The Chosen

skimmed down the table of contents. The Night Walker: The Hammond-Harwood House. Basement of Nightmares: Suit Manor. The House on the Hill: The Dipietro Manse of Screams.

Even the titles were silly. Vera didn’t know how she was going to take this seriously. Then:

Torture Asylum: Wroxton Hall.

Vera began to read.

— | — | —

^{CHAPTER NINETEEN}

She came to him every night now—or, really, every morning, since that’s how long it took Lee to cleanup the room-service kitchen. He was in a trick-bag and he knew it. Kyle had indeed given him that raise, and Lee knew he’d lose it if he complained about the extra work. He also knew that he’d lose more than the raise—he’d lose his job too, probably. Kyle would put the smear on him, and that would be that. Terminated for drinking on duty.

He’d gotten the hang of it fast enough; now he was usually finishing up at about 4a.m., and it wasn’t like he was busting his tail in The Carriage House, not when they were running less than thirty dinners per night. It was room service that did all the business. Life had its ups and downs, Lee rationalized. Being essentially blackmailed into cleaning up after the RS crew was one of the downs. Everything else, though, the money, the free room and board, the bennies, was an up.

So was the woman, the housemaid. Definitely an up.

Lee guessed she was a housemaid. She did a lot of things around The Inn: cleaning, kitchen prep, running RS orders. She was illegal, Lee knew, perhaps all of the maintenance staff was, so Kyle could pretty much work their asses off without worrying about them running to the state employment board.

Sure, it was an up, all right, but it still wasn’t something Lee felt too great about. It seemed exploitative, almost like he was taking advantage of her. Granted, he’d helped her out getting Kyle off her that night in the pantry, but that didn’t mean she was obliged to blow him every night in gratitude. Lee’d told her over and over that it wasn’t necessary, but she wouldn’t hear of it. By now, he suspected that she had a speech impediment; she seemed to understand him, but she never talked. In fact, he had yet to hear her speak one word.

Usually she brought things for him too. A couple of beers, sandwiches. Once she’d even tried to give him cash, but he stuck it back in her apron. I should be paying you, he thought. Christ! The whole thing was a crazy situation, and he often wished he was out of it. But…

Incompatabilities aside, Lee began to realize that he…well, he liked this woman. Nothing romantic or anything like that. He just liked her. Not to mention the head. He definitely liked that. What guy wouldn’t?

Every night now, for weeks. She’d slip into his room several hours before dawn. She always insisted on keeping the lights out, which was fine with Lee. This woman—shit, he realized, she’s been giving me head for weeks and I don’t even know her name! —wasn’t much of a looker; she was, what Lee’s Emerald-Room pal Dave Kahili would call Fugly—that’s fuckin’ ugly, and Lee himself, of course, was none too eager to show off his less-than-trim abdominals and log-sized legs.

Additionally, Lee was none-too-experienced in being a recipient of the sexual colloquialism known as “head.” (Why did they call it head? Hadn’t the Monkees made a movie called Head? Moreover, why did they call it a blow job? They don’t blow in it, they suck it.) Nevertheless, Lee couldn’t imagine anything better. This woman…she had a technique that defied description. Liddy the busgirl had blown him a bunch of times, but that had been nothing compared to