Annie CVIII: Your Call Is Important To Us

(Chronological index: Between Undines and Gnomes)

Victoria was literally yanked out of a restless sleep. She started apologizing immediately. You weren't supposed to sleep during working hours. "I'm sorry! No one woke me! Don't spank me!"

To her surprise, though, the lights of the store were dimmed. Closed dim, not Halloween Special dim.

She twisted around to see who had her. Manager was lifting her out of the case. But Manager NEVER touched the talent!

"Shut up," Manager said. "You're not in trouble." Then she was unceremoniously dropped into a plastic bag. She didn't ask questions. Even a young sylph knew better than to ask questions.

She brushed wood chips from her hair and waited to find out what had changed. Change... Change was very seldom good.

Every time she'd been sold, it had been to a person who cared less about sylphs than the last.

She didn't even know who owned her now, besides All Ur Phantasy. Someone had to own the store, though, so she had an owner. She wasn't sure if it was better or worse to not know who her owner was or where they were.

At least here they had never let customers touch the sylphs.

She heard the door open. So she was leaving AUP. And she wasn't likely being given to the owner's daughter. She was old enough to know that story wasn't real.

No more real than the kibble fairy. Shaker was the one who snuck extra food to little sylphs while they slept.

Or had been. Now she was...

She'd never really seen the outside. Bags and boxes were how sylphs got around. But she kinda thought they'd have reached a car by now.

Another door opened and shut. They must be in one of the other parts of the AUP lot. So maybe she hadn't been sold?

Just....promoted? Did that happen? To sylphs?

The bag was lowered to some cold surface and the sides came down. Manager stood in front of a desk. None of them were sure if Manager had a desk.

They heard the clerks talk. They knew that Manager was a former stripper. And that she could freeze ice cubes off of her ass. And that she didn't carry grudges. She built houses and chiseled them into the foundation.

And she was a mean drunk.

The sylphs weren’t entirely sure where she parked her broom, but they had never heard any mention of a desk.

But she was standing. Did that mean it wasn't hers? She turned slowly around.

A rough-looking man sat on the other side, looking down at her around his cigarette. By rough, she meant that the sylphs would have sized him up pretty quickly as someone who liked his sylphs to get knocked around a bit.

She was pretty good at staggering around the aquarium, pretending she'd been hit, but sometimes they tricked her into running head first into the glass.

This guy looked that sneaky. And like he'd laugh at her when she did.

"Talk." That was all he said.

"My name is Victoria, big guy," she said. She couldn't think of anything else to say, any way to treat this man except as a customer. "I'd really like you to take me into the peep room for a while. Just... Just please don't hurt-"

"Nice voice," he muttered. But as a judgment, not a compliment. She swallowed and waited. "How'd you learn our greeting?"

"Shaker told me," she said. He looked confused. Then he looked up at manager. "Shaker?"

"Desiree," Manager translated. Victoria cringed. She knew she should have used the 'stage' name. Nicknames were only for inside the tank. She hadn't earned one yet.

"Ah," the man grunted. "Can you read?" Victoria teared up. She tried to speak but nothing came out. "Is that a yes or a no?"

"She's afraid to give you an answer that might disappoint," Manager said. "But she's been a sylph all her life, so the chances are poor."

"Um," Victoria managed.

"Oh, fuck," he grunted. "You're not in trouble. The worst that could happen to you is that you go back to the display case. Can you learn stuff? Like the greeting, but more complicated?"

"We the people," she started. And like before, nothing would stop once she was going. "In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the..."

Manager and Man stood silent, eyes wide, as she recited the constitution's preamble. Whatever that was.

"Was that...?" he asked.

"From what I remember, yes," Manager said. She bent down to where Victoria cringed. "Where did you learn that?"

"The customer.... Flagman. He has sylphs repeat that to him as they... As they touch themselves. And he touches himself. And he salutes. And he licks..."

"TMI," Manager interrupted. "How many visits did it take you to learn that?"

"One..." She spoke faster as she apologized. "He'sonlyeveraskedmetheonce! ButIdideverythingheasked! Idid! Really!"

"Calm down, little..." Man said.

"Victoria," Manager supplied.

"You're not in trouble," he insisted. "Victoria." He leaned back. "You memorized that at one go?"

"Yes, sir."

"How'd you like to move out of the Tank, take over a microphone on the call center?" She stared.

Man got it before Manager had to intervene. "You don't understand what that entails, do you?" He shook his head. "Well, here's the deal. You move into a cubicle. You answer the phone. You tell people what they want to hear. You understand?"

"I'll try very hard!" she promised.

"And that's what I wanted to hear!" he laughed. "You'll do great!"

She tried to smile. But there was so much unknown...

Manager picked her up and carried her across the room. There was a doorway and a hallway and a room. A room full of little aquariums. All with tubes connecting them to a big wading pool. Some sylph women lounged in the pool, others were sleeping in the tanks.

The pool was split in half by a wooden stick under it. One side was shoulder-deep water and the other was dry. There was food, like kibble but different colors. And soft things to sit on. And sylph women sitting close by each other. And no wooden chips.

Manager held her by an aquarium. There were four beds inside it. "That's where you'll sleep. Can you remember this number?"

"That's a four," Victoria said, seeing the number painted on the glass.

"Right, there are signs in the tubes. And you work here." Another tank. There was a pink stripe painted all around the edge. "Follow the pink lines and you'll end up here for work."

"Yes, Manager."

"Good, girl. Now, I'll let one of the others train you up. Okay?"

She'd learn from a sylph. That was good. Sylphs didn't assume that she knew more than she possibly could. Human customers were always assuming she lived a life like theirs. She nodded happily.

Manager lowered her to the wading pool and set her down. "Kids, this is Victoria. New girl on Pink four. Okay? Break her in."

Break? Victoria started to panic.

An older sylph came up to her. White hair falling out, wrinkled, bony. But she smiled wide and offered her arms for a hug. "I'm Queen Bitch, Victoria. Relax. You're going to be fine."

----------------

Victoria's world expanded exponentially. She learned about phones. Call waiting. And menus.

"The biggies," QB explained in the phone center, "call a place that gives them a list of choices. They can..." She paused.

One of the girls they were monitoring had a call. A small light blinked over the microphone and Mandy stepped onto the speak pad.

A mechanical voice spoke to her. Queen and Victoria could hear it clearly, but the other sylphs' customers wouldn't. Not through the sound cancelling curtains drawn.

"Customer has chosen Tabby, The Tough Feral." The voice quieted and Mandy took a few deep breaths. Then the voice changed. "Hello?"

"Oh! Oh, no! I've finally been caught!" Mandy whined.

"That's right. I caught you," the customer said. "In, uh, a trap."

"I thought I was too smart for traps!" Mandy protested. "You cheated!"

"I did not," he replied, sounding smug. "You, uh, you just fell for my... Trap. And I trapped you."

"What are you going to do to me? I mean, besides leer in at my big, heaving breasts?"

"I'm going to take you home and bathe you."

"The giants have these fantasies," Queen explained quietly. "You figure out what they want to do, what they want to hear, and you give it back to them."

"How did she know he wanted to hear about big heaving breasts?"

Mandy turned and winked as she continued play acting. Queen smiled. "They all want to hear about big heaving breasts."

The caller's options for sylphs were huge. They could choose to talk to Andi, a coworker who'd just sylphed in the office. Victoria couldn't take those calls as she could never convincingly say 'I hide behind the power strip.'

Bubbles was a Big Beautiful Woman who sylphed and needed to be disciplined by her master, to lose weight and firm up. Victoria only had to memorize a list of fatty foods and beg while panting on her imaginary mouse wheel.

Cathy was caught in a trap, and tried to beg someone to let her out. The callers were sometimes humans and sometimes pretended to be sylphs that she had to offer sex to.

Debbie was a little sylph whore. Her pimp carried her around to motel rooms. Callers asked her to describe what customers did to her. Victoria was unsure about those calls until Mandy told her to just pick one of her customers from The Tank, and describe that.

There were a dozen characters and situations. Some were easy for Victoria to adopt. Others were impossible.

For now.

Man let the sylphs watch TV while they were in the wading pool. They had a fairly generous amount of down time, mostly to preserve their voices. Every eight hours of phone-sylph was followed by six hours off. They spent it sleeping, eating, swimming and watching soap operas, news programs or sylph-spoiltation movies.

The last were intended for the girls to learn what the callers were looking for. All too many had, according to Queen, 'the imagination of used kibble.' So once they figured out which movie cliché they wanted to live, the girls adapted.

It was two weeks before Victoria realized what 'used kibble' was. She started laughing during a call. Lucky for her, she was Tough Tabby at the time. The shit-for-brains client extended that call twice.

----------------

The phone system went offline about three months after Victoria was moved back to the call center. Frightened that they'd be blamed for the low number of completed calls, they patiently collected around the microphones and tested the systems repeatedly.

Manager came back after an hour of silence and turned off the phones. They stared. "No fear," she said. "No one's in trouble. Some idiots stole a bulldozer and knocked over a cell tower."

She described the technical details, most of which was lost on the sylphs. Some of them had not had a private phone in 19 years, and none had ever owned a cell phone.

But at the end, she put a box of chocolate in the wading pool and declared an 'early holiday.' They understood that.

So they were eating the candy and watching the news when the world found out about Undines.

They stopped chewing. Some stopped breathing. The rumors were wild and varied, though everyone seemed to agree on a few things.

Some place in the middle of Florida, only hours driving from where they sat, a sylph had grown to twice their height.

And her family had become visibly younger. Word on her friends' 'youthing' was slower in coming.

And Queen Bitch recognized one of her friends. "The kid!" she shouted. It was the closest Victoria had ever come to the term 'celebrity,' much less to being within two degrees of celebrity.

It was odd, for all of them. They'd never imagined a sylph being on TV as anything but 'Sylph #2 On Dashboard' or 'Massage Sylph.'

Although Mia wasn't really a sylph anymore. But she'd been one, and now people were asking her questions, not her owner.

It was a little hard for some of the little people to take. Queen noticed one pitch over in a faint near her. That alerted her to the others in similar conditions.

They were all carefully moved to safe places, comfortable positions, and watched over.

And the world shook itself a bit and changed.

--------

Man smiled warmly down at the six sylphs on his desk. "So! You guys like it in the call center, right?"

"Of course, sir," Queen Bitch said quickly. Victoria, Spinner, Mallory, Cinnamon and Lake all nodded quickly.

"So, you guys are... Happy?" They nodded once more and made happy sounds.

"Good, good, good," he said. He drummed his fingers on the table. The vibrations pounded up through Victoria's legs. It was kinda pleasant. She told herself that, anyway.

"So, you guys saw that undine sylph on the TV?"

"Yes, sir," Queen Bitch said.

"How'd you guys like to be undines?" He winked. Victoria thought she'd never seen him look more like one of their customers.

"We're going to be loved?" Lake asked. Victoria wasn't sure she wanted to be loved. Love on the daytime shows involved a lot of slapping. On the news it seemed to involve someone dying. 'Former lover of' and all that.

The movie sylphs, the ones with dialogue, always shouted they loved their owners before they died. Usually in some way to save that beloved owner's life.

Or their owner's girlfriend. Anyway, the surviving humans always talked about how much the (dead) sylph loved one or more survivors.

Victoria shook her head. Love hurt.

----------------

Man had Jeff and Morgan, two of his warehouse drones, clean up a spot out back of the parking lot. That took some discussion.

First he called them into his office and introduced the girls that were going to be his undines. They nodded, a little anxious.

"Reminds me of The Day," Queen said. Everyone turned to stare at her. The men blinked at what seemed to be a non sequitur. The girls were amazed that she'd inserted herself into the human's conversation. "Remember?"

"I was five," Morgan said.

Queen shrugged. "Well, everyone was frightened then. New, weird shit going on. No one knew if it was catching. Or if we were going to turn out to be monsters or what."

She took a step forward. Jeff flinched, Morgan took a step back. It was weird for Victoria. The human took one step for Queens, but he moved so very far away in comparison.

Made Queen look powerful for a second there. "Boys?" she called in a pleasant voice. "From what I know, undines heal and help and make things better. If this works, we won't be monsters."

"And even if we are," Cinnamon said, "we promise to give you a head start!"

"Hey!" Man said. "Leave the kids alone."

"Yes, sir," Cinnamon said instantly, cringing. Queen's example had made her too confident for a moment. Then she remembered her place.

"Anyway," Man said to his workers, "we need to clean up some ground for the ceremony. Take some trash out back and spread it around that field beside the club."

"Um...," Jeff protested. "Isn't that, like, the opposite of cleaning?"

"Well, wait an hour and clean it up!" Man said, as if it was obvious.

"Will that work?" Morgan asked.

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Sir?" Queen said. "Sir, the place they cleaned up in Orlando? That had been a trash dump for years."

"Yeah, but how does the Earth know how much time it's there?" Man asked.

"There's that washing machine behind the peep show," Morgan offered. "We could get that outta the grass and put it by the curb."

"You'd have to take it to the junk yard," Man pointed out. "The garbage men won't pick it up. That's why it's out back."

"We could do that," Morgan said, eyeing his partner. Jeff shrugged. "Get Chuck and his wagon..."

"Okay, but don't be all day about it!" Man said gruffly. They nodded and walked out.

He looked down at the sylphs. "So. Um. Who wants Mickey D's?"

All the sylphs looked at Queen and Cinnamon. Those two nodded. "We do," Cinnamon said.

--------

The flavors were....interesting, Victoria allowed. They walked around the burger, taking a bite of everything. Queen called it a buffet.

Onion hurt, mustard hurt, ketchup frightened, bread was comfortably non-threatening and the meat... The meat was weird.

"Bastard coulda sprung for a Big Mac," Cinnamon muttered. She mostly ate the meat, ripping bits off and running them through the ketchup.

"First fast food in twenty years," Queen pointed out. "You don't have to have any."

Man came back in the office then, asked how they liked it. He even broke open a French fry for them. They thanked him and tried that. The outside was kinda like rancid kibble, but the inside... Now that was cool.

----------------

"The boys cleaned the washing machine," Man bragged. "And even mowed the lawn. For ten feet around the hole in the ground.

"And they even found some sod to cover the rusty spot." He sounded quite satisfied.

Victoria was outside for the first time she could really remember. The sun was shining through the sides of the pet carrier.

Man carried them over to the grassy area. The grass that was cut showed brown in the Florida winter. The sod was green rectangles.

A card table was set up and he placed them down on it. Manager was there with string and kebab skewers.

Each girl was taken from the carrier and tethered to one of the skewers. Lake tugged gently on her string. The metal weighed more than she did.

One at a time they were picked up and placed around the little clearing. The skewer slid into the dirt to keep them from running off into the tall grass.

And Manager gave each one a red plastic cup taped to another skewer. Standing under those kept them out of the sun, and out of sight of birds.

They pulled their socks up like big sleeping bags and waited.

"Okay," Man said. "I guess it needs to be dark."

"Then what do we do?" Manager asked.

"According to the article, we stand in a pattern and light comes from the ground and we get healthy and young."

"I'm not going to dance again," Manager said. "I don't care how young my tits get."

"I wouldn't ask you to!" Man said. He sounded surprised. "I mean, unless you wanted to. You did knock 'em dead, back in the day."

"When the silicone settled, I nearly knocked them outta the first row." She shuddered.

They started talking nostalgically about when the All Ur Phantasy was I-95 Titty Café. The sylphs listened, fascinated. Evidently Man and Manager had been married, possibly more than once.

And Manager was named Cheryl-Lynn. Her stage name had been the incredibly original Cheryl. Manager was named Paul.

They relaxed as they talked. At one point Man cracked a beer, poured some into a tiny Dixie cup and passed it around the sylphs.

Victoria didn't like the taste, but she really, really liked sharing something with... With Mr. Paul. And Ms. Cheryl-Lynn.

She sipped the beer, felt a bubble pop up into her nose, and tried not to puke. Was this love? She didn't think it hurt nearly enough to qualify.

------

After the sun was fully set and the sky was dark, the humans took their places in the diamond-square layout. And waited. And waited. After ten minutes, Paul shrugged and sat down again. "Try again in an hour," he said.

By eleven, they'd moved their chairs to the pattern and just stood up every so often.

They handed out some beef jerky and more sips of beer at midnight. By two, Mana- Cheryl was saying it wasn't going to work.

They picked up the girls and took them back inside.

----------------

Paul moved the girls into his office and set them up with a TV remote. Their only mission was to learn everything they could about the undine ceremony. So they could do it.

Queen took over the remote. She was mostly searching for information about whoever 'the kid' was. The media was mostly concentrating on this Mia and her family.

They went out once a night. Only for about an hour after that first marathon. Paul and Cheryl started leaving the skewers in place and got little clips to hold the sylphs. They went out in time to spend an hour in the grass, ending when it was time to start closing the strip club and paying the dancers.

And nothing ever happened.

Paul had more and more of the lot cleared out. They found more trash, an enormous stash of beer bottles and 'enough used condoms to insulate an abbey,' Jeff said.

All that was cleaned up but didn't seem to improve the ceremony.

----------

"It must be the love," Cinnamon said.

"I... I love Paul," Victoria said defensively.

"Well, I certainly love Paul," Lake said. Her tone was more accusing. Someone didn't love their owner and it wasn't her.

"No, no," Cinnamon said. "No, it's not that we don't love our owner. It's that we don't FEEL loved." She turned to Victoria. "Do you think Cheryl or Paul love you?"

"I dunno!" Victoria said. "They never slapped me!"

"What?" Cinnamon asked, confused.

"Soaps," Queen Bitch muttered. "Look, do you think Mr. Paul cares about you or about what you can do for him?"

"Money," four of the six girls said together.

"Right, and is that love?" Queen asked.

"For...Paul?" Victoria asked back. "I think.. I dunno, maybe it is?"

Queen opened her mouth to spit some retort...then stopped and stared.

----------

It was May. Months after the first Undine ceremony. Now they were reported in all fifty states and many other countries around the world. Undines were an officially recognized form of pet in the US.

People who owned one could charge almost any amount to host a 'youthing.' The family that owned Mia charged nothing, but they demanded fairly extensive commitments anyway.

A minimum of an acre had to be cleaned, though not necessarily contiguous. Their ceremonies were almost always successful in invoking whatever magic was making people healthy and young. And a significant amount of the time it created a new undine.

"Contagious?" Victoria asked when they saw that documentary.

"Means it's not all touching," Cinnamon said. "Like the forty eight contiguous you never took geography, did you," she finished. "It just means... Well, Paul only has half an acre out back. He could clean that up, then a quarter of an acre around his and Manager's homes, and another quarter back of his church. As long as it all adds up to an acre, see?"

"Sure!" Victoria said.

"Great," Cinnamon smiled.

"What's an acre?"

Other undine owners contracted to do the cleaning, some landscaping, install a pond, maybe some little gravel spots for the ceremony. Their prices varied, but so did their results.

The Sylph Center audited these operations. They could find no correlation between price and results.

Some people paid a million dollars and got young, some got a free ceremony that didn't work. So it wasn't that the 'magic' source didn't want them to profit from the ceremonies.

Paul took heart at the report and took the girls out twice a night for a week.

----------------

In August, Queen stamped her foot and refused to get in the carrier. "It's not working, Master. And it's because of love."

"Love?" he asked. He sat down heavily in the chair by their table. "You guys don't... Love me?"

"I do!" Spinner shouted.

"Butt snorkel," Mallory muttered.

"That's not the point!" Queen persisted, raising her voice. "We don't feel loved. You need sylphs who feel loved to have an undine ceremony."

Paul opened his mouth but nothing came out. He waved his hands in the air, at the carrier, their terrarium, the whole AUP compound...

"Master?" Victoria asked. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I love you!" he croaked. He seemed genuinely upset. Of course, all the girls could do 'genuinely upset' three times an hour for their entire shift.

"I... I buy every sylph I can get my hands on. And I keep them. Forever." He poked a finger at Queen Bitch. "When people stopped picking you for the back room? Did I sell you? Give you away? Take you out back and 'turn you loose?' No. No, I found a way to keep you productive. I... I've heard some of your horror stories.

"What happens to sylphs that other guys grow tired of, or that can't pull their weight."

He slid out of his chair and knelt by the table. Two hands hovered around Queen, not quite touching her. "You've never been hungry. I've never let any real pervs buy you. Or even rent you. I've had offers.

"But those scalpel freaks? They couldn't pay me enough, not to let one of you... Not to let them hurt one of my girls."

Tears started to leak from his eyes. "Nice touch," Mallory whispered, too quiet for Paul to hear. But she didn’t sound nearly as scornful as she might have.

"Maybe we don't go play in the park or have ice cream... But you guys are safe. Forever. You'll never have another owner. You'll never be on the street, or in a country ditch, starving or hiding from raccoons or fighting off stray cats."

He reached out with one finger to touch Queen's shoulder. She sniffled a bit and leaned into his touch.

"I've been married seven times," he said softly. "I'm not sure if I can do that romantic love thing. Not like Hollywood tells us we gotta feel.

"But I've always been faithful to any woman I was married to. And I've never shirked a burden of taking care of you guys."

"Oh, Paul," Queen said. "You fucking moron."

"What?"

"You never once SAID anything about this? Never ever ever let us know we were safe from high rollers? That you'd ever turned down offers like that?" She was stamping around the table, staying between his hovering hands.

"Years I worried that someone was going to offer enough money for... I used to see Licker in my dreams, handing over a big wad of cash and you handing him me."

"Never," Paul said.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She started to jump in place. "Did you ever ask what WE wanted?"

"Safety?" he guessed. "Security?"

"CLOTHES?" Queen snarled.

"Oh." He was quiet for a minute. Queen seemed to realize she'd had a little tantrum next to a fist that out-massed her. She started to quiver. His eyes roved across the table.

"I don't want to be tied to the skewer," Spinner said. "I never wanted to run away." He nodded and moved his gaze on.

Lake asked for a milkshake. Mallory wanted a premium channel on the TV. Cinnamon wondered if they ever got around to making lipstick for sylph sized lips. The others turned to stare.

"Hey! My men always felt loved when I went to some effort to look good for them. I feel loving when I can look good." She turned back up to Paul's face. "I feel loved, when a man brings me something he wants to see on me. So I can show him I love him. 'Kay?"

"Okay," he nodded. And turned to Victoria. How did she feel when she felt loved? How would she have known he loved her?

"Can I get a hug?" she asked softly. Paul picked her up gently and held her to his cheek. She wriggled a bit. His skin was warm, soft but painful against her naked skin. It was love! "It hurts!" she shouted gleefully.

"Oh, god," he moaned. "Next time I'll shave, I promise!"

"Why would you do that?" she asked.

Manager came in and tapped her wristwatch. "Are we doing this?"

"Um..." Paul sounded like he was in a daze. "I gotta get some stuff, first. Clothes, HBO..."

"I think we can trust you, Paul," Queen said. She turned around and raised her eyebrows. The other girls nodded.

"What for?" Cheryl asked.

"I think... I think we understand each other," Cinnamon said.

"I don't!" Cheryl protested.

"Look!" Spinner said softly. They turned to the window of Paul's office. There was light showing through the blinds. Paul went and opened them. Cheryl turned off the overhead light.

Paul's office faced the parking lot and the little cleared area. There was a column of light shining down on the spot they'd been surrounding for months and months.

He carefully and reverently held the carrier door open. The girls walked in.

They all moved to where they needed to stand. The pattern of skewers wasn't quite right, but no one was paying them much attention. They drifted to where the real angles were.

There was a bright flash, a nebulous face, and water splashing. "Wow," they heard Cheryl whisper. Her throaty voice was suddenly healed of years of smoky rooms and hearty shouts. She sounded young.

Victoria looked through the mist, trying to see if Queen had grown to undine size. She was disappointed to see that Queen was still the same height. So were the other sylphs. Until Paul hove into view.

Paul was smaller than he'd been! Not just less fat, less paunch, less beard. He was only half as big as he'd ever been!

"People shrink during a youthing?" Spinner asked, looking up at their owner.

"No, sweetie," Paul said. "But you grew."

"What?" They turned to look at each other. "We're all the same size!"

Victoria looked down at the grass. For the entire summer, Morgan had never touched the height control on the lawn mower. She knew exactly how high the grass here came up to on her shins.

Now it was.... lower. Half as tall. She squealed. It worked! They were loved! And no one had to throw themselves across a breaker to close a circuit!

-------

Victoria stayed near Paul's legs as he walked into Portion Control. The girls giggled as they crowded around Paul's or Cheryl's feet.

He'd promised them a wonderful vacation and so far he'd delivered. They'd seen the zoo and the airport and a really really big guy made of stone and visited a college kid that they'd healed in Florida and gotten a cheer from his classmates and now they were eating in the place that was always on the news!

People stared as they came in, though. But it was weird. People stared in Melbourne. A man or a woman traveling with six one-foot tall pets drew attention. But there was something different about it here. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, though.

"They know we're not here to heal them," Lake said out loud. The others looked over or down at her. "Back home, the Sinful Six show up, everyone's looking forward to the ceremony."

"Oh," Cinnamon nodded. "And here, they look at us like a display."

"Like we're part of the exhibit," Queenie said sourly. "Part of the Sylph Center experience."

"Eh," Spinner said. "I've been stared at for worse reasons." She danced a little bump and grind she'd learned from one of the 'real' dancers, back in the display tank.

Paul apologized once more for their lives as strippers. Once more they all touched at his legs, reminding him they'd forgiven him several times over.

Victoria glanced up at Cheryl to see if she was jealous. She always looked, and was always happy to see an indulgent smile on the woman's face.

Cheryl Lynn smiled at the touching scene of touching. There wasn't a trace of jealousy in her soul at the sight of six former sex workers hugging at her husband. Which was probably why this marriage had lasted four times as long as the other two combined. Not even counting the leap year.

The hostess came out in a little speed cart. A redheaded sylph, she was about knee-high to most humans. A small voice amplifier helped her communicate with the guests.

"Mr. Hangar?" she asked, smiling up at Paul. "Party of eight?"

"Yes," he said. "But only two humans, the rest..." He waved at the girls.

The hostess smiled. "Not a problem, sir, you'll find Portion Control very adaptable. Come this way, please." They walked in a daze as she zipped through the crowd again. They passed all the tables.

"Are we eating by the bathroom doors?" Paul asked.

"No, sir, private room." She rounded a corner and passed through a doorway. Then she backed in a corner as they filed in. The table was set for eight, two humans and six undines. Each had a chair and settings of the appropriate size.

They ooohed and ahhed as they took their places, or filed up the ramp and took their places. "We're not putting anyone out for this, are we?" Cheryl asked the hostess.

"No," she laughed. "Mr. Foster doesn't always use his reservations. He has heard of the Sinful Six and your work in Florida. He can't meet you tonight, but he wanted you to have a wonderful experience. You really should concentrate on Deliah's cooking. Ray... Mr. Foster knows you can't do that when people are staring at your...family. So, bon appétit!"

"We will!" the undines shouted happily. Paul looked a little embarrassed, but Cheryl slugged him in the arm. There was no reason to be ashamed of people that were enjoying themselves. He nodded and took a seat.

The hostess wished them well and drove off.

They whispered among themselves for a few minutes. Talking about the privacy and the tasteful decorating.

And about Mr. Foster. Queenie kept remembering something about a guy named Foster...but couldn't quite bring it into focus. "Where have I heard that name?"

"I don't know," Victoria said. "Did we heal him?"

A little train came in on recessed tracks running down the center of the table. They stared at the sight.

The waitress, a sylph, climbed out of the engine and pointed to the menus stacked on the flatbed. "Welcome to Portion Control! You're going to LOVE eating here. Trust me! I'm here almost every night. I'll be your waiter, I mean waitress. I'm filling in tonight, as they're short, no pun intended, hahaha! But don't worry, seriously, I know what I'm doing. My name is-"

"Kid," Queenie said sharply. "It's you, isn't it?"

"Do I... Queen Bitch? My God, is that you?" She jumped down from the train and ran, jumping into Queenie's arms.

Victoria was frightened. Queenie and the Kid were both crying and talking a mile a minute. She glanced around. No one else seemed to be upset. She tried to take that as a cue.

She glanced at their owners. They were just smiling down at the two. Wincing a bit. The waitress' voice could get piercingly high pitched.

"She's not Queen Bitch anymore," Cheryl pointed out."

"Huh?" the waitress said, lifting her head a little bit. "I'm sorry, new owners?"

"Well, yeah, the guy you knew sold everything to pay his lawyer. Meet Paul. He's the guy that changed my name to Queenie. And made us all undines."

"Well, it wasn't just me," Paul said.

"LOVED!" Victoria pointed out. Forcefully. "We felt LOVED or it wouldna happened so shut your low self esteem trap, awright?" There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Oh," Kid said. "Well, then, I'm Annie, not Kid."

"Pleased to meet you, Annie. Now, kid, tell me what happened after Dad picked you up and carried you off."

A woman that turned out to run the place showed up after a few minutes, wondering where her waitress had gotten to.

She took the situation in quickly and got them another waitress and a sylph-sized table and chair.

The night passed quickly, if high pitched at times.

The food was four kinds of amazing, Victoria decided. Whoever made it knew exactly what undines wanted to eat. And none of it was pinched off a human's serving.

"I can get used to this," she said after licking her desert bowl clean. Paul winced a bit at that. The others, even Cheryl, were nodding in agreement. No one noticed his discomfort.

She suspected he was sorry he couldn't bring them to the Center more often, but DC was a long plane ride from Orlando, which was a long drive from Melbourne.

Victoria decided she'd have to remember to thank him for the vacation and tell him it was okay to save the special stuff for special times.

Cheryl was the first to notice the time. "Holy crap! Look how late it is!"

"Eeek!" Annie squealed. "I was supposed to be home an hour ago!"

"Oh, sorry," Queenie apologized.

"No, no, that's fine. Denise had to have talked with Deliah, it'll be fine. I just... I..." She reached up to touch Queenie's wrist. "I'm just so glad you made out okay."

"More than okay, Kid." She looked up at Paul and winked. He winked back, but it took a moment.

"Well, we should be heading back to the hotel."

"Awwwww," four voices rose from the table seating.

"Or..." Annie said. The room went dead silent. "Well. I just... I know where some people could spend the night. Here."

"A sleep over?" Lake asked. "Like on TV?"

"No," Queenie said, "not like TV. There are no monsters or demons here."

"But that would mean Cheryl and Paul would be alone!" Victoria pointed out.

"Allllllllll alone," Cinnamon said. "Two people in a two-bedroom suite. With room service and a minifridge and a hot tub."

"And lots of towels," Mallory offered, trying to join in on a game she hadn't quite recognized.

Cheryl glanced over at her husband. They shared a look.

"No need for bedtime baths," Queenie said.

"Or bedtime stories," Cinnamon added.

"What?" Spinner cried.

"Oh, there will be stories," Annie promised.

"Are you sure?" Spinner asked.

"Trust me."

"Well....okay."

"Um..." Paul said. Annie walked over to the side of his placemat.

"What were you guys going to do tomorrow?" she asked.

"Um... Well, nothing's scheduled until about eleven," he said, glancing around the room.

"Then be in the lobby at ten!" she said cheerfully. "Go on, go home, er, go hotel. Soak in the hot tub. Sleep in."

"Oooh," Cheryl said.

"That's right! No getting up at oh-dark-I'm-hungry!" Lake chimed in.

"Um...?" Victoria started to ask.

"Plenty of food," Annie promised.

"Well...okay."

----------------

Victoria thought staying with Annie was a trip. She wasn't sure how much of that was Annie and how much was the Center.

They got a tour of the undine-friendly areas. And there were lots of areas. There were gyms and spas and a library and TV rooms and...and... And STUFF! All to their scale, or to their and sylph scales, or to their and sylph and human scales.

And despite the time, Annie seemed to be able to get into anyplace! Somewhere in the tour they picked up a familiar looking redhead and a blonde that seemed to just squeal every ten minutes from nameless glee.

It kinda reminded Victoria of sylphs in the Tank that used to squeal from nameless dread every so often. But happy. Like a mirror image of the Tank.

She liked that idea and mentioned it to the others. The girls nodded except for the two that remembered being humans on The Day. "More like Heaven and Hell," Queenie said.

"We... Died?" Spinner asked.

Before anyone could assure her they hadn't, Pet asked if she was hungry.

"Yes."

"Then you're alive," she said with a shrug. "Let's go eat something."

They ran down the halls to an apartment that had an undine door next to the sylph door and the human door.

Inside was where Ray lived. Whoever Ray was. "He's out of town on business," Denise assured them.

"BORING business," Pet said.

"Mind numbingly boring business," Annie added. "We've got the room to ourselves."

And that meant they had the fridge to themselves.

They were having a post-tour snack when Mia arrived. Everyone knew who Mia was. Queenie just about burst into tears, meeting her heroine.

"Oh, God," she kept saying. "Thank you."

"I.. I didn't do anything," Mia protested. She looked uncomfortable with two women kneeling at her feet.

"If it weren't for you, for your example, we'd be in the Call Center," Cinnamon said.

"OH!" Mia said, a look of dawning comprehension on her face. "You guys are the Florida...Six."

"The Sinful Six," Mallory said with pride.

"Not the name Paul chose, but it's what the media uses," Lake said.

"Yeah, yeah," Mia said, lifting the other two to their feet. "So, what are you doing?"

"We need a bedtime story," Pet said. "They always get a bedtime story and Annie said we have to find one and we've been looking aaaaaaaaaaall over but..."

"Well, the Night Watch is getting off," Mia said.

"Usiku!" Denise shouted.

In a few minutes, a mass of tiny sylphs with funny accents were trooping into the room.

Victoria was usually good with names, but she was in over her head in moments.

She made a point of remembering Usiku, though. She seemed to be in charge. She agreed with Annie that the Sanc Dembukans knew a few bedtime stories. But she didn't want to tell them on the carpet.

Victoria didn't see anything wrong with the carpet. But Mia pointed out that with Ray out of town, the bed was unclaimed.

Soon Victoria was part of her first slumber party. She leaned against a giant pillow, sitting between Spinner and Usiku, with Pet on her lap. Sylphs and undines stretched across the pillows and down the sides of the mattress.

Jioni kinda walked and danced around on the bed, telling a story and acting it out. Something about the man spider Anansi and his adventure with the sun.

There was a dramatic pause. "And then, Anansi bent down... and crept slowly... across the.... only..."

"EEEK!" Mallory screamed, succumbing to the suspense. That set off Pet. Victoria screamed in response to that followed by half the Sanc Dembukans. The other half laughed at the screamers.

The laughter made a few complete rounds. Victoria would barely get control of her giggles, then make eye contact with a sylph or an undine. They'd burst out laughing again.

It was as happy as Victoria could ever remember being. Even though she didn't quite remember why they were laughing...

------------

Ray walked softly down the hall. The Center was deserted and that suited him fine. He'd been traveling since eight a.m. the day before, and was quite ready to be home. His plane had been delayed and then the landing was...

"Well," he muttered. "Home now." The only good news about the trip was that the girls had been home, safe, not stuck in the airport. Annie was not good with six hour layovers.

He got to his door and glanced at the little one next to it. He had promised to tell certain people when he was home, but he also looked forward to just collapsing on the bed and pretending to be a paper weight. And they weren't expecting him until tomorrow.

Ray also knew that even if he went to sleep alone, he'd wake up draped in wives. He sighed and opened the door softly.

And stared.

The light by the bed was on. Pillows on the bed were leaning on the headboard and seven undines rested against them. Sixty or a hundred sylphs were arranged around the undines, an arc of bodies stretching around the center of the bed.

They were screeching at each other. After a moment, he identified Pet's distinctive squeal and Annie's authoritative laughter. So they were in the middle of something.

He eased his suitcase to the carpeting and settled into the easy chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

The laughter finally died down. He heard Jioni started to talk. A drum started to beat, probably in the hands of her daughter. The story wove into his brain through his ears as he drifted off to sleep, to dream of Spider and a big, jealous Sun.

----------------

As the laughter died down, there was a strange sound. The crowd turned to the right. Victoria was utterly surprised to see that a human slept in an easy chair. His arms were crossed and his eyes closed and they'd just started to hear his snores.

"Ray's home!" Pet squealed. She fought her way out of Victoria's lap and through the throng.

"How'd we miss his entrance?" Queenie asked.

"He can be very quiet," Mia said. She smiled as Annie and Denise almost caught up with Pet at the edge of the bed.

"And Jioni's story is very good," Cinnamon added.

Their hosts wiggled up against the sleeping giant. Jioni looked around. "Oh, finish the story, at least," Mia said.

"Well, alright. Where was I?"

"Anansi bent down and crept slowly across the screaming and giggling," Victoria offered.

Jioni smiled wide and nodded. Nokatta started the drumbeat again."And he crept..."

Victoria listened, but she kept looking over at the chair. The sylphs were wiggling into the human's arms. His snoring didn't stop, but he started to smile.

------------

The party broke up after the story. Mia said they didn't have to leave, but Mr. Foster was snoring (the undines were thrilled and shocked to find out they'd been partying in their absent benefactor's room). The only sylphs that actually lived here were snoring (although Victoria suspected that the sound Annie was making was more of a purr...). And the Night Watch was starting to yawn.

The storytellers and story listeners filed under Ray's stretched-out feet, waved goodbye and left. Mia insisted that the undines were welcome. "Annie invited you to a sleepover, so Ray'll honor it."

They adjusted the pillows and slipped under the covers. "Just..." Mia said suddenly. "Um, if you hear Annie say, 'how YOU doin?' Run. Get out of the bed fast."

Cinnamon and Queenie laughed. Victoria and the others giggled softly, though they didn't get the joke.

They curled up, turned off the lamp and laid down to sleep. "Oh, what a day," Mallory sighed. "I almost never want to leave the Sylph Center."

"Lucky you," Mia mumbled.

"What?" Spinner asked. "What's that?"

"Well, you're going to live here." She yawned and stretched out under the cover.

"Say. What?" Lake asked. Mia started to snore. "Wrong answer!" She rolled the young woman onto her back and straddled her belly. "SAY! WHAT!"

"What?" Mia blinked. "You guys'll live here. Right?"

"Paul's moving us to DC?" Queenie asked.

"Well, not moving, not Paul," Mia said. She glanced from face to face. "Can I get up?"

"Oh! Yeah, sure." They sat around her. She moved to where her back was against a pillow.

"Um...okay. Well. From what I've heard, we're meeting Paul tomorrow."

"At ten," Spinner said.

"In the lobby," Victoria added.

"No, no, at eleven."

"YOU'RE the eleven meeting?" Cinnamon asked. "For what?"

"For... My family's foundation to take possession of you guys."

Utter silence engulfed the group at that announcement. They stared at Mia in the dim light from the alarm clock.

"Wait," a voice sounded from the chair. Denise sat up on Ray's arm. "Say what now?"

------------

She sat on a fold in the pillow to put her eyes at the same height as the undines' were where they sat on the mattress.

"It's what I heard," Mia was saying. "He felt that with him, you guys couldn't heal as many people as you're capable of. So he's selling you to us."

Spinner's lip quivered. Victoria felt nauseous. Cinnamon growled. And Queenie..."That lousy FUCKER!"

"Now, now," Denise started to say.

"Yet AGAIN!" Queenie snarled. "He's getting what he can for us! Just like always! Ten thousand dollar youthing ceremonies weren't enough for him!"

"We also did freebies," Victoria pointed out. Queenie spun on her. She looked almost feral.

But Victoria knew she was right, at least about this. She set her shoulders and stared back. And Queenie folded.

"Okay, yeah, you're right... But... But..."

"It was PR!" Cinnamon snapped. "Part of the whole advertising! Former sinners, healing strippers, some photo ops with the cancer kids, then gouge the market for what it would bear!"

"But..." Spinner protested. "I set the prices." Cinnamon and Queenie both looked shocked.

"What's that?" Denise asked.

"Spinner has this knack," Victoria explained. "She looks at a picture of the patient, and says what they can afford. And that's the price Paul charges."

"What's the most you asked for, Spinner?"

"Half a million," she said softly.

"But that was for a whole Royal Family," Lake said, more than a little defensive.

Denise held up her hands in surrender. "Wasn't judging. But what's the least you asked for, Spinner?"

"Cancer kids under ten always pay the same price," Spinner said cheerfully.

"Six hugs!" the others five said as a chorus.

"Well rehearsed," Mia smiled.

"So, you can get half a mil for one youthing ceremony," Denise mused. "Any idea what some people would pay to get six undines?"

"Ooodles," Mallory said. The others nodded.

"That's right," Denise nodded. "But you're being sold at the Sylph Center." She waited a beat. No one smiled in dawning realization. "In front of Amelia and Samantha Anthony?" They blinked.

Denise sighed. "Look, if you're being sold here, it's a safe bet the foundation didn't offer the best price available. Chances are, you're all being sold for one dollar."

"That CHINTZY fucker," Queenie spat.

"No, no!" Denise said. "That's the lowest he can sell you and still make sure the legal transfer sticks. So no one can sue him and get you guys or anything."

"Oh." Everyone looked over at Mia. "Well, I never get involved in the legal part, but, yeah, if it was a bidding war, Amelia would tell Daddy to shove the contract where the sun didn't shine."

"Exactly," Denise said. "He's not selling you for profit. I'd guess he's trying to find the best place he can put you guys... For YOUR sakes."

"I don't want a sakes!" Victoria cried. "I want Paul and Cheryl!"

------------

The Sinful Six talked about being abandoned by their owners for a while. Mia and Denise tried to convince them it wasn't going to be bad, and it wasn't even the right verb.

Half angry, half despondent, they finally curled up together and fitfully slept. Denise and Mia watched over them for a while and finally got some sleep.

Annie and Pet were curious about the sleeping arrangements when they woke. Ray woke up just enough to draw a beeline for the shower. He left his wives on the bed, uncomfortable with the knowledge they had guests that would overhear any hanky or panky.

"Sweetheart," Annie said, "if there are six women in the world that know what loving people do with each other, it's these women."

"Then I don't want to be judged against such wide standards," he said, dropping her to the covers from three feet up. She bounced twice and flipped him off.

Pet giggled, kissed his nose chastely, and dove off his hand to bounce twice on the bed. Then she smiled. He smiled back. She lifted her nightshirt to flash her panties up at her lover.

His smile faltered, but his resolve was firm. He retreated to the bathroom before they could talk him into anything.

"Nice try," Annie said.

"Try nothing," Pet whispered, rising to her feet. "I'm trying to punish him. He's going to really regret going in there solo until we're alone again."

Annie cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. "When did you turn evil?"

Pet giggled and went to lay down by Denise. "No, seriously," Annie continued, following along. "Teach me to be evil, sensei!"

"There no evil is," Pet croaked as Yoda. "Or good. Both concepts merely are. Only revenge what matters is."

Victoria watched all this going on through eyes closed to slits. They were right and they were wrong. Sex workers knew what the physical expressions of lust were. She still wasn't sure if she knew what lovers did, though.

--------

Breakfast was brought in by Mia's parents. They had a box of donuts and a plate of bacon. Everyone under 13 inches tall was starting to make 'it's morning and I'm hungry' noises so the advent was very well received.

They offered to take the undines on another tour, this time through the offices their foundation rented from the center.

"Well, I'd love to," Ray said, "but I'm still a little wiped out. I was going to lay down and take a nap, now that I've got my bed back."

Annie and Denise were just about to turn down the tour, too, when Pet piped up. "Okay! We'll let you get some sleep. We'll be really quiet when we get back in a couple of hours."

Denise turned to stare for a second, though Annie started to sport an evil smile immediately. Then everyone turned to Victoria, who couldn't stop herself from giggling at the continuing punishment.

"Sorry," she said. "Just remembered a...customer." No one wanted to inquire further into the practices of the All Ur Phantasy clientele.

------------

The tour was fun, and busy. Between three sylphs, two humans and an undine as guides, they almost got six private tours in parallel.

There were things they liked and things they didn't. Undines For Life sent representatives all over the US, and to several other countries. They healed all sorts of people, usually for no more than the expense of travel.

"But there's no visiting the people you healed?" Spinner asked. That might have been her favorite part, Victoria thought. Spinner loved seeing people they'd helped. She loved kids playing softball a year after they were expected to die.

Cammy asked about that and made a note to look into it.

"And you guys send undines out alone," Queenie said. "We go as a group."

"As a family," Mallory added.

"But you just don't need six undines for one ceremony," Darryl said.

"You need love," Cinnamon said, throwing an arm over Victoria's shoulders. "We have to feel loved. Paul and Cheryl give us that. All of us."

Darryl shut his mouth at that. Pet looked like she was about to cry.

"Pet?" Cammy scooped her up into her hands. "Pet, stop, no one's breaking them up."

"Paul is!" she replied.

"Not yet he hasn't," Annie pointed out. "So there's still time."

"To talk to him!" Mia said with a nod.

"I think she meant, time to kneecap him," Denise said. She and Annie bumped fists. Queenie crouched down to offer her own fist.

"Kid's a girl after my own heart," she said.

"You'd hurt PAUL?" Victoria shrieked.

"Only metaphorically," Queenie said.

"Oh."

"Unless that doesn't work," Cinnamon growled. "Then we get a can opener and a step stool."

"We'll call that plan B," Mallory said.

The humans stared down at the undines for a moment. A long, silent moment.

"And over here," Cammy said loudly, pointing desperately around. "Is, uh, our... Printer! Where we get, uh, the requests for undines to, uh, to come visit."

------------

It was a somber conference room as they all waited for Paul and Cheryl to show up. The undines paced the table. Mia and Annie sat in the conversation pit in the middle of the table, while Cammy and Darryl sat on the outside.

Victoria wasn't sure what she wanted. Everything was nice before. But nothing would stay nice if Paul didn't want them anymore.

But Denise had been certain that he was doing what he thought was best. He was just....wrong.

Amelia walked in and climbed up the stairs in the leg of the chair. She gave Annie a hug and was introduced to the Six. "I hear there's some drama?" she asked.

"What do you know about what Paul's doing?" Annie asked. Amelia shrugged.

Samantha came in a moment after that, leading Paul and Cheryl. They smiled and held their hands out to the girls.

And got a frosty reception.

"Guys?" Cheryl asked.

"YOU'RE GIVING US AWAY?" Spinner cried.

"Oh, crap," Paul said. They sank into chairs.

"Don't you love... us?" Victoria asked, substituting a pronoun at the last second.

"I have to," he said. Hackles rose. "I mean, not that I'm forced to, but the ceremonies work, right? So you must be loved!"

"We have to feel loved," Queenie said. "Which isn't what we feel when we're being SOLD!"

"Guys," Annie started to say. Cinnamon overrode her.

"Traded! What, you're taking the millions, and giving us to charity? Is there a tax break for..." Her eyes got wide. "Are we a tax write off?"

"NO!" he spat. Cheryl placed a calming hand on his shoulder. "No, I'm not sloughing you guys off. You've seen Mia on TV. They do a lot of good. I thought you'd want to do good."

"We are doing good!" Spinner said. She looked from face to face. "Aren't we?"

"Of course we are," Cheryl said. "But it's me. I don't... I don't like going to visit people who are sick or hurt."

"But we heal them!" Victoria said.

"I know. But that last second? Before we go into the hospital room or the hotel room or the field, I know I'm going to see someone so desperate from pain or fear, they'll sell their soul to make it better."

"We don't ask for their soul," Queenie said. All the anger had faded from her voice. She was trying to encourage Cheryl, but she was feeling sympathetic to her discomfort.

"I know. But if it wasn't us, if there was a guy with a contract from Satan, they'd sign it. I can't stand looking at people that desperate, not even for the moment we go in there."

"Oh, God, yes." Everyone turned to see Cammy. Her face was wincing, tears welling in her eyes. "I hate that part. Butterflies in my stomach..."

"Your breath catches in your throat!" Cheryl said. She reached across the table and took the other woman's hand.

"And even knowing it's going to be okay," Cammy shook her head. Mia looked up at her mom, astonished. Darryl looked surprised. Paul looked sad. He'd heard all this before.

"So..." Victoria said slowly. "What if you only ever saw the 'after' pictures?"

"What?"

"What if you stayed home? And we went and healeded people. And told you all about the end, when they're dancing and jumping and doing hand stands and all that?"

"That.... That might be okay."

"But we're a family," Queenie insisted.

"AHA!" Annie shouted. "That I can help with." Everyone watched as she climbed up out of the pit. "Queenie, do all eight of you go to the toilet together?"

"What? Eugh, no!" The others made faces and shook their heads.

"Well, hell, then. There's no reason you all have to be all together all the time. Trust me on this. My family spends time apart regularly."

"That's true," Mia said. "They're all the time shoving Annie into a cigar box and going out all-"

"No comic relief!" Annie shouted at her friend. "But seriously. It actually helps."

"So... The seven of us to a ceremony?" Lake asked.

"Or less," Annie said. She turned to Mia. "Do all your foundation undines live with the foundation?"

"Um... Well." She pursed her lips and thought, stepping up to put a hand on Annie's head. "Most the girls do, but the boys..."

"There are boys?" Cinnamon asked.

"Boy undines?" Queenie asked.

"And no fraternization rules," Darryl said. Mia and Cammy both slapped him. He just giggled. "I'm just saying, if they're interested in meeting men their size..."

Paul looked stricken. Queenie flashed an evil smile for a second. Then she blanked her face. "Is that what you wanted, Paul? For us to find mates, build nests, gather food from a more natural habitat?"

"Well, uh, I uh, hadn't, um...." he nearly said.

"AHA!" Annie said. "You're jealous of them being with men here. That means you WANT them to be with you, there."

"But not that way," he protested.

"Fine!" Victoria said immediately. "But you do want...us, right? Some way? ANY way? So we're all going home with you." She crossed her arms and stared.

"Seems straightforward to me," Spinner said.

"What if...?" Annie started to ask.

"Who asked you?" Victoria snapped. She instantly regretted the tone, but she was worried. She was sure she'd found the perfect answer. Annie's suggestion would have to be less perfect. Than them all going home and back to how it was normal.

Except for taking Cheryl to ceremonies. Aside from that. So she didn't want any sylph messing it up.

Samantha and Amelia had been watching all this silently. Samantha cleared her throat. Everyone familiar with her silenced instantly and looked to where she stood on the table. The others caught on in a moment.

"Naturally," she said, "the Center wants the best things for everyone involved."

"Sylphs first," Amelia said. "Of course."

"Of course," Annie said.

"Hey!" Mia protested.

"It's on their door, Mia," Annie pointed out. "And their letterhead. So sylphs, first, then undines."

"Aw!"

"IF," Amelia snapped. Mia and Annie both popped to attention. "She might continue?" They saluted.

Sam smiled wryly. "Annie and her family have found solutions to quite a few...interesting problems over the years. I'd really like to hear what she had to say."

Everyone nodded.

"See?" Annie said to Mia. "Sylphs first." Mia stuck her tongue out at her friend.

"And that's the peanut gallery," Annie said with a sigh. "Okay. YOU guys love Paul and Cheryl. Cheryl and Paul love y'all." She stared around the room. "That's the point where everyone nods their head? Okay, good.

"Now, not everyone wants to go to sick rooms and old folks' homes." Cheryl shook her head. Lake reached over to place a hand on the giant wrist.

"Well, I have found that for some loving families, time apart is a good thing. Parting sucks, but time apart? Excellent."

She started to pace, hands behind her back. "Now, what if we found a way for everyone to be alone for a while? And to be family for a while. And to heal. And to have and to hold, until chocolate do you part?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Cheryl said.

"Don't question the chocolate," Mallory said in a stage whisper. Several people laughed.

"Okay. Paul and Cheryl go home. The undines get rooms at the foundation. And go to the undine dance next Friday."

"Dance?" Lake asked.

"With boys?" Spinner asked.

"Undine boys," Queenie said.

"After a week or so," Annie went on, "one of the Foundation escorts takes an undine home. She lives alone with the loving couple, being set upon with loving attention, bedtime stories, petted and hugged and held and -"

"ME!" Spinner, Victoria and Mallory all shouted at once.

"....And the others go on family-sized ceremonies for the foundation. After a while, escorts rotate the undine to the foundation, then take another one home.

"Humans get a weekend to concentrate on each other, then get a new undine to concentrate on."

"And holidays?" Amelia asked with a wink.

"Oh, very important. Families are together for the holidays. So either all the undines go home to be home for Christmas and Thanksgiving and Valentines' Day and the Anniversary of your first Undine ceremony and-"

"Oh, we never really celebrated that," Paul said. Cheryl slugged him in the upper arm. Annie took a deep breath.

"AND THE ANNIVERSARY OF YOUR FIRST UNDINE CEREMONY!"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. He looked so serious, nodding his head in submission to a tiny little sylph. Victoria ran across the table to jump up and grab his shirt in a hug. Soon everyone was on his lap.

------------

The 'sale' of the Sinful Six died quietly without comment. Their cooperation with the Foundation was formalized with little alteration from anyone involved.



Cheryl revealed a previous agreement to turn over all the AUP sylphs to the Anthonys. And the intention to go through with that as soon as transportation could be arranged.



"I wondered what you two were doing here," Annie said.



"Hush," Amelia said. "Your work here is done."



"AND you used your powers for good," Mia said cheerfully.



"This time," Annie said darkly. Samantha swept up both sylphs and left the room, wishing everyone luck in planning things out.



There were a few changes to the rotation. None of the undines wanted to be alone, so two would be at home with their humans, four traveling for the foundation. At least for now.



"And," Paul said, "we already had a night alone, so-"



"You're welcome," Cinnamon said.



"Thanks," Cheryl said.



"SO," Paul said, "we'll go ahead and take the first two home."



"Who will that be?" Cheryl asked.



"I...wanna see the talent at the dance," Cinnamon said. Queenie and Lake nodded.



Mallory looked from Spinner and Victoria to where the other three were standing together. "Well. One dance," she said. And walked over to bump fists with Queenie.



Cheryl picked up Spinner. Paul picked Victoria up into a hug. She wriggled into his arms and cooed his name.



"Okay," Mia said, clapping her hands. Well. We'd planned on everyone going through undine orientation."



"I guess we'll meet you guys after?" Queenie said/asked/guessed.



"Aren't you coming?" Victoria asked.



"Can we?" Paul asked.



"I... No one's ever asked before," Darryl admitted. He glanced at his wife and daughter. "Don't see a reason not to."



"Sure," Cammy said. "And then the Fosters want to buy everyone dinner."



"Where?" Spinner asked.



"Portion control, back room," Mia said. They all cheered heartily. On the way back to the foundation's rooms, Spinner and Mallory were on Cheryl's shoulders, telling her all about their night. Queenie and Lake were on Paul's shoulders, doing the same thing.



Victoria just curled up in his arms, happy to be where she belonged.



---------



Months later, Victoria was standing in the corner of a meeting room, sulking. She didn't call it that, she just missed Paul and Cheryl and being home.



Really missed them. Especially since their healing ceremonies were not working. No one's was. Mia speculated that they'd failed to satisfy Gaia somehow.



Annie and them probably had theories, too, but they were out of town. So. Where missing home had been balanced by the joy of healing kids, now they had missing home AND looking in the faces of kids and their families after failure.



"Even Mary fucking Poppins would be depressed," she muttered, and downed a slug of her drink.



"Excuse me?" She turned to find Batman standing next to her. He was another undine that worked for the foundation. They'd offered to let him change the name his owner had bestowed, but he claimed to be used to it.



Victoria suspected he just loved to say, "I'm Batman," in the movie voice.



"Nothing," she said. "Just bummed about stuff not working, you know?"



He shrugged. "They'll fix it."



"You can't know that."



"Sure I can. Whoever gave us the power? They did it out of love. That's clear. So there's a problem? One way or another, love will find a fix."



He laughed suddenly. "Or that Annie person'll find them and beat it out of them."



Victoria laughed with him, the first laugh in weeks. "Out of love, right?" She relaxed a bit, leaning back against the wainscoting.



He glanced over at the dance floor, a vinyl office chair mat painted in colorful squares. The disco ball was Styrofoam covered with glitter. Victoria knew some undines called it cheesy, but from her background, it was pretty special.



"Dance?" he asked.



"I don't know how," she said.



"I'll teach you," he offered, holding out a hand.



"You can do that?" she asked.



"I can do anything," he said. "I'm Batman."



She laughed and let him lead her out on the 'floor.'





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