucked that poor man until he was an empty shell of himself and devoured his death throes just like any of the royals I was trying to escape would have. I was disgusted with myself. After two days of murmurs and sideways glances from customers and people on the street, I had enough.”

  Her focus returns to the room. “I had paid off my purchase price after three years, and I had a small nest egg accumulated by the time I killed Lars. So in 1882, I wished the madame ‘adieu’ and boarded the train to Flagstaff. They had just recently gotten rail service, and they were a more rustic place than Denver at the time. It sounded like a good place to reinvent myself. From there I moved to Tucson after all the drama of Morgan Earp’s murder and Frank Stillwell’s trial and subsequent killing. I set up my first house about a year after arriving.”

  Bernadette addresses Josie directly, “So the answer to your question is that after the Second World War...do you know about that?”

  Josie nods. She looks to Rebecca and back to Bernadette. “Yes. We studied American History for our GEDs. That was a bad time.”

  Rebecca murmurs, “The war to end all peace.”

  Bernadette nods. “Both of the ‘World Wars’ were the work of a Greater Imp Lord. It fed well off the ensuing chaos. Regardless, after the Second World War, I moved to Phoenix and reinvented myself as ‘Anne-Marie Pasquale.’ I devised this business model as I was packing up my household in Tucson. I opened my first salon in a big house off Camelback in 1948. It was a rather prudish era, but the wealthy still liked sex and parties. I devised the idea to have lavish, libertine masque parties that required an extravagant entry price for the tickets. I would hire ‘hosts’ and ‘hostesses’ rather than prostitutes.”

  She thinks for a moment. “As I began the new business model, I still had mostly ladies in my stable. Twelve ladies and five gentlemen. By the beginning of the 50’s, I actually had a couple more boys than girls. Homosexuality was still very taboo. It was illegal everywhere until 1962, and it remained that way in Arizona until 2001. It wasn’t legalized nationwide until 2003.”

  She takes a breath. “Please pardon my digression. As a result of the demand, about a quarter of our parties had all-male guests. The ladies on my staff would put on lavish erotic dance shows and the men would play with my male staff or each other. We would do it regularly enough to keep the clientele excited, and many of our guests showed for the regular parties, too. The demand for the male parties dropped in 1976 when California legalized homosexuality - they would travel to party instead. However, we still had two each year until 2001, and the demand for mixed parties has stayed fairly constant. Jumping back to the 50s, the guests of the ‘all male’ shows began to talk up the dance shows at the mixed parties. So we started doing erotic dance shows in the late 50s. The demand for those became so great that I decided to build a new location with a purpose built theatre.”

  Bernadette leans toward Josie with a warm smile. “That’s how we got here.” She sits back in her chair. “The Moon Valley district was just being built, so I purchased the square mile we currently live on. We still have two adjacent lots in one property. I built this house to my specifications with the theatre, restroom facilities, and the salon. The staff love having the dormitory separate from the play rooms. There are twenty-four dorm rooms that are little more than a ten-by-ten bedroom with a small three-quarter bath and a small walk-in closet. The staff were so grateful to have a private space where patrons are not permitted. We moved here in 1960 and closed my salon off Camelback.”

  Viktorija adds, “We hosts and hostesses come from those who are in trouble in some way.”

  Bernadette caresses Viktorija’s hair. “That’s right. I pay off their debts or take them off the streets and pay for their education. They please my clients for credit against their debt. When we started, one month of room and board was the equivalent of one liaison, and it still is today. Anything over room and board goes toward their debt to me. We serve a lot of customers - all of it is repeat business and referrals. It’s actually fairly easy for them to pay off their debt if they are willing to party with guests. I have other jobs that I ask them to do, too. I currently have two ladies that are nearly paid off, and three that keep racking up debt for education. I think one of that last group will never leave. She likes being part of our family. I need to hire a couple more gentlemen, but I haven’t been happy with the candidates I have found recently. Luis, Manuel, and their predecessors set a VERY high bar. I found a promising candidate recently, but I need to wait until he is of legal age to contract with him.”

  Josie asks, “Of those that leave, what do they do?”

  Bernadette says, “Pretty much whatever they want. Two are federal judges. Five are lawyers. Four are doctors. One has a lucrative investment business - she handles all my money. Three have been TV anchors. One is a congressman, two are senators, and one ran for president - he lost despite my vote. It’s too bad. He would have been much better than the clown we currently have. Um...one is an engineer for Honeywell here in town, and he has twelve patents. One is an engineer at On Semiconductor - she has only been there five years, but she has three patents herself. One became a nun - she’s expected to be the head of her order. Two joined together to create an upscale outcall service. I gave them a business loan to start-up, and I use them for additional staff if we have a big party. That was a great investment. Oh, let’s see...one is the president of a bank. Several work in government. Some are in crime, and I know it’s cliché to say some are in porn, but it’s true - mostly behind the camera as that’s where the money is. One is a police detective. She solved several big cases in Los Angeles. One is Hungarian royalty - she returned to her family and has three children. She is an interesting case. She came to me because she ran away from home and ran out of money. I could relate to her plight. She comes to visit at least once a year to serve a few clients. She has a weakness for basketball players. Does that give you an idea?”

  Josie says, “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  Bernadette smiles at the honorific.

  I mention, “I sold my old house to Julius Lafayette. He said that he wanted to recover his property, and he was quite rude about it. I soaked him for five million dollars.”

  Bernadette counsels, “Reinvest it back into real-estate and live off your work.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” I tell her. “I’m considering buying the old Prescott hotel building. My idea is to create a boutique hotel with a cafe on the ground floor. I plan to put a residence on the top floor. Guest rooms in the middle.”

  Bernadette leans forward, flashing me her cleavage. She says, “Maybe you could have a salon. I could host parties there periodically. Of course, I would be willing to invest and pay rental fees. You could buy it with your capital gains, and I could invest in renovations. That would clean the capital gains and still provide for operating funds. I have a handful of clients that have weekend homes up there. I could be very profitable with a Prescott salon.”

  I grin at her. “Okay. I’ll start pulling the deal together. I would like to consult with you on design and terms.”

  Bernadette nods gently. “Of course. I’m also happy to review your contract. I earned a law degree in criminal law as Anne-Marie, but as Bernadette I went to law school again specializing in contract and corporate law. If I’m too busy, I’ll have one of my associates look at it.”

  I close my gaping mouth. “You are a lawyer? With your own firm?”

  “Yes,” she
says with a grin. “I normally go to the office two or three days each week. I have one minority partner, five associates, and eight paralegals. I let my partner manage the day-to-day, but I am the senior partner. I take on a light case load - only interesting stuff. I had an interesting incorporation of a cooperative in Ash Fork that might interest you, William darling.”

  I slowly open my mouth to speak as I try to pull my thoughts together.

  Bernadette waves a hand at me. “We can discuss that later, darling. What happened with Julius Lafayette?”

  “Oh, that. Well, he approached us at brunch after he sent his devourer after us. He pointed his cane at Josie and called her ‘his property.’ I grabbed his hand and shrivelled it with entropy. I think I caught him by surprise because I was hiding my power as you and Clarice recommended.” Clarice grins at me.

  Bernadette says, “Yes! I meant to compliment you on your efforts. So little power leaks out that it’s difficult to see that you have powers at all. Josie and Rebecca, you are doing a great job of hiding your powers, too. You should teach Audrey, William darling.”

  I agree. “I plan to. I think Lafayette guessed Josie is the one that pulled the devourer out, so he didn’t think me much of a threat until it was too late.”

  Bernadette says, “Yes. Remy St. Jacques did that to him once, too. It was shortly before Remy disappeared. He is a great man. You remind me of him.”

  “He is my fifth-great grandfather on both sides of my family,” I tell her. “It’s too bad he isn’t alive. I would love to talk to him.”

  Bernadette chuckles. “He is. The church has him in a villa outside Rome.”

  Audrey exclaims, “Oh! Father told me about him. He said the experience of meeting him was both awe-inspiring and sad at the same time.”

  I ask, “Is there any way to communicate with him?”

  Bernadette says, “Not unless you want to come to the attention of the Church. I recommend against it.” She stands. “Enough maudlin talk of ancient times. Everyone come love on your favorite madame, and then go rest until it’s time to go to Steven’s house.”