Chapter Text
The trouble started with a party. A crate of new age medical cures looted from Bel's stash loosened tongues and turned flailing bodies into noodle-limp meat puppets writhing on couches. The 60s were here, free love and hot new vices in full bloom. So, Bee had broken her own rule to sample one—well, half of one, just to test the effects. She swirled, savoring the full-body tingle for all of five minutes before royal demonic metabolism demanded she replace it with sugar or half a fifth of vodka. Rather than summon a flagon, she kept touring the hive, jumping from knot to knot, stoking conversational fires and goading new meet-ups until she reached the third floor bar, greeting and teasing a knot of a dozen hounds holding seats and swapping stories. She tipped back a double whiskey and saw the trouble through the bottom of her glass. Bold, copperplate branded into a sinewy deltoid, fur shorn buzz-cut short.
“R”
The brute was one of the older boot camp vets, a stocky grey-muzzle she'd seen two dozen times but never gotten to know properly. He caught her stare and toasted her with a frothy ale. “'Eyya Queen. Come ter 'ave a drink?”
“You know it.” She leaned on the bar and clinked glasses. “New tag?”
The Doberman blinked, then caught on, flexing unconsciously. “Not really. Few years old now.”
“R., huh? New gang?” Sometimes new ones cropped up, and it paid to try to keep afloat. Every dog had a scent. The copper tang of Greed guards, the medicinal tingle of Sloth orderlies, the dust of Wrath herders. This one carried a perfume of Pride's brimstone, where territorial tides shifted almost overnight.
“Nah, bigger man.” His smile revealed a bronze fang. “Wardun.”
“Bigger bastard, y'mean,” his companion snorted, licking froth from his golden muzzle. “Red f*ck's been going through us like French fries lately.”
"Cops?" Bee made a face. "They're all picky pricks. Y'all just need to find somethin' else.”
“Ain't that easy, Bee,” Grey-muzzle snorted. “Boss-man asks a lot, but he gives a lot too.”
“And takes too often, if you ask me.” A red-furred fireplug three stools down offered, voice a little too loud. She polished off her drink in two long swallows and the bartender brought her another, unsolicited. Red lifted her pint and crowed. “To Winston!”
“Winston!” The rest echoed and drank.
Bee echoed their cries and sipped from a magically summoned shot. They hoisted drinks in bruised knuckles, muscles rippling beneath new scars. They blinked black eyes and pawed fresh bandages. Someone had put this knot of strays through a meat grinder. Behind her, the hive thumped and pulsed. The atmosphere flexed. Merriment and glee swirled in the atrium, but here, in this secluded bar where hounds often made their home, a rain cloud had formed. If she wasn't careful, it would spoil the mood and taint her honey. These faces were too long for her liking and the booze was flowing too freely. “What's got you guys so blue?”
“Winston's gone.” Red said.
It clicked. Bee's smile faded. The red eyes. Unsteady paws. The emotional blueberry cloud aura dipping toward violet above Red. Not a drunken revelry, but a wake. She racked her brain for a Winston. A regular? The impression was annoyingly vague—average build, a spaniel's thick fringe, a fondness for lockpicking that made him a staple among the rougher crowd. Plenty of shady types slunk down to Gluttony for a free weekend of excess, trading their energies for sweets and drugs at no charge other than they give of their excess to swell her combs with tall tales, careless sex in dark corners, and the high of intoxicants, stimulants, depressants and blow. She swept them with her eyes again and finally noted the stool at the end, distinctly unoccupied in this overcrowded pocket. In a moment of awkward silence, put her drink aside. “He was fun. I'm going to miss him.”
Red—Juno she remembered, too late—tensed. The one beside her, Travis (oh how the names came back, but too little too late) put an arm around her shoulder. They slowly relaxed as Bee plied them with talk and gentle touches and an anecdote or two of her own that lifted ears and loosened tails. In fifteen minutes, the bar's aura rose from navy blue to turquoise. It didn't match the dance floor's topaz explosion, but it was no longer dangerous. She summoned a plate of sweets and left them to their rain cloud. It wasn't always bad. Sometimes a party could offer a quiet place to think and drink and, maybe, find a little solace in camraderie and free vices.
The party welcomed her back, filled her up, lifted her off. She soon forgot the knot of mourners. The honey flowed, fattening her hive. Free entertainment brought flocks of drones from all over Hell. They came with problems and worries to drown in excess, and left, tired, but lighter, buoyed up for another small eternity in sh*t jobs. It wasn't unusual for a little group of transient wallflowers to drift into darker waters from time to time. She put it out of her mind. The rain cloud would be gone by the end of the month.
Except it wasn't. The group gathered again, talking and drinking, sporting new battlefield trophies and bringing their rain cloud. It happened again two weeks later and again a month after that, persistently irregular. New faces drifted in an out, but a rough core of a dozen miscreants kept the bar in good business. They came to celebrate and toast the fallen. Names piled up. Doc, large framed and slow to anger. Then it was Florence, fleet of foot and good behind the wheel. Jonas. Baldur. Orion. Bee ingratiated herself, asking after them, offering sunny anecdotes dredged up from a corner of her memory palace made sticky with honey. The gentle blue rain cloud became a staple, as did the Howlers. Sometimes there were tears or anger, but most often a kind of cozy reflective melancholy that called to the ageless part of Bee that knew about loss. The Howlers swept along, sharing memories and toasts until the group had had their fill. Quite often, they ended the night laughing, and warm enough to join the dance floor, or find a quiet corner to rut. Howler's Haven, as Bee came to think of it, did not ruin the honey, but she could taste its residue in her batch, a bitterness that would spread. A comb that could turn rotten under careless eyes.
Between parties, she tried to keep abreast of Hell's the tides. It wasn't just hounds. Imps and Goblins began carrying it in, too, on jackets heavy with cordite and boot soles caulked with blood. Tiny, gloomy gnats infiltrating a hive made for joy and color. They spoke of unrest in Pride. New feuds and public butcherings in scrambles for power. Gang wars crossing ancient territorial lines as the Borderlands between the Pentagram's six districts waxed and waned on bloody tides seasoned in eldritch fire and shell casings. A scarlet dandy who'd taken over the airwaves with showtunes. A moth gathering Pride's p*rno industry under his thumb. A monster clocksmith slain, only to reappear in Sheol, locking horns with the old blood Mafia hydra of the Five Families. Hell's first nation tightened its iron fist. All the things that made Pride a temperamental cesspool best avoided, second only to Violence, increased.
It made her uneasy. Bee scoured her party goers from atop the glittering disco ball—a new addition, thank you, 1964!—picking out dots of dark blue, or worse, violet among the swirls of joyous golds and happy mandarins and rosy reds. The spores of bad mojo.
Instead of dwelling on it, she belted another song belted from her glittering perch, lifting the party up in a sea of upturned faces that smiled and clapped along. She made her rounds, saw to the Howlers and perched on the second floor railing with a Martini fit for a Viking, watching the crowd sway and trying not to glance into the bar above too often. Company arrived to spoil her thoughts with a scent of lavender, and a strong arm gliding around her waist. “Why so blue, SugarBee?”
“Nothing—just some folks getting down in the bar. I was hoping all this new blow would perk everybody up again. But there's still a few dozen wallflowers who won't light up.”
“It's Hell, babe,” Minerva crooned. She brushed a sturdy blonde braid over one thick shoulder and belted another arm around Bee's waist. “Sometimes you just need a quiet spot to yourself in the noise. I'd have thought you'd be happy? They all still come to you to forget.”
“They do. But these clouds are popping up a lot.” Bee leaned back, curling a pair of arms around her lady's stout neck. “And the orphanages are fuller than they should be.”
Minerva swiveled, running fingers along her Queen's hip. “I've never seen you worry this much. It's just Pride being Pride.”
“A sh*thole?”
“Major league.”
Bee leaned further back to nibbled her lover's jaw. “Not as bad as Greed, though.”
“Depends on who you're working for, and what you have to look forward to in your off time.” Minerva's other hand found one of Bee's and pulled her away from the railing as the music built up. Carmine eyes crinkled at the corners. “C'mon, let's dance.”
Bee nibbled her floppy ear, goaded in spite of herself. Minerva had that effect; solid as a house and just as full at the shoulder and hip. She was a Greed enforcer who came by on weekends to escape her mafia family's collar and days full of black bags, garrote wire, and kneecaps broken in pool halls. Bee had offered more than once to snip that particular leash, but Minerva always refused. Still, she felt the need to try again. “Maybe you should put down the canon, come dance with me full time?”
“Mmmm...no thanks, Bee.”
“Awww, c'mon. I'd make it worth your whiiiiiile.”
Minerva pitched her hips, voice a basso Italian purr between Bee's swiveling ears. “I fought hard to get to where I am, Queen. You'll just have to learn how to keep sharing.”
“That doesn't sound like my Big Greedy Bitch.”
“I'm plenty greedy. Got you all to myself tonight.” She squeezed, full breasts warm against Bee's back, a small mountain who liked bluegrass and tie-dye and had a tongue that wouldn't quit.
“You do.” Bee writhed, running her second pair of hands along her paramour's hips, voice warm and full against the taller woman's neck. “All night long, my big strong boo.”
“And you need to loosen up.” Minerva spun her, and dipped her, moving with deceptive grace for an Amazon who spent her days in a three-piece power suit with a hand canon on one hip, following a mafioso powerhouse looking to usurp a Don.
Bee kissed her temple. Together for six years. How easy that was to forget. They danced and tumbled into bed and f*cked to the jazzy sax of James Brown and the harsher tones of new rock. There was a singular joy in waking curled against a small mountain of alabaster fur. And if Bee's body was still churning through the final dregs of artificial dreams, Gluttony's light would turn that body to tawny gold. Aaron, she'd think, recalling the last sculpted juggernaut who'd kept her bed warm forty years before. Or was it fifty? No, not quite fifty, just yet. She told herself to slow down, to enjoy it. Fast cars and new tech and roller blades and faster cars, faster every decade. And new toys. Dope, shrooms, blow, and acid, all of it drifting in on an endless tide of premium grass and booze in every color of the rainbow. If she wasn't careful, she'd lose Minerva in Hell's fondue, where hound's brief lives dissolved like cotton candy washed in a Deadly Sin's immortal stream.
Dancing with Minerva made it easier to forget or at least push those troublesome storm clouds away. In time, they drifted, submerging in wider seas of reds and gleeful golds. But the taste did not abate. Bee dove into the honey, as if to pull them out and hurl their small poisons into the outer rim. Screening the guests didn't help. And what would be the point? It was only a slight imperfection. A little salt went well with overloaded sugar. And, if the dogs who came in wore long faces and many of the imps bore new scars, well, as Minerva reminded her, such was Hell.
Hell offered new vices too. co*ke and heroin replaced last century's opium. Morphine gave way to acid. The hive ate it all up, the honey flowed. Her empire flourished. And, if the bitterness lingered, well, that was on brand now. Different flavors emerged, too. A touch of rust from Wrath. A sprinkle of Greedy lime. Envy tickled the nose with silver nitrate. Years passed in a tie-dye blur and before she knew it, in the party's swirl and Hell's meat grinder, she awoke one morning to find Minerva was gone for good.
Bee huddled in her penthouse, watching daylight wax and wane between her upraised knees. The turntable swirled to life, killing silence with more blue grass, pitched low. Across the room, her floor-to-ceiling lava lamp bubbled, ripe golden and cyan blobs swelling up to explode against an indifferent steel cap. She drew the bedsheets close, trying to hold onto the scent of lavender before it could fade.
It hadn't been the argument they'd had a few times before, Bee's desire for safety always giving way to Minerva's fierce independence. The pattern that had broken her last dozen relationships had finally skipped. No strained bonds, no fight, no messy breakup. Just a stupid kid who'd panicked behind the wheel on Ransom's freeway during rush hour and t-boned the limo Minerva had been ferrying back to her owner's compound at the end of another long day. It had ended in a three car pile up. He'd walked away with a concussion and a broken arm. Minerva would never stand again. It might have been all right—well, better—if she hadn't bulleted over to Greed to see for herself.
The mess was everywhere, but it was nothing compared to what was inside the limo. Minerva's bodybuilder frame hadn't protected her from being pinned between a twenty ton truck and a concrete pylon. There was nothing left of the woman she'd loved. Just a ruptured furry meat piñata. Bee retreated to Gluttony, riding an emotional mudslide into a bed that felt too cold and too large. One couldn't host while mourning. For a few weeks, there were no parties, only rage and tears and endless excess.
Time became meaningless until Hell intruded. The telephone's jangle pulled her from soupy sleep stolen with too many pills. She fumbled it off the nightstand and threw it across the room. An hour later, company rapped her door, bringing the scent of jasmine-dusted feathers and crushed velvet. “Bee?”
She looked for something else to throw and settled for curling into herself and a bit of Black Speech, pitched to Command. “Go away;.”
“Honey, please, let me in? I'm worried.”
Bee flicked a hand at the front door, but refused to move as the lock clicked. Gargantuan boots crossed shag carpet, skirting piles of TV dinner trays and empty ice cream tubs and pizza boxes adrift in a forest of liquor bottles. Ozzie perched beside her, regal bulk settling atop silk sheets fouled by caramel dried to a brown crust. One huge hand caressed her ears and his shadow cooled her clammy brow. “Hey sugar.”
“Hey Ozz.”
“How bad is it?”
“f*cking abyssal.” Her stomach rolled as she huddled against her headboard, distantly ashamed of her state; drooping wings, chin and throat crusted with three dozen tankards of undiluted beezlejuice leaking honey beside the TV. Christ, she could smell herself baking from the whole bed. “I f*cking hate this place, Ozz.”
“I know, sugar.” He stroked her hair, drawing her close against the surge of his red velvet blazer. “Talk to me?”
Bee closed her eyes, held him, quietly shivered under his hand while he rolled spread fingers across her back. She clutched him in four sticky hands and wept, confessed her desire to rend the stupid teenage sh*thead who'd taken Minerva away. Knowing it had been an accident was no balm. Ozzie listened, commiserated, rocked her and got her into is lap. “I know sugar. It's never fair, is it?” He twined one hand with her sticky mitt. “But I don't think she'd want you hiding away.”
Bee scrubbed her face. “No.” She hiccupped, lifted her upper left hand to wipe her eyes and discovered a lollipop stuck to the elbow. Shame turned her face into a hot brick. “J...Judas, I'm a f*ckin' mess.”
“You got every right to be. But not here. Come on, let's go get you cleaned up.” The King of Lust ushered her downstairs and into a waiting limo. A trip to the spa was in order. They talked, of Minerva and, briefly, of Joel, Ozzie's current squeeze, and how it never got easier, but that they both knew it would get better, as it always did, with time and willing ears and a little help. He washed her hair, cleansed greasy fur and smoothed it with oils. They emerged four hours later tired in spirit but fabulous in body. Bee only remembered the mess waiting at home when they returned to the hive, but entered a penthouse magically scoured of grime.
Bee frowned, swept to the bed and sat on it. With her mourning perfume finally banished, she could smell Minerva's scent puffing up from the sheets. It would fade in time, but at least now she could properly savor it. In time, the glassy ache in her chest would fade. For now, it cut, but that edge would dull, with time and help. She stood on tip-toe to hug him with all four arms. “Thank you, Ozzie.”
“Any time, Bee.” He lifted her up, almost cuddling. “And you call me if you need anything, okay? We gotta have each other's backs.”
Hell remained indifferent to her sorrow. Gluttony had its Queen, and a regal Beezlejuice empire that required honey, and so, at Luci's gentle prodding and a helping hand from Ozzie, she opened her doors again. The rioters poured in. New drones fattened her combs with dreams and joy. In time, she lifted herself up, and was lifted up. New partners paraded through her bed, and though they left her stretched and pleasantly aching after many railings and busy tongues, none of them quite matched Minerva's flame. As Hell changed, her parties did not. And four years after Minerva, Bee awoke to find the second floor bar reeking worse than ever.
A glance at the calendar made her pause. 1971. When had it happened? She tried to think back through the last several months, hunting through business meetings and new brands. The party's soundtrack had turned harsher—more electric guitar, more light shows, bigger hair on the women, sharper suits with ridiculous collars on the men. The disco ball looked bigger, but it went well with a handful of poppers and ludes.
The clean up crew was late. She upended a forgotten bottle of rye, drinking straight from the neck. Stray hairs sweat-glued to the glass turned silver-white in the bar's morning florescent. She stumbled back against the shelf and her beeper tumbled out, skittering under the bar. Bee went to one knee, reaching beneath an abandoned drink cup for it and froze. She'd never seen this dark corner of the hive from a drunk's perch. There were a few pieces of gum stuck to the underside. But there were names, mostly, immortalized in claw strokes invisible to all but the regulars. Years of rotating ghosts carving their odes where only the survivors would remember them. Jonas. Peter. Winston. Loren. Korvo. Beth. Ryan. Quint. Amber. Lizzie. Duke. Far too many more to count.
It made her uneasy. The next weekend, she made a point to plant herself at their bar, waiting until the knot grew to its expected size before pouncing. “Hey, guys. Look, I know this is kinda your spot now. Everybody needs a space to relax.” Bee smiled, a wide, winning flash of teeth, keeping things light. “But, keep it easy on the graffiti, okay?”
The dozen regulars exchanged looks. And, as before, fiery Juno spoke for them, her brand rippling under a rolling shoulder. “Maybe we will if Red loosens his grip a little.”
Creed perked. A flashy mutt fond of fast cars and fast women, he'd taken the seat that had once belonged to Winston. “It ain't been that bad.”
“Easy for you to say, newbie,” Juno snipped, tail lashing. “Wait till after Extermination. Then you can talk.”
A rattle of ice and a hiss of carbonation drew their eyes to the lanky hound who'd spent most of the night serving poison. A sandy-colored lush lounged in the bar's mellow light, eyeing his supplicants from beneath a fringe of bangs that had a tendency to drift into his left eye when he was in his cups. Wax was a tall drink of water, built like an athlete. In a room full of sequined tops and loud leather, Bee had never seen him in anything more relaxed than slacks and a starched shirt rolled to the elbows. Today's bottle green number matched his eyes. “C'mon, J., you're just salty about missing time with your 'boo this week.” He puckered his lips and blew her several air kisses over a freshly-poured rum and co*ke. “And you've been makin' overtime.”
Juno rolled her eyes, flicking a thrice-pierced ear in a flash of golden studs. “Tell that to Jackie.”
“Maybe I will if you bring her next weekend?” Wax rolled his hips. “Do us a little samba on the dance floor?”
“Like to watch, do you?”
“Seeing you two try to dance with three left feet is a riot,” Wax snorted and popped an umbrella into her drink. “C'mon, loosen up. You mutts have to learn to spell before you go carving any more names in the woodwork.”
Juno tossed a co*cktail napkin at him. “Eat my box, Sergeant kiss-ass.”
“If I had a nickel for every time one of you mutts threw that in my face, I could retire.”
Juno's lip quirked, fighting a smile, but her fluffy tail flicked. “You? Retire? I'll believe it when I see you in a Hawaiian shirt. Or jeans.”
The crowd greeted this with a chorus of laughter that lifted the atmosphere of the bar by several hues, making what had threatened to be a navy blue bolthole into a summer-green repast. Juno blew a raspberry at her roaster and offered Bee a crooked grin. “Sure thing, Queen. Things are lookin' up now. The wall's full enough.”
“Aye, we'll 'ave a place o' our own, soon!” cried a girthy mastiff. “Red's a bastard, but 'e gives us wot we're owed, eh!”
There was a general salvo of agreement with this and Bee let it go. They would carve a few more names, like as not, but it was more their corner than hers, now. And it was good to see the gloom-n-doomers happy for once. She snagged a drink from a passing honey and leaped atop the disco ball. Tonight was one for a song!
The anthem swelled the party to a Party. And then another. And another. She began to lose count of the days, then the months. Years rolled by, counted in partners and blow-outs and annual meetings. Hell's empires began to expand as humanity brought new influences that trickled down from Pride. Louder colors, harsher sounds, films that leaned into the ugliness of the big city and the senselessness of wars in countries known only to the pinksins in Luci's playground. 1976 saw the impossible. The fish-tank above her fireplace gave way to a big-screen TV. Cable came with three dozen channels primed for TV dinners—and all-night benders.
She found herself indulging more and more often, testing the limits of new extremes. Often, she ended the night with a dozen or so party goers passed out on various couches, but that's what the new industrial-strength cleaners were for! The atrium rose higher and higher, but no matter how much her hive swelled, she always found room for a song, even if her wings didn't want to work all the time. Bee plummeted off the disco ball and landed in the arms of a hunky incubi with lean shoulders. His surprise at catching her matched hers at being caught. She leaned up and licked the bit of co*ke powdering his nose. “Hey there, cutie. Thanks for helping a girl out.”
“Can't let our Queen crash her own party.” He rolled her in his grip, setting her upright. A sturdy jaw and a runner's build that tensed agreeably under her wandering hands. “I'm Carlos.”
“Carlos,” she purred, enjoying the way it rolled on her tongue. “Bee. Bad habit you got there.”
He lifted slim eyebrows, flashing a billboard smile. “I'm a bad boy.” Definitely a model. They began to talk, and then to dance, a rolling buck that ended with her pulling him up and into the penthouse. She thought, distantly, of Ozzie and wondered if he'd sent a few f*cklings along to warm her bed as Bee was never one to look a gift f*ck in the mouth.
It was a sign of things to come. The Queen of Gluttony bounced between parties and business meetings. Carlos wore a suit more often than his board shorts, but progress and money demanded evenings they might have preferred to spend together. Kisses and dances and massages had to do, and they were both grateful for a little upper. Well, at least Carlos was. After a year on the newer nose candy, Bee switched back to co*ke. It kept her high as a kite and twice as breezy. After a particularly wild night, she walked the dance floor, sweeping up leftover cups (and a few pairs of forgotten panties) and marveled at how high the ceiling had grown in just five years. Or had it been twenty? Surely not. But the Hive was a fortress now. And her swarm had never been better.
She shook out her hair, clapped her hands and went to steal a shower before her next board meeting. Or, at least that was the plan. Carlos was waiting for her, or just soaping his hair. He looked delicious. They eyed each other across the threshold. Bee slid in first. “Hey good lookin'."
“Hey, hot stuff.” He nibbled her jaw. “Room for two?”
“Absolutely.” She curled three arms around him. The fourth went where it wanted to go, coaxing something warm and full until it turned suitably stiff in a palmful of body wash and she could feel his heart racing under her hands. “Aaah-ah-ah. Careful. You don't get to finish until I do. And none of your f*ck-boi pheromones.”
“Like I need them for you,”
“Saucy boy.” Bee squeezed, relishing his arching hips, controlling the pace and pulling his hair when he tried to finish too quickly. The clock on the wall behind her tried to tug her leash. But f*ck it. Hell could wait while she indulged a little. Well, rather more than a little. By the time they finished, panting and slick with spend, a ten minute shower had eaten half an hour. A lunchtime reprieve sacrificed for a little morning fun, but she'd worry about that later.
They dressed and buttoned up for another long day, she in a glittery top, he in a businessman's flawless suit with a ridiculous collar. Not a model, but a mogul, hoping to climb the corporate ladder. It was almost cute. And tailored pants made his ass look great. He slid into an expensive blazer and checked himself in the mirror, only to catch her staring. He flexed, playing the Adonis. “Like what you see?”
“Good enough to eat.”
“Not now—I've got clients waiting.” Yet, he lingered, fiddling his pocket square into the breast pocket, not quite ready to leave despite being squared away to a T. “Give me a little bump for good luck?”
Bee perked and moved in, muzzle lifted for a kiss that was chaster than expected. She blinked, then it clicked. Her sly smile turned wry. “Gonna fly in there at hyper speed, huh?”
Carlos shrugged, flashing his movie-star smile. “It's a cut throat world, hot stuff. Gotta keep up with the competition any way I can.” He reached for her hand and the blob of booger sugar whitening two of her knuckles. Bee made to pull back, and he caught her wrist, pale eyes meeting hers in playful challenge. His nose crashed into her fur, snorting his pick me up with an efficiency that still surprised her. A man fond of bad habits, fast cars, faster women, and big dreams.
“You really need that sh*t? C'mon, you're plenty smart.”
“Smarts only get you so far in investments, Queeny.”
“Sure, sure.” Bee tugged his collar straight and licked a dab of snow from his snout. “Knock em dead.”
“That's the only way to go.” He swayed with her. “You could come with me, one of these days, y'know? I bet you'd own whatever table you wanted to sit at.”
“Board meetings are for tight-assed bean-counters,” Bee crooned, smoothing his jacket.
“Tight-assed bean counters, huh? What's that make me?”
“The king of the bean-counters.”
“Maybe one day.” He co*cked a brow. “Maybe with a bit of help from a Queen?”
“You'll climb just fine on your own Romeo.” She slapped him on the ass. “I've got royal duties to fulfill.”
They left, she on buzzing wings, he in a cherry red sports car that usually screamed 'tiny dick' or 'limp dick' to anyone interested in reading deeper than necessary. A routine formed. Weekend parties, a morning shower shared together, lines split, and sometimes snorted off each other. They got quite creative about it, though Carlos joked that a bump off her belly always inflicted a sneezing fit that lasted for hours afterwards. His life was just as fast as hers. Lunches in classy rooftop eateries, handshakes with business partners and tycoons. Investments, he soon called them, outlining schemes and plans for new franchise potential in houses made of numbers built on the backs of whoever was willing to accept the lowest contract. Bee humored him, offering money to let her new man chase his dreams, happy to see him rocket as high and far as he felt he deserved. And really, what was the point of swimming in endless wealth if one didn't spend it on something fun?
Carlos enjoyed parties and diamonds and running off to exotic locations. But what he loved most, she learned quickly, was money, and making more of it. By any means necessary. They celebrated an anniversary by passing the world's biggest joint back and forth on her couch. A rare evening alone in her penthouse with cartoons and easy comfort, instead of the boring five star restaurant he'd wanted to drag her to. The orphanages seemed to puzzle him and he said so again, now. “Seriously, Bee. You'd be better off moving more of your dogs into boot camps.”</p>
“Enough of them end up there as it is. My people aren't just for winnin' wars and breakin' bones, Bean-counter.”
“But they're good at it.” He leaned forward and began to draw in their pile of powder with one nail, mind whirling, his words moving in a racehorse gallop to match messy math scratched on a crystal tabletop, the movie forgotten. Bee had never met someone so f*ckable who brought their work home with them so often. “Look, we halve the orphanages, increase camp training regimens for another two hours a day. They'll ship out to Anger in eighteen months instead of twenty-four, with a twenty-seven percent increase in earnings and—”
“We, huh?” Bee tried to keep her voice light, but her eyebrows drew together. The cartoon dog running after a dancing deer on screen suddenly didn't seem quite so important. “They're not yours, Carlos. They're people, my people, with dreams and wants and needs, just like the rest of hell. And I don't sell em.”
Carlos shrugged, leaning back with spread hands, flashing his crooked smile again. The kind the won over hesitant clients on some of the endless dates or dinner parties he somehow kept convincing her to join him for, where the talk turned to numbers too often for her liking. “You don't have to sell them, Bee. Course not. But they are investments. How much do you spend on your Sunflowers? Sixty percent of your earnings? Christ, you're losing out on a huge stake, here. If you were willing to ship them to Anger or Violence, I could get a Goetia in m—in our pocket by the end of the year.”
“Too much wooooorrrrrrk,” she droned, trying to muffle his prattle with a pillow, wondering why he was so eager to spoil their high with more numbers.
“You wouldn't have to,” he laughed. “Seriously, I could? You let me handle the last deal for you to pull that chocolate factory together?”
“That's different—it's food, not bodies.” She poked his nose. “And that's coming along just fine. You didn't skimp out on me, did you?”
“Course not.” Carlos nibbled her ear and affected a clipped British purr. “We spared no expense, no expense.”
“Goober.”
“I still think it'd be better if we upped production.”
“Production? Orphanage production?” She snickered, irritation giving way to a fit of mirth as the herb began to take hold, turning her heart into a racehorse and her tongue into a fuzzy caterpillar who didn't want to make words when there was a bowl of sweets waiting for her on the table. “What are we gonna do, make em' f*ck more often?”
“I could slip some fertilizer in the chocolate recipe?” He began to chuckle in spite of himself. “Duh...doub...Double the sperm count and triple the—”
“Ooooooh my f*ck, put the calculator down if you ever want to stuff my box again, you workhorse!” Bee blew a raspberry and tucked a hand between his spread thighs. The other pushed the joint into his mouth and waited until the end glowed cherry red and his cloud joined hers. She patted his crotch. “There we go. Goooooood boy.” She squeezed. “Now...speakin' of a nice high sperm count...”
Carlos needed little encouragement. They spent the rest of the evening demolishing a joint and enjoying some cartoons—or, at least she did. Shared sweets warmed her gut and, eventually, things turned steamy and spicy. There was nothing quite like a shared climax on a little happy grass with the right partner. If only he'd been as receptive as Minerva. They fell asleep on the couch, her money-chasing man warm and full against her core and her arms around his washboard abs. But Bee awoke alone to the sound of him singing in the shower. Bee sat up, looking around the penthouse, taking her time to right what little of last night's mess remained. The sickly-sweet scent of good grass lingered on her fur and she plucked up her beeper with fingers still sticky with shared chocolate. He emerged from the bathroom, runway ready and as hunky as ever. But he'd left her on the couch when Minerva would've stayed. Bee tried to shake the thought and found that she couldn't.
“Hey babe.” He leaned over the couch, dressed in a casual gray polo shirt and freshly pressed pants. “I'm going out for a call—just a brunch meet, see if I can't scare up another client.”
“You're working?” Bee wound a hand in his hair, pouring on the charm. “C'mon, it's Saturday. I was thinkin' we could plan next week's bash instead, put that big mathematical brain of yours to good use?”
“Maybe next weekend?”
Bee frowned. “You said that last time.”
“I know—but this is important.”
“So am I.”
“This is my job, Bee.”
“C'mon, f*ck your job, just once.” She slid onto her knees, crowding his space, brushing one pair of hands along his hips and the other along his chest, toying with his shirt buttons. “I'm hungry, and I think I want a nice washboard plate to eat off of.”
“How about dinner instead?” Carlos lifted his chin, forcing her to cup his cheek instead of mussing his hair.
“Promise?”
“I promise.” He drew back, came around to join her and sealed it with a kiss. “I mean it this time, and next weekend I'll run all the numbers you like. And we'll figure out a way to maximize the calories in your new TV dinners.”
“All right.”
“Good.” Carlos leaned over last night's spread, pushed a box of brownies out of the way and produced a six inch silver tube the width of a pencil. Several snorts obliterated the calculations that had almost spoiled last night's fun. He shivered, long tail whipping and shook his head, making perfectly feathered locks dance in the morning light. “f*ck, that hits the spot.”
“A little early for that, isn't it?”
“Better than lettin' it go to waste.” He offered her the straw, grin returned to its supermodel wattage. “C'mon, race me, first one to the end of the table. If you win, I'll let you eat off whatever part of my ass you like tonight.”
“Bitch, you'll do that anyway.” Bee produced her own straw and bent to the table as he did likewise. Whatever misgivings she might have had about last night's tiff and the morning's spoiled plans disappeared in a race across a table, following a trail of china white through a maze of plates and discarded candies. Victory found her standing before the TV, framed in double shafts of morning light, hands on her hips, translucent wings blurring as Bel's best co*ke turned her heart into a hummingbird and made every color pop. f*ck, why had she hesitated?
A blitzing Queen made short work of the rest of their sweets, and several rapid-fire calls to cross-ring vendors swiftly organizing the party by herself. This was better. Carlos would never have kept up anyway, and who knew her wants better than she did? They had their own little kingdoms to rule. By the time the wall clock announced noon, Sinful metabolism had demolished the wonderful high that had carried her through the morning and it was time to dress for tonight's bash. She buzzed away from her office to raid the fridge and paused, standing with the door basting her fur in a glacial breeze.
Minerva grinned at her from a photo stuck to the topmost corner, posed in a green blouse and a long, flowing flower print skirt, standing arm-in-arm with Bee. St. Patty's Day, all those years ago. She looked so alive it hurt. And how had it gotten there? Dreamily, Bee pulled it free of the horseshoe magnet and stood in her kitchen, listening to the clock tick, fingering a relic of a love lost over a decade ago now. Just a tiny thing, taken with a disposable camera. The faces beyond their shoulders were slightly blurred and Bee supposed she'd been the one holding, or perhaps levitating the gadget to freeze them in time.
Her eyes tried to jump to other pictures. Before they could, she cadged a soda and summoned an imperial banana split to go with it before buzzing to her office where order forms and a hot landline waited. And perhaps a trip to one of her Sunflower homes before dinner. No time for memory lane. Not with a party to host.
