Free The Hinky Velvet Chair by Jennifer Stevenson

take those Kirlian photographs
of your aura,” Virgil said.
    “I’d like an aspirin,” she confessed.
    “A spa day will make you feel wonderful,” Griffy said. She
looked at Jewel with a mixture of sadness and envy. “We have a nine-thirty sauna,
then a treatment, lunch, and another treatment. You have time for those
photographs if you hurry.”
    Jewel’s eyes felt like coarsely-sanded golf balls. “Let’s
hurry,” she croaked.
    o0o
    An hour later she felt great. Not just less painful but
wonderful. In fact she felt fabulous.
    Virgil had taken her back upstairs to what she couldn’t help
thinking of as his laboratory, where he took her picture with a device that
made her teeth buzz. Much newage was spoken, especially about her green tones,
whatever the fuck those were.
    Randy was in a huff, which she could understand but was in
no mood to encourage. After all, she had no proof he hadn’t spent the night
elsewhere, too. She refused to meet his eye.
    With all the men frisking around Jewel, Sovay was huffy too.
    So far, her day was a net win.
    She swaggered into the John Hancock Tower. Every man in the
lobby turned to look at her. The snake Sovay trailed behind her, shoved in
front of her, or strode beside her, expensive heels clicking, but nobody cared.
It was Jewel they saw.
    She should work undercover more often.
    Now that she was masquerading as Lord Darner’s hired
debunker, Jewel had on some of her pre-Randy, pre-Clay,
pre-six-months-of-celibacy slutwear, such as today’s tight little red silk tee
with the bunch in front that made her tits look bigger than God, and a pair of
jeans that mostly fit.
    None of the guys in the lobby seemed to have any complaints.
    And she loved it.
    “The elevator to ninety is up the escalator,” Griffy said,
consulting a building map.
    Jewel didn’t want to hide in an elevator yet. “Let’s get
coffee.” She sashayed to the lobby Starbucks, revelling in the feeling that she
could have any man she saw.
    She hadn’t felt like this since college. In the order line,
three guys in window-washer coveralls turned around and stared at her, their
jaws dropping. A paunchy tourist festooned with cameras gawked in her
direction. His wife hustled their children away, looking miffed. The shoeshine
guy whistled at her.
    “Boy, that Venus Machine sure works,” Griffy said.
    “It must,” Jewel said. “Yesterday I felt frumpy. Today—!”
    “Today you’re only half frumpy,” Sovay said. She bent and
rubbed a speck off the toe of her shoe, and her breasts almost fell out of her
dress.
    Jewel noticed that nobody else was looking, and smiled to
herself.
    “But how can it work?” Griffy said. “I don’t understand!”
    “It must have been intimidating to grow up with an
intelligent brother,” Sovay said. “For a slow child.”
    Jewel stepped between them. “It’s just the power of
suggestion,” she said to Griffy, wondering if that was true.
    Through Starbucks’ window she caught the eye of two men in
suits, smoking outside the building. They were looking in at her. They sucked
on identical huge phallic cigars and their palms were flat against the window
and maybe she only imagined she saw a string of drool hanging off the side of
one guy’s jaw.
    The lime-green-haired boy with big round spectacles taking
coffee orders began to ask her, “How can I help—” and the words died in his
throat.
    “Double shot grande latte no foam cream to go,” she said
with a smile that made the barristo reel.
    I could get used to
this.

Chapter Nine

    At the spa, Alex, their Beauty Guide, a youth of ethereal
good looks and iffy sexual orientation, spoke of ayurvedic practices, turbinado
sugar scrubs, and hydrating shirodhara massage techniques. They could be
rubbed, scrubbed or packed with alarming products such as Amazon Basin bat oil,
Potowatomi mineral baths, and soothing fluid marine flora reductions.
    Griffy and Sovay took it all in solemnly.
    Jewel thought Alex looked familiar. Had