A Chip in Time

By JK Mikals

Unkempt, lonely and full of self-pity after her recent divorce, the last thing on Cybele’s agenda is saving the world. But saving the world is exactly what the Goddess of Time insists that she do...
Time is beside herself! Dead bodies are multiplying in Xanadu and the surrounding loco-weed filled mountains. The squirrel population has become hook-nosed and rabid. Fertility gods are reluctant to mate. Some sort of Time Warp is interfering with all her plans. And worst of all, her only supplier for the Sacred Brine Shrimp so key to all godly technologies (and addictions) has run mad and can no longer supply them.
So when the goddess finds the naïve but well-meaning Cybele through a cosmic computer glitch, she is desperate enough to snatch the girl into the Akashic Records. There, an appalled Cybele is equipped with special cameras and a crew of ghosts, told to re-arrange certain life sequences for different outcomes, and to film her efforts to prevent future rewrites. She is to give the head fertility god an attitude adjustment and then repair the time warp – she is to save the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JK Mikals
• Release date: Dec 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9780979268328

JK Mikals

JK Mikals first published at the age of 14, when her brother purloined a school assignment, sent it to the Readers Digest, and kept the resulting check. When Mikals learned of this some 30 years later, she told him he might as well keep the check. Currently exploring her mind and the tropics with her 15 centimeter Aztec companion, Xochitl, Mikals is known primarily for vocabulary, an enlightened point of view and an unusual sense of humor.

Book preview

A

CHIP

In

TIME

by

JK Mikals

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © JK Mikals, December 2011

Cover and internal design © JK Mikals

Cover Illustration by JK Mikals

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from Mikals Publishing and JK Mikals, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

This book is fiction. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Similarity to real persons living or dead, to real events or to real locales is purely coincidental.

First Edition

ISBN-13: 978-0-9792683-2-8

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

THANK YOUS

My heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful friends who helped me get this written, edited and proofed. I would especially like to thank my dear daughter, who was instrumental in helping me select the best options at many crucial junctures. Special thanks also to Elizabeth M., without whose continuing encouragement I might never have actually finished.

And thank you as well to:

My wonderful son for providing me with a deadline and other motives

The farmers who grew the coffee for the endless cups I drank while writing

The geniuses who invented the word processor and its successive incarnations

The trees I wasted printing this thing out for editing

The black market ink people without whom I couldn't have printed it out so often

Amazon.com and all their terrific support techs

Antonette for introducing me to PhotoShop

AND

ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ELSE:

THANK YOU.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

SCENE ONE (In which the trap is set)

Once upon a time there was… there is… there was… Anyway, a restaurant. OK? A really good one.

Arrogant it rises, its walls of crystal onyx thrusting from the hill's crest, from a nest of pines. Coy above, the swollen moon spills hints of gossamer, lures with veils of promise. Sprawled below, the city throbs with evening. The air is laden with insinuation.

Right.

Inside the restaurant the air is rich with scents of food and money. The lights are hushed, the footsteps silent, the voices soft. Violins whisper to the muffled percussion of knife or fork on china. Tuxedoed waiters glide among the glitterati.

OK.

Just inside the windowed view of city lights, we find a table for two. There, amidst the final ravages of feeding and dregs of the finest wines of France, a man half-reclines against his chair. Heavy-eyed, he watches the woman seated with him, the dark cashmere of his suit swallowing the ambient light. Almost, he pulls the night inside. Almost, it seems, the glass cannot hold the dark at bay.

The woman's gaze is fixed upon her empty plate while her hand compels a wineglass in ceaseless, tiny, magic-wishing circles – for if she stops she fears she knows not what.

Well? he finally demands.

And finally, I look up at him.

ZOOM Out - Cybele Addresses the Cameras

Sorry. I know it's not exactly regulation to just stop in the middle like this and dump on your viewer, but I just have to talk to you. I promise not to do it too often, but sometimes I just have to vent.

Darn. My crew is complaining that I shouldn't be talking to you. But this… this… whatever-it-is is about what was sort-of part of my life, and 'she' is me and, frankly, I don't care what 'she' is up to in this story right now! I – the real, right-now me – am not in the least ready, not at all willing to do this! I am completely uncertain whether I want to deal with whatever it is that I have happening here.

Or whether I even should (except that I have to )!

Or whether I can!

In fact, I mean, I'm sure I can't.

And, dammit, I know you can't help. I'm not stupid. But I've got to talk to somebody!

So what exactly IS happening?

Well…I'm running my doggone script, that's what's happening! Actually, I'm re-running it. You've heard it before from cynics and metaphysicians: 'Be careful what you ask for – you might get it.' And so here she is – I am – with a man I met just hours ago, listening to him speak and watching him move with the inevitability of a character in a play I personally wrote. So far his dialogue and action are almost word for word and step for step.

And the casting! The casting is perfect! He is gorgeous! He has the tall! The dark! The handsome! The rich! The considerate! The sexy! The faintly dangerous! Etcetera! Etcetera! Everything I thought I wanted in a man. All that I had SAID I wanted.

Except, what is it the damn lawyers tell us? Watch out for that fine print! Well there's plenty of that here.

Oh! I should introduce myself. Sorry.

My name is Cybele. I was named for the Fertility Goddess, the great Anahid-Cybele, although I really feel that Mother may have been over-reaching a bit. But most of what is in this story actually happened to one of me and to other people, but then some of it sort-of also happened because I had to do it twice and that's what this is about.

I'm so sorry, I'll explain more later, but right now I have to do this scene.

SCENE ONE, continued

Sighing, the man turns his back to the night beyond the glass. He is angled now so that he faces me directly. I evade his eyes and stare into the city and the pines.

Cybele, he growls at me, You are a stunningly lovely woman. A magnetic creature any man would kill to make his own. I am a great deal older than you are, but I would like you to listen carefully to what I am about to suggest. He pauses to sip his wine, giving me an unfortunate amount of time to think about what he has just said and is probably going to say.

Another little sip of wine, a bit of deer-in-the-headlights-style eye contact on my part. Then he leans back, steeples his long, elegant fingers and announces, "I have an apartment in Xanadu, an estate in Casa Blanca, a cabin in Mendocino, a ranch near Desert Springs, a palace in Tzu Ping, a flat in London, an apartment on Nob Hill, and a villa in Naples.

I have extensive holdings, from high tech companies here in Xanadu to topaz and emerald mines in Brazil, copper and silver mines in Chile, gold mines in Alaska, diamond mines in North Africa, and platinum in South Africa. I own multiple flourishing businesses; the Fer de Lance we arrived in is one of a fleet, and I enjoy two Leering jets. There are a few other odds and ends you will learn about later. I carry sixty-five billion dollars worth of key-man insurance on my person because of all the people who would suffer if anything should happen to me.

The depths of his pitch colored eyes smolder across the table as he pauses for breath.

I am intelligent, articulate, kind, generous, considerate and gentle, interested in the preservation of life upon the planet and things of a spiritual nature. I have a great deal of power, but I use it carefully. I am unattached and in excellent health. I don't smoke, I drink very moderately, and I have, he pauses again, giving me a suggestive smile, …a lot of energy and… ah … other engaging attributes from a feminine point of view.

There have been numerous women in my life, he sighs. Perhaps too many. He stares into his wine glass as though into a crystal ball. Perhaps he is seeing pictures of those women moving through his past, now dead to him.

When he looks up at me again, it is from under half-lids, slow and hot, and my body, treacherous at best, speaks to me with an involuntary frisson of tiny spiral thrills. (Any female body still breathing would have done the same.)

I have not had a relationship with a lady for quite some time, Dummuzi toys deliberately with his glass. I have been quite busy and have not particularly felt the need of one.

But YOU… his eyes imply, with a look so intimate that the blush in my loins flares throughout my body. And in that instant of steam something shifts…some mysterious, ancient…cliché…moves between us.

Then it is he who falls into my eyes, he who is unwilling – or unable – to break from the undertow. Helpless, we hold each other without touching. Free of masking, his expression shifts, something I cannot quite read. He seems every instant more reluctant, more reflective of a fear based in some dark knowing, that terror itself the basis of a terrible hunger.

A responding thrill of fear moves through me.

Abruptly, he pulls back, turning to stare into the suddenly dangerous night beyond the windows, then shifts again to face me directly. Cybele… he whispers, O gods! YOU! YOU are…. Oh, gods, NO! Thrusting away from the table, Dummuzi mutters something unintelligible.

I can't be sure, but it sounds like he is talking to someone else.

No, this can't be happening! he hisses. I can't be doing this. Why am I doing this? Have you caught me at last, Bitch? I can't be doing this. I don't want to die.

I blink. He doesn't want to die? Of course he doesn't want to die. Who does? Did he just call me a bitch? What happened to stunningly lovely and magnetic? What on earth is going on?

Running a distracted hand through the perfect darkness of his hair, he scowls at his plate. Oh, gods. I can't believe this is happening. No matter what we do, Time eats us anyway, doesn't she? She always wins. He looks up from the ruins of our meal. Well, what now, Cybele? What do you want? I'm too busy just now to make our love affair what it ought to be for you.

I blink twice at that one. Love affair?

Love?

Affair?

AFFAIR? Not a proposal, then? Of course not! What would you expect from someone like this? Hummph.

His hand slides across the linen seeking mine, fingers electric, his eyes serious. How much do you know about fertility gods? he demands.

I jerk straight up in the chair, shocked to my core. Fertility gods!!? On less than three hours of acquaintance? No doubt the rest will be truly likely as well! Hah. He probably has just the one car on the edge of repossession and a close-to-maxed credit card and I am being a total fool again.

But then I remember that I vamped the poor guy with a couple of my hypnotically beautiful, man-compelling friend Pythea's most deadly flirtation techniques. I guess this might be considered proof that they work for absolutely anyone.

ZOOM Out – to the Cameras again

Well, if it weren't for the pink stuff, it might be proof, that is. I don't really believe in love potions, but about two weeks ago I had made enough room in my belief system to buy some alluring-looking pink powder from a very strange woman in a very strange store while I was trying to change my image because you can get really tired of being dowdy and invisible to men.

Well, anyway, I can.

But the bottom line here is that Dummuzi really is every doggone thing I had asked for. He matches every line on the 'grocery list' Pythea had me make. That list described exactly what I wanted in a man: intelligent, articulate, passionate, etc., etc.

And, OK, rich.

And here he is, big as life, giving every indication of matching every single criterion I specified for my ideal man, my own true love. AND I had said that I wanted him to rush up to me and declare himself – and that is exactly what Dummuzi has just done!

OMG!

Well. I mean, my specifications do include a lot of sexual energy, but a crazed billionaire who tosses platinum mines in my lap while he babbles about death and fertility gods on the first date? Uh-uh. No. Not. That is well beyond any repressed little fantasies I might have had.

Ever.

Fertility gods? I mean, really. Was he going to suggest orgies or something? Hey, I may not be a virgin any more, but I am a lady. And what would Mother have to say about that? I mean, ORGIES?

No. Mother would have no hesitations in a situation like this, and I am most certainly her daughter. So script or no script, grocery list or no grocery list, I basically I have no choice here. Ladies do not permit gentlemen to suggest orgies. They most certainly do not, child of the twenty-first century or whatever or not.

SCENE ONE, continued some more

I am properly offended that he would suggest what I can tell he is suggesting. So, taking a deep breath, I invoke Betty Freidan, call on the strength of the sisterhood and ream him out.

How dare you, sir. I understand more of what you are saying than you think I do, even though this whole set-up sounds like something straight out of a bad Victorian romance novel. I mean, palaces in Tzu Ping? And fertility gods? Uh-huh. To be sure. Well, I'll give you an answer. You bet I'll give you an answer. I square off in my seat.

How dare you drag your wallet on a string in front of me? What kind of girl do you think I am? I'll answer that. I am no bimbo who can be had for the price of dinner and the promise of toys. You know perfectly well that if I had any character at all, I would throw the remains of my food in your face and walk home. But I am a lady, and ladies don't make that sort of scene in public places, so you are safe. But only just. You have more gall than any man I have ever met. You have a real nerve. I sniff haughtily and look off to one side, not to soil my eyes on him.

He says nothing, just smiles sadly. I can't believe he can just sit there and smile like that after I have told him what a creep he is.

Furthermore, I huff when he continues to offer no comment, I smoke; I also drink; I am certainly not a virgin anymore and I don't intend to give any of it up.

I look straight into his eyes, chagrined to find amusement twinkling there. How dare he think what he is obviously thinking? It's a good thing I have enough money with me for a cab home. Mother had said to always be sure of that. Anyway, it's too late to back down.

No, Dummuzi, I shake my head. No, I repeat for good measure, I don't come easy and I don't fall for sucker punches, not anymore. No sir-ee. So just keep that in mind. You have some nerve. You are the most arrogant, conceited man I have ever met. And besides, I already have a boyfriend. I set my napkin on the table with an air of finality.

He poofs everything I had said away with his hand. Leans back in his chair, confident. So relaxed. So tall. So rich. So irritating.

I'm willing to give it a run anyway. His voice is smoother than whipped butter. He plucks his napkin from his lap, folds the white linen twice into a triangle and, placing it deliberately on the table, says, But not while you're involved with your young man.

Wait a minute, I must ask myself – what young man? Do I have a boyfriend? I said so, so I must. But who, though? Could it be…? No, of course not. And he is still willing to 'give it a run,' is he? How is that possible? Isn't he offended? I just told him off, in my very best insulted damsel mode, and he isn't even dented?

Then what he just said penetrates.

What? I cry on a rising octave, What did you say? I don't believe you can be real! You want me to break up with my boyfriend just because you… well! You tell me this, Dummuzi, why should I break someone's heart on your whim? Why should I tell my, quote, young man, quote, goodbye-darling-its-been-grand-but-its-over just because YOU think you want to, quote, give-it-a-run, quote. Who do you think you are? Do you think you are some kind of fertility god yourself, licensed to seduce? You have such a nerve. Such a nerve. Why, I don't even know you. No way. Absolutely not.

All right, Cybele, he shrugs. He raises a hand to summon the waiter. If that's what you want.

He doesn't say anything else. But he said that last with such feeling.

I am torn. He seems so sincere. But then men are always sincere in seduction scenes.

But poor Dummuzi. I mean, he doesn't want to die. Maybe he has cancer or something. Perhaps I should compromise a little. Make his last days more pleasant. That kind of thing. It would be the least I could do. What do I have to lose?

I mean, at least I'm not a virgin anymore. At least I don't have to worry about that detail.

I decide to stall. Couldn't we, I pick up a spoon and stir a circle in the tablecloth, a habit Mother deplores, while Niagara pounds though my every vein, just sort of have coffee and hang out together for a while before we make any earth sweeping decisions? I look up into a heart-stopping smile.

Well, that's a realistic enough request, he replies.

ZOOM Out (Cameras again)

Ah, pooh! A realistic request?

Yes, it's me again. Sorry. And yeah, it actually was sensible request, wasn't it?

And a civilized response on his part, I have to admit.

But thinking back on it, I am really disappointed in Dummuzi. Here is this self-proclaimed fertility god and one or two of Mother's maxims are all it takes to deflate him. What a waste. Why couldn't he have stood up then, eyes flaming, nostrils flaring, masterful, as he hauled me against his powerful chest?

No, he should have hissed as the china and crystal crashed to the carpet, unnoticed except by the waiter and diners at nearby tables, I shall never let you go. Never try to deny me, my darling. You will come to me. You are MINE. Kiss me now!

In front of the gods and the waiter and everybody in the restaurant.

Now wouldn't THAT have made great film?

ZOOM Up to the Akashic Records

CUT! I turned triumphantly to my crew.

But they weren't coming out from behind the cameras and all three of them were waving at me to get back down to the planet.

Down to the planet? Oh, yah… I forgot to tell you. See, Her Devouringness gave me these really special cameras that work with the Akashic Records where everything everybody does is stored and I'm supposed to do-over certain pivotal bits of my life and film them so they stay put and Time doesn't disappear and none of us are ever born…

You'll see for yourself in a little while. When you meet the other people – I mean, actors. They all have histories – and those histories will probably change too – and well… I know it's confusing, because it confuses me, too.

It's like when Galileo found out the earth was round, you know? When people went to sleep the night before, folks were sailing off the edge of the world. But when they woke up the next morning nobody could do that anymore. Imagine! Everything was different! And as important a discovery as that was and as much as it pissed people off, the really big thing is, nobody could even tell the difference when they looked out the window or sat down to eat or pray or whatever!

What do those quantum physics guys say? It's not there until you notice it?

But I see that maybe I have digressed here.

The bottom line is that she says it's not exactly my fault but I have to fix it. And you won't know the difference. I probably won't either. But if I screw up the sun will never rise again in the morning. And no one, absolutely no one, will know the difference.

Either way.

She? Oh, yeah. The Goddess of Time. You'll meet her too, cause she's part of the film.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! All RIGHT. I'm going back down. Just give me a minute with the viewers please!

Because maybe you won't understand but I really would like you to forgive me just in case it all blows up and you never do get born.

The only way I can do this is to try to tell you a story. And I guess it might as well begin – if it can be said to have a beginning at all – in that restaurant.

OK, I've gotta do the scene. We're going back to the action now. I guess this will be…

SCENE TWO (In which the trap is almost sprung)

There wasn't much left for us except to leave. I gathered my little black silk purse (contents: lipstick, drivers license and cab money) and rose as gracefully as I could, considering my state of shock. Dummuzi put a masterful hand beneath my elbow and guided me to the door where we waited silently for valet parking to roar up with the Fer de Lance.

Mother would have been proud of my graceful little pirouette: sit, swing the legs with knees together, shoulder roll, glance up from beneath the lashes, and Thank you, as I entered the low hung machine. It was, of course, wasted on the valet parker-person. But Mother always said a lady must always behave like a lady.

Dummuzi shoved in the gear and we surged off through the pines and down the mountain. I could not repress the almost sexual thrill the engine sent through me as he gracefully shifted from first to second and then to third. I believe, he said, that it would be more practical for me to take you home and arrange to have your vehicle delivered to you tomorrow than for me to take you back to it and wait for the repair truck.

Thank you, I murmured in reply, that would be most kind. My chief focus was trying not to drool on the gear shift or hyperventilate from the excitement of being in an actual Fer de Lance, but part of my mind was wondering 'what vehicle?'

He glanced over at me then, and smiled slowly. The smile of a cat confronting a cheese-chewing mouse. The smile of a shark spotting a beef carcass floating behind an ocean liner. Like a magician he flipped a roll of candies toward me. Have a pomegranate sweetie, Cybele. They are quite tasty. Very unusual.

Intrigued, as I had never seen pomegranate candy before, I took one. It had a slightly tart, compelling flavor. I quite liked it, so I took another. There was a tickle in the back of my head, though, something about pomegranates. Something about six pomegranate seeds, wasn't it? Something about entrapment? Now, what was it that I was trying to remember? I wondered, chewing. Entrapment… entrapment…

The Fer de Lance was a dream car. Clinging to the inside on the right turns, clinging to the outside on the left. Into the pines and down the mountain. Sweep, sweep through the turns. Like flying. And o, the delicious pull of gravity to the right, to the left, the sweet lift as we lofted over a hilltop and drifted down to the road again…

We were back in the city now, on the plain. Into a sea of Barracudas, Tuna, Sting Rays, Koi, and an occasional Moby Dick flowing in ordered lanes from light to light.

And then we were at my home.

Well, at the place where I was living.

You know how you don't see a lot of things about what is familiar to you until you invite a stranger to look? I sat there in the car in front of the place I was currently calling home with amazed eyes.

I saw six broad, marble-faced steps mount the lawn to be met by a wide marble walk lined with white roses in six-foot white concrete pots. Their scent wafted to us on the balmy evening air. About two hundred feet back from the steps, the house, too, was white, its generously pillared porch curving across the front between matching wings. Magenta bougainvillea dripped from one side, breaking the symmetry. It was astonishingly impressive.

And I could not recall having ever seen it before.

SCENE THREE (In which the jaws close gently)

Dummuzi squinted at the front door a moment before he spoke. This place used to be the Albigensian Consulate. Did you know that? Some friends of mine own it now. The muscles in his jaw flickered briefly as he studied me sideways. Have you been living here long?"

He was thinking things, I could tell. He knew something I didn't and it was making him think something and I knew that something wasn't good from my point of view. What he was thinking did not reflect well on me as a lady, not at all. I could tell. I could tell. How on earth was I going to be able to explain that I wouldn't be involved in whatever kind of situation it was he was thinking I was involved in without telling him that I knew he was thinking what I thought he was thinking? That I knew what he thought he knew, but that I knew I didn't?

I picked up my little silk purse and twisted the handles. No, I just moved in. Then I untwisted them.

Ah. Have you known your new landlords long?

I twisted the handles again. I haven't met everybody yet.

Ah. Dummuzi relaxed visibly. Parnassus is still out of town, then?

Got it! I let the purse unwind itself. He thought Dr. Parnassus was my 'boyfriend'! That explained it! But Dr. Parnassus had been off somewhere exotic for the last umpteen, according to his sister, Valkyrie. So my reputation there was safe. But if Parnassus wasn't my 'boyfriend,' who was? For some reason I could not get a mental picture of that person. I really ought to know who my boyfriend was, but…

Another pomegranate candy, Cybele? I'd really like to see you again.

O, I …

He sighed. But not while you are seeing your young man. Give me a call after you break it off with him.

He opened the door and stepped around the car to open my door. I did the both-leg-swing-out, plant-and-rise, which is the only way you can gracefully get out of a car three inches off the ground. At least that's what Mother says. Faster than the speed of light, he kissed my cheek and swung down into the driver's seat using some other sexily graceful maneuver only guys know.

Then lightly, so lightly, he tapped the steering wheel with the heels of both hands and glanced up at me. Yes, he said, give me a call.

The command words finally penetrated.

And I looked at him. But I was not just looking, I was thinking, too.

Mister, went the interior dialogue, the old slither-mind, on that basis you are going to sit alone by the phone for a very long time indeed. Who do you think you are talking to here? How dare you think that I am going to come sidling up to you, 'Hi, I have broken up with my boyfriend, Big Boy, so let's get it on.' HOW DARE YOU? Who do you think you are?

And then of course, wimp that I am, I shifted: You poor man, I bet you have to beat women off your wallet all day long.

Followed by the inevitable slip from compassion: You poor deluded fool, you think I am another honey dipper who won't pass up the chance. Well, have you got another thought to think – forget you.

And back in again: You poor man. Doesn't anyone love you for yourself? How awful your life must be.

And out: How dare you tell me what to do?

And in: You poor lonely man, do you need to be loved? Oh, you hurt, you poor, poor baby…

And out: NO NO NO. I have been this route before. Enough is enough. No more charity cases.

I turned to leave, not having uttered a word.

Cybele… Dummuzi grabbed my wrist, then examined his lap. He peered up at me, down to check his lap again, then glanced up one more time. How's your calendar for lunch? Here, why don't you take the rest of these pomegranate seeds – I mean, candies?

Well, I thought to myself, if he can stretch that much around his problem with my 'young man,' maybe I can stretch a little, too.

Thanks, I said, taking the roll of candies. Eleven thirty tomorrow?

My calendar was quite open, after all.

SCENE FOUR (In which we learn inefficient escape methods)

So the Fer de Lance rolled away and I mounted the steps to the former Albigensian Consulate, munching candies and ruminating on the evening.

As the heavy front door swung closed behind me, another one upstairs slammed. My landlady, Valkyrie Parnassus, billowed down the staircase parachute-style in an ermine trimmed, floor length, white peignoir. Although Dr. Parnassus was apparently always out of town, his sister Valkyrie was not.

I was sorry to see her. Her tongue was vicious.

Ah! Cybele! You are home! Come and have a drink with me, darling. Sweeping across the zebra skins patterning the black and white marble of the foyer, she seized my arm and led me past the glares of stuffed wildebeest and water buffalo into the formal living room. No one has been here all evening and I simply must talk. Gods, I have had the MOST trying day.

Before I could blink, Val was efficiently filling two glasses with ice cubes at the ivory and marble wet bar. One glass already had lipstick on it. What will you have? Vodka? Gin? White rum? Sambuca? Ouzo?

I glanced over the contents of the cabinet. All white liquors. Well, of course – the rugs and sofas