Love, Inc.

Magnolia burst into Zem’s hotel room at Bombay. “Have you changed my plans for the Grand?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

She bore down on him across enough lush carpeting to cover a fairway. If Zem should take a notion to tee off inside Bombay’s Ganesh Suite, all he’d need was a caddy and a five iron. “You know you’ve put them months behind,” she burst out when she reached his couch.

He was watching television, a new habit that particularly drove her mad. Not that she minded having something else around to amuse him, besides her. The TV and its hosts and actors provided a very useful divine babysitting service, as far as Magnolia was concerned. But when she wanted his attention these days, she had trouble disengaging him from leering at beach babes, or scoffing at game shows.

“They were almost finished with the Temple of Small Coin,” she raged on at him. “It was going to fit beautifully into their new low-limit slot area. Now they’ve had to start all over. What the hell’s going on?”

Zem paused as he flipped among fifty channels faster than she could focus. He looked her over, and raised his eyebrows milding. “What’s wrong with you?”

He didn’t really care, she knew. She walked around and joined him on the couch. “Oh, nothing,” she rolled her eyes. She’d given up all but an hour or two of sleep a night, these past months. She’d hustled endlessly from City Hall to architects’ offices to every boardroom in every hotel in Southern Nevada, over and over, to complete the rebuilding plans. And she’d successfully kept the city running and kept the press from uncovering the Great Zem Plan, to boot. But then, apparently, last week sometime, Zem had wandered oh-so-casually into the office of Skip Thompson, CEO of the Grand Hotel. And, over coffee or shots or whatever afternoon indulgence Skip favored, he’d mentioned some regrets about the relatively unglamourous attraction the Grand had drawn in Magnolia’s scheme.

“What are you thinking?” she demanded now.

“It’s Venus,” he shrugged. “Now, look at that,” he waved a hand at the screen. “All that purple goo dumps on the kid’s head because he couldn’t hit the target, but is it acid? Is it heated oil? No, it’s just melted jelly, or something. Who cares?” He shook his head in disgust. “These human game shows are so disappointing. If the losers don’t die at the end, what’s the point?”

Magnolia considered his profile. If Zem hosted a game show, she thought, we could offer real prizes: life or death, irreversible transformations if contestants displeased him, rewards beyond human imagining... Not to mention that Zem’s smooth smiles and cunning glances to the camera would seduce the masses– whatever masses were left that hadn’t already succumbed to his promises of well-being and reassurance.

She blinked, filed the notion under “Things to Do: 2005" folded her arms across her chest, and waited for a commercial break.

“What about Venus?” Magnolia asked in an opportune moment. Zem, luckily, had no interest in cleanser ads.

“We can’t ignore her,” Zem said.

“We can’t?” she asked rhetorically. Magnolia had heard of Honoré’s new wonder girl. Of course she’d heard. All Vegas was gossiping about her. She was the hottest thing on the Strip since… well, since the Strip itself. The eternal Streisand was having some trouble trumping her in terms of New Year’s Eve ticket sales, and word was the recording diva was not happy about that.

She looked down at the sketches she was holding, and uncrumpled them slightly. She’d snatched them off Skip’s desk and stormed directly over here, her posse straggling in her wake.

“We never thought of impotence,” Zem commented. He grinned at her. The commercials reflected against the corners of his eyes. “It’s perfect. With Venus? The Goddess of Love?” His grin widened and turned into a leer, and he winked at her like a greasy conventioneer in a two-bit suit looking for a cheap whore to bring his Vegas fantasy to complete fulfillment. “I bet there’ll be balding fat men lined up for miles to see her.”

Magnolia swore there were actually glints in his pupils, somewhere behind the reflected TV images. Tiny, mocking lightning flashes. “Hm,” she said. She looked again at the plans. And she let her imagination go to work.

A gigantic shaft plunged through the Grand’s casino ceiling, extending five floors up and down. It required an atrium, with viewing balconies on every level. From the gaming tables, it would merely be a column. But when one stood beneath it, looking up, when the whole affair became visible, especially that cap thing on top…

Magnolia laughed in spite of herself. “And what is Venus supposed to do?” she asked. She couldn’t be the real Goddess of Love, could she? “What will constitute the cure? Or the ceremony, for that matter? Are you planning on an endless orgy? Or something more private—”

“Oh, orgies all around, definitely,” Zem said. “I think we should sell tickets, and make the poor buggers perform with Venus for the public. Or with each other, maybe, if she’s busy. One sex act and they’ll be cured, of course, no matter what their problem is. Psychological, biological— I’ll guarantee they’ll function from that moment. And along the way they’ll get a shot at the most desirable woman who ever graced the earth. A little audience is a small price to pay,” he shrugged.

“What about Venus, herself? Won’t she mind the crowd?”

He settled himself deeper into his couch. “Get me more of these grapes, will you?” he said.

“Hm,” Magnolia said pensively.

Venus in Las Vegas? The real, true Goddess of Love, embodiment of desire, making a living as a showgirl? It was far too silly to consider.

But then, as Magnolia stood behind Zem’s chair and listened to him shout answers about historical wars and great disasters at game show contestants, she reflected that silliness was relative. She pursed her lips and made a note on the sketches, then rolled them up and left the suite. Zem never noticed.

Perhaps the time had come to check in with her old boss and unacknowledged parent, Miss Honoré Jerques, she decided.

NEXT POST: BACKSTAGE FANTASY (Friday 12/4)