She doesn’t speak. Sure, words escape. But they’re not hers. Her speech would be obscène, ginger-flavored venom spat in your direction. Thoughts that ball her fists and cause her teeth to jut from between her coral-painted lips. She’d stand with arms crossed, hissing, had she not been doing so already.

And by the time you’re finished with your strut into the Grand Hall, you’re almost close enough to slug.

“She’s right,” you agree with a liquored-up confidence. “I’m her agent.”

“So she doesn’t dance, doesn’t sing, but she has an agent?” the old man trails.

His eyes roll. From the floor to the ceiling, ignoring your presence, as if you hadn’t arrived at all. But, as you stand next to the mare, you block his escape, conscious of the mare’s bubbling anger and active wingspan.

“You’ve heard her talk. Do you think she’d be able to represent herself?” you joke.

“I only wonder why you’d take her as a client.”

“Well, she’s unique, isn’t she? Just look at her. Barging in here, not knowing what to say. Spunky, right?”

Your salesmanship is familiar. It’s flatlander talk. Shilling. And as you showcase the mare, you’re selling bushels of genetically modified soybean, auctioning off rusted, sorrel agricontraptions, sweating from the cloudless atmosphere that’s stuck on a humid day. As Ø’s gambled on her salope simulacra, you too on your jasperlike jabbing.

“Don’t have a girl like her, do you? One who has it.”

“I do. Many of them, who look better and talk less. Tell me,” he looks behind you, attempting to find a pathway from the situation entirely, “what would I be missing?”

“Well, she takes orders.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“And you shouldn’t. I mean, check her out, all these scars and whatnot,” you cough a nervous laugh with a swat across the mare’s back. She flinches, returning your playful hit with scowls. “You may need to crack the whip, of course. But a guy like you, you know that, right?”

Your only hope for mutual success is a crosscut saw. You pull the blade, hands flinging droplets of perspiration, gesticulating at the mare’s immobile frame. Then a push towards her, where the mare’s furred fingers reluctantly grip dress hem, impromptu tendu hoofplay on display.

It’s two-person, single-minded shillmanship lifted from a familiar couple of criminals.

“You probably need some security, right?”

“She’s offered.”

“Well, now I’m offering,” you tender. “You have a gladiatrix, here.”

“I have three of them already, all of whom can java.”

“What if,” you try, “what if you could talk to her? Over vast distances,” your fingers twinkle.

“Microphones? Riveting.”

“No,” you reassure, “telepathically. She’s got the skill. Granted, she yells quite a bit—”

“Like a Whisperer?”

“A Whisperer, sure,” you agree, “wait, a what?”

“Yes,” the mare nods with a glare.

“So you Whisper…” the Choreographer chides. It’s the first bit of eye contact Ø’s received. He’s boxed out, willingly at attention. At this angle, you notice his glasses’ frames, thicker than a deck of cards. “Well, I haven’t heard anything since you’ve been here.”

“He heard, though,” she sneers.

“Who?”

“My,” the mare growls, words escaping on their own volition, on sharpened and poisoned, “agent.”

“That’s right, I did. How do you think I knew she was floundering in here? She, well, she told me.”

“So you can hear her, but nobody else can.”

“Sure, but only because she allows me. You know what I mean? It’s an intimate connection,” you nod. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” she hisses through a smile-cum-scowl, lips turning at odd corners like a cracked vase.

“So, you’re her lover?”

“Lover? Never,” you laugh, “you think anyone could love this?”

A mare’s angry snort tells you it’s mutual.

“No, but if you don’t want her, then why would I?”

“Well,” you admit, “she’s not much. She’s a drunk, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Like you.”

“Sure, but only when I speak for her,” you joke. “And she’s a killer, you know.”

“You’ve mentioned.”

“Not just any, though. A cannibal. With a long history of abuse and an extreme temper.”

Your assessment is factual, to your horror. Ripped from your ribs, coated in overpriced liquors. Fermented, for how long you’ve held the sentiments in secret, unwilling to voice your displeasure, always overshadowed by the seething mare. It’s a catharsis that, ironically, you have her vice to thank.

And as each word escapes your maw, spat with the honesty saved for hostile strangers, shared under material duress, you can’t help but sense a rising tide of maliciousness that bounces between you and Ø.

“You know, I watched this mare eat more human flesh than you have on you right now. Killed more stooges than you’ve had girlies. She’s a broken, destructive mess,” you complain. “Born in a tank, sold into slavery, trained with the ancient Pavlovian methods. She’s one pack of cigarettes from losing control of herself completely. Even before I got here, look,” you point to the stain on your face, the purple depression, “she almost knocked out some of my teeth when I called her some ungentlemanly names.”

An inhuman desire for nicotine rattles the roots of your teeth. Only your real ones. The others, false, implanted aboard the Saint Andrew while you were half-conscious, are silent. They fire off gamma rays, phantom pains that keep you talking and your tongue wriggling.

“And here, on Fontvieille, I’ve made friends. First people I’ve spoken to in months. She already wants to kill them, dreams of it all night, every night. One guy, him and his girlfriend, friend, whatever they are, I don’t know, they’re held down. In an amphitheater,” George Merrick, he’s familiar, “their soft faces smacked around, cheeks cut up with these knives that look like crescents. Moons,” drigug blades, she’d hiss, if she could remember the name, mentioned off-hand by childhood caregivers dawning orange dhonka robes, chuffing cigarettes in the claustrophobic hallways of the Chang Tsung-ch’ang between bouts of ritualistic bloodletting, “with hilts that catch your eye. Screaming demon heads, big fangs, cheap metal all misshapen in the rain, bruising her palms. And she keeps cutting their skin into ribbons, you can’t even recognize their bodies if you don’t know them. My friends, if they’re even friends, turned to mud, guts. Their blood tastes like oysters or rye whiskey, and the other, the third, she’s just a mangled pelt, gouged the most, and she still smells like almond canistrelli,” you lick your lips, tasting seawater, but it’s only sweat, “and you know what? She snores, too. So if it’s not the dreams, it’s that! I haven’t slept in months!” Her fists tremble, flat molars wearing away with anger. “Trust me, this mare’s not like any other girl you’ve got.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“A salesman’s monologue?” he muses. “And that’s your sell?”

“That she’ll turn heads? Sure! Caught yours just fine, too! It’s what you like, right?”

“Who says that?”

“Someone who doesn’t like you very much,” you prod. “Or someone that knows you pretty well. Maybe both.”

“Maybe.”

The choreographer digs a nail into his palm. He taps his loafer, lost in dreams. It’s another vision. One berthed from the depraved depths only reached by the performing arts, of gladiatrices adorned with faux-feathers, kept docile with withheld excess, addiction and mania carefully satiated and prodded, enslaved for entertainment. Skinny fingers that contort over jowls, pulling at pelt, tracing creases where muscle groups collide with bone, positioning the female form into hand-crafted masterpieces of his own masturbatory design.

Dolls, his dolls, on display. Maybe there’s space for another. Product to be moved, reused, resold. A real challenge, for once.

“You’re creative, at least,” he admits from false teeth. “More creative than most.”

“You know,” you continue, ready to lay bare another round of negatives, chewing your lips at the hope of psychotherapeutic release, seat collecting in your armpits and steaming out your collar, “I think she—”

“I don’t need to know what you think,” he contends.

Behind his spectacles, there’s a mare reborn. Scarified skin awash in sequins. Steel sewn into fabrics, clattering alongside the natural tapdances of hooves, gladiatrix on display. Tiaras—wordplay, who doesn’t love wordplay—set by Marguerite Giroux, Marquise de Quai Treize. No, torques. Embedded with sapphires, imported from off-world.

Killers jingling to war dances across the stage, shaking with simulated violence. Locally-sourced lapis paint on bare pelts and skins, practically prehistoric, nude forms draped through the Great Hall in a grotesque retour aux sources. And like all memorable entertainment, divided into three acts.

He’s an artist once more, the electric thrill of inspiration flowing with old bones.

“I’m sure, but I want to emphasize, no, really emphasize—”

“She’s a drunk mess,” he spits. “Praxagoric. Grotesque. An anti-beauty. Worthless in your hands, evidently.”

The mare glares. She slouches. Arms cross her chest, disappointed that she’s reached her goal.

“I think you’re acting a bit unreasonable talking about either of us like that, but I think you’ll see—”

“Because you’re no agent,” he muses. “A weak-willed visitor, maybe. No professional would barge in with such weakness, as if you have something to prove, wearing yesterday’s clothes and tomorrow’s shame. Disgusting, the both of you.”

Your vision swirls. Teeth chew your lips as the tirade continues. You consciously remind yourself that you’re nearly at your goal. But to what end? Another successful day of taking orders? Your brief emotional release demands more.

“I’ll take her off your hands. Sure,” he rises with an arrogant difficulty, “but just know it’s independent of your bre-ke-ke-kexing, impotent attempts to offload a muse you can’t position well enough. Visitors like you disgust me, and unlike the complimentary cattle you pay for, you won’t get the faux sympathy from me.”

Ø’s snort is egregious. Your dressing-down is an appreciated sight. She’ll need to copy some of his material. Her painted lips open, eyebrows receding atop her snout, ready to join the litany with another cruel smile.

“I don’t want any lip out of you,” he snaps. “You wanted a job? Get back there and saddle up. I’ve got plans for you and they don’t involve you standing here, scratching yourself, lingering in the public eye. Go. Call for Haydée. Get out of my sight. An aura chases you,” he spits through gritted teeth, “and it’s unwanted aura. Masculine, unlovable, no wonder the only stooge in the galaxy wants rid of you. ‘Two heathen clowns, grave booth animals,’ you're more pathetic than dead—”

It’s the alcohol, you’ll rationalize later. Maybe it’s the mare, simmering in anger, suggesting your movements as before. But as Ø’s right shoulder flexes, it’s out of your control.

Her thrown punch is an act of attempted geriatricide. Frames split along her knuckles, cutting pelt with a thin ribbon. They deform under duress, snapping in two. It’s therapy through intimidation, blood spilling onto the theater’s white upholstery seating, reminding you of a certain stained Robichaux suit. The Choreographer slumps, the bridge of his nose broken, finally shut up.

Your shove isn’t far behind, wrenching the mare back from what you assume will be another swat.

“What’s the matter with you?” you chastise.

“Me?” she hisses. “You’re made me hit him.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, you did. Look. See? Right hand? I’m a lefty,” she nurses her knuckles. A two-tone red shimmers in the low-light off her fingers. She shakes her hand, opening and closing it out of your sight. “You made me talk for you, hit for you... Do it again and you’re spaced.”

The Choreographer is still. Breathing, thankfully. One, two hands silently cradle his nostrils. Blood cascades through the interlocking fingers, soiling his bespoke puresilk suit.

“Well, you weren’t supposed to lay into this guy,” you argue.

“Me? You’re lucky I don’t lay into you,” the mare spits. She’d throw another punch if you weren’t ready like before. If you both weren’t reaching the same level of intoxication. Or if you weren’t stuck in another compromising position, trapped within impolite society. “Forget it, it doesn’t matter. Dutchie was right, I hate this guy.”

“He’s not spaced, is he?”

“What? No. I just rung his bell.”

“You sure?”

He’s a mess. Stunned into placidity. Frozen in place, breathing through the pain.

The Choreographer’s daydreamed mares have taken flight. They’re over-bought pegasi. They float around in his haze, vision unable to focus without lenses, their tapdancing routines in line with a steady, throbbing pulse that coincides with the drip of blood into through his sinuses.

Nevertheless, Ø takes his sullied hand. She presses it against her dress. One handprint, then another, wiping it on a third, marring her black outfit with rouge claws. She’s marked, the thin prints taken, her part of the score complete.

She shrugs, letting the old man retrieve his hand, which finds its place against his nostrils, attempting to stem the bleeding through silent, shallow breathing.

“That’s good enough for Dutchie, right?”

“I don’t know,” you reply, “did she even tell you what she’s doing with the prints?”

“No. She just said she’d handle everything once I got them.” Your concern for the concussed, silent man is overshadowed by Ø’s subconscious, recognizing the need for a speedy exit. “We’re not sticking around here, right?”

“Well, no, but shouldn’t we do something?” You pick the busted glasses off the floor. In a display of haphazard regret, you place them on the armrest, the frames tortured into a metallic bird’s nest.

“About him?” she huffs, making her way towards the exit, beating it with you in tow. “He’ll be fine. He’s a jagoff anyways, what are you helping him for?”

She lingers by the doors. Ebony-on-sorrel-on-gold, her face alight with the self-satisfaction of needless violence, placating her lust for blood. It’s been weeks since she’s thrown a punch, and the newly lit cigarette at her lips can’t hide her lack of scowl. Whether it was her outburst or not, she’s grateful for the chance at another drink and a speedy getaway, exhaling with a learned comfort.

Through the doors, once more into the swaths of the First Floor, you’re ignored. To the gamblers, more focused on their dice throws and attempts at counting cards, the mare’s bloody outfit is another haute couture display. Another step forward in hyper-accelerated local fashion, drawing on motifs from ancient sacrifices, possibly even an orientalist, Neo-Assyrian influence.

“Quit looking back,” she hisses. “It’s like you’re trying to get caught.”

“I’m not. I need to find someone.”

“Oh,” she muses behind another glass, ripped from the mechanical digits of a passing auto-bartender. “And I assume you’ll want my help with your part of the job, right?”

“I never said that.”

“Good. After all, you screwed mine up. Why would I help you?” she slaps your shoulder, placing in your hand a perspiring glass of sparkling wine, watered down. “So, what is your job, anyways?”

“I need to be a distraction,” you admit.

“Wow, big stuff.”

“Shouldn’t you be looking for Dutchie?”

“And look suspicious, looking around, drawing attention to us?” she complains, eyes scanning the floor, passively accepting an invitation to hunt. “Who’s your clown?”

“Saad’s right-hand man.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Well-dressed.”

“Like everyone,” she chastises. “What else?”

“There,” you spot him. Lingering as before. In the corner of the First Floor’s atrium, next to a man in a Fez, standing at a roulette wheel. He’s pretending to play, throwing down chips, acting along with the crowd. But his posture is too perfect, shoulders too stiff, roll-neck cashmere top too sober. “Just follow my lead, like before. And don’t make a scene.”

“What? Relax. I knew Cimraan types,” she scoffs. “Maybe they’ll recognize me.”

“You want them recognizing you before a rip-off?”

“What’s got you so uptight?” she snorts, her fingers dancing atop a streak of blood, tracing it across the fabric, still warm.

The flute is at your lips as Fez turns. His tan face, sunglasses on bushy beard, take note of your approach. His khat chewing pauses. He nudges the One-Armed Man, your target, whose tired eyes reluctantly dislodge from the roulette wheel’s rotation.

The One-Armed Man’s grimace morphs to a smile. Then to a frown of confusion. Emotions pop on his face with every bounce of the pill, dancing across numbers, dates, attempting to recollect where he’s seen you before. But before the pill settles, it jumps, bouncing with an unnatural force, as if a space-time pull has taken it away from the Black and onto the Red.

The man fixates on the blood-coated mare, her drink already finished, stopped in her tracks and sharing a look of mutual recognition. Then on the diamond of white on her décolletage, bar code and coat-of-arms on display, puffed up from her constricting corset. Beneath her flowing curls, she’s almost unrecognizable. Too gingered to have a worthwhile past. And in the informal suit jacket and neo-cashmere combination, the One-Armed Man’s just another gaudy visitor. One on borrowed time, spending money he shouldn’t, lost in the foreign luxuries of safety and sobriety, always fleeting.

He recognizes her, places her in memory's tapestry. From the digital bulletins and privateer papers. Bloodshot eyes on an oblong face, worth almost as much dead as alive. Like most everyone else on the First Floor.

But also from sub-orbit. A memory his alone. From when his freighter was pulled to the desert surface of Salaam, his trading vessel hit by a surprise raid, fortunes lost.

It’s the mare that took his arm.