pump-action arm again.
'I believe you do, Matthieu, I believe you do.'
II
Jazzbeaux woke in the dark, sunwarmth playing over her. She was out of doors, mainly undressed, hair straggled over her face. On her back under a blanket, she felt soft pseudo-grass and sand beneath her. Through her optic sensor, the sun was a penny of heat in rust-red sky. Someone had switched her patch to cover her good eye. Probably Sweet-cheeks. The dear girl always thought that hilarious.
She sat up, the aftershocks of last night's party still pleasurable as she unwound, and took a look at the heat picture. Recognisable ve-hickle shapes were warming in the sun, hot metal carapaces burning brighter than cool-ish engines. Otherwise, this was
Yesterday, after settling with the DAR, the 'Pomps had hit Spanish Fork and wound up in a motel a klick out of town, getting some serious party favours. Jazzbeaux's nostrils stung, reminding her she had been persuaded to backslide and snort a few jolts. Just Candy Z, she stayed off the zonk. Pretty colours ran across the surface of her occluded eye.
She slipped the patch back to the proper side of her nose and blinked. She had ended up outside one of a row of neat, off-white cabins. Up on a small hill was a gingerbread Gothic house: tall and wood and creaky.
The Katz Motel, she remembered. She toga-wrapped the blanket around her bod; otherwise, all the clothes she had on were go-go boots and a red star choker. The fabulous shades, as she had come to think of the pair scavved from the preachie, were stuck up in her hair.
Images and sensations from the party flickered back through her graymass: 'Cheeks stabbing a ruby pump into the non-abusable screen of the pornovideo, shouting how much she hated that satyrstud Billy Priapus as the set spark-destructed; Varoomschka strapping on a hardy boy, tying his hands to the bedboard with a leather bullwhip and riding him like a bronco for the full twenty minutes; Andrew Jean going weepy-sentimental about being all old and used up and having to be comforted with cuddles and kisses; Sleepy Jane, ripped on tequila, trying to shoot down spysats with a dart-gun; 'Cheeks singing 'Long-Haired Lover From Leningrad' way out of her key as a couple of the hardies tried to unpeel her without using their hands.
Just the regular Psychopomp Victory Good Time.
Jazzbeaux found a black leather miniskirt inside-out on a window-sill. It fit her, so she ditched the blanket. Feeling sunwarmth on untreated nipples, she wondered if this much exposure was good for her. Doctors recommended a six-monthly skinsmear against UV rays. She'd not been near a sawbones since her last amendment.
Thinking of amendments and worrying about her breasts reminded her that Daddy once told her that the Amazon warriors of old used to have one of their tits amputated. That way, the surplus gazonga didn't get in the way of drawing a bowstring and firing off an arrow. Jazzbeaux had used a crossbow a couple of times but never a longbow, so she couldn't tell if the Robin Hood act really twanged a nipple off every time you sank a yardshaft through one of the Sheriff of freakin' Nottingham's Norman dogs. Her rule for amendments was that they were all right so long as they didn't spoil the package. Her eye was an exception, she hadn't chosen to have the thing fished out so she had this hole in her face which needed filling. Doc Threadneedle, her favoured bio-surgeon, could jazz her up inside, but she wanted to stay as human as she was.
She pulled the shades down and took a quick scan at the landscape. Nothing was different. She had tamed the effect.
Humming 'I Enjoy Being a Girl' from
Jazzbeaux had selected a sweet-faced hardy boy, all cowboy hat and low-slung jeans and wispy face fuzz, and gentled him into the tub for a long, slow seduction. Having been on the road with the girls for so long, the boy was a nice change. She almost lost control when she flipped him over and, just as she was finishing off, kept forcing his head under the ripples. When it was over, she had to squeeze soapy water out of his lungs and give him tongue-to- tongue artificial respiration.
After that, she took her jolts and was carried in triumph around the complex by all and sundry, then turned over to So Long Suin and her acupuncture needles. With three precise jabs, So Long – without otherwise touching – brought her to a cataclysmax which thrilled her entire body. Now the warmth revived tactile memories of the pleasure paths her gangbuddy had mapped on her living body. And unlike the boy, three needles didn't half-drown when you showed them a good time.
She turned lazily around a corner and threw a startle into a birdlike, jittery young man whose face instantly reddened. She crossed her arms modestly and tried to smile.
The young man looked every way but at her, all at once, and stammered into an apology.
'We met yesterday?' she said.
'H-H-H-Herman K-K-Katz, ma'am. Like the K-K-Katz M-M-Motel.'
'Ahh,' she said, 'that Katz.'
'N-no ma'am, that K-Katz is my mother,' he darted a look up at the old house. 'She runs the place, I just help out.'
'Dutiful son, huh? A rare thing.'
'A boy's best friend is his mother.'
Jazzbeaux saw there was an uncurtained window in an upper storey, and a shadow figure looked down. Against the sunglare from the window, she instinctively slipped the shades on and regretted it. A black swirl of deathly evil seemed to pour out of the house, stretching tentacles toward them. Mrs Katz was probably scandalised her little boy was talking with a mostly naked woman. She lifted the sunglasses and let her hands fall to her sides, trying not to smile too broadly. For effect, she licked her lips.
'I, uh, found some, uh, ladies' clothes, strewn around,' Herman said. 'I guess you lost 'em during the, uh, party.'
She shrugged, noting the way Herman's eyes kept being pulled back to her chest. This was pure wickedness, but hard to resist. She never got to flirt much; most people understood her straight off.
'It must be lonely out here, Herman.'
'I have my mother, and my birds.'
'Birds?' she raised the brow over her good eye.
'It's my hobby,' Herman replied. 'Stuffing birds. It's fascinating work, preserving life in death.'
She was suddenly bored with tormenting this timid, inoffensive character. If anything, she wanted to charge up the hill and face the old lady. That black, swirling cloud must mean some oppressive force, some wrinkled and bony thumb pressing down on a butterfly life. Let the kid go, she should say, it does no good to keep him shackled like a slave. In the end, he'll turn. She was surprised Herman hadn't already followed the Jessamyn Bonney Rid-Yourself- of-a-Cloying-Parent Manoeuvre. Perhaps Mrs Katz was cannier than Daddy Bruno. She was a woman, after all.
All over her Jazzbeaux felt the grit she had slept on. Like a cat, she needed to clean herself.
'I feel like a long, hot shower,' she said.
That seemed to excite Herman even more. His mind was easy to read, even without the fabulous shades; every porno-video had a scene where some big-titted fillette takes a shower and gets intimate with the soap.
Amused, she used the glasses and looked at Herman, which was a shock. She expected slobbering prurience but what she got was death, a skin-covered skull with empty sockets. The gaze of the death's-head was stabbing, vicious, accusing…
Lifting the shades, she still scanned something dry and ancient looking out through Herman's eyes.
'There's a shower unit in your cabin,' he said, with a slight croak. 'We have to pay a huge kickback to Judge
