Tommie Lyn

Come into My Parlor

Fame has its price...

Flyra jiggled the handle, impatient to be admitted. The longer she waited in the alley, the more likely she would be seen by fans and mobbed.

She heard a faint scraping from the other side of the door, then it creaked open. Flyra stepped through the open door and the old man pulled it shut behind her.

“Where is he?” she asked.

The old man looked up and pointed toward the ceiling with a gnarled finger. Flyra pushed past him and started for the stairs with no further discussion. The old man watched her ascend with an expression of resignation, shook his head and returned to his perch beside the door.

Flyra knocked on the chipped, much-painted door, gingerly at first, as though she didn’t want any part of her body to touch it. When there was no answer, she knocked again, harder. And waited. She was about to pound it with her fist when she heard his voice issue the summons to enter.

“Come into my parlor.”

Parlor. That’s what he called it. Not office, which it was. Nor living room, which some people would have called it. Parlor.

She released the breath she’d been holding, willed her scrunched up face to smooth itself, then turned the knob and walked in.

“Flyra,” he said in a silken, languid tone that made her shudder.

He smiled.

Flyra said nothing.

“Need your fix?”

Flyra shuddered again. “You know I do.”

“What is it that’s going…the voice? Your dance rhythym?”

She looked at the floor and mumbled, “I can’t sing.”

“Tut, tut. What a pity,” he said in a voice that seemed to exult over Flyra’s misfortune. “A rock star who can’t sing. Can’t command much fan adoration like that, can you?”

She shook her head.

“And you want me to fix it for you, right?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“What was that? I don’t believe I heard you.”

“Yes,” Flyra repeated, louder this time.

“Did you bring someone?”

“No. But I will.”

“You know our deal,” he said, the natural grating, gritty sound replacing the usual cultivated smoothness of his voice.

“Please! I have a concert tonight--”

“You know the rules.”

“But--”

“If I let you get away with it, the first thing you know, others will be wanting me to make concessions, wanting me to let them out of their obligations to me. No. That won’t do,” he said, and would have shaken his head if he could have.

“Just this once!”

“No!” he growled, his rasp echoing hollow and screeching through the open doorways and down the halls, vibrating the white hammock on which he crouched.

“I’ll make it up to you!”

“You know I can’t forego the schedule,” he said, his eyes glistening as he glowered at her.

“It can’t be that long since you--”

“The only way I can maintain myself in this form is by eating on the pizza of eternity. I must have morsels for my pizza!” he said, and threw a silken strand around Flyra’s body.