Copyright Information
Copyright © 2010 by Wildside Press LLC
for the Estate of Felix Lance Falcon.
Cover art copyright © Adam Radosavljevic.
Exotics Bar & Transit Ltd.
Mickey, the bartender at the Exotics Bar, silently told himself, Starting a story right smack dab in the middle of the Trojan War is one thing, but landing in the middle of Troy itself—and the war—is another matter entirely. He stood behind Lou, the Bar’s doorman-&-bouncer: an impressively muscled young bodybuilder, who had wandered in a few nights ago, searching for his training partner, and had accepted a job offer.
Mickey and Lou looked out the Bar’s doorway into the wine-dark street, watching a battle that swirled around the legs of a large wooden horse that stood a few dozen paces away.
“Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” cried someone in archaic Greek. Mickey heard running footsteps, then saw three naked figures—a man and two boys—reach the doorway from the darkness beyond.
“Hey,” Lou said, his words—thanks to the Exotics Bar’s universal translation spell—also coming out as archaic Greek. “This is a bar. You can’t bring snakes in here. It’s bad for business if customers see them; they’ll think they’ve been drinking too much.”
Mickey saw what at first glance looked like long green scarves resolved themselves large, green snakes, each wrapped around one of three, otherwise naked, sanctuary seekers. “And you two kids don’t look old enough to—”
“Aw, come on,” said one boy. “This is an emergency.”
“We’re older than we look,” said the other boy. “Mother’s a small woman; and we’re like her, rather than being as big as Father here.”
“And as for the snakes,” said the grown man, “we can’t leave them!”
“One snake, maybe,” said Mickey. “but not—” He stared as the three snakes somehow morphed into one.
“After them!” yelled someone in the street, and other voices took up the cry.
“Inside—quick. Shut the—” Mickey yelled as the refugees dashed in. Lou slammed and bolted the door behind them. Mickey slapped the getaway switch on the wall. He felt the Exotics Bar lurch; and he knew that Troy was far behind, spatially and temporally.
“I’m Laocoön,” said the older man. “These are my twin sons, Antiphas and Melanthus.”
“The Lay-o-coon?” asked Mickey, shaking hands with all three, then leading them toward the bar.
Antiphas said, “It’s more like ‘Lay-oh-coh-on,’ but you’re close enough.”
After a closer look at the brothers’ lean, tight-muscled bodies, Mickey decided they were indeed older than he had first thought, more like eighteen or so. To their father, he said, “Then you’re the one that tried to warn the Trojans about the Greeks in the wooden horse, and then Apollo sent snakes to kill the three of you…”
“Is that what they’re saying—about the snakes, I mean?” asked Melanthus, as Laocoön and his two sons settled down on bar-stools.
“You know how myths—how stories get started.” Mickey grabbed a bottle of resinated wine. He almost served it straight, remembered ancient Greek customs, then carefully watered each serving.
Laocoön gulped down half a glass of watered wine, then sipped the rest. “The Achaeans chased us because I almost persuaded the Trojans to burn that wooden horse—with the Achaeans still inside—as a sacrifice to Apollo. The Trojans chased us because I didn’t convince them to burn the horse. Apollo got upset because His priests are supposed to be chaste, and when their mother unloaded our two sons on me last month—they were cramping her style, to coin a phrase—anyway, it became all too obvious that I had been sowing my oats, to invent another phrase. Aphrodite found out the snakes were supposed to kill us, but She got to them before they got to us. She has a thing for lovers, especially illicit ones, and so She…”
He paused to pat the head of the remaining snake, now looped over his shoulder and around his waist. The snake rubbed its head against Laocoön’s hand in a cat-like gesture, then went down onto Laocoön’s stiffening prong. The twins’ prongs were stiffening too. As they, Mickey, and Lou watched, the snake began sucking Laocoön off.
Antiphas looked back over his bare shoulder at the entrance. “If the doors—”
“Not to worry,” Mickey said. “We’re already millennia and parsecs away from Troy. I’ll check the controls to see where and when we are now.”
Antiphas stroked his own shaft. “Before, they worked on all of us at once; now we’ll have to take turns.”
Lou said, “There’s a quiet booth in the corner where you can get comfortable and—and maybe, while you’re resting between rounds, the snake could…” He led them away, squirming out of his tight T-shirt. Mickey noticed the “reserved” sign on the booth inhabited by the Bar’s mint-green, carnivorous goo now stated the warning in archaic Greek, using Linear B characters.
* * * *
Some minutes later—if one can really measure time in the Exotics Bar when it’s traveling between Then and Now—Mickey saw an ethereal figure slowly materialize—haloed, winged, and draped in glowing white that didn’t quite hide the figure’s beautifully proportioned physique.
“No, no, not while I’m on duty,” said the figure as Mickey reached for the seldom-tapped bottle of ambrosia. “But perhaps when I’ve finished the presentation? But first—” He produced a scroll and cleared his throat. “In recognition of your recent refusal to fall into Temptation, I have been authorized by Very Highest Authority to present you with this. Now where…”
He groped in thin air and found a white vase which held a single white lily. “Ah, here it is. For you, a Fragrant Blossom, far more effective than whatever debased copy of the Real Thing that you were previously offered by the Adversary and quite properly turned down. I am sure you will use it solely and exclusively in performance of Good Works—no, no; don’t thank me; I am but a messenger for—”
“Yes, yes, I know: for the Very Highest Authority,” Mickey replied, carefully emphasizing the capital letters.
“You have only to persuade a petitioner to partake of the Fragrant Blossom’s essence, to sniff at it; and…”
“I know, I know. I do appreciate the gesture, but as a bartender, I already—but again, thanks. Now, a small libation of Ambrosia? On the house, of course.”
“Now that I’m off duty, delighted. In fact, since I’m not in a hurry…”
“Take your time; here’s the bottle.” Mickey glanced to one side; one of the barmaids was looking interested. Turning to her, he said, “Henrietta, since business is so light, you don’t need to be on duty either, so why don’t you…?”
…and before he finished the sentence, she, the bottle, and the messenger—whose splendid physique was showing more clearly now as his drapery faded into mist and swirled away—were off to another curtained booth.
* * * *
LOU
