Her voice slid over her shoulder like a silk scarf. I unfolded two bronze from my wallet and placed them carefully where she could see them.
“Only here for the minimum?”
“I just want to talk.”
“Of course you do. That’s what everyone wants. Modern men don’t want to go through all the effort of getting into bed with a lady, you all just want a therapist who shows you her tits.”
“Maybe I don’t want either of those things. I’m here on business.”
She spun her head around and looked at me directly. Then the seat rotated so her body could accompany her face. I didn’t blame it. It was a face you wouldn’t want to let get too far away.
There were scars, sure, but they were just patterns on a perfect canvas. You could alter the outside, but the underlying structure was exquisite. The shape of her body was imprinted on to the red material and I tried unsuccessfully to keep my eyes above her neckline.
She met my struggle with a judgmental smirk. There was a nastiness to it. Not just because of the scar-tissue that split her top lip like a lightning bolt. There was a challenge in her eyes that made my tongue go dry.
“How about a drink then?” she asked.
“What have you got?”
She leaned down to open the bottom drawer and her dress fell open in a calculated tease. When she sat up, she was holding a clear bottle of pale liquid.
“The Dwarves bring it in from out of town. Smells like Centaur piss but it’s free.”
“Just to my taste.”
She poured two generous slugs into a couple of jam jars and handed one over. I gave it a quick sniff and tried not to look shocked. You could have used it for lamp-oil if it didn’t burn too fast.
“Drink up, stranger.” She raised her glass but let me take my medicine first. I threw it back in one hit, a dumb idiot trying to impress her, and my tonsils felt like they caught on fire.
“Shit! Maybe I should have gone with the tits and therapy.”
“You still can.” I looked up with watering eyes as her top teeth dug firmly into her bottom lip. “But I thought you were here on business.”
Look. By now you know I’m not trying to come off as some pillar of decency. Because I’m not. I’m just an idiot with a couple of strange stories and a loose tongue. Sure, the drink had knocked me around, but I’m not trying to make any excuses. I just said –
“Can’t we do both?”
Whatever challenge she had laid out, I’d failed it. Any world in which she would have helped me was gone and forgotten. The wild, icy eyes told me that I’d made my choice.
I’d thought she was provoking me and so I’d raised her. Well, she matched me all right. She untied the little bow on her neck and the top half of the red dress fell into her lap and yeah, her breasts were perfect and I still can’t regret that I got to see them. The sight of them still slips back under my eyelids on lonely nights when I just want to get to sleep.
There was no enjoyment at the time, though. The tone of the whole meeting had changed. If we were playing a game, then she’d won it before I’d even picked up my cards.
“So, what’s the business?” she asked, and I had to force the words through my numb lips knowing how bad it was all going to sound.
“A missing girl.”
“A missing girl?”
“Yeah. A Siren.”
“You wanted to talk to me about a missing girl with my tits out?”
“No.”
“Are you fucking sick?”
“I’m starting to think so. I thought you might know something.”
“Why would you think that?”
“She wanted to sing, she…” The room was getting hazy. That hooch sure packed a punch. “She was training.”
“So?”
“So… I—”
“So you what, Soldier? A singing Siren goes missing and you tell yourself it’s time to stumble downtown and kick over some stones. What are you chasing?”
“She’s missing…”
“I’ll tell you what you’re chasing, Soldier. You’re a guilt tourist. There’s no girl here, Soldier. No lead. You’re not here for her. You’re here for our pain. You want to get all up close with the lives you destroyed because it makes you feel important. You see the misery in all of us and you think it belongs to you. Let me tell you, Soldier; this isn’t your pain. It’s mine. And I don’t give you permission to come and play with it.” One of her fine fingers flicked a little bell on her desk. The high trill echoed around the room. “If it’s pain you want, Human, you can have your own.”
I looked at her drink, which she still hadn’t touched, and it all hit me right as the door opened. There was more in that jam jar than Dwarven moonshine.
“This ain’t the kind of place you come asking questions, Soldier. Next time, just stick with the tits.”
I couldn’t even turn my head. The sound of someone entering the room came through a mile of salt water, and then I felt a gorilla pick me up and beat me against the wall. Fetch Phillips: Human Drumstick. A whole big band orchestra took turns to tap my skull against their instruments. I kept trying to conduct them but I couldn’t bring them into line. I kept falling out of time. The cymbals crashed around my ears as I fell through the floor.
I’d been awake for several minutes but didn’t want to admit it to myself. If I admitted that I was awake, I had to think about trying to move. I’d also have to accept the fact that I’d screwed up. I was under a bridge in a bad part of town with a broken nose, no shoes, and nobody to blame but myself.
First, I moved my legs, and two things were evident. They weren’t broken, but I’d pissed myself. When I looked down, the blood on my shirt gave a pretty good indication of the state of my face. I fought the temptation to touch my lip or my nose or my eye. That could wait. I untucked my shirt to cover the damp stain on my crotch and scrambled up the side of the canal.
The stars fought the clouds while I bought a bottle from the corner store and dragged my feet up the steps to my office. I threw my bloody, pissy clothes in a pile in the corner and used a wet cloth to wash the grime from the mirror. I didn’t look as bad as I felt, but that wasn’t much comfort. If I looked as bad as I felt my whole face would be back on the prostitute’s floor. My nose appeared to be the stand-out performer in this band of mangled features. It wasn’t the first time I’d broken it but I used to have a medic around to do the cracking and administer the medicine. Now, I couldn’t even think of a friend who would come around to snap my face back into place.
I opened my gullet and let the whiskey flow in. It helped, but you might as well pour a cup of water on the desert and say you’ve stopped the drought.
I let it seep into my blood before I put my fingers to my face and felt someone kick in my sinuses. I swore, took them away and had another slug. I drained the bottle. I got up and paced around the room cursing some more. I slapped the top of my head and found new bruises. I sat down again and held my nose, closed my eyes, jerked it to the left.
Not hard enough.
I screamed into my fist and threw the empty bottle at the wall. It was a few minutes before I tried again. During the second attempt, I heard a click bounce around my whole stupid head. It dislodged some blood clots at the back of my throat that fell into my guts. I managed to make it to the sink before the whole bottle of whiskey came back up.