What a dump, Abraham Russell thought as he glanced around the reception area. It was how he'd expected it, to be honest--naff in a cheap kind of way. They'd made an attempt to make it look sensual and erotic, but overall the effect was more Blackpool than burlesque. Stylish photos of scantily-clad models from the sixties and seventies were placed on the walls. The girls were all on the chubby side. It was a reminder of how hideous the average English woman had been until the advent of silicone implants.

The layout was similar to the other places he'd visited--receptionist counter right in front of him, waiting area with a couple of sofas, coffee table complete with complementary bowl of mints, and a TV to his right. A chavette with long blonde hair sat on one of the sofas and watched the TV with a bored expression. She wasn't wearing much--a gauzy white dressing gown over plain white underwear. Face okay, body not bad. Obviously rough as fuck and probably with a gob on her to make a sailor blush, but fake-tan Pamela would be acceptable. She at least had the sense to turn and give Abraham a smile.

He knew her name was Pamela because he'd picked her out in the gallery of portraits on the wall behind her. It was a common feature shared by most of the upmarket--relative, of course!--massage parlours up North. Their rosters were displayed in the waiting area to help the punter make his choice. The same pictures were displayed online if the parlour had a web page, but with the faces blurred out. Supposedly to protect the girls' privacy. Abraham reckoned it was because they didn't want to frighten the punters away.

"Hello, dear," the receptionist said. She was fat and wore too much makeup. "Welcome to Arabella's. I haven't seen you around before. First time?"

"Yes," Abraham said.

"That's fine," the receptionist said. "Our girls are very good. They'll put you at ease in no time at all."

"I meant first time here," Abraham said. "I'm extremely familiar with massage parlours."

"Oh," the receptionist said. "Then I hope you'll find us to be one of the better ones."

"Maybe," Abraham said.

Doubtful, he thought. He doubted some Northern slapper would have the same willingness to please as an Oriental honey, and he knew for sure they wouldn't be as jaw-droppingly beautiful as the Russian blondes down in London.

"I have very high standards," he stated.

"Then we'll have to do our utmost to please them," the receptionist said. "What brings you to Arabella's, Mister... ?"

"Russell," Abraham filled in. "Abraham Russell."

If the receptionist recognised his name, she didn't show it.

"I'm doing a tour of all the massage parlours in the city," Abraham said.

"Lucky you," the receptionist said.

"I wasn't supposed to visit here until next Tuesday, actually," Abraham said. "The girl I'd booked at Sandy's Lounge was off sick and the others were ... unappealing. You're close by, so I decided to visit and see what's available."

"Who's been the best so far?" the receptionist asked. "I like to know what the competition is up to," she added with a wink.

"Asian Angels," Abraham replied.

The receptionist frowned. "Asian Angels? I thought the police shut that place down ages ago. You want to steer clear of there. The girls aren't always working there out of choice, if you know what I mean."

Abraham shrugged.

"So what was it, a win on the lottery or the horses?" the receptionist asked.

Abraham's face creased up in puzzlement. Then he realised what she meant.

"Oh no, no," he said. "This is my job. I review massage parlours."

The receptionist paused.

Here comes the ass-kissing, Abraham thought.

She looked him straight in the eye.

"Bullshit," she said.

Abraham was taken aback. It was not the response he'd expected.

The receptionist chuckled. "Oh don't look so surprised," she said. "Plenty of blokes come in here and run that line. They think it'll motivate the girls to give better service. You've nothing to worry about in that department. We're not one of those city centre rip-off saunas. We have good girls here. They'll do their best to make sure you're fully satisfied."

She looked at Abraham with a knowing twinkle in her eyes.

"'Sides, I can tell you're not a proper reviewer. A proper reviewer wouldn't tell you up front they're a reviewer. They'd want the experience to be authentic, like it would be for any average bloke walking in off the street, and they wouldn't get that if they tipped the girls off beforehand."

"I am a proper massage parlour reviewer," Abraham protested. "I'm the massage parlour reviewer. I'm Abraham Russell. I write for GentlemanPunter. com. I wrote the Massage Parlour Review guide last year."

"Really?" the receptionist said, her face briefly freezing up in an expression of bovine stupidity.

Yes, really, you stupid fat cow, Abraham wanted to say.

"Well that's a bit daft, isn't it," the receptionist said. "How are you going to be able to write about a typical experience now you've tipped us off?"

Abraham couldn't give two shits about the 'typical' experience.

He gave her an unctuous smile. "I have very high standards," he explained. "I think it's only fair to let the girls know this in advance so they can try their best to earn a good review."

And give Abraham an experience that at least approached tolerability.

"I see," the receptionist said. She didn't seem convinced. "Well, we also cater to more specialised needs. We have a number of extra facilities, including a fully stocked BDSM dungeon."

Abraham shook his head and smiled. "Thanks, but no thanks," he said. "A proper BDSM session should be carried out in a proper BDSM dungeon with a proper, trained dominatrix."

"Oh," the receptionist said. Her lips, liberally smeared with greasy red lipstick, formed an 'o'.

"A massage with the usual extras will be quite sufficient," Abraham said.

"Okay then," the receptionist said. "That will be twenty plus whatever you agree with the girl in the room."

Abraham smiled, showing a perfect set of pearly white teeth.

"You know," he said. "Most of the establishments I visit choose to waive the fee or offer a substantive discount."

The receptionist chuckled.

"That's the other thing they try to pull--those blokes claiming to be massage parlour reviewers. The cheeky ones," she said. "Doesn't get them anywhere, mind you."

"That's most disappointing," Abraham said. "I don't suppose you could connect me with one of your superiors. Someone with more authority, maybe even the owner. Someone who'll better understand the business benefits a positive endorsement from me will bring."

He smiled again, showing his teeth.

"Sure," the receptionist said.

She turned around as if she was going to call for someone hidden away in one of the back rooms, but instead turned back around to face Abraham without saying a word.

"Hello. Arabella Colman, owner of Arabella's. How do you do," she said.

Awk. Ward.

"I'm sorry, but we don't offer freebies or discounts. I'm sure--as a professional reviewer--this will not colour your opinion of our establishment in any way or form. After all, it's how the girl performs in the room that's important," the receptionist said.

"Of course," Abraham said.

That's two stars gone for starters, he thought. Better hope you have a real beauty available if you don't want this dump to drop into minus ratings.

He slapped two fifties down on the counter.

"I presume this will be sufficient," he said.

"I know you," the receptionist said, thoughtful. "Yes, Abraham Russell. I've heard that name before."

At last. Finally. Took the stupid cow long enough. Abraham waited for the inevitable grovelling.

"You're the one been going around all the parlours asking for freebies and trying to wheedle extras out of the girls. Threatening them with bad reviews if they don't. Yes, I've read the warnings about you."

Abraham's expression soured.

"Lies," he said. "Spread by establishments after I rightly castigated them for their shoddy standards of service."

He reached for his money.

"I take it my patronage is not welcome here," he said.

The receptionist looked in two minds, but was still fast enough to snatch the notes from the counter before his slowly descending hand reached them.

"Your money's as good as anyone else's," she said.

Abraham smiled. Nothing greedier than a greedy whore.

"That's a better attitude," he said. "So what charming ladies do you have available for my entertainment on this lovely afternoon?"

He held up a wagging finger.

"Don't forget. Thousands of punters read my blog every day."

"In that case, we should make sure you get our best girl. I'll see if Amanda is free."

This was more like it. Some fucking respect, finally.

He looked at the rows of portraits on the walls. None of them had the name Amanda.

"Which one's Amanda?" he asked.

"She's not up there," Arabella replied. "She's our special girl."

"Special?"

Sounded like bullshit to Abraham. Maybe they'd all pooled their cash and she was the one who got the good boob job.

"Very," Arabella said. "I guarantee you won't have had a service from a girl like her before."

"Okay, you've piqued my interest," Abraham said.

Only as prelude to the eventual disappointment, he thought.

"Wait here," Arabella said. "I'll go and see if she's available."

She squeezed out from behind the counter and waddled off down the corridor. Abraham was left standing in front of the reception counter. He turned and noticed the blonde chavette was staring at him with Bambi eyes. He gave her a leering grin and she hurriedly looked away.

He didn't have long to wait before Arabella's corpulent form reappeared.

"She's free," she said. "Follow me."

She led him down a corridor and to a set of stairs leading down to a cellar or basement. The walls were covered in hideous stripy pink wallpaper and pictures of yet more overweight models. Abraham shook his head. No clue at all, he thought.

He followed her down and she directed him through a door to his left. He entered the room, looked around, shook his head and sighed. Of course it would be. What else would be down in the cellar. He turned back to the door.

"Hey!" he called out. "I said I wasn't interested in a BDSM session in a third-rate dungeon with an amateur dominatrix."

The door closed. Something thick and muscular wound around his calves. Before he could react, it slithered up around his body and pinned his arms to his sides. It felt like some kind of giant tentacle had coiled around him. It was strong. His weight came off his feet as the muscular coil bunched up and lifted him up off the floor until only his toes remained in contact.

"Amateur dominatrix, hmpth."

Abraham found himself looking at a gorgeous girl with rich olive skin, bright green eyes and jet-black hair cut in a Cleopatra bob. She was strikingly beautiful. Hollywood beautiful, even. Way more beautiful than Abraham would have expected to find in a shitty massage parlour up in the arse-end of the north. Nice bod too, Abraham thought as he glanced down to where the full curves of her tits were barely contained within a kinky black leather bra.

"Does this look third rate to you?" she said, placing a hand on a slender hip.

No, it didn't. Not at all. Above the waist was one of the most attractive upper bodies Abraham had ever seen, and he'd seen a lot.

Below the waist...

Dear God, below the waist...

It wasn't a tentacle coiled around Abraham but the body of an enormous snake, and the snake was the girl in front of him. His eyes tried to unravel the special effect. It had to be some kind of trick, although he couldn't see how it was done. It looked real. The girl's dusky olive flesh gave way to glittering green and bronze scales, and instead of legs, her hips flowed together into a long serpentine body, a significant portion of which was currently coiled around his body and lifting him up off the floor.

This was fucked up.

Abraham prided himself on possessing a pragmatic, well-grounded nature. There were two explanations. Either this was a dream or hallucination, or reality was a lot fucking weirder than he'd previously thought. Closing his eyes and muttering, 'it's all a dream', over and over would do fuck all if it turned out to be the latter. Until he woke up, if he woke up, he had to go with what his senses told him, no matter how fucked up.

Girls with the lower bodies of snakes exist. Yeah, shocker. Now that crazy little nugget has been processed, let's proceed.

"Amanda?" he asked.

The girl nodded.

"You're a lamia," he said. Dusty memories of old classics courses were dredged up to the surface.

"Naga actually," Amanda said.

"Nagin," Abraham corrected. "Unless you've got some extra bits down there I don't know about."

Amanda raised a pencil-thin black eyebrow. She looked like a Bollywood princess. A pissed off Bollywood princess with the lower half of a giant snake.

"I've heard of you, or rather of things like you," Abraham said as a lightbulb pinged in his mind.

He'd received a series of emails about some kind of monster--a girl with the lower body of a giant spider--working in an unnamed massage parlour. At the time he'd dismissed them as either an elaborate practical joke or the drug-fuelled ravings of a complete nutjob. Now--with his own boundaries of reality widened, so to speak--those same emails started to look a little more credulous.

"People have sent me reports of strange creatures hiding out in massage parlours," he added.

"People also say they see Elvis buying milk at their local supermarket," Amanda said.

"They're nuts," Abraham said. "I'm not."

He looked around. The dungeon was surprisingly well equipped. Not a patch on the specialist places in Birmingham or London, but better than he'd have expected for a crappy little parlour Oop North.

"Makes sense," he said. "Most men don't exactly tell their wives, girlfriends or mothers where they're going before they visit a massage parlour."

"True," Amanda said.

Her coils started to tighten ominously around Abraham's chest.

"Na ha ha," Abraham blurted out. "I said most men. Not me. This is my job. I have a full itinerary. My secretary has my full itinerary. One never knows when one will come across some East European fuckwad gang in this business."

Her body stopped squeezing him.

"Rest assured. If I go missing the authorities will know exactly where to start looking," he panted.

The pressure on Abraham's chest relaxed. A forked tongue flickered between Amanda's full lips as she regarded him.

"That's better," Abraham said, although his arms were still pinned to his sides. "Is this normally how you treat your paying customers?"

"Actually, it's normally what they pay for," Amanda said.

Figures, Abraham thought, freaks paying a freak to service them.

Abraham wasn't interested. At least he thought he wasn't interested. He was about to order her to let him go so he could leave this freakshow behind, and then he looked at her upper body again.

She was kind of hot. Really hot. His curiosity had been inflamed also. He'd visited a lot of parlours and enjoyed the services of a lot of different girls, but he'd never encountered anyone like this.

Plus he'd already paid.

"Not me," he said. "You can drop the dominatrix crap. I'm not one of those sad pervs who gets his jollies from being beaten up. I want a massage and the usual extras. So how about you get rid of the Princess Xena-wear so I can get a good look at those titties, luv."

A little glint of anger flashed in her green eyes.

"You're very cocky for someone talking to a being who can apply the same amount of pressure to your chest as being crushed under the wheel of a medium-sized minivan," Amanda said.

She still unhooked her bra and threw it aside. As Abraham suspected, they were indeed an extremely nice pair of tits--large, but firm rather than sagging. Perky nipples emerged from the centre of her chocolate-coloured areolae. Superb.

"That's because you can't do shit to me," he said with a wink. "That's how the world is nowadays, luv. The sharp-tongued have taken it from the strong. The pen--or the keyboard--is mightier than the sword. So, you'd better treat me sweet unless you want your existence splashed all over the internet."

Amanda's tail flickered in front of his face. A rattle without a rattle. She regarded him with cool detachment.

"Interesting. So you intend telling everyone you ran into a woman with the lower body of a snake." She smiled. "Good luck with that."

"No. I'm not stupid," Abraham retorted. "I know no one would believe me." His face turned crafty. "I'll tell the authorities this place deals in trafficked girls. I have contacts. I imagine the extra police attention will prove quite uncomfortable for you."

Abraham grinned. Amanda frowned. Her coils loosened a little more, enough for Abraham to feel his feet back on the ground.