Rosewater violates your sinuses. It’s lightly salted, meant for rejuvenation. Steam wafts from atop the pools, this one filled with tattooed Yakuza, their dual arms filled with stylized samurai and chrysanthemums, discussing gangland activities between huffs of aerosolized opium. The Tenth Floor’s spas are unoccupied at this hour.

“There’s ten on the floor,” Charlie remarks. “Get it?”

Rosewater for the gangsters. Decadent, like the one filled with freshly-transported merlot grapes unfit for consumption. Then mineral pools. Piped from below the planet’s crust, from frigid to tepid to caldus, marble floor scorching, boiling its occupants. One more for mud, the clay pit heated with indoor lamps that simulate a savannah, across another for steam, the sauna still full of droopy-eyed occupants. Another for fish pedicures, attractive to ungulatic and equine visitors. A ninth area but a collection of individual tubs, organized by square-meter, partitioned off with well-carved marble, cubicles of privacy etched with Romanesque motifs of francisque axes and playing cards.

The last, the one before you, is thalassotheraputic. Filled with seawater. Ported by hand from the calm seas, overloaded with salt for efficacy’s sake. Its surface tension thick enough to float each occupant with ease.

Languidly, a glass floats by. Its gyroscopically sound. The chartreuse and grenadine concoction is completely vertical, soiled nonetheless with careless splashes of saltwater.

But at this hour, this bath is nearly deserted. Sure, two stooges sit in the corner, cigars stinking up the room, but only their legs rest in the water, bobbing up to the surface without conscious effort to submerge them. The only real occupant is the woman floating on her back, eyes closed, nearly unconscious, enjoying the heat lamps that hang from the ceiling, installed between the painted reliefs of illustrious capos, founding fathers of Fontvieille posing between arguments concerning kickback percentages.

Your arrival is unnoticed by the floating anthropomorph. She’s an orange feline. Mid-height, svelte build, all natural. Clad in a one-piece. Shoulder-fastened, hand-made like everything else in the Casino, horizontal blue-and-white stripes matching the swim cap at her head, through which pokes twin ears. A modern outfit, the cutting edge of fashion in the Punta del Muso.

She’s comatose, uncaring of your entrance, pickling in silence like a washed-up corpse.

Charlie takes the initiative, squatting at the pool’s edge, reaching for the drink at the waterline. A shrill mewl fills the room as his fingers scrape the glass’s rim.

“Hey! What’s the big idea?” She springs to life. “Chahlie? Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“How’d you guess?”

“You kidding? I’d recognize the sound of those empty pockets anywhere,” she pouts, stealing back her glass.

“Big assumption, Duchesse.”

“Not when you’re out playing craps all night. You’re lucky you haven’t been bagged with how bad you play,” she teases.

She slurps at her drink, downing half of it in a single go. Her vertical pupils scan your outfit. She’s unimpressed, contorting her whiskers at the both of you, your linen jackets thrown over your shoulders.

“Now how could I forget? Dutchie, this is–”

“Wait!” she shrieks. “Don’t you dare tell me.” She snaps her fingers in confusion, glass rim rattling against her gleaming fangs, attempting to jog her memory as the candied red liquid sneaks past her lips. “Mister La-Floor, right?”

“Great guess,” Charlie jokes.

“But ain’t there supposed to be two of you? A doll of yours too?”

“She’s off elsewhere,” you reply. At the base of your spine, you feel Ø cradle two martinis. Both for her consumption, you assume. “Doing her own thing.”

“Keeps herself busy? I like that,” the cat smiles. “Chahlie tell you who I am?”

“And rob you the opportunity? You’d maul me.”

“I’d do worse,” she jokes, fangs on display with levity. “Name’s Duchess. I’m the Duchesse of the Tenth Floor. Duchesse Duchess, you can’t forget it. Nice to meet you. And don’t worry nothing about the honor-reefics. Call me Dutchie.”

She reaches up to you for a handshake. The same masculine, traditional Echelon greeting. Her paw pads hold crystallized salt, evaporated, stuck in her fur, dehydrating your skin on contact.

“A handshake,” you remark, unable to hold back your curiosity.

“Well, you’re one of Chahlie’s boys, right?”

“No,” you contend, wondering who would fit that category at all. “But your accent, too. It’s Echelon.”

“Oh, no. It’s Fontvieille,” she chides. “Old Fontvieille. A junket family dialect. From way back, before The Flush,” she points to the ceiling, where two gangsters in pinstripe suits gesticulate. Cherubs enrapture the shakedown scene, carrying grape vines, flanked by angels wielding baccarat pallets. One gangster holds a scale, perfectly weighted, never loaded. The other reveals a treaty, the Casino’s founding myth, the scroll proudly claiming ‘fuhgeddaboudit’ in stylized Imperial hieroglyphics, among other cultural phrases exclusive to the Tenth Floor. “Don’t worry, I’m Casino born and bred. But, hey,” she smirks, “you’ve got some stones for asking. Chahlie, you sure he’s not one of your boys?”

“You think I’d have a pirate on my crew?” He laughs. “No offense, I mean.”

“Yeah, you don’t mean no offense,” she chides. “But maybe you should start thinking that over. I read the file on this one, and he seems like a good friend to have.”

“So, you got to read my file?” you ask.

“Shucks, I forgot you’re new around here. I apologize, I shouldn’t be so blunt about it. Not really polite, is it?” she shrugs.

“I don’t care,” you say with honesty, your innermost privacy already violated on a regular basis by a certain mare. Two empty martini glasses hang at her fingers.

“Attaboy,” Charlie commends, removing his loafers, rolling up his slacks for a dip.

“I just want to know what’s in it,” you continue. “The attendant of ours wasn’t too helpful.”

“Well who’d you get?”

“Fervidora.”

“The chooch? Well she shouldn’t have been too helpful if her collar was working. You probably figured out about the translators here,” she pantomimes towards her own neck, where none rests, only a collection of pearls, worth more than five Zelmire’s in formation. “That’s why I don’t wear one.”

“She just can’t keep quiet,” Charlie chirps to her growl, “but I’m sure the whole Casino is thankful.”

“But my file?”

“It says who you are. Eye color. Suit preference. Employer. Like how you’re with—don’t tell me, I should know this one,” she hands the empty glass to Charlie for another drink, nearly walking along the salinized water’s surface. “Republic of Barataria, right? Privateers for them, at least.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“And if that’s not real—”

“Then it’s not real! Not that big a deal. Nobody shows up waving around their real identity. Chahlie didn’t, that’s for sure. You know, I’ve probably got an amended file waiting for me in my suite upstairs, with your real name, shoe size, drink of choice, whatever you’d want to know about yourself,” she muses. “So come on up if you want to get to know yourself, or that girlie of yours.”

“She’d have the answers if she wasn’t off-duty,” Charlie jokes, returning from the auto-bartender, the cat’s grenadine replenished.

“Sometimes I take a break, so sue me. And let me amend that,” she screeches, finger in the air, delivering a royal proclamation between guzzles, “don’t come to my estate on the Fourteenth Floor. I’m perfectly content discussing all this down here, in my dez-mez-knee, away from my chambers.”

“Why?” you pry, stuck with no answers, sweating at your brow from the pool’s heat.

“Gilded cage,” Charlie tut-tuts. “She’s got no translator down here. And no sensors, neither.”

“Hey,” she yowls, “that’s a secret!”

“You already told him about his file, what’s the harm?”

“There’s no sensors?” you ask.

“Chahlie’s right. There’s nothing here on the Tenth Floor that really tracks you. No bugs in the rooms, no sensors in the mud bath, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…”

“She had them removed,” Charlie gloats.

“No I didn’t. There ain’t never been any on the Tenth Floor. Tradition, or something. House rules. I don’t know, history ain’t my strong suit,” she’s already finished her drink. She’s languid and covered in salt, reeking of liquor, a floating shot glass, “but it’s why I’m down here, at least. Sweet freedom. You know how uncomfortable those translators are? They kill your pelt, too, chafes the fur right off.”

“Just one of those Fontvieille funnies,” Charlie laughs. “They always keep you guessing here. Part of the allure.”

“Like the whole, ‘no guns’ thing, right?” you laugh.

A stem breaks. The cat’s thrown her glass against the perfect tile, the thin squiggle of orange peel cooking against the floor. She’s on the edge of the pool, pointing towards you. Eyes wide, fangs bared, prusten rolling, ears flat against her swim cap. Snarling, like you’ve stepped on her tail.

“Don’t joke. I’m telling you once, no joking. I don’t want to hear nothin’ about the dis-stabilizing,” she growls with an aristocrat’s inebriated anger, commanding respect at the outset. “You’ll learn. You’ll be here, playing craps with Chahlie, and when you throw two dice, only one’ll hit the table. Your suite’ll be twice the size it was when you left for the bar. Then, when you wake up, half the size it was originally,” she spits, her anger creating waves across the water’s surface, “It ain’t just a cartridge going off, a grenade ruining a suitcase, or a quick slot-machine issue to repair. That black hole changes things. Ever notice why there’s no mirrors here? Don’t look in one. Today it’ll be normal. But you stay here a while, like one of Chahlie’s boys, it won’t be you looking back. And, when you in-every-bit-a-bly do look in a mirror anyways, just remember that guy looking back at you will know that you didn’t listen. That you didn’t take my advice with the respect it deserves.”

Her final position is at your level. Standing, striped swimsuit dripping, paws with filed claws. A single index finger pokes into your sternum, threatening to send you backwards, through the wall, into the clutch of politicians relaxing within the sauna. Her vertical pupils look you up and down before she smiles once more, content with her intimidation. A paw pats against your chest, signaling that her outburst is finished, for now.

“Like I said, Chahlie. The stones on this one. Could be a good fit for you.”

“Maybe,” he smirks, tossing the feline her towel. “Maybe not. Don’t even know his taste in girls.”

“Well,” you choke, regaining your motor skills. “You will. Soon, I think.”

“What’s she look like?” Charlie pries.

In response, you gesture behind you, to the mare in the doorway. Lurking in the shadow of the entrance. Her frame is off-kilter. Somewhere between sober and black-out, riding the waves like the two halves of the cat’s broken wine glass.

“She looks like that guy over there?” He whispers. Duchess would berate him, you assume, were she not already halfway to Ø, rapidly closing the gap.

“This dress,” she squeals with joy, “this is a Baronne Bernard, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” the mare replies. She’s more focused on you. Glaring daggers. Cigarette-less scowl firing off a litany of abuse into your skill for some unknown reason.

“That’s the Duchesse,” you shout preemptively curtail any violence. “Duchesse of this floor! But her name is Duchess, too!”

“I know who she is!” she shouts across the baths, disturbing the half-sleeping occupants.

“She’s done an amazing job. Just amazing,” the cat continues, investigating the dress’s perfect embroidery. “Not everyone appreciates her work, you know. Is this your only one?”

“Got a whole wardrobe full,” Charlie interjects, the two of you meeting the girls near the exit, gesturing back to you. “That’s what I was told, at least.”

“A whole wardrobe?” she gasps.

“Wasn’t in the file?” Charlie chides.

“Not that edition,” she hisses. “Oh, would you mind showing me? I’d love to see what style she’s spinning for this season.”

“No,” your mare wants to growl. “Not on your life.”

It rattles around her oblong skull, bubbling like her sparkling wines, smooth like the straight liquor. It snakes into yours. It’s a litany of bullying. Threats. Fear, almost, as she berates your pair of new friends.

You think of the past month, of the thinly-veiled insults and sweeping accusations of incompetence. And of the pleasant conversations you've had this evening—without the mare. In spite of your continued mental partnership. So it’s with spite that you smile, ignoring the gladiatrix in the defining moment. You pat atop Charlie’s shoulder, nodding.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Well that’s what I was hoping,” Duchess smirks. “I mean, you two’ve got the best view on the floor!”

“Of what?” you ask.

“It’s the one you requested! ‘Of what,’ this guy,” she laughs. “You don’t remember? Of the sunrise!”

---

A cycle of your life. Gone, just like that. Transitory, filled with expensed alcohol. Compared to Ø, you’re practically sober, but upon seeing the digital copy of the evening’s receipt, the one flashing from the bedside console, you nearly vomit.

Partly from the alcohol, having a delayed effect. Partly from stress, wondering how long the “Republic” will fund these shenanigans of yours. Mostly, however, from the mare’s haranguing.

She’s got you cornered. Both of her palms plant against the wall, your two guests lingering on the balcony, awaiting your return with armfuls of designer clothing for comparison. She stares down at you, eyelids stapled open, brow furrowed, transmitting her anger in a steady stream of derogatory remarks.

“How do you know him?” she interrogates. It’s her first question not buttressed with profanity.

“We were drinking in the lounge. This guy got black-bagged by the Casino, and we started talking. He’s just some guy.”

“Just some guy?” she wants to shout, loud enough to wake the whole floor.

“Yeah,” you hiss in return. “Maybe a gangster judging by the suit. But just some guy.”

“That’s not just some guy,” she emphasizes her point with two hands. She wrings your collar. Reflexively, you flinch, but from previous experience, you relax within seconds. Just her way of communication when drinking, you cope. “That’s Society Charlie.”

“Who?”

“Society Charlie,” she repeats herself. “Society Charlie,” as if that means anything to you.

With a frustrated groan comes her memories. Headlines of heists. Trillion-credit knock-overs leaving entire syndicates penniless. He’s a confidence trickster, allegedly. Charming, somewhere between ugly and handsome, perfectly ignorable and easily forgettable. A criminal on the run, judging by his stay in Fontvieille and the hundreds of bounties on his person. Most importantly, he’s milling around the drawing room, investigating Ø’s armory. With your blessing, of course, your latest diplomatic gesture of hospitality.

“Okay, so he’s not just some guy, sure,” you admit. “But he’s one of us.”

“Criminals?”

“What? No,” you argue, slightly insulted at the label that’s so generously applied to you. “He’s working with the guy that gives us jobs. He’s our contact here.”

“Here? This is a payment. They didn’t give us cash, so they gave us a vacation. Comped clothes, booze,” she fires back. “If they wanted to give us a job, they’d just give it to us. That donkey would have slid it to us with the bottles. Or the tailor would’ve embroidered it into your pantleg before smacking you over the head with it.”

“You’re wrong,” you say for the first time in your relationship. “I know what a job looks like. We wouldn’t have a Duchesse in here if this wasn’t supposed to be happening.”

“A Duchesse of a hotel’s floor,” she scolds. “At this rate, I’m the Queen of the Bar. You, King of Stupid.”

“Luckily you’re not, even though you’re almost there. But unless you want to get black-bagged with that stooge I saw, you’ll run with this. It’s not like they’ll stay forever, but for now, they’re out there waiting on us.”

Her scowl gets worse, nickering with the same annoyance you normally feel, increased by the alcohol running through her veins. But she knows you’re right, having successfully brought the problem to your shared doorstep.

“Fine,” she concedes, baring her teeth with insolence, unable to fight your suggestion for long, “I’ll play nice tonight. But after this, they’re gone. You may not know when you’re dealing with the wrong people, but I do.”

“Trust me, I do. Every day, I do,” you complain.

Her new litany of insults is cut short.

“Hey you two,” a familiar masculine voice shouts from behind the closed doors, “you’re going to miss it!”

“Staying up all night and missing the sunrise?” the cat yowls. “Beginner’s mistake!”

The mare’s stony demeanor is hostile as she stares over her shoulder at the doors, tail anxiously flickering. Her dress is sullied with sticky alcohol. Circles draw beneath her eyes. Somewhere, with time, you know an angry yawn will appear, her whole body exhausted, nearly spent from the ordeal of a night atop the Punta del Muso.

But, at the Duchesse’s call, she perks up. Her ears stand at attention, body relaxing, reluctantly following your suggestion of hospitality. The cat mewls, “Get out here, you two lovebirds,” the two guests laugh in tandem, “and have something to drink, already!”