Variations Three

by Sharon Lee

  Trish came in as the tears spent themselves, gave her ice water to drink and coaxed her to swallow some soup.

  "It hurts," moaned Brandi and Trish looked stern.

  "I thought you wanted to be beautiful," she said. "Really, darling, for a smart girl you can be amazingly stupid! Did you think we were just going to cover up the bad parts with paint?" She stood and shook out the skirt of her robe. "This is the real thing, darling. No pain, no gain." And she left.

  Brandi cried again, weakly. The gnawing hit a crescendo, then blessedly slid off into a kind of constant cramp. In the relative peace, she fell asleep.

  * * *

  "IT HURT!" she screamed at Veela next morning.

  "Really?" the tall tech asked, and shook her head. "But it doesn’t hurt now, does it?"

  "No-o." Brandi admitted.

  "Good," said Veela, and motioned to Jeffrey, who appeared with a glass, this one filled with blue foam.

  "Beautiful toes," he said, coming close. "Prop her up, Suzie. OK, now, Miss Schenk, you know the drill. This one’s going to hurt, too--you know that by now, eh? ’Course it is. Makes sense that it will. But the key is to hold the AfterImage in the front brain. You’re going to be able to ride the pain out, Miss Schenk, because in just under ten days now you’re going to be standing in front of a full-length mirror looking at the New You! That’s what’s going to make it all worthwhile. And all this stuff you’re going through now? Well, that’s just going to fall right out of your consciousness, just like they say happens to a new mother at the sight of her--"

  Click.

  * * *

  HER LEGS BURNED, melted--and stretched.

  Brandi clawed at the covers, part of, then apart from the agony. She thought her mother came in and hung, frowning, over her.

  "All this fuss. So what if you ain’t a beauty? You’re a smart girl, a nice girl. You got pretty eyes. You need to find some nice young man, somebody who’s got the sense to see the real you. Who’s got the sense to value a nice girl with brains..."

  "Ma?" Brandi, twisted, cureboxes pinning her to the bed. "It doesn’t work that way, Ma. Being smart isn’t enough. Money. You’ve got to have money, if you want to go to Harvard..."

  "Grand prize is $850,000 cash," Trish said briskly, rustling papers in her suite at the New Lord Baltimore Hotel. "Then there are the ancillaries: a full four-year scholarship to the college or university of your choice--if they accept you, of course, darling--a luxury ground-car; several wardrobes; guaranteed modeling contracts--that’s the best case scenario." She pinned Brandi with her bright raptor’s eyes.

  "Unfortunately, the odds of taking the big prize are not favorable. Lesser prizes include smaller amounts of cash, clothes, modeling contracts. Not enough, frankly, darling, to make this kind of major undertaking profitable for the Syndicate.

  "ImageMakers has been in business for quite some time. Two of our Images have taken the top prize in Atlantic City, and we have an outstanding track record on the smaller beauty circuits." She rustled more papers, drew one out and slid it across the desk to Brandi, who wiped a damp palm surreptitiously down the side of her black polyester skirt.

  "That’s why we ask you to sign this contract, darling. If you don’t take the top prize, we don’t want to lose our investment--and we don’t want to turn you out on the street without hope, like some shops I could name. Our contract is unique in the business. It guarantees you work, a sliding scale expense account, wardrobe, transportation--and it guarantees the Syndicate a return on its investment. No matter what." She smiled. "Questions? No? Good. Just sign here, darling." She offered a slim, pink enamel pen.

  The pen flew out of Brandi’s trembling grasp. She bent to retrieve it from the plush carpet and nearly lost her glasses. That disaster averted, she signed, hoping her signature, of which she was usually so proud, would be legible.

  When she glanced down to make sure, she saw her name glinting damp, dark red, as if she’d signed in blood.

  * * *

  DAY AFTER DAY, the nano ate her. Ate her and melted her and reshaped her. The pain locked her in: waist, ribcage, collarbone, throat.

  By the time they started on her face she was delirious, lost in a world of dreams and restructured realities where the pain was an ecstasy, stretching her toward Nirvana.

  On the day they did her eyes, she saw God.

  * * *

  ON THE TENTH day, there was no pain.

  On the eleventh, Susan helped her totter to the shower, soap, rinse and wash her hair.

  On the morning of the twelfth day, she woke to bird song and a room filled with rosy light. Trish arrived in her rustling white robe, with a tray and a steaming pot.

  "Good morning, darling! Breakfast, coffee and a chat, then the unveiling! Help her sit up, Suzie--still weak as a kitten, of course. That will pass, trust me. All you need are a couple of good meals and a glimpse of what Veela and Jeffrey have done for you..." She set the tray on the bed stand, rattled cups and handed one to Brandi. "Both hands, darling--that’s a good girl."

  Brandi bent her face into the coffee-steam and took a deep, appreciative breath. The hands that cradled the porcelain were slim, tapered--smooth, elegant hands, with pearly, square-cut nails.

  Brandi took a careful sip of coffee, struggling to recall, through the near-haze of pain and fever dreams: Had her hands not been short; calloused across the palms and fingertips? Hadn’t they been crosshatched with old cat scratches and the scars of cooking accidents? The elegant hands cupping her cup trembled, and Trish reached over to slip the thing away, and replace it with a plate holding a toasted bagel, one half smothered in cream cheese, the other half smeared with strawberry jam.

  "Oh!" said Brandi longingly, while her brain relentlessly tallied grams of fat and calories. "Oh, no, I just--it’s so fattening..."

  Trish laughed and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs in a swirl of white. "Nonsense, child, you’ve hardly eaten anything for ten days! Besides, Veela and Jeffrey have done a little tinkering with your metabolism while they were putting things right--you’ll never have to count another calorie! Suzie has your documentation. Look at in your spare time. Now be a good girl and eat up."

  The stranger’s hands fed her well: Brandi gobbled the entire bagel, ate a fruit cup replete with cherries, melons, blueberries, more strawberries, and had two cups of coffee, sweetened with dollops of heavenly real cream.

  "Wonderful!" said Trish, who had been prowling the room, pulling open the curtains and tugging at the blinds. The room blared with sunlight and Brandi blinked, put up a finger to push back her glasses--and hit herself squarely between the eyebrows.

  "It’s time," Trish announced. "Help her out of bed, Suzie--and take off the gown."

  Brandi stood before the double-wide full-length mirror and stared at the naked stranger before her. The stranger had slim, elegant feet to match her elegant hands, nicely-turned, slender ankles and curved, satiny calves. Adorable knees preceded firm, invitingly plump thighs. The waist was narrow; the ribcage a shadowy suggestion beneath pearly skin--narrow, also, but more than enough support for the tight, rounded breasts--the collarbone was heartbreakingly delicate, the arching column of throat unbelievably fragile.

  "Oh," whispered Brandi, and put up her hand to touch the firm little chin, lay a finger on the fresh, moist mouth, stroke the round and rosy cheeks. The stranger’s large dark eyes followed her every move, eloquent of dawning delight. "Oh," Brandi said again, and buried her fingers in the warm, zany mop of curls.

  "Is that really me?" she whispered and Trish laughed.

  "The new you, darling! And a great improvement over the old, if I may say so. Now, isn’t this worth a little discomfort?" She tapped Brandi’s shoulder coquettishly.

  "Ouch!" Brandi flinched away, saw the mark of Trish’s fingers on the stranger’s pearlescent flesh--blood red in the mirror.

  "Still a little tender?" Trish exchanged a glance with Suzie, who went into the bathroom and returned with an i
cy towel that she pressed carefully over the mark. "That will pass, darling; just a little aftereffect of the nano. We’re going to let you rest for an hour or so, then you’ll have lunch and your first lesson, hmm? Help her to bed, Suzie, and bring the tray." Trish swept out.

  It wasn’t until she was alone, staring at the darkened ceiling, that Brandi realized that the stranger in the mirror, though neat and slickly packaged, was neither gorgeous nor exotic. She looked, in fact, like an air-brushed version of the girl next door: Wholesome, pleasant and no-nonsense.

  "But," Brandi told the ceiling. "I’ll never win looking like this!"

  * * *

  THE BLONDE WAS still blonde. Everything else had changed. Even the molasses-and-magnolia voice had altered; taken on depth and a certain smokiness.

  "Turn around now, and let me get a good look," she commanded. Brandi obeyed, conscious of how neatly her tits filled the bathing suit cups and how smoothly the spandex bottom covered her pert little ass.

  "Not bad," the blonde conceded. "Number like that’d go big, back in my hometown." She struck a pose, hands spanning hourglass waist. "Well?"

  Brandi neither cried nor stared, though she wanted to do both. The blonde was a knockout. On a 300-point scorecard, she had a 500-point body.

  "How many marriage proposals have you had?" She asked, her new, oh-so-pleasant voice striking just the right note of admiring flipness.

  The blonde grinned. "Shit, sugar, what do I want with marrying any boob of a man?" She leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Tell you what, though: They go into convulsions. I like that."

  In spite of herself, Brandi laughed--a chiming, pleasant laugh.

  The blonde shook her head. "A-1 work, I’ll give ’em that. Interesting that your Syndicate thought the conservative approach would win it, while mine went with something a little bold." She shrugged, with thoroughly unconscious invitation. "Guess that’s why they hold the playoffs, right?" She stuck out a perfectly formed, honey-colored hand. "May the best bod win!"

  Brandi laughed again and shook on it, just as the line-up bell sounded.

  * * *

  THE MUSIC THIS time was gin-smooth jazz, with just a hint of hotter stuff beneath. Brandi’s new body automatically picked up the beat, and she knew when her turn came she would glide down the ramp in perfect time. She had attended her lessons well, hoping that a flawless performance would carry the day, after all.

  Not so Miss Alaska, who had lost four inches in the leg, gained at least four at hip and breast, and was sporting a full, swirling, mahogany mane. Her face, in the BeforeVid being shown over her head on a sliding screen, had been plain, but pleasant. Her new face was symmetrical, locked in a rictus she may have thought was a smile, but looked more like a grimace of terrified pain.

  "Bad job," the blonde murmured and Brandi sighed, pleasantly, in agreement.

  Hawaii’s Syndicate had the sense to simply fine-tune the basically sound body-structure. The face had been reworked masterfully; skin smoothed, cheekbones altered, the eyes released from their double-fold to shine, wide and sky-blue, on the audience. She floated, rather than danced, down the ramp and poised on the edge like a butterfly supping a flower.

  "All right," breathed the blonde. Her turn came and she glided down the ramp, hands clasped before her, chaste as a nun in her blue spandex swimsuit while the BeforeVid jounced lasciviously over her head. She stopped at the edge of the ramp and lifted her face to the audience.

  Dropping her hands to her side, she simply--stood there.

  Silence, for the count of 12.

  Then, the crowd went wild.

  "WICK-ed," said Miss Maine, and pulled nervously at her bathing suit top.

  The blonde quit the platform, stage right.

  The crowd quieted, Miss Maine did her mincing little dance--and it was Brandi’s turn.

  She went down the ramp like the music given form, letting the "biological metronome," as her documentation termed it, control motor function. For a short space of time, it was if she breathed the music, rather than the conditioned air, then she was at the end of the ramp, standing, relaxed and pleasant, for inspection.

  The judges were five rows back. Brandi sharpened her eyesight to "telescopic" and read the scorecards. It was as she had feared: The blonde was leading by a mile.

  She smiled pleasantly at the audience and moved off stage, breaking into a run as she hit the curtain. Time to change into her gown and review her speech one more time.

  She might win yet.

  * * *

  "HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL," she said to herself, much later, standing between Miss Maine and Miss Massachusetts, her eyes on the back of the blonde’s shining head. The judges had rated her speech unanimously excellent--10s, all the way down the line, which left her neck-and-neck with the blonde. There only remained "Overall Presentation," a category that was judged in private.

  Oh, well, in sixty seconds they would know. They would all know.

  "Harvard Business School," she said again and the emcee called across the stage, "The envelope, please!"

  It arrived, large, creamy and tantalizing. The emcee made as if to open it, dropped his hand and gazed soulfully into the lenses of the hovering cameras.

  "I want to personally thank each and every one of the special ladies here tonight. I want to thank them for their perseverance, their charm--and their beauty! And I want to remind them that, even though there can be only one big winner here tonight, this is only a silly contest! In life, each and every one of you is a winner!" He raised the envelope with a flourish.

  "And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for--ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Miss New-You America 2025... Miss Louisiana!"

  The music swelled, the Old Queen glided across the stage in her glittering gown and with her own fair hands slipped the tiara from her hair and crowned the blonde. There was the ritual hug, the formal, arm-in-arm waltz across the stage to the throne and the mantle and the little girls with roses and garlands of daisies.

  Brandi stood in place, between Miss Maine and Miss Massachusetts and smiled at the vid cameras, pleasantly.

  * * *

  IT WAS THE Fourth of July Fair in Avery, Idaho.

  Brandi smiled pleasantly at the horse-faced young woman before her. "That’s just 40 payments of $218,000 dollars each. Why, you’d spend that much going to college! And this is something that will turn your life around--something that will change your outlook and make you a happier person. Why, this model here not only runs just fine on four hours’ sleep, but you can choose to see things very far away and hear things sharper--just think how handy that’ll be when you have children! And," she leaned forward confidentially, though, really, very few of the marks cared about this part, which was Jeffrey’s masterpiece; "it’s 100-percent genetically guaranteed. If you have a little girl, she’ll look just like--you!"

  Brandi tapped herself on the chest as she leaned back, calling the girl’s attention to the round breasts, pleasantly straining against the yellow T-shirt.

  The girl licked her lips; glanced at the contract. "Well, I..." she looked over her shoulder, leaned across the table. "This is a silly question, but, well--does it hurt?"

  Brandi looked straight into her eyes, sincerely, pleasantly. "Not a bit."

  First published in Variations Three, November1996

  Passionato

  Sharon Lee

  THE BLOOD PALLS, over time.

  I believe this is the reason why so few of us exist beyond the hundred-fiftieth year of our making.

  Over time, the blood palls. Feeding oneself becomes, first, a chore; then an agony; finally, for some--for most--a hell. Anything becomes preferable to the anguish of taking one more sup, so one fasts. And one dies.

  Those who survive this crisis of sensibility--those who evolve--are...formidable.

  Formidable.

  I am two hundred forty-seven years undead. Before my making, I lived 15 years in Philadelphia, the son of a textile merchant. I bear
the face and form of a boy in the first beauty of his manhood, as perfect as the night she created me.

  My mother named me Evelyn James Farrington. My colleagues know me as Jim Faring.

  I am a painter. I do badly, which is all I expect. The others who work and live in this building--they take interest in my efforts, squandering hours of their short lifetimes to show me thus of perspective, this trick of capturing the light and this other thing regarding shadows.

  My colleagues--young humans. So earnest. So full of life. Of--passion.

  Understand that I am not human. I am--formerly human. In fact, I am a predator. But I spoke of evolution. The blood is not, entirely, necessary.

  When one is new to the undead state, there is no draught headier, no nourishment more seductive, than a sup of that sweet claret. We drink from the artery in the throat--rich, full heart’s blood, sparkling with the passion of life.

  Yet, what nourishes us is not so much the blood, but that which the blood carries.

  Passion.

  Humans have--such--passion.

  And artists have so much more.

  Above all else, I am careful. When the great thirst comes upon me, as it does one moon in six, I do not drink here. I go away--uptown, to the bars and the music clubs. Most often, I take a singer, though any who play from their soul will slake me. There was a flutist, some years back--vibrant, seductive burgundy! But that vintage is rare.

  At home, here in the Abingdale Artists Loft, I husband my resources and watch over my flock most tenderly. It would not do for one of my young colleagues to experience that languor which is the result of receiving the fullness of my Kiss. No. No, they must remain whole, awake, passionately, involved in their art, producing that aura of lusty life energy so necessary to my own survival.

  There are risks.

  Artists are ... notoriously ... unstable. The least thing may with equal possibility fling them into a fever of creation or a black despair.