Like a Wisp of Steam by Thomas Roche (best reads of all time txt) 📕

"Or we find a new Innocent."

Chel shrugged. "We always do, sooner or later. Funny, we keep getting older, but the Innocents stay the same age."

"It'd be a little easier if we could look at more people. Not just fresh-faced tiny girls."

"You mean like your Miss Alwyx?" Chel chuckled. "If somebody tried to ravish her, she'd just roll over and crush him to death. Better find another pretty face and tiny waist."

"She's a member of my company, nothing more." He changed the subject. "If we can't find a new part for Miss Dyr, what shall she do?"

Below them, Miss Dyr turned away from her groom and presented herself with lowered eyes to the Prince.

"Oh, she'll land on her feet, be some rich man's wife or mistress."

"And if she can't squeeze an annuity out of him?"

"She can work in a dress shop or something. Either way, the little harpy won't be our problem anymore."

The moment the Prince laid a hand on her, Miss Dyr broke down sobbing.

"They come in, and a few years later they go out again, and what do they have to show for it?"

Chel smirked. "Ricar, it is rather late to bite the hand that has fed us, and quite well, all these years."

"What about you, then?" He couldn't help noticing the lines around her eyes, how thin her neck had become. On stage, with the right makeup and costume, no one would notice, but in the assignation rooms.... Then again, he hadn't been called to play the Rake or Prince in a few years either.

"Even a magnificent bitch like me can't play the Fatale forever," Chel said. "Then it's the Pedant and the Matron, and then ... well, I can still direct, design, choreograph. I shall manage."

Suddenly tired, Ricar started to stand up.

"Where are you going? It's not finished." Chel pointed down to where the Innocent had paralyzed the Prince with conflicting emotions.

"We did the exact same scenario twenty years ago, remember?" He sat down again.

"Oh, right. My very brief stint as the Innocent. Somebody threw eggs at me."

He finally said something that had been running through his mind for some time, even before he met Miss Alwyx.

"Maybe if we tried some new scenarios, new roles, instead of our same old things?"

After a moment, Chel said, "The punters won't go for it."

"You mean they don't want to see anything new, or you don't want to try anything new?"

Chel dodged the question. "Do you want to risk our ticket sales and our assignation fees? I don't. And I know Davis won't. You don't know what it took to get him to let me produce some afternoon shows."

"I admire what you've done with those. That bit with the gauze cocoon, very innovative...."

"Well, tell the punters that. They seem to be in agreement with Davis. Classics, classics, classics."

"You mean, clichés, clichés, clichés."

* * * *

The emergency bell still jangled as Ricar hurried into assignation room twelve. His eyes immediately went to Miss Alwyx, instead of the client. Apparently unharmed, she sat on the animal-print bed in a Beast costume, dejectedly holding the headdress in her lap. The client, dressed in his own Hunter costume, paced angrily back and forth on the grass-patterned carpet. A tangled clump of ropes and straps lay on the floor between them. "Is there a problem, sir?" Ricar asked.

"That," the client said, jabbing a finger at Miss Alwyx, "is the problem. The most pathetic excuse for a Beast I have ever seen."

"Sir, I—"

"I expect a proper Beast from your establishment, with some serious fight in her. If I wanted a simpering little Innocent under me, I'd have ordered one."

"I was trying to—" she began.

"Miss Alwyx, please wait for me outside," Ricar said. She got up, apparently struggling not to cry, and left the room through the player's entrance.

"Sir," Ricar lied, "we've had many problems with that player. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. She will be sacked immediately."

That mollified the man somewhat.

"If you'll go and see our house manager, sir, he'll discuss the matter with you." He'll also discuss your sizable unpaidbill, Ricar did not say.

Ricar escorted the man, still grumbling, out of the room to the hall and pointed him at Davis' office, then went back through the assignation room to the player's corridor where Miss Alwyx waited.

"Are you quite all right?" He almost put a hand on her upper arm, but thought better of it.

"I'm fine. He didn't hurt me, just yelled at me until I pulled the bell cord."

"What happened?"

"I saw this circus show once, where the lioness would sit in the tamer's lap and purr. I thought he'd like that in my Beast."

"There's always a degree of menace in the Beast," he told her. "The taming can never be complete."

"Please forgive me, sir. I still have a lot to learn here and I want to do my best," she said.

He turned to her sharply, thinking she had said that in mockery of the Innocent, but she looked back at him without guile or even irony.

They stepped aside to allow a trio of Pets to scamper by on their way to an assignation room. Ricar pondered what to do.

He had seen Davis's meticulous records of each player's performance. There was no denying that Miss Alwyx ranked near the bottom of the company in both total assignations and gross assignation fees. Many customers found her size appealing and requested her as a Fatale or Beast or Harlot, but she didn't develop the essential repeat business. And money had to be tight for her without supplementing her salary with assignation fees.

Yet ... she never missed rehearsals or curtain calls, gamely took any role assigned to her, and performed exceptionally in Chel's training sessions. There were far more troublesome and less talented players in the company.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," Ricar said. "Certain people enjoy complaining for their own sake."

"Maybe we should do a special three-hand act," she said.

"Customer, Player, and Manager." They both