“Why does Gozeriam need aphrodisiacs at all, though?” Cassie asked, frowning. “I mean, he’s assembled the greatest porn actors and actresses from all over the galaxy, right? Yourself, included,” she made herself add, nodding to The Beast.
He puffed his chest out. “You got that right, beautiful.”
Stone growled and The Beast took a step back, eyeing the big Kindred warily.
“Easy, Stone.” Cassie put a hand on her partner’s arm and turned back towards The Beast. “As I was saying, Gozeriam has all these excellent actors, so why the need for performance-enhancing drugs and substances?” she asked, honestly curious.
“Well, because—Gozeriam likes honest, authentic passion in his porn. In fact, he insists on it.” He shrugged. “To him, there’s nothing worse than bad porn or porn that doesn’t make the watcher feel.”
“Really?” Cassie couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. Once again she was reminded of Frank Yarrow back on Earth. Just like the sleazy porn producer who lured innocent girls by promising them they would be doing
“art-house” type films, Gozeriam fancied himself a true artist. Which was probably why he wrote some of his scripts himself, she thought, looking down at the transparent sheet The Beast had given her.
She wondered uneasily what kind of scene the Slimerian had written and what she and Stone would be asked to do together. Neither of them had gotten a chance to look it over yet.
“Well, are you hungry yet, Mistress?” The Beast asked her, raising an eyebrow. “We should probably head towards the humanoid Dining Hall if you want to get a bite to eat before you have to hit Wardrobe and get ready for your first performance later on today.”
“Oh, you think we’ll be performing today?” Cassie couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. Of course, Gozeriam had intimated that he might want them to start “acting” immediately, but she had hoped that she and Stone would have more time before they had to jump back into their respective roles as Mistress and body-slave porn partners.
“Hell yes, you’ll be performing, Mistress.” The Beast shot her an incredulous look. “You think his Slimefullness stayed up all night writing a script for you to just sit around on your juicy ass doing nothing?”
Stone growled again and Cassie frowned.
“I think it’s better if you don’t talk about my, er, anatomy like that in front of my body-slave,” she said stiffly.
“Sorry.” The Beast shrugged and eyed Stone. “Come on—the Dining Hall is this way.”
“Thank you.” Cassie followed him, trying to think of a way to change the subject. “Tell me—can you really look like anyone at all?” she asked, deciding that a narcissist like The Beast would probably enjoy talking about himself.
“Hell yes.” He tilted his head arrogantly. “Any living being or thing—you name it—I can be it.”
“Then I have a question,” Cassie said, frowning. “If you can so perfectly disguise yourself as anyone else in the universe, why would you get a living ink tattoo?” She nodded to the tattoo in question, which was currently making its restless way around the back of The Beast’s neck. “I noticed when you er, became me, I could still see it,” she went on. “Is it visible in every form you take? It seems like it would be a dead giveaway if you were trying to pretend to be someone else.”
The Beast scowled, his jaunty, arrogant smile slipping for just a minute to be replaced by a sullen sneer.
“Believe me, getting the Live Ink was not my idea,” he said. “It was a punishment because I was too good at what I do—too good at being other people.”
“Is that right?” Cassie frowned. “A punishment from whom?”
“My own fucking people on Seculare Four,” The Beast snapped, looking even angrier. “They accused me of fucking around with some girl, pretending to be her husband. And a few other things too—all of it bullshit, you know?” He shrugged angrily. “So then they decided to tattoo me so everyone on my home planet would know who I was, no matter how I changed my appearance.”
“That’s…quite a punishment,” Cassie remarked neutrally. She was pretty sure the “few other things” The Beast had been charged with were probably some form of sexual assault, considering how he treated women.
“It’s fucking bullshit, is what it is,” The Beast repeated sullenly. “They were all just jealous that I was so good at shape-shifting—better than anyone else on Seculare Four.”
“It does make me wonder how a society of shape-shifters gets along,” Cassie remarked. “I mean, how do you tell each other apart if everyone can change their appearance at any time?”
“Smell, mostly,” The Beast said. “We all make pheromones that only others of our kind—other Imposters—can sense. The smell is as unique as a fingerprint or a retinal scan is to you humanoids.”
“Really?” Cassie said. She was genuinely interested this time. “So how did you fake other people’s scents?”
The Beast lifted his chin.
“That’s because I’m better than the average Imposter. I can fake smells too—not just change appearance. I’m the next step up on the evolutionary ladder. But the elders of my planet treated me like fucking dirt.” He spat on the mossy carpet and Cassie sidestepped hastily.
“So that’s how you ended up here?” she asked diplomatically.
The Beast nodded.
“Yeah—Gozer, I mean his Slimefullness, has been really good to me. He pays me to do what I was having to sneak around to do on Seculare Four.” He laughed, as though it was a good joke. “Imagine, getting paid to fuck!”
So he had been sexually assaulting women on his home planet—or at the very least, impersonating their lovers and husbands in order to have sex with them, Cassie thought. Sick bastard. She did have one more question for him, however.
“What does your real form look like?” she asked, looking up at The Beast. “Since you’re someplace safe, away from your home world, why not wear your real face and body instead of impersonating a Kindred?”
He scowled and pointed to the large open doorway they were coming up to.
“Here’s the Dining Hall. Anything you want to eat—there’s the buffet. I’d stay away from the Androgian food though—it’s literally made of edible rocks. It’s hard to work on such a full stomach.”
It hadn’t escaped Cassie’s notice that he had not answered her last question but she decided to let it pass.
“Thank you for the tour,” she said politely. “Are you staying to eat breakfast, er, First Meal?”
The Beast shook his head.
“Don’t have time. I’m due in The Romance Room for an early scene.”
“The Romance Room?” Cassie shook her head. “I don’t think you showed us that.”
“Oh, that’s because it’s one of the filming areas in the humanoid wing,” The beast told her. “It’s for softer porn—all fucking hearts and flowers and shit.” He shrugged.
“Maybe…maybe Stone and I will see you there, then. After we eat, I mean,” Cassie said uncertainly.