Variations Three (3 page)

"Is that really me?" she whispered and Trish
laughed.

"The new you, darling! And a great
improvement over the old, if I may say so. Now, isn’t this worth a
little discomfort?" She tapped Brandi’s shoulder coquettishly.

"Ouch!" Brandi flinched away, saw the mark
of Trish’s fingers on the stranger’s pearlescent flesh--blood red
in the mirror.

"Still a little tender?" Trish exchanged a
glance with Suzie, who went into the bathroom and returned with an
icy towel that she pressed carefully over the mark. "That will
pass, darling; just a little aftereffect of the nano. We’re going
to let you rest for an hour or so, then you’ll have lunch and your
first lesson, hmm? Help her to bed, Suzie, and bring the tray."
Trish swept out.

It wasn’t until she was alone, staring at
the darkened ceiling, that Brandi realized that the stranger in the
mirror, though neat and slickly packaged, was neither gorgeous nor
exotic. She looked, in fact, like an air-brushed version of the
girl next door: Wholesome, pleasant and no-nonsense.

"But," Brandi told the ceiling. "I’ll never
win looking like this!"

* * *

THE BLONDE WAS still blonde. Everything else
had changed. Even the molasses-and-magnolia voice had altered;
taken on depth and a certain smokiness.

"Turn around now, and let me get a good
look," she commanded. Brandi obeyed, conscious of how neatly her
tits filled the bathing suit cups and how smoothly the spandex
bottom covered her pert little ass.

"Not bad," the blonde conceded. "Number like
that’d go big, back in my hometown." She struck a pose, hands
spanning hourglass waist. "Well?"

Brandi neither cried nor stared, though she
wanted to do both. The blonde was a knockout. On a 300-point
scorecard, she had a 500-point body.

"How many marriage proposals have you had?"
She asked, her new, oh-so-pleasant voice striking just the right
note of admiring flipness.

The blonde grinned. "Shit, sugar, what do I
want with marrying any boob of a man?" She leaned forward,
conspiratorially. "Tell you what, though: They go into convulsions.
I like that."

In spite of herself, Brandi laughed--a
chiming, pleasant laugh.

The blonde shook her head. "A-1 work, I’ll
give ’em that. Interesting that your Syndicate thought the
conservative approach would win it, while mine went with something
a little bold." She shrugged, with thoroughly unconscious
invitation. "Guess that’s why they hold the playoffs, right?" She
stuck out a perfectly formed, honey-colored hand. "May the best bod
win!"

Brandi laughed again and shook on it, just
as the line-up bell sounded.

* * *

THE MUSIC THIS time was gin-smooth jazz,
with just a hint of hotter stuff beneath. Brandi’s new body
automatically picked up the beat, and she knew when her turn came
she would glide down the ramp in perfect time. She had attended her
lessons well, hoping that a flawless performance would carry the
day, after all.

Not so Miss Alaska, who had lost four inches
in the leg, gained at least four at hip and breast, and was
sporting a full, swirling, mahogany mane. Her face, in the
BeforeVid being shown over her head on a sliding screen, had been
plain, but pleasant. Her new face was symmetrical, locked in a
rictus she may have thought was a smile, but looked more like a
grimace of terrified pain.

"Bad job," the blonde murmured and Brandi
sighed, pleasantly, in agreement.

Hawaii’s Syndicate had the sense to simply
fine-tune the basically sound body-structure. The face had been
reworked masterfully; skin smoothed, cheekbones altered, the eyes
released from their double-fold to shine, wide and sky-blue, on the
audience. She floated, rather than danced, down the ramp and poised
on the edge like a butterfly supping a flower.

"All right," breathed the blonde. Her turn
came and she glided down the ramp, hands clasped before her, chaste
as a nun in her blue spandex swimsuit while the BeforeVid jounced
lasciviously over her head. She stopped at the edge of the ramp and
lifted her face to the audience.

Dropping her hands to her side, she
simply--stood there.

Silence, for the count of 12.

Then, the crowd went wild.

"WICK-ed," said Miss Maine, and pulled
nervously at her bathing suit top.

The blonde quit the platform, stage
right.

The crowd quieted, Miss Maine did her
mincing little dance--and it was Brandi’s turn.

She went down the ramp like the music given
form, letting the "biological metronome," as her documentation
termed it, control motor function. For a short space of time, it
was if she breathed the music, rather than the conditioned air,
then she was at the end of the ramp, standing, relaxed and
pleasant, for inspection.

The judges were five rows back. Brandi
sharpened her eyesight to "telescopic" and read the scorecards. It
was as she had feared: The blonde was leading by a mile.

She smiled pleasantly at the audience and
moved off stage, breaking into a run as she hit the curtain. Time
to change into her gown and review her speech one more time.

She might win yet.

* * *

"HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL," she said to
herself, much later, standing between Miss Maine and Miss
Massachusetts, her eyes on the back of the blonde’s shining head.
The judges had rated her speech unanimously excellent--10s, all the
way down the line, which left her neck-and-neck with the blonde.
There only remained "Overall Presentation," a category that was
judged in private.

Oh, well, in sixty seconds they would know.
They would all know.

"Harvard Business School," she said again
and the emcee called across the stage, "The envelope, please!"

It arrived, large, creamy and tantalizing.
The emcee made as if to open it, dropped his hand and gazed
soulfully into the lenses of the hovering cameras.

"I want to personally thank each and every
one of the special ladies here tonight. I want to thank them for
their perseverance, their charm--and their beauty! And I want to
remind them that, even though there can be only one big winner here
tonight, this is only a silly contest! In life, each and every one
of you is a winner!" He raised the envelope with a flourish.

"And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting
for--ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Miss New-You
America 2025... Miss Louisiana!"

The music swelled, the Old Queen glided
across the stage in her glittering gown and with her own fair hands
slipped the tiara from her hair and crowned the blonde. There was
the ritual hug, the formal, arm-in-arm waltz across the stage to
the throne and the mantle and the little girls with roses and
garlands of daisies.

Brandi stood in place, between Miss Maine
and Miss Massachusetts and smiled at the vid cameras,
pleasantly.

* * *

IT WAS THE Fourth of July Fair in Avery,
Idaho.

Brandi smiled pleasantly at the horse-faced
young woman before her. "That’s just 40 payments of $218,000
dollars each. Why, you’d spend that much going to college! And this
is something that will turn your life around--something that will
change your outlook and make you a happier person. Why, this model
here not only runs just fine on four hours’ sleep, but you can
choose to see things very far away and hear things sharper--just
think how handy that’ll be when you have children! And," she leaned
forward confidentially, though, really, very few of the marks cared
about this part, which was Jeffrey’s masterpiece; "it’s 100-percent
genetically guaranteed. If you have a little girl, she’ll look just
like--you!"

Brandi tapped herself on the chest as she
leaned back, calling the girl’s attention to the round breasts,
pleasantly straining against the yellow T-shirt.

The girl licked her lips; glanced at the
contract. "Well, I..." she looked over her shoulder, leaned across
the table. "This is a silly question, but, well--does it hurt?"

Brandi looked straight into her eyes,
sincerely, pleasantly. "Not a bit."

First published in Variations Three,
November1996

Passionato

Sharon Lee

THE BLOOD PALLS, over time.

I believe this is the reason why so few of
us exist beyond the hundred-fiftieth year of our making.

Over time, the blood palls. Feeding oneself
becomes, first, a chore; then an agony; finally, for some--for
most--a hell. Anything becomes preferable to the anguish of taking
one more sup, so one fasts. And one dies.

Those who survive this crisis of
sensibility--those who evolve--are...formidable.

Formidable.

I am two hundred forty-seven years undead.
Before my making, I lived 15 years in Philadelphia, the son of a
textile merchant. I bear the face and form of a boy in the first
beauty of his manhood, as perfect as the night she created me.

My mother named me Evelyn James Farrington.
My colleagues know me as Jim Faring.

I am a painter. I do badly, which is all I
expect. The others who work and live in this building--they take
interest in my efforts, squandering hours of their short lifetimes
to show me thus of perspective, this trick of capturing the light
and this other thing regarding shadows.

My colleagues--young humans. So earnest. So
full of life. Of--passion.

Understand that I am not human. I
am--formerly human. In fact, I am a predator. But I spoke of
evolution. The blood is not, entirely, necessary.

When one is new to the undead state, there
is no draught headier, no nourishment more seductive, than a sup of
that sweet claret. We drink from the artery in the throat--rich,
full heart’s blood, sparkling with the passion of life.

Yet, what nourishes us is not so much the
blood, but that which the blood carries.

Passion.

Humans have--such--passion.

And artists have so much more.

Above all else, I am careful. When the great
thirst comes upon me, as it does one moon in six, I do not drink
here. I go away--uptown, to the bars and the music clubs. Most
often, I take a singer, though any who play from their soul will
slake me. There was a flutist, some years back--vibrant, seductive
burgundy! But that vintage is rare.

At home, here in the Abingdale Artists Loft,
I husband my resources and watch over my flock most tenderly. It
would not do for one of my young colleagues to experience that
languor which is the result of receiving the fullness of my Kiss.
No. No, they must remain whole, awake, passionately, involved in
their art, producing that aura of lusty life energy so necessary to
my own survival.

There are risks.

Artists are ... notoriously ... unstable.
The least thing may with equal possibility fling them into a fever
of creation or a black despair.

Years ago, I kept poets. The food was hot
and wholesome when they were creating, but their passions consumed
them even as I was nourished. It was a rare moon passed without a
suicide.

Writers of prose are every bit as
unsatisfactory as a reliable source of nourishment.

Visual artists are another matter. Perhaps
because their work is concrete, perhaps because they work so
intimately with the balances of shadow and light, weakness and
strength... I find painters most satisfactory, though yet inclined
to those deadly swings of mood. Rock-steady reliability is most
often found in sculptors, but that food is never more than
bland.

For a time I kept only painters. Recently, I
find the stabilizing benefit of an eclectic herd--painters,
potters, sculptors--outweighs my preference for the painterly
passions.

Of this current herd, my favorite is Nikita.
She paints in vibrant primaries: splashes of bold crimson, thick
puddles of yellow, emerald arabesques... Ambitious, sensuous
Nikita. Really, I am quite fond of her--almost too fond. I must be
stern with myself, or I should be with her every day. It would not
do to lose Nikita too soon.

Of the others, I especially enjoy Michael,
who pots, and Sula, who does woodcuts. Jon is my sculptor, stolid
and uninteresting; and the newer ones: Amy, Chris, Fortnay and
Quill.

I find eight a good number, though I should
perhaps look about me for another sculptor; Jon seems a bit fagged
of late.

Contrary to Sula, to whom I go this
evening.

I find it best to take myself to their
studios, rather than Calling them to me. I find that the peculiar
aura of the artist’s own place, adds a depth and piquancy to the
nourishment that is entirely absent from a feeding taken in another
part of the house.

Sula’s studio smells of wood shavings, of
beeswax, sweat and yesterday’s coffee. Sula also smells of these
things, and a salty, overripe femaleness. I believe she has many
lovers.

Her back is to me as I enter the room. She
is lighting the candelabra atop the battered chest of drawers that
serves as her supply cabinet. I see her downturned face in the
mirror behind the candles, dark skin waxy in the hot light. Behind
her, in the mirror, the studio shows twilit and empty.

I wait until she has lit her last candle;
until she has shaken out the match and pushed it, headfirst, into
the sand-filled pottery cup that sits beside the candelabra. It is
one of Michael’s pots, glazed with stripes of sunset orange.

She turns at last from the bureau, heavy
breasts swinging under her loose shirt. I breathe across her eyes
and she pauses, the momentary confusion of trance misting her face
before she smiles, beatific, her nipples hardening into spears of
ecstasy. She moves to her worktable, and I with her. She stands
there, staring down--at nothing, save the scarred, stained
surface--and in her mind, Sula dreams.