Chapter 3

“And you see a girl’s brown body, dancing through the turquoise,

And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.

And when your fingers find her, she drowns you with her body,

Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.”

-Cream, “Tales of Brave Ulysses”

The Sun shone through the open balcony doors into the bedroom of the castle. It cast its beam across the marbled floor, onto the Persian rug, across the king-sized bed, and onto the face of Contessa Helena de San Finzione. She opened one eye slightly and the light entered it as well.

Helena grumbled and turned over, burying her face in the long, black hair of the woman sleeping next to her. The memory that she had things to do today pounded on her one-quarter conscious mind like an old fishing buddy shouting on her lawn about how they need to get to the lake before sun-up.

She reached for the button to summon Maria before remembering that Maria was whose shampoo she was, at that moment, smelling; some tropical blend, heavy on the coconut. Helena put her arm around her maid and her hand brushed over something hairy. Finding Maria’s sunflower-colored wig that had come off at some point in their evening’s activities, La Contessa hurled it behind her in the general direction of the vanity and softly kissed the girl to consciousness, tasting herself on Maria’s lips.

“Mmm ... good morning, Contessa. What shall I bring you for breakfast?”

Helena sat up and grabbed the silk nightgown that hung on her bedpost. “We’ll get something in town. Start a bath, we’re going out and we’ll need to get cleaned up and dressed for shopping.”

“Si, Contessa,” the maid said as she made her way off of the bed and toward the bathroom.

Helena lit a cigarette and checked her messages. The Prefect of Police had sent along the reports from last night. After church, Troy and Julie had gone to a local taverna; where Troy performed a karaoke number, then they spent the rest of the evening there talking with the locals. Each of the four officers’ reports included personal notes to the same effect: Why were they following a pair of American tourists when there were real crimes going on in San Finzione? The Prefect was planning disciplinary actions for the question. That gave her a little smile, and she messaged back to tell him to let them off the hook, but take the officers off the surveillance and assign different ones, reiterating not to approach the couple. Troy had gotten to them; the lack of profanity in the reports told her that it had been him rather than Julie.

Maria emerged from the bathroom a minute later. “Your bath is drawn, Contessa. I shall return to my quarters to prepare myself.” She gave a little smile and a wink. “Unless La Contessa has need of my services and wishes to conserve water.”

Helena set the phone down and removed her gown. She walked over to her maid and put her arm around the girl.

“Well, we MUST always set a good example for the people,” Helena said as she kissed Maria.

They walked into the bathroom together.

Julie tapped her mimosa glass on the coffee table. “I hereby declare this first meeting of the San Finzione chapter of the Helen Is A Big Poopyhead Club open.”

“Wow, you saved the sign all these years, hon,” Troy said, coming out of the bathroom in his great-grandfather’s smoking jacket and looking at the old, faded Sharpie-and-glitter covered paper sign on the wall behind her announcing that Helen was, indeed, a Big Poopyhead. He took a seat next to Julie on the couch.

“It’s going into the foreword of my first art book, Master.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to talk about this stuff in the hotel room,” Susan asked from the Skype conference on the laptop in front of Julie. “Or over their wifi?”

“Helen owns every hotel in the city,” Troy said as he leaned forward to pile some scrambled eggs and bacon onto a piece of toast from the room service platter. “And she’s had us followed since we got off the plane, but she wouldn’t stoop to bugging our room or monitoring our internet.” He took a bite of the little breakfast sandwich he’d made. “She’d consider it unsporting.”

“You have some twisted friends,” Brenda said from her box on Skype.

“Yeah, thanks for calling me back to the room at the party so I didn’t get to meet her,” Claire said from her window. “You two owe me an iPad now!” Everyone laughed.

“Order,” Julie said. Still giggling and rapping her empty glass against the table again, then handing it to Troy to refill. “Ideas we’re stealing from Helen come later in the agenda, after the Two Minutes of Cattiness.”

“I’ve never liked that part of the meetings, Mistress,” Troy said as he refilled her drink, and then poured himself a plain orange juice.

“That’s why you’re only Treasurer and Timekeeper, hon,” Julie replied with a pat on his knee. “Now then: Yesterday’s activities went well. We kept her from making the kind of lavish entrance she lives for, and her police searched the hotel room but didn’t find the trunk. This means that today, she’ll go on the offensive and try to approach us on her terms.”

Troy finished his half-sandwich and started making one for Julie as he chimed in. “She’s very focused on short-term objectives. We’re going to the marketplace later; she’ll probably ‘run into us’ there, likely on the pretext of a shopping spree. So we’re going to put ourselves out there and we’ll need the rest of you operating behind the scenes. How’s the net stuff going, Susan?”

“Better than I expected. I didn’t even know San Finzione had a Craigslist. That’s been helpful.”

Troy nodded. “Ok, so everyone work that angle, we’ll do our part; which, for today, is keeping her distracted. Now, unless we’re really going to go through the entire procedure of a meeting of the Helen Is A Big Poopyhead Club, I’d like a private word with Susan.” Julie shook her head no and Claire and Brenda did as well. They dropped the call as Julie headed for the shower.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long, Mr. Equals,” Julie said as she left the door open behind her. Troy switched Susan’s image to full-screen and scooted over to Julie’s spot to be directly in front of the camera.

“How’re you doing, hon,” he asked, taking a sip of his orange juice.

“I’m ok,” she said with a smile. “Not used to the house being so empty.”

“I’m sorry again, Susan. We’d love to have brought you with us.”

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize for not taking a third person along on what’s still your honeymoon.”

“It’s not that at all. It’s just ... If we’d brought you with us, Helen would consider you fair game. She’s a black belt, and we haven’t even taught you Wax On, Wax Off yet. But we’ll start fixing that when we get home. I think you’re ready and Julie agrees; and if you do too, we can get started.”

Susan smiled. “You’re adorable when you get protective, you know that?”

Troy smiled back. “Well, if you get bored while we’re gone, Google ‘mcstories Daphne.’ Call it your first homework assignment.”

“Julie already told me about her work; she said I could use Troy 2 while I read.”

“Of all the possible reactions that I could have to Julie naming her toys after me, I choose ‘flattered.’”

Susan heard moaning over the sound of running water coming from the open door to the bathroom. “Speaking of toys, sounds like you better get in there.”

Troy took off his smoking jacket with a fake sigh. “Yep, guess it’s time to go do that husbandly duties thing. You be ok. We love you.”

“I love her too,” came a yell between moans from the bathroom.

“I said both of us,” Troy yelled back. He reached for the mouse to end the call when Susan stopped him.

“Wait,” she said. “Can you take the laptop into the bathroom?”

Troy raised an eyebrow. “Hmm ... I never had a threesome from the other side of the world before.” He yelled in the direction of the bathroom door. “Mistress, can Susan join us?”

“Oh God, why’re you even asking? Bring her in!”

Troy set down his orange juice and stood up. On the screen, he saw Susan start to get up from the computer at home.

“Hey, where’re you going,” he asked as he carried the laptop to the bathroom.

“Why, to get Troy 2, of course,” Susan replied with a wink.

“You know, every once in a while, it just hits me: I love some freaky women.”

It was one on the afternoon when La Contessa and Maria were done making their way through San Finzione’s fashion district. After visiting twelve shops, 20 new outfits for Helena and 14 for Maria were being delivered to the castle. Most businesses closed from noon until 2 PM in the city, but word spread quickly that La Contessa was on a shopping spree, and they decided to remain open for her.

As the two walked back to the Ferrari, a text came in for La Contessa. Her targets had been at an outdoor café, talking to an old woman, and one of the surveillance officers had spotted La Contessa and her maid approaching their position. Helena replied that she understood and that she was safe. The officers were to keep their distance, no matter what happened.

She pulled Maria into one of the shops they’d already been to and instructed the maid to just grab items at random from the racks. When they had enough to fill three shopping bags, Helena paid for everything, took one of the bags, and instructed Maria to carry the other two.

“I know better than to question La Contessa,” Maria said as she trailed behind her with the bags. “But I cannot help think why we no have these things sent to the castle with the others?”