Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck (26 page)

Hugo swirled his tongue in his mouth to summon the memory of his last meal.

“Well,” he recalled. “It wasn’t
exactly
the same … the spices were a little weird at first, but I have to admit:
it was melt-in-your-mouth wonderful—and it better stay that way, if you and your friend ‘Milton’ know what’s good for you.”

Milton got goose pimples at the mention of his name out loud; however, on the forearms of his flesh suit, they looked more like
moose
pimples.

On the television screen, the hyperactive explosion of physical perfection continued. A parade of flawless, flaunted bodies leading flawless, flaunted lives. Suddenly, though, the screen was cleaved into two. Occupying the left-hand side of the screen was Milton’s class, staring dumbfounded at the television like a gruesome herd of startled bovine.

“What the …?” Thaddeus muttered. His televised self, warped, contorted, and swollen to new levels of portly unsightliness, muttered as well, only it came out as a low, disagreeable bray.

“Class,” interjected King Tantalus, “there will be plenty of time for you all to watch television later on….”

“B-but,” sputtered Gene as his broadcast counterpoint grunted, “we’re on TV … sort of.”

King Tantalus appraised the screen.

“Ah, yes,” he said before pivoting backward abruptly, in hopes of surprising a nearby peach that, unsurprisingly, escaped his grasp.

“I could almost feel the fuzz on that one,” he mumbled sadly. “Anyway,” he continued, addressing the
class, “it seems to me a simple yet effective form of contextual torment: juxtaposing impossibly exquisite ideals of human beauty against caricatures of your own selves, drawing out and exaggerating your ample flaws.”

The small trickle of drool that had been dangling from Gene’s open mouth connected with the top of his desk.

“So, to conclude our pie-eating primer,” the teacher said, “let me sing the praises of the pregame stretch, widening your stomach to get it growling just before the big event.”

He gestured to a nearby sack in the corner of the classroom.

“Now, if one of you would pass out the contents of that pouch over there, you may all practice the art of
comp-eating
against one another at your leisure, while I tell you about the upcoming holiday.”

Virgil, being the closest to his teacher’s soaking-pool prison, picked up the sack and pulled out a half-dozen foam-rubber pies with long strings attached to their middles. He passed them out to the boys.

“What are we supposed to do with these?” Hugo asked as he examined his simulated pastry.

“Why, eat them, of course,” the teacher answered simply. “As fast as you can … then just pull them out when you’re through and repeat. Now, next week is Hollow Wean, so you’ll need to—”

Gene raised his hand, the flab of which settled in several rings around his shoulder.

“Mr. Blankenship,” King Tantalus replied wearily.

“My mother won’t let me celebrate Halloween,” Gene said. “She says it’s evil.”

“I’m
not talking about
Halloween
as in ‘trick or treat, smell my feet,’” the teacher interrupted, “but
Hollow Wean
, as in ‘oh, poor me, I feel all empty inside. It started when I was little and began confusing the act of eating with emotional fulfill—’”

As all teachers, living or dead, know, there is a moment when you lose your class, and King Tantalus realized that this was such a moment.

“It’s basically a chance for the faculty to have a good laugh at your expense,” he clarified plainly. “Getting you into embarrassing costumes in the middle of the night, forcing you to perform for disgusting food …”

The bell rang. A flicker of an idea was kindled in Milton’s head. It danced, weakly yet purposefully, like the flame of a candle.

Costumes. Chaos. The perfect cover for escape!
Milton thought as he plodded out of the room.

“And rumor has it that we’ll even have a special appearance from our very own Principal Bubb,” King Tantalus continued.

Milton shuddered as his brief flicker of hope snuffed out with a wet sizzle.

25 • TENDER LOV
i
NG SCARE

MADAME POMPADOUR TUGGED
Marlo into her office by her wrist and shut the door behind her, sealing Marlo inside the tastefully decorated tomb. Madame Pompadour grinned, a lioness with a mouthful of veneers, and beckoned for Marlo to sit down next to her on the luxurious, sophisticated cream-colored love seat. Marlo felt as comfortable as a prisoner having tea and biscuits with her executioner on the gallows.

“I would like to apologize for my unconventional techniques in attempting to mold you into something you’re clearly not,” Madame Pompadour said as she scooched closer to Marlo on her dainty haunches. “I assure you, every hurdle was designed to teach you how to
soar
. The devil’s office, for instance. It is true: he does indeed have a work space here, but it is only one of—
”

“Let me guess,” Marlo interjected.
“Six hundred and sixty-six.”

Madame Pompadour smirked.

“Yes, very astute. I find my girls are much more motivated when under the impression that the embodiment of all evil is just down the hall, take a left at the broken umbrella plant and sulfur watercooler.”

Marlo trembled as violently as an old man playing Yahtzee, trying desperately to gather her wits before they were shaken apart. Madame Pompadour had set her up to fail while Farzana had simultaneously set her up to
succeed
. Marlo didn’t know whom to trust less. And after Marlo had blown up at Madame Pompadour, instead of being instantly clawed apart, she was taken—albeit roughly—back to her office for a little dead-heart-to-dead-heart chat.

“Since we may have started off on the wrong foot,” Madame Pompadour said genteelly, “I thought this might be an opportunity for us to set our personalities aside and develop a rapport.”

Marlo’s gaze darted back and forth from Madame Pompadour’s green cat eyes to her tiny forked tongue as if she were watching a tennis match. They seemed as if they had different agendas, her eyes not seeing eye to eye with her words.

“You might say that I’m something of a …
fashist,”
Madame Pompadour continued pompously. “Fashion is many things. For one, it is a visual language with its
own distinctive grammar, brimming with unconscious symbolism. Most ensembles speak clearly and to the point.”

She waved her gloved hand at Marlo, as if batting away an objectionable smell.

“Yours, for instance,” Madame Pompadour said with disdain, “is a metaphor composed of thrift-store hand-me-downs.”

Marlo looked down at her outfit: her deep burgundy vintage waistcoat, silk Victorian mourning gown, Goth-Darn-It tights (with carefully fabricated holes), and shabby granny boots. It was, in Marlo’s mind, a tastefully distasteful collection that merged the essentials she had managed to save from the Surface with some choice finds nabbed in Mallvana.

“It has an ‘angry baby’ energy about it,” Madame Pompadour continued as her eyes assessed Marlo’s clothing, interpreting it like a ready-to-wear Rorschach test. “Ill-fitting, ill-matched childishness with a touch of noisy frolic, dampened by a disparate, funereal mess of hopelessness bequeathed from a time of which you have no real understanding.”

Marlo fidgeted self-consciously.

“Right,” she replied. “That’s what I was going for.”

Madame Pompadour smirked.

“While I find your costume personally repellant—a stinging slap on the
chic
, if you will—it is, I grudgingly
admit, preferable to many of the fashion atrocities so prevalent on the Surface.”

Marlo realized that this was probably the closest thing to a compliment that would ever slide off the scratchy cat/serpent tongue of Madame Pompadour in Marlo’s general direction.

“We are all books judged by our covers,” Madame Pompadour said as she padded across the floor toward a towering armoire. “See for yourself. Come.”

Marlo swallowed and reluctantly joined her. Madame Pompadour opened the doors of the armoire, revealing a dazzling collection of clothing, everything from an Amber Argyle Afghan to a Zippered, Zebra-Skinned ZeBra.

“People don’t wear clothes just because they
like
them,” she explained. “No, there are much deeper forces shaping one’s fashion persona. Pick a few combinations and I will tell you what they mean.”

Marlo shrugged and pulled out a miniskirt, boots, and sheer blouse. Madame Pompadour held her fist to her chin in contemplation.

“Summer babe by day, club queen by night. Streamlined but not shy. Another, please.”

Marlo picked out another ensemble, trying to be as random as possible.

“Hmm, a see-through shirt, preppy sheath skirt, and pink flats,” murmured Madame Pompadour.
“Quel
mixed messages! This may be the sign of a deep schism, someone literally
skirting
their childhood issues.”

Madame Pompadour closed the armoire’s doors. Marlo felt a pang of disappointment. She was almost having … what was that word? It had been so long … oh yeah:
fun
.

“Secondly, fashion is manipulation,” Madame Pompadour said, smoothing down the scales of her snakeskin skirt. “To choose an outfit is to choose a self-definition, a way to use our vast vocabulary of clothes to lie to our advantage. To
fashion
ourselves into anything we want, or—more accurately—anything we want others to think of us.”

Marlo crossed her arms, trying hard to resist the madame’s verbal catnip.

“Is that what you’re doing with your big plan for
Statusphere
?
”
she posed with a scowl. “To fashion the underworld to suit your … your …”

Marlo stared at the mirror behind Madame Pompadour’s desk.

“Vanity?”

A small storm cloud passed over the sky of Madame Pompadour’s perfect face. She blew it away with a sharp, hollow laugh.

“You’re smarter than I gave you credit for,” she replied. “In fact, you remind me of myself, when I was just a kitten, err,
girl
. Before I learned that it takes
sharp, expertly manicured nails for a girl to claw her way to the top.”

“But what
is
your plan, anyway?” Marlo asked from beneath a muddle of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

Madame Pompadour sashayed to her desk.

“There’ll be plenty of time to talk about that after our …
girl
time.”

Oh no
, Marlo thought.
Girl time
.

Madame Pompadour flicked a switch beneath her desk. To her right, the green bookshelf with the cast-iron grill opened, exposing an elegant room beyond.

“Welcome to my little slice of Heaven,” Madame Pompadour purred. “Or as close as one can hope to achieve so far south. Behold …
Me-Wow
. My own private spa. Just for me. A place to curl up and dye, or wax, or simply unwind.”

She stepped inside, with Marlo—literally—on her tail. It smelled of exotic, soothing spices, the air thick and humid, the consistency of a good nap. Marlo crossed the white tile floor, gazing up through swirls of steam at the vaulted ceiling.

Two demons with hands sporting extra fingers stood at the opposite end of the spa behind two plush massage tables.

“Me-Wow is a spa with
chutzpah,”
Madame Pompadour explained. “It features an array of ancient and cutting-edge therapeutic techniques, all meticulously
designed and administered to pamper one into a state of bliss.”

Marlo eyed a bubbling tub of fragrant green-black mud.

“Do you invite all the girls here?”

One of the demons handed Madame Pompadour two sumptuous white robes and matching slippers.

“I only invite the …
special
girls here.” Madame Pompadour grinned as she threw one of the robes across a gilded, three-framed dressing screen covered by patterned velvet. “The ones who are crying out for some quality time with the madame.”

Madame Pompadour glared at Marlo’s outfit, scanning it up and down as if she were trying to erase it with her eyes.

“Let’s get you out of …
that
. We’ll have it destroyed, and a proper outfit will be selected for you, one that expresses not who you are but who you
could
be.”

Marlo, intoxicated by clouds of heady, aromatic herbs, nodded groggily and stepped behind the screen.

“I’ve got our entire day planned out,” Madame Pompadour said while nodding to one of her demons. “We’ll enjoy seaweed body wraps, an exfoliating salt scrub, and vigorous shiatsu.”

“Gesundheit,” Marlo replied as she languidly undressed.

One of the demons filled a strange enclosed tank with gallons of white liquid poured from a huge carton
marked
MILK OF AMNESIA.
Madame Pompadour quickly waved for the demon to hide the carton as Marlo shuffled from behind the screen in her robe and slippers.

“It sounds great.” She yawned. “Though I may sleep through most of it…. I’m suddenly so tired.”

Madame Pompadour grinned.

“That’s your body relaxing … preparing to let go of tension, of worry, of …
everything.”