Eros Ascending: Book 1 of Tales of the Velvet Comet

by Mike Resnick

  “Activate,” he said wearily, and a moment later he was going through the financial data banks of the Velvet Comet, hard at work at the only thing in his life at which he seemed able to excel.

  Chapter 5

  Redwine was leaning back in his fur-covered contour chair that evening, reading his copy of The Inferno, when his computer came to life. A moment later he was confronting a full-sized holograph of the Leather Madonna.

  “Harry, is this some kind of joke?”

  “Absolutely not,” he assured her. “I'm just following your instructions.”

  “My instructions?” she repeated.

  He nodded, amused. “You're the one who said I should just activate the intercom and put in my request for a companion, aren't you?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “I don't think this particular companion has been reserved for the night—or could I be mistaken?” he asked with a smile.

  “This particular companion isn't in the companion business any longer.”

  “Nonsense,” said Redwine. “You're in charge of the damned business. Besides, didn't you tell me that you still ... ah ... met with an occasional customer?”

  "Patron," she corrected him. “And you aren't a patron; you're an employee. Now stop playing games and request a suitable companion.”

  “You're the one I want,” said Redwine, pleasantly but stubbornly.

  “You're serious, aren't you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She smiled a bit awkwardly. “I'm flattered, Harry, truly I am. Especially since you've already seen Suma and some of the others. But it's out of the question.”

  “Look,” said Redwine, suddenly serious. “You don't have to sleep with me if you don't want to. Just stop by and visit for a while. You're damned near the only woman on the Comet who won't make me feel like a child molester.”

  “I'll assume that's a compliment,” she said dryly.

  “It is.” He paused. “I like you.”

  “I like you too, Harry, but if you can't come up with a reasonable alternative, I just may send the Demolition Team down to your suite.” She smiled. “They'll tire you out so much you won't be able to work for a week.”

  “Just half an hour,” he urged her. “I promise I'll sit on the opposite side of the room the whole time.”

  “This is ridiculous. You've got the whole ship to choose from, and I've got work to do.”

  “I don't want the whole ship,” he persisted. “And when you come, bring your book.”

  “Book? What book?”

  “The poems from Canphor VI.

  “You're really interested in reading it?” asked the Leather Madonna, her expression softening just a bit.

  “You recommended it, didn't you?”

  “If my recommendation is all it takes to pique your curiosity, why won't you let me recommend a girl for you?”

  “Because I'd prefer a woman,” replied Redwine.

  She laughed. “You've got a pretty good line for a guy who's supposed to be out of practice.”

  “It's not a line. I mean it.”

  “I know. That's what makes it so unusual in a place like this.”

  “Will you come?”

  “I'll come. Give me a few minutes to take care of some loose ends here and hunt up the book.”

  True to her word, the Leather Madonna entered Redwine's room some twenty minutes later.

  “Here you are,” she said, handing him a book. “As promised.”

  “Thanks,” he said, setting it down on a table. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Yes, but maybe you'd better let me make it,” she answered, walking to his wet bar. “What'll you have, Harry?”

  “Whatever you're having,” he replied.

  “You might not like it.”

  “If you can come to my room, I can try one of your drinks.” He smiled. “We'll both live dangerously.”

  She pulled out a pair of long-stemmed glasses, and went to work.

  “You look very lovely tonight,” said Redwine.

  “Harry, I'm a madam. You don't have to try to flatter me.”

  “It's true.”

  “This is the same outfit I was wearing this morning,” she pointed out.

  “You looked lovely then, too.”

  “I thought we were just going to talk,” she remarked with a smile.

  “That's what I'm doing.”

  “Harry, I wish you wouldn't sound so damned sincere. I'm not used to it.”

  “Or with people wanting to talk to you?”

  “Or with people wanting to talk with me.”

  “What a waste.”

  “I've always thought so, too,” she agreed.

  She finished making the drinks and handed one to Redwine. He stared at it, sniffed it, then took a sip.

  “What is it?” he asked at last.

  “It's called a Blue Polaris, and I'll thank you to stop looking like you've just been poisoned.”

  “Bitter,” he said at last.

  “I like bitter drinks. Would you rather I poured you glass of whiskey?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe this'll grow on me.”

  He took another sip and tried very hard not to make a face. “Stop hovering like a worried mother.”

  She shrugged and sat down on a small loveseat.

  “Well, is the office acceptable to you?”

  “Just fine.”

  “And you were able to access the material you needed?”

  “No problem.” He took another sip, and liked it better this time. “Look, I didn't ask you here to talk business.”

  “Just why did you ask me, Harry?”

  “I'm lonely.”

  “You should have let me select a companion for you.”

  “I said lonely, not horny.” He paused. “Well, maybe a little of each.”

  “Just a little?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “Accounting isn't exactly a universal aphrodisiac,” he said. “Otherwise I would have propositioned you already.”

  “And why am I so blessed?”

  “I don't know any of the others,” he answered.

  “And you only go to bed with people you know?” She laughed. “That's contrary to the whole purpose of a brothel.”

  “Maybe that's why this is the first one I've ever been to.”

  “Well, I can see that I'm going to have to introduce you to some of the others if I'm to get any rest at all.”

  “Do they read poetry?”

  “They have other attributes,” the Madonna pointed out.

  “I prefer yours.”

  She smiled. “That's the kind of lie I could listen to all night.”

  “Well, if lying is what it takes to convince you to spend the night, I'm just the guy who can do it,” said Redwine. He took another sip of his drink, then held the glass up in front of him. “Great stuff.”

  “It lacks the conviction of your other lies,” she laughed.

  “True,” he admitted. “But you have to understand that my entire training as a liar has been directed at tax collectors.”

  “I didn't know that deceit and falsehood went hand-in-glove with accounting.”

  “They go hand-in-glove with everything,” answered Redwine seriously.

  “You don't really believe that, Harry.”

  “When was the last time Suma told a fat, balding 73-year-old man that the only reason she's going to bed with him is because he's paying her?”

  “You picked a bad example,” said the Madonna. “I think Suma has a better time than the patrons.”

  “I didn't realize that prostitutes enjoyed themselves.”

  “Most of us do every once in a while, when conditions are right.”

  “And Suma?”

  “She hasn't found any wrong conditions yet that I know of,” said the Madonna. She smiled. “You, know, I had to remove her from our teaching rotation.”

  “Teaching rotation?” he repeated. “What's that?”

  “Y
ou don't think we just hire our prostitutes and put them right to work, do you?”

  “I must confess that I hadn't thought about it at all,” admitted Redwine.

  “Well, we don't. We're very selective about who works for us: I'd say we reject more than 98 percent of our applicants. Those we hire are given an intensive training course in which they learn every sexual variation and refinement. All of our experienced prostitutes are expected to donate some of their time working with our newcomers. All except Suma, that is. She got so enthused in her work that her pupils needed a couple of days off to recuperate.”

  “Just your everyday teenaged girl,” commented Redwine wryly.

  “She's the ideal prostitute,” replied the Madonna. “That's all I care about.”

  “I wouldn't turn my back on her, or you might find that she's the ideal madam, too.”

  “I'm aware of her ambition, but she'd make a lousy madam. She's much better handling patrons than problems.” She paused. “How about you, Harry?”

  “What about me?”

  “Can I turn my back on you?”

  “Without getting pounced on, you mean?”

  “I'm being serious,” she said. “I tried to contact you this afternoon to tell you why I was detained, and I couldn't get through to my own auxiliary office. So I tried to route the call through Security, and they couldn't get through either. But after you left everything was working fine again.”

  “I rigged the computer so that nobody could bother me while I was working,” said Redwine.

  “Can you do that?” she asked dubiously.

  “First thing they teach you in accounting school,” he said easily. “A good accountant can find money where none exists, but time is the one commodity that can't be replaced.” He paused. “If you'd rather I didn't do it again, just say the word.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. “Set it up any way that makes you comfortable.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was an awkward pause, and he was suddenly afraid that she might get up and leave.

  “Have I told you how nice you look tonight?” he asked lamely.

  “At length.”

  “Is that why you're called the Leather Madonna?” he asked. “Because you always wear leather outfits?”

  “They came after the name.”

  “I don't quite understand,” he said.

  Another pause.

  “I still don't understand,” he persisted.

  “Harry, if I wanted to tell you, I would.”

  “How are we going to be friends if we don't tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets?” he said with an attempt at levity.

  She looked at him, then exhaled deeply. “What the hell,” she said at last. “If I don't tell you, someone else probably will. There are still a few people aboard who remember.” She paused. “But you'd better not laugh.”

  “I promise,” he said, and suddenly he had an urge to chuckle.

  “It was ten years ago,” she said. “I had been working here less than a month, and one of our, ah, specialists got sick. So, since I wanted to make a good impression, I volunteered to take her place. I got dressed up in a leather waist-cincher and a spiked collar and studded gloves and boots and spurs, and went down to service a very good patron who had brought his own cat-o'-nine-tails all the way out to the Comet and wanted nothing more than for me to whip the hell out of him.”

  She paused. “I had done some pretty kinky things as a prostitute, and I figured that as long as I was on the right end of the whip, this wouldn't be any more bothersome than the others. But when that poor, defenseless old man took his clothes off and I could see a batch of old scars plus some wounds that still hadn't healed properly from his last visit, I just couldn't make myself bring that whip down on his flesh.”

  “So what happened?” asked Redwine.

  “He got on his knees and begged me to whip him, blubbering like a big overgrown baby. I was afraid for my job and afraid of the damage I might do to him. Finally I just walked out of the room, and ten seconds later he followed me out into the corridor.” She laughed. “It must have been quite a sight, me all done up in kink and being chased all over the Velvet Comet by a huge, overweight, naked man who kept screaming at the top of his lungs for me to whip him.”

  “Did he catch you?”

  She shook her head. “You'd be surprised how fast you can run in five-inch heels if you're properly motivated. I've never lost my self-control with a customer before or since, but I was so upset and embarrassed that I couldn't think straight.”

  “Obviously you kept your job,” remarked Redwine.

  “That was the wild part. You know that old definition about a sadist—that he's a man who won't beat a masochist? Well, it seems that we had a really peculiar masochist on our hands. When he finally calmed down he told everyone who would listen that he had undergone the most moving and exciting encounter of his life, almost a religious experience, and that I was some kind of madonna dressed in leather. So I took his description for my name.”

  “That's a hell of a story,” said Redwine. “It must have been quite a sight—a fetishist's dream being chased all over the ship by a fat, naked billionaire.”

  “Everyone who's ever heard it thinks it's hilarious.”

  “I don't know why,” he replied. “I'd probably cry like a baby if you left my room, too.”

  “Harry, if you're not careful you're actually going to make me blush,” said the Madonna.

  “Fate forfend!” he said, getting to his feet and walking to the wet bar. “Can I make you another Purple Polaris?” he asked, pouring himself a whiskey.

  “That's Blue Polaris, and you don't know how to make one.”

  “True,” he said, turning to her. “But if you were really going to blush, I thought the least I could do was turn my back.”

  “The crisis has passed,” she laughed. “You know, Harry, you're really a very nice man.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It seems a pity that you spend all your time in an office somewhere, counting up columns of figures.”

  “Oh, I don't know,” he said softly. “I suppose there's worse things for an accountant to do.”

  “What would you be if you could be anything at all?” she asked.

  “Happy.”

  “That's what I mean. What would make you happy?”

  “I really don't know,” he replied. “I wish I did.”

  He paused. “What would you do if you could do anything you chose?”

  “Just what I'm doing.”

  “I didn't realize that prostitution was so addictive.”

  “It isn't,” said the Madonna. “But I'm not a prostitute any more. I'm in charge of the most luxurious resort in the Republic, which just happens to offer prostitution among its services.”

  “And that's all you ever wanted to be?”

  “It's more than I ever wanted to be. Hundreds of people work for me, billions of credits pass through my hands, an entire space station has been placed in my keeping. I took over a good business and made it even better. I enjoy my work, I enjoy my surroundings, I enjoy my power. Why should I want to do or be anything else?”

  “But you make all this money for the Syndicate.

  Haven't you ever wanted to work for yourself ?”

  “Harry, I get a piece of the gross—and around here, I get more than my share of good financial advice. Over the years I've made a lot of sound investments.”

  “I imagine you have.” He paused. “What are you going to do with all your money when you retire?”

  She shrugged. “I haven't thought that far ahead. I like what I'm doing; why should I retire?”

  “Who knows?” he said. “Conditions change.”

  “I own a farm on Pollux IV,” she said. “Maybe someday I'll move there.”

  “I find it a little difficult to envision you traipsing through piles of manure in those thousand-credit boots,” he said with a smile.

 
“Me too,” she agreed. “That's why I plan to stay right where I am.”

  They both fell silent for a moment. Then Redwine walked over, picked up the book she had brought with her, and began thumbing through it.

  “Your friend Tanblixt isn't very interested in rhyme or meter, is he?” he commented.

  “You missed the translator's note at the beginning,” the Madonna pointed out. “She says that she preferred to remain true to the eroticism rather than keep the meter and lose the things that mattered.”

  She paused, as Redwine started reading one of the poems more carefully. “I think she was right.”

  He looked up, strangely moved by the few brief stanzas he had read. “I think she was right, too. I wonder what he would have produced if he'd had a real woman to write about.”

  “Probably not very much. Tanblixt was a Canphorite.”

  “The poor bastard never knew what he was missing.”

  “The poor bastard was an it, not a he.”

  “I don't know,” said Redwine. “Put the author of this aboard the Velvet Comet for a few hours and I'll bet he'd find some use for the facilities.”

  “The inhabitants of Canphor VI reproduce by budding,” she noted.

  “Have I commented about your romantic soul?” he asked with a wry smile.

  She nodded. “Yes. It seems to me that I also made some small mention of your hard-headed realism.”

  “Maybe we ought to change jobs,” he suggested.

  “Are you trying to save me from a life of sin?” she smiled.

  “Just the opposite, I think.”

  “I wasn't aware that accounting was all that sinful.”

  “It has it ups and downs,” he said. “Now, how about that Blue Polaris?”

  “All right,” she said, getting up and following him to the wet bar. “Let me show you how it's done.”

  He tried to concentrate but got completely lost some where between the Alphard brandy and the blue liqueur from distant Binder, and by the time she poured the concoction over a ball of crushed ice he was once again seated on his contour chair.

  “I guess it's an acquired taste,” she said, indicating her glass as she rejoined him.

  “What's wrong with that?” he replied. “I gather the Comet caters to a lot of specialized tastes.”

  “Well, then,” she said, holding up her glass to him. “To sin—in both our professions.”