The next day I woke up early at home, fully recovered, not to mention rethinking dreading my next siege of cramps if I could have them under the healing hands of Dr. Montoya.
Irma was still reduced to inarticulate purrs.
My new hot doc drove me home post-"treatment" so I could get the prescribed "bed rest" on my own turf. I awoke after a dreamless sleep sated and satisfied I'd accomplished a lot despite my crampy days.
I'd discovered Loretta's name, IDed her lover, learned why Loretta and her literal prince were offed, and unmasked the Karnak crew, which should be plenty of info for my four weird clients, Howard Hughes, Hector Nightwine, Snow and the CinSim Boys, but I'd neglected my personal quest for Lilith.
I'd need some time to report to everyone but Hector, and he could wait too. My clients didn't exactly keep regular office hours.
Now I needed to switch from mummy zombies to voluntary zombies. I was hoping the Snow groupies might provide a connection to Lilith or the groupie killer, but I also wanted to know why Snow's Brimstone Kiss was so addictive and encourage them to move on to a real life.
Kisses and kick-ass action, either martial or premarital, had not been on my personal road map until Ric happened along.
Being vampire bait from a young age and troubled by alien abduction nightmares, I'd found hovering mouths about as attractive as Great White Shark smooches. Thanks to Ric, I had glimpsed what these bedazzled rock-star groupies were feeling. I wonder if they realized they were better off not getting the Brimstone Kiss, rather than eating their hearts and psyches out for a return engagement that would never come.
Me, I'd rather be free than ecstatic. Maybe that was why I'd never been tempted to use drugs.
I readied myself for my first Snow groupie self-help meeting like a girl throwing a shower for several best friends at once. I'd never thrown a party for anyone or had anyone throw a party for me. Not even a birthday party. Especially not a birthday party.
This was going to be just girls and fun. Lucky I had the whole day to prepare, because I had to go shopping and buy paper goods and a flower arrangement. I didn't expect the kitchen witch to help me set up an event as unique as this, although I hummed "Whistle While You Work" and snacked on healthful plates of fresh veggies and cheese all afternoon. Thanks to some kind of kitchen witchery, I could never eat down to the bare china.
Rick called about ten that morning asking, "Awake yet, are we, Sleeping Beauty? Need any drive-by kisses?"
I laughed and couldn't stop, I was surrounded by bags and bags of foil-wrapped Hershey's Kisses at the moment.
"I love to make a grown woman giggle," he said. "Just checking in, babe." He was starting to call me that as a tease, now that he knew I loathed the word. From him, though, not so much. "Good news. I've finally rounded up all the Cicereau zombies and got them employment at Wayne Newton's Arabian horse ranch. They're going to learn to rope and ride and they'll have plenty of first-rate security." He chuckled at the idea of city-bred mob zombies amid the tumbling tumbleweeds. "I've been contacted for a meet with some Mexican consular folks. It's at the Luxor and I expect it to last into the afternoon."
"Don't worry. I've got some projects of my own."
"Where'll you be?"
"Just a little shopping center off Charleston. Safe as houses, like they say."
"Okay. Play mum. You know you'll tell me all about it after."
"You too."
"I'll call as soon as I'm done," he promised.
We closed on the usual murmurs, not quite mushy but darn near.
Back to the party plans. I figured a room where mostly women came to fight the Battle of the Bulge had a pretty good aura for fighting an addiction to a Kick-ass Kiss.
The place I'd rented for this evening came with a huge stainless steel coffee urn and kitchenette. I brought a gourmet blend and made a batch. A couple of trays filled with ice chips hosted soda cans and bottles of energy drink.
Some things, all the women at WTCH-TV swore during break periods, were better than sex. Certain gourmet flavors had a kick as good as, or possibly even better than, sex. I'd taken the lessons of those girly sessions at the TV station's break room to heart.
So I'd brought an array of snacks to tempt all tastes: Huge glazed doughnuts big enough to serve as a lifesaver rings. Carrot cake slathered with sweet cream cheese icing. Double-fudge German Sweet Chocolate Cake.
If music is the food of love, maybe food is the antidote to obsession.
Dolly's huge trunk toted all my supplies and I was on site and set up by 5:30 p.m.
Like any nervous hostess I was wondering if the music, Enya, was too mellow, and the coffee, Starbucks, too strong. I was particularly proud of two giant brandy snifters at each end of the serving table, both filled with Hershey's Kisses.
While I waited for the audience to arrive, or not arrive, I nervously adjusted the sterling silver necklace of dangling silver "kisses" around my neck. Matching chains ringed my wrist and ankle. And an adorable pair of icy silver "kisses" swung from my earlobes. Which were not pierced. And which never wore earrings. When I moved, I chimed like sleigh bells, are you listening? It was too, too corny but I knew I had to expect this kind of harassment from the silver familiar for messing with Snow's concert kissing shtick.
An hour later my cheeks were warm with success. The large room was packed with everything from Goth girls to giggling Red Hat matrons.
The chatter noise level was high and the four major food groups-fat, salt, sugar, and caffeine-had dwindled to crumbs and empty paper cups.
Most of the women had shucked off their mules, tennies, high heels and biker boots to sit on the circled folding chairs. Content, they finally regarded their hostess with interest.
"You may be wondering why I've gathered you all together," I began.
They laughed as expected at my murder mystery opening line.
"How many here have had the Kiss?"
A smattering of hands shot up.
"And not?" Many more hands.
"I'd like the Haves to sit on the right side of the circled chairs."
"And the Have-nots?" asked a red-haired women.
"May sit on the left side of the room."
"'Left' is right," the redhead shouted as she moved. "You're sort of in the middle, ain't you?"
I nodded and kept that very place. "Yup. An almost-ran. So. Let's hear the Haves describe the Brimstone Kiss. Isn't that what the rest of us are all dying to know?"
The nods and murmurs were so unanimous that the Haves visibly preened.
"Just start anywhere. The first touch of his lips."
"Not there," said an ethereal girl wearing a wispy pixie haircut. "The first sensation is being buoyed up by the crowd, this human wave seeking to wash aground on the stage floor."
Hmms of agreement punctuated her testimony. This was beginning to feel like a revival meeting.
"Then," the girl went on, running a hand over the back of her neck, "he snares you with one of his white silk scarves. It's as smooth and strong as spider-silk. Your head lolls back-"
Ummms of empathy. Women on both sides of the room are rocking left and right, right and left. A woman on the right leaps to her feet, her head thrown back to testify in her turn.
"The scarf pulls you up, up, up. It's as strong as steel. You feel you'll never fall back."
"And then," the first girl went on, her voice vibrating with triumph, "his lips reach mine."
"Yesss!" the crowd croons.
"How do they feel?" the inquiring reporter puts in. "I need hard evidence."
"Soft as silk. Cool. Like a fountain in the desert. I feel the tingle of electricity meeting running water. Heat and meltdown. And then-"
"Yesss," the women hiss, eyes closed, feeling the moment.
"His tongue."
"His tongue speaking in tongues," the women shout.
God! They loved that their rock idol was soul-kissing strangers? Wasn't that... unsanitary? Not that I didn't get the rocky mountain high part.
"The tingle starts in my lips and wraps me in an electrical storm of satisfaction."
Tingle. Kinda like my Lip Venom gloss. Snow has some kind of built-in Lip Venom? These women could buy the special effect. I need to hand out Lip Venom samples along with the high-sugar desserts. Wonder if the manufacturer would donate?
"The tongue is killer!" the wispy young woman declares. She is now shouting. "The back of my throat starts vibrating and then I'm thrumming all over, but deep in my throat the spasms start and they don't end. They just don't end. Wave after wave of absolute pleasure. Then I just fall away. I feel his icy palm on my forehead and the connection is broken. I'm still twitching with the sublime spasms. I guess he's gone, but my body is still possessed by the Ghost of his Brimstone Kiss."
Silence. Some of them recognize the sensations. I can tell by their dreamy eyes and slack lips. Some ache for the sensations. I can tell by their closed eyes and deep sighs.
A few, like me, remember and recognize similar symptoms.
As the chant of "Ah, men" goes up in the room, I inhale the bracing aroma of strong coffee and come to the only possible conclusion.
Snow's Brimstone Kiss bestows multiple orgasms.
Try to compete with that using a coffee klatch and a fistful of chocolate candy.
The second act of my private self-help group was even more interesting. All the Have-nots began to testify, rising one by one and baring their souls and their libidos.
The longer this went on, the more I wanted to shrink into the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West and disappear. Not because I can't take forthright talk, although that's a bit rough for one of my genteel and ignorant convent school background, but because I'm starting to feel guiltier and guiltier.
As the talk turned to vibrators and jackrabbits, which I learn are not wild hares, but a super-powerful variety of vibrator, I began to see that the Have-nots have not ever had a sexual orgasm. Some of them must be seventy or older.
Surely there is an Orgasm Fairy somewhere who sees to women like this. No?
Here I thought I was one of them. After all, forty percent of girls, good or bad, don't, according to statistics. Yet, despite my anxieties, my handful of assignations with Ric have all been orgasmic. I must be a freak! He must be a stud! Of course, there haven't been that many encounters. I could crash and burn any minute. Or not crash and burn.
And I should stand up here telling these poor women to just get over it? Cocaine. Him. His Brimstone Kiss. I feel like the Grinch who stole Christmas. The Witch who would steal the ruby red slippers. The reporter who announced the deaths at Lakehurst.
Guilt won't help me find Lilith. Plus, it was time for me to try to wean these women off the instant orgasm dream.
"But," I pointed out to the Haves, "not one woman who's got a Brimstone Kiss has ever gotten another, right?"
Disconsolate heads shook. "No, not even anyone on the online chat groups."
"So you're all pining away for something that will never happen again. But, cheer up! It did happen. You're way ahead of the Have-nots over there."
I did not see happy smiles.
"Tell me about your jobs, what you do for a living." I started pointing and they started talking.
"Waitress" comes up frequently. "Cocktail waitress" a bit less frequently. These women say the pay isn't union, but the tips are good. Others are fast-food restaurant employees. Wal-Mart greeters. Grocery store clerks. Every job is in Las Vegas to be close to the source.
"Do you really want to spend your lives underemployed waiting for something that may never happen?"
There is silence, at least, if not lively "No's!"
"Wouldn't you like to be free of your obsessions, able to date men who stand on the same level as you do? I'm sure some of them out there kiss pretty good."
This merited the "No's" I was looking for earlier.
"Don't you know in your heart of hearts that there's more to life than chasing something that hard to get? The perfect man or a hormone high? And how long does the Brimstone Kiss last, anyway?" I asked the Haves.
"Until he moves on," one woman admitted.
"To the next fan girl. Whom he leaves coming down without a parachute. You have to catch the lucky girl to keep her from banging her head on the concrete floor. And does Cocaine care? No."
Frowning brows told me I was making progress.
"Once again, it's all the guy's way and the women can wait. And wait. And wait. Don't you want to be free?"
They eyed each other uneasily. One hand wavered up, then down, and then fluttered up again. It's on the Have-not side.
"I'm sick of explaining to my family why I'm wasting my doctoral degree in education out here in Vegas slinging cottage fries."
Another Have-not stood. "I'm sick of living with four other girls in an overpriced apartment."
And another. "I'm sick of standing on hard concrete for hours almost every night until my ankles ache and paying high dollar for it and getting nothing."
High dollar. That's right. Vegas show tickets are over the moon. These women are paying plenty for a mere chance at a smooch.
"How much a night do you pay?" I asked, my calculator out. They rose and shouted numbers one by one. "$142!" "$135." "$122." I toted it up when the roll call was done.
"Two thousand and eighty-five dollars, ladies. You give that up every night to gamble on getting a kiss. I bet the odds are better at any slot machine and twenty-one table in Vegas. I bet the odds are even better for the right vibrator."
They are all standing, milling around, restless.
"Ladies, the Hershey's Kisses in the brandy snifter on your left are all white chocolate. As smooth and creamy as you-know-who. If you can't give up the dream, take a handful of them of them when you leave.
"The ones on your right are dark chocolate. Smooth and creamy and also chock full of flavonoids that are good for your health. Those who are willing to try five Cocaine-free nights, take a bunch of those. Eat a candy 'kiss' every time you think of Cocaine. For you those of you in 'withdrawal'-every time you think of Cocaine and manage to replace that thought with something else, reward yourself with a piece. Put your email address on the sheet on your way out. I'll set up a Yahoo! group list to keep in touch."
With nods and smiles, everybody signed up, but almost everybody filed up to the white chocolate jar. Eight, looking furtive and ashamed, drew from the dark chocolate jar. I'd hoped for the other way around.
A few "good children" always want to linger and talk to teacher after the class. Six gathered around me.
"Why are you doing this?" one asked. "You actually stormed the stage to get to him. Are you taking home dark chocolates?
"You bet," I told them, digging out several while they watched. "I'm tired of being called a Cocaine freak. You are too, aren't you? I just wanted to make that man answer to putting all us women in states he's unwilling to satisfy again, or leaving us out of the so-called ecstasy night after night. What a cheap trick to get loyal fans to show up for every performance."
"I hadn't thought of that," mused a portly woman in her sixties. "That it's just a come-on to get him publicity."
"He doesn't even have to tour to get screaming hordes. You're the hometown team. You'd think he could at least make sure you all got something to remember him by. And what's the use of a mind-blowing orgasm, or series of them, if you can never get one again? Either way, he wins and you lose. Every time."
They nodded listlessly, not entirely convinced, rolling the teardrop-shaped candies in their hands. Their color choices weren't visible to me.
One said, "Hey. I think I'll start a Web site and discussion group on this."
"Say," I followed up, "I hope we can attract more Cocaine fans. You ever talk to some online? Lilith, for example?"
"Oh, sure. Lili's a deep-down fan," said one, nearly stopping my heart.
"She's hinted she's a Have," a second woman chimed in.
Oh. No. That was me chiming in mentally as I jumped to hear Lilith spoken of so matter-of-factly. Lili? I could see how the nickname would evolve. And I would be "Lilah."
There was something eerily twinlike about those diminutives, even if I hadn't now known that Caressa Teagarden and her twin sister were named that from birth. I shivered as if someone was walking over Lilith's grave, and mine, and the damned cutesy silver "kisses" jewelry chimed some more.
Could there have been two abandoned infants left in different places? While I followed that thought, my reluctant prey drifted away after some quick good-byes.
I put the sign-up sheet in my Baggalini, cleared away the trash and loaded the brandy snifters in Dolly's trunk.
Lili. A twin sister named Lili. I choked up as I locked the door. I'd been alone so long it was scary to think I hadn't been born to be a solo act.
Hey, kid, Irma said, you got me all these years. You don't need some upstart with a cutesy, kissy name. Who d'ye think you are? Delilah and Lilith Street, the Mary Kate and Ashley Olson of the supernatural set? Chill.
Right. I didn't need two of me to get in trouble. Their "Lili" was not my Lilith and even my Lilith was a phantom, a filmed delusion. Or maybe not.
Quick was guarding Dolly in the drive-through area out back. The shopping center night lights only covered the parking area up front. It was odd that Snow's side was the light and my side was the dark. What an ironic role reversal.
I took a handful of the dark kisses out of the snifter. It was even more ironic that I was probably thinking of Snow as often as the most infatuated groupie. For quite the opposite reasons, of course.
Dolly started on the first turn of the ignition key. Quick leaped in the open window to ride shotgun, his tongue already lolling out in joyous anticipation of the wind rippling his fur all the way home to the Enchanted Cottage.
At least somebody was having a good night.