Queen of Denial (22 page)

"They keep it so fucking clean that I keep forgetting it's glass."

"Margot, take a memo." Margot was at her shoulder immediately with pad and paper. "To the household staff: Don't wash the damn windows."

"For real?" Margot questioned. It seemed to her that half the time the Queen gave an order, it was just a joke. Then, just when she was sure the Queen was just joking, it turned out that she wasn't, as was the case now.

"Of course for real, Margot," Drew said in a very Queenly tone.

Stasha turned in the doorway and smiled at Drew. "You know, Drew, if you aren't very careful, you're going to wind up liking this 'Queen thing' as you call it. And you might even be good at running the palace, providing you don't drive all the staff crazy first. Good night."

"Good night, Stasha." Drew watched her go.

"Margot?"

"Yes, Drew?"

"Why don't you cash in your chips for tonight?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why don't you go to bed?"

"You sure you won't be needing me?" She looked at Van Gar. She had a feeling there was something going on there, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions. And it would be improper to leave her Queen alone with a man other than the King, without at least offering to stay.

"Don't be silly, Margot," Drew drawled out. "You know we can't have sex till you leave."

Margot blushed brightly, bowed low and left.

"She's such a nice girl. I don't know why you have to do things like that to her. She remembers you as being the sweet, mild-mannered sovereign. You don't have to go out of your way to shatter her memories."

"Oh, give me a big break." Drew got up and went to the window to stare out at the screaming masses. "She likes me better this way. They all do, even Fuckto, though he'd never admit it. These people have no life of their own. They all stand around and live vicariously through the King and Queen. So they're happy when they're not boring."

She turned away from the window and went about scouring the room for some half-full beer she may not have finished.

"You're really twisted," Van Gar laughed. But it must have sounded as hollow to Drew as it did to him. She spun around as if he had dropped something, and tried looking into his eyes. He avoided her gaze, and turned away.

"OK, what's wrong?" Drew demanded.

"Nothing."

"Oh, don't give me that shit. What do you think that I did, that I of course did not do, because I am perfect in every way?"

"It's nothing . . . really."

"That bad." She made a face and slumped into her chair. "I'm getting a refrigerator unit put in here," she mumbled, "not a damn beer in the place."

"Why don't you just call for one of your lackeys?"

"Is that what's eaten ya? All this Queen shit?" She shook her head. "Damn it, Van, we're making a small fortune here, and building a Salvaging empire of our own. Right under these fat bastard's faces. Do I have to remind you that we've very cleverly conned an entire nation into doing what we want?"

"You are completely absorbed in this whole power trip, Drew. Making laws and ordering people around." Van Gar looked at her hard then. "Where is this all going, Drew? Just exactly what is it that you're striving for? What is your hoped-for end product?" He shook his head at the blank expression on her face. "You don't know, do you, Drew? There never was any real plan here."

"Whatever happens, we'll be a hell of a lot better off than we were."

"We. What's that mean, Drew? We. The way I see it, it looks like you're going to be too into being Taralin Zarco to ever go back to being Drewcila Qwah."

Drew jumped out of her chair. "Don't ever say that! I don't like this Queen shit. It's just a means to an end."

"But what end, Qwah? Where do I fit in?" He paused for a moment, then continued. "I've got news for ya, Drew, I'm not going to stand around playing pet alien for much longer. You've got me waiting here for you to figure out just what you're going to do about your new life; who you can use, and how you want to use them. But you're not going to use me. I'll hang out for awhile because I've got no place better to be. I know this must all be a bit much to swallow, and I can't say I wouldn't act the same way in your place, but sooner or later you're going to have to make some choices. How you want to live your life. Who you want to be. Stuff like that. When that happens, if I happen to fit into those plans, well, that's fine, but if I don't . . . I'm not going to let you make me into something that fits what you want. You know what I'm saying, Drew?"

She grinned. "You won't be my Chitzky boy toy?"

"Can't you be serious for even a minute?" Van Gar chided.

"No. Because I'm not Taralin Zarco, I'm Drewcila Qwah. And to prove it, let's take the Royal limo and go bar hopping." She skipped across the room, took his hand and started pulling him towards the door.

"We can't do that, Drew."

"Bull shit, Van. I am the Queen. I can do anything I like."

"Drew, it's not safe."

"So. It never was safe."

"There is a riot in the street. You're not supposed to leave the palace grounds without an armed escort."

She stopped, let go of his hand and turned to face him, hands on her hips. "So, you coming or not?"

"I wouldn't dream of missing it."

Van Gar had traveled through space with Drewcila Qwah for the better part of five years, and still the woman's utter audacity never ceased to amaze him. Wanting to go incognito, she dragged him off to the King's room where they plundered through his wardrobe till they found something Drew deemed appropriate. Then she had ripped this off, and added that, till the two of them looked like something straight out of one of those sleazy magazines Drew was always picking up at the Salvager stops.

Then she went to the garage and picked out the most expensive limo in the fleet, and asked one of the guards to drive it.

"But my Queen, surely a full convoy is in order. With the riots . . ." the guard had tried to protest as they went out the front gates.

"Riots, shmiots, open this fucking roof and stop the car." He complied. As the angry mob ran towards the car, Drew popped up and fired a clip out of the projectile weapon she had taken to wearing into the air and the crowd immediately parted to allow them to pass through.

Drew flopped onto the seat beside Van Gar. "Ah, the people's love for their Queen."

"Where to, my Queen?" The guard asked.

"The shopping plaza? The opera? Maybe we'll take in a play . . . Nah, fuck it, take us to the nearest bar."

The nearest bar went well. No one recognized her, and they were run out for throwing food at the other patrons. The second bar was pretty good. They got into a fist fight there, and beat up three men. It was only when the police tried to arrest them that she told them that she was the Queen. After she proved it, they left the bar to a chorus of Long Live the Queen, and "come back anytime."

It was in the third bar that all the trouble started. A few men were playing battle ball (a game which consisted of trying to knock your opponent's wooden ball down a hole with your wooden ball before he could knock your ball down the hole) in a far corner. They were also talking politics, and the problems the system was causing them. That was when Van lost Drew. She pretended to want to play battle ball, but then it started, and three hours later it was still going on.

"So, let me get this straight," Drew was saying. "This guy murders this person, is convicted and sentenced, and then they tax the people to feed, clothe and house him?"

"Exactly right," one man answered.

"Well, that's without a doubt the stupidest thing I have ever heard," Drew shook her head and took a long sip of her drink. "No wonder people are rioting outside the palace."

Van Gar sat in a corner drinking, for all intents and purposes forgotten. For a little while he had been sure that he had been over reacting. That Drew was, after all, the same old Drew she'd always been. But as the night wore on, it was obvious that she was more interested in politics than she was in getting stumbling drunk and kicking some butts. More interested in these people's problems than she was in having a good time, and that was just not the Drewcila Qwah he knew.

An hour later she decided it was time to go home. She didn't even stagger when she got in the car. Van Gar's shoulders sagged sadly. Drew wasn't even drunk. Instead of laughing and screaming, she was solemn and quiet. When they got to the palace, she bid him a quick good night and went off to get some sleep—alone. Leaving Van Gar standing, staring at her closed door. He had been hoping that tonight would be different. That tonight she would want him. But tonight was just like every other night for the past three weeks. She was too busy, or too tired, or too something. At any rate she hadn't come searching him out to fill her animal desires. He started to walk to his own room.

"Van," He turned around and saw Drew standing in her door way, wearing nothing but a smile. "Wanna screw?"

"You make me feel so cheap," Van said, batting his eyelashes.

"Only if you're lucky, baby. Only if you're lucky."

He walked into her room and the door closed.

He had been waiting for the Queen to return, but as the minutes had turned to hours, he began to realize just what a huge fool he was. She wanted to turn their country into a festering dung heap, where nothing Regal could flourish. He had clung to the hope that she could be changed, at least enough to fit in, but now he realized that would never happen. He had been wrestling for hours about what his course of action should be, and had come to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was talk to her. When he heard that she had returned, he made his way directly to her sleeping chambers, determined to have his say before he lost his nerve. He arrived just in time to see her entice that beast into her room. Shocked and confused, he ducked into the shadows to wait. The beast did not emerge, and he decided that there was only one course of action left. The abomination which inhabited Taralin's body must be killed before she made a laughing stock of the kingdom and its King.

Drew slept all of four hours, then she got up and went to her office. One quick call brought Margot, who came bustling into the room, obviously still dressing.

"Margot?"

"Yes, my . . . Drew?"

Drew smiled at her sleepy attendant. "Get me all the data that was gathered through the letter-writing campaign." She looked to make sure Margot had pen and paper in hand. When she saw her making notes, she continued. "Get me kingdom law books and books on social programs. Get me everything you can find on current affairs and prison reforms. Get me records on hospital costs and who's getting care, life expectancies, etc., etc., etc. By the end of the week, I want to have some answers that will shut those screamers up. After all happy people are productive people and productive people make me more money."

By late afternoon, her office was so full of paperwork and books that there was hardly room for people. Drew shook her head. "I should have had it put on the computer."

She was going through yet another pile of papers on hospital costs and adjustments. "Most fucking places would have all of this on computer. Backwards fucking bung hole." Outside, the noise seemed to grow in pitch, and at the moment that it seemed to reach its crescendo, Stasha ran into the room.

"Drewcila, Mother and Father have just arrived!"

"Oh, damn, and just when I was quite sure that I had offended them so badly that they would never return. Guess I'll have to work up a good vomit for the occasion. Have the cooks prepare that spiced meat dish that I absolutely cannot stand."

Drew kept on looking at her papers.

"Mother is quite miffed," Stasha said hotly. "It seems you've turned the ranch they gave you as a wedding present into a bar, grill, and space-port for your Salvager friends. Including a sex-for-hire parlor." Stasha's face glowed pink.

"Hey!" Drew screamed. "Those girls have got to make a living, too!" Van Gar laughed, and she smiled at him.

"Some people just don't want economic progress."

"Drew, that ranch has been in our family for ten generations . . ." Their father and mother stormed past the guards then, and their father finished Stasha's sentence for her. ". . . and you've turned it into a den for the perversions of Salvagers."

"Well, they've got to do their perversions some place. I figured they were better off way out there away from the general public." She didn't look up from the papers in her hand.

"Oh, I see. You don't want the people to find out the true nature of these scum you've got running the country," Lillith screamed.

"In a nutshell, yes." Drew tried once more to concentrate on the papers in her hand. "By the way, I am trying to run the country here. I don't have time to worry about any of this petty family crap."