Vanished Read online

  Not too full, like you felt after a Christmas dinner with all the fixings, though. Just perfectly satisfied, like she would never need to eat again.

  And at that point, the disk on her tongue melted away to nothingness, leaving a light, minty aftertaste in her mouth like a faint reminder of where it had been.

  “Oh…” Harper’s eyelids fluttered open. She’d closed them somewhere around the time her Grams’ banana pudding had made its appearance, the better to savor everything. Now she looked with new appreciation at the bathing attendant. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “That was lovely—absolutely lovely.”

  “You are very welcome, Empress.” The bathing attendant bowed her head in acknowledgement. “And now, perhaps you’d like to see our selection of sexual attendants?”

  “Oh, um…” Harper began as Shad took a step forward to protest. But neither of them got to finish what they were going to say.

  “Of course she wants to see the attendants. I do too, for that matter,” a strident female voice exclaimed.

  Harper turned to see an exotic-looking woman striding towards them. She was definitely plus-sized—even more so than Harper—and she had pale gray skin with a silvery, metallic tint to it. Even stranger, she was wearing a silver dress that appeared to be made out of large, overlapping scales.

  It was difficult to see where the gown ended and her skin began but there was no doubt about her hair—it was a bright, brassy copper-gold which stuck up from her head in a long fringe—like a Mohawk haircut allowed to grow out until it was too floppy to quite stand up on its own. Her ears had multiple piercings with precious jewels from her ear lobes all the around the curving cup of the ear itself.

  To Harper, this woman looked like a force to be reckoned with.

  “Greetings!” she said, striding up to Harper with a bold grin. “You must be new to the Baths—I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before and believe me I’m here all the time.”

  “Oh, Lady Marlbussen,” the bathing attendant exclaimed nervously. “I’m so sorry no one told you but this lady is the Empress Kyreella of Gobesh Prime of the Chavesh-Hie System and she’s here for a private bathing session before she sees the Goddess.”

  “Private, huh?” Lady Marlbussen laughed as though that was a good joke. “Well I’m afraid nothing’s private with me around, hon,” she said, winking at Harper. “Like I said, I’m here all the time—mostly because I’m richer than the Goddess herself. They can’t keep you out when you’ve got money, right?” She winked broadly and laughed again.

  In any other situation, Harper might have found the loud, confident woman irritating. But somehow the twinkle in Lady Marlbussen’s silver eyes and the joking tone of her rather husky voice made her smile instead of feeling aggravated.

  “I…guess not,” she said hesitantly, unsure how to take the other woman’s joking comment.

  “It also helps that I actually built these baths,” she continued. “Just another reason they let me have the run of the place and can’t kick me out.”

  “You did?” Harper asked, surprised.

  “Oh yeah, hon!” Lady Marlbussen nodded vigorously. “See, people—supplicants they call them—kept coming up here to see the Goddess and getting the wrong things fixed! Because she fixes the most pressing wrong thing in your life that she feels, you know?”

  “Does she?” Harper said.

  “Of course! So if you go up there with your tummy rumbling or if you’re horny out of your mind, well—that’s what she fixes. Not whatever other existential crisis is going on in your life.” She shrugged her plump, silver-toned shoulders. “She’s very practical like that. She Who Alters just fixes the most immediate thing that needs fixing.”

  “Oh—well now the flavor disks and everything else makes sense,” Harper exclaimed.

  “Do you like the disks?” Lady Marlbussen asked, grinning. “I have them specially made for the Baths. They cost twenty thousand credits apiece but of course you don’t care about money—or else you’ve got a lot of it to burn.” She laughed her forthright bray of a laugh. “There’s no other way that dried up old stick of a social secretary would let you in the front door—let alone grant you a private session. Right?”

  “Exactly, Lady Marlbussen,” the bathing attendant said, attempting to jump into the conversation again. “And since the Empress is having a private session, maybe you could just come back at a later time or—”

  “I don’t mind,” Harper said, smiling at the plump silver-skinned Lady Marlbussen. “She can stay.” She tilted her head at the other woman questioningly. “Maybe you can show me how things work here?”

  “Sure, hon—I’d love to!” The other woman grinned. “Now, the first thing you’ve got to do is to get yourself just the right sexual attendant. A male who can make you sa-tis-fied.” She snapped her fingers at the bathing attendant. “Go on—get them all lined up in the Choosing Room, sweetie.”

  “Yes, Lady Marlbussen!”

  And before Harper could protest, the attendant had already scampered off down the dark hallway behind the silver counter.

  “She’ll whip them into shape for us,” Lady Marlbussen said confidingly to Harper. “Then you can have pick of the litter. I’ll choose last.”

  “That’s very kind of you but I actually already have a, uh, sexual attendant.” Harper nodded at Shad who looked like he was coming to a slow simmer of irritation.

  “Do you now?” For the first time, Lady Marlbussen turned to look Shad over with a critical eye. “Hmm…not bad at all for one of the lower orders,” she murmured.

  “What? Lower orders? What does that mean?” Harper asked uncertainly.

  “Don’t you have orders of males on your planet?” Lady Marlbussen asked. “We do here. The higher orders are generally smaller but much more intelligent. If you want to have a child fathered, that’s the kind you’d choose. The lower orders are bigger but unfortunately on the dim side. Still, there’s something to be said for size…” She eyed Shad and ran the tip of her tongue over her silver lips.

  “Size isn’t linked to intelligence where I come from,” Harper said. “And Shad here is actually my bodyguard and my, uh, sexual attendant.”

  “Is he?” Lady Marlbussen seemed surprised. “Making him do double duty, eh? Well, just because you already have one sexual attendant doesn’t mean you can’t have two. In fact, I think I’ll take two myself. Follow me.”

  She walked around the silver counter as though she owned the place—maybe she did—and beckoned Harper to follow her. Feeling helpless, Harper did so. After all, she’d asked the other woman to show her how things worked at the Cleansing Baths so she could hardly decline her invitation to follow.

  Lady Marlbussen led her and Shad along a dark, echoing corridor until they came to a rounded doorway. She rapped twice and shouted, “They’d better be ready!” before opening the door and striding confidently inside.

  Harper followed and what she saw made her catch her breath.

  There were about fifteen males lined up in order of size standing in a row in the long, tiled room. The shortest, at the far end, only came up to her elbow but he had a sharp, intelligent look on his face. The largest, all the way at the other end of the row, was a foot taller than Shad. He had a vacant expression on his blunted features and his movements were slow when he turned his head to stare at Harper.

  All of the males were stark naked—it was the largest collection of male equipment Harper had seen since her friend, Emile, convinced her to watch gay porn with him. (It had not been her cup of tea.)

  And speaking of naked, that was exactly how Harper felt in her fringe dress.

  Oh my God—so much for nobody but other women and Shad seeing me in this dress! she thought, feeling a blush of shame creep into her cheeks. Quickly, she wrapped the cloak of thorns more tightly around herself but it wasn’t quite large enough to close in the front so she still felt exposed.

  “Now then…” Lady Marlbussen was already striding up and d