Grand Entrances and Arrivals

Sphinx noticed some rustling among the grasses in his mini-marsh. He watched. It could have been a movement made by a small child who had snuck through the railings and was making secret pathways, sneaking up on its parents and the other tourists and the Sphinx, himself. Or, it could have been some animal, a stray dog, maybe, although those were hardly ever seen on the Strip. Or it could have been–

Venus. She raised herself and smiled at Sphinx, happy to be recognized and even more pleased that her entrance had been effective. She was holding something, and waved it at Sphinx. A tattered piece of paper.

“Sphinx! I’m going to be a showgirl,” she announced.

Sphinx pondered that while Venus stepped nimbly among the last few grasses and up to the platform where the monolith’s front paw lay immobile. She spread the page out, smoothing it. “What do you mean?” Sphinx asked then, unable to make sense of it.

“The biggest show in town needs dancers. I’m going to become the greatest star in the world,” the goddess sighed luxuriously. She stretched, reveling as the air touched her along her sides and cheeks. “They’re going to love me. And when Zem sees that–” she licked her lips and tossed her hair, eschewing mere words.

The monolith was still wondering how Venus had seen a newspaper. She’d never given any indication she knew such things existed. And she’d certainly never bothered with local events. The monolith blinked—theoretically—and refocused. “They love you already. They can’t help it,” he pointed out.

The immoral immortal smiled up. “No, they can’t, can they?” she affirmed. “But now they’ll all see me. If he wants to play his game, I’ll show him that I got here first and this is my place. I belong here.” The smile had left her face as quickly as a wallflower at the prom when the head cheerleader arrives. Nobody watching would have remembered it at all. She took on a look that she hadn’t worn in some time. There was, in her rock-hard expression, something warlike, determined. She could have held a spear and been bloodstained, and that wouldn’t have looked out of place.

“But I thought you and Bugsy had some plan for getting rid of Zem?” he asked.

Venus shrugged. “Maybe.” She raised her hand to her chest and let it play there a moment, stroking. “But why should I just sit around, and let that nasty old man do whatever he wants in the meantime? I’m a goddess, don’t forget. I’m the goddess in this place.”

“You are,” the monolith agreed. “So you’ve decided to show yourself…” he prompted.

“To the whole world,” Venus practically crowed.


Testy Lesbiana and Rachel Ferguson arrived in Manhattan sometime on a summer afternoon, when the sun was shining and the sidewalks were gleaming like fat, white beachgoers who’d lost their way to Coney Island and flung themselves down any old where instead.

“Wow,” Rachel murmured, and then found herself kissing the passenger window as Testy swung around a corner and nearly sideswiped a taxi whose driver shook his fist in Rachel’s face and cursed her unintelligibly. “Sorry!” she cried helplessly. “Testy, could we—” and then the car swung in the other direction and she slid back across the huge expanse of front seat into the drag queen.

“Gimme a little space here, sweetie,” Testy told her, and then leaned out her own window to shout, “Yeah? Well your mother thinks so, too!” at some unseen victim.

“Testy?”

“Yeah, doll? Oh—hang on.” And the bumper car act began all over again. “Welcome to NYC, darlin’. Whaddya want to see first?”

“Uh, Testy?”

“Yeah.” Testy swerved past an ancient crone with a grocery cart and leaned into both the horn and the gas pedal as she sped through an intersection. “God, I’ve missed driving in this city.”

“Fun,” Rachel mumbled. “Uh, what are we doing here, exactly? I mean, we haven’t actually talked about—”

“We gotta track down an old friend of mine, babydoll. But that’ll take awhile, and to be honest, I have no idea where to even start the search. So… let’s have fun for awhile, whaddya say? A little sightseeing? Frivolity? Hanging out with your Auntie Testy and learning the deepest, darkest secrets of the biggest, baddest city in the cosmos? Whaddya say?”

And so their adventures began.

NEXT POST: LILITH SPREADS THE CARDS (Friday 10/30)