The grin of the reaper (Patreon)

“Curtis, Lady Tiffany rang down for a meal. Bring it up to her.”

Curtis scrubbed at tired eyes and turned it into running hands through his frazzled hair. It gave him some time to remind himself he needed this job. He’d come in two hours early to cover some of Mick’s shift and worked through lunch because there was a convention in town and everything was stretched. Corporate only giving them the bare minimum to pay their way… not that this kept the management from giving themselves their bonuses each year.

The aroma of cleaning supplies, the bustle of the kitchen, even the clatter of silverware and plates being loaded onto trays. It had all started getting to him. And Pruitt’s voice was nothing to soothe the savage breast.

“That’s Todd’s wick. Have him do it. I’m five minutes from clocking out.”

“So get her order and get up there in five minutes. Todd didn’t show up today.”

“Fuck,” Curtis said, trying to square that. Everyone knew that Todd was the hotel pharmacist. He made more making his little deliveries to the tenants who were his regulars than he would doing brain surgery. Staying home was leaving money on the table.

“Go on, get up there,” Pruitt continued, his jagged voice seeming like an engine that’d had the check light on too long. Moreso because other than that, his uniform was exquisite. Looking the way Curtis should be looking if he hadn’t been at work eleven hours (counting riding the subway—and if that wasn’t work, Curtis didn’t know what was).

“What about Evan? He’s fresh. He’ll handle her better.”

Pruitt gave him the Eye of Sauron. He didn’t like to be argued at. “I’m not sending Evan because I need Evan. I’m sending you because if Lady Tiffany says you need to get fired, I can lose you.”

“Great,” Curtis muttered sarcastically.

“It is for me. Get going.”

You need this job, Curtis reminded himself. It wasn’t much, but it beat juvie. And it beat a foster home too. He hadn’t gone far in society, hadn’t made much of himself yet, but he was on the way up. He wouldn’t be knocked down a peg. Wouldn’t be homeless or on the dole or anything else. He’d get more and more and more until he had a life that was respectable. A life where you couldn’t tell the difference between him and the people who’d started out with everything.

With his uniform straightened out again, he went to the kitchen, went with the cart, went to the express elevator that took people only to the penthouses. The way was familiar, the actions were practiced, but sometimes that just made them all the more wearying. Curtis fought against the sense that this was it. He’d gone as far as he’d go. He’d be scrubbing toilets and making up beds until he cashed his ticket.

Before the door itself he hesitated. Curtis didn’t want to give undue importance to the Widow of Delacroix Tower, but how could he not? He gave his appearance another once-over, checked the food again to make sure he’d gotten Lady Tiffany’s order exactly right, then knocked at the door.

“It’s open,” came the answer.

Curtis let himself in. It wasn’t his imagination. Even the light was better here. Curtis looked up at the light fixture and saw they’d used a different brand of lightbulb. There was a violet rug on the already thick carpet, a little table above an umbrella stand, and a mirror above that. Curtis couldn’t resist the temptation to check his appearance once more. It was probably as good as he was going to get.

At the end of the hall, an open doorway spread out into a large living room. The furniture was all a cut above the stuff in the lower levels. Real wood, real metal, lush fabrics. Curtis didn’t think there was any plastic in sight.

Tiffany Valentine sat in an armchair covered in patterned fabrics.

She was gorgeous. A perfect little cupcake of hourglass figure, dark stockings emerging from under a black leather dress and leading to high heels with more straps than a sex dungeon. Her waist nipped in just a little, perfectly tapering away from the fullness of her full hips and pendulous breasts, which were half-exposed by the low-cut hem of her dress. Her skin was alabaster pale, making for a shocking contrast with her few tattoos.

A biker heart on her breast, over the real thing, with DEATH written on the scroll that ran over it instead of any lover’s name. A stylized knife on her upper arm. A Bettie Page mermaid, worthy of a B-52 bomber, on a thick thigh.

Yeah, she was real goth. Dark hair, blood-red lipstick, a black crucifix on a beaded necklace… but also a little rockabilly. Old-fashioned, classy in a way… like for all her sexuality she just was, not a prepackaged thing for OnlyFans, but a woman who liked the way she looked and brought it out into the fullness of style because she enjoyed being gorgeous. Giving a treat to the eyes that couldn’t help but run over her bountiful curves.

“You’re not Todd,” she observed. Her voice was a perfect classic too—something that belonged in a Ford Thunderbird, ordering a burger and a shake somewhere the waitresses brought your food out on roller-skates. Breathy, almost childlike in its innocence, but with a certain affect to its high-pitched softness. Like she was only ditzy because she didn’t have to think, or wasn’t bothering to make the people who heard think she wasn’t an airhead… maybe because her body was so curvaceous that there was no believing she was anything but a sexpot. Nothing in her but experience.

“He’s not working today,” Curtis said, wheeling the cart close to her but trying not to be obnoxiously close.

He took the lid off the platter.

Tiffany leaned forward. Her attention wasn’t on the Michelin-quality meal that had been delivered just to her. “I’m usually pretty adroit at knowing which bellhops are on duty and which aren’t.”

“You can’t be that surprised at a drug dealer being unreliable.”

“I beg your pardon?”

It had just slipped out. Curtis could only think that he hadn’t reminded himself that he needed this job in a while.

He also thought that you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. “I think we both know that Todd isn’t liable to win employee of the month anytime soon. He’s popular because he sells drugs. And he’s not even good at that.”

“And how can one be bad at selling drugs?” Tiffany asked, moving her steak tartare into her lap and beginning to cut it into pieces. Every sawing motion sending ripples through her abundant cleavage like the sea during a storm.

As long as we’re talking, she’s not calling the police on me, Curtis figured. “For one, he’s not here to actually sell you drugs. For another thing, he’s a scam artist. He waters down his shit and charges a huge mark-up because anyone rich enough to live here doesn’t know any better.”

“Getting top dollar for merchandise isn’t good business?”

“He’s making short-term profit, sure. But he’s delivering a bad product at a bad price, which is poor customer relations. If someone made a serious run at his business, it wouldn’t take much capital at all to undercut him and steal all his customers.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“You can run him out of business if you want. I’m not a drug dealer. I wouldn’t know where to start finding a connect.”

“But you know he overcharges for Peruvian cocaine.”

Curtis nodded. “I’m curious. And I listen.”

The kohl around her eyes flashed black with every slow blink. Goth, but not in some trend-chasing way. In the way that inspired lesser females to try emulating her. “Well. You’re a good conversationalist for a bellboy. But that doesn’t help me when I need to get high and all you have for me is steak and merlot.”

“I have a sandwich bag worth of weed if you can wait for me to go to my locker and come back.”

“Oh, do you, darling? Hmm. It’s better than nothing, I suppose. How much?”

“Six hundred?”

She smiled with black lipstick like ink clouding clear waters. “And how much of a mark-up is that?”

“Fifty percent. Which you have to expect on a business deal that can send someone to jail.”

Tiffany waved her hand like she wanted to see how much resistance the air would put up. “Go. Come back. And bring whatever I’ll need to smoke it. It’s been a while; I’m not a pothead. Not that I have anything against potheads.” Her smile again, like a wave moving the ocean. Catching the light. And when it stopped shining in your eye, you saw that now there was a shark under the surface. “Be sure to clock out.”