Page 14 of Aftertaste

“Lemme tell you something, Bones.” He wrapped a muscular, tattooed arm around Kostya’s neck. “We oughta get down on our knees right now and pray to the God of Bathroom Sex, ’cause he just did me a solid party favor!”

Kostya smiled weakly and disentangled himself.

“Hey, man, you think I can get your keys? This isn’t really my scene.”

“Nah. Nah nah nah. No more moping.” Frankie frowned at him. “Listen to me, my guy. DJ Skull’s about to spin downstairs. The rooftop’s got this foam toga thing going on. Let’s get you shit-faced—feeling so good you forget all about Alexis. It’s been months, man! I hate to see you all wrung out. And who knows? Maybe you’ll meet someone tonight. My Little Seahorse by the stage is looking fly. Or how about Octopussy, over at the bar? Or—yes. Upstairs! There’s this dime psychic, doing readings. Go turn on the charm, ask her what’s up.”

“I’d rather take my chances with Octopussy.”

“You don’t even know what she does! She’s like straight-up mystic.”

“Lemme guess,” Kostya said dryly. “She already knew I was coming?”

“Always the cynic.” Frankie nudged his shoulder. “You’re not even a little curious what she can tell you? This is Seyoncé, bro. Shit’s authentic.”

Something shivered inside Kostya at the thought, a seed planted. He had never seriously considered consulting a psychic. He’d always waved them off as money-grubbing phonies, had never even entertained the possibility that there might be someone genuine, someone who might understand what had happened that night at The Library of Spirits, what had, in fact, been happening inside his mouth for nearly twenty years.

“You really think she’s legit?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Before he could change his mind, Frankie grabbed Kostya by the elbow and, his protests drowned out by the death metal band, dragged him through a bloom of human jellyfish, past an indoor hedge maze, and up a staircase that looked like the Cheshire cat’s throat—enormous candy-striped canines baring down from the ceiling and floor, framing a sticky red carpet that led up, up, up to an enormous, sequined uvula dangling in the doorway.

Feeling as if he’d actually been swallowed, Kostya ducked past the uvula (a bedazzled boxing bag), and into a room that felt like the first sip of bourbon after a long day. It was smaller, dimly lit, the walls covered in deep, mossy velvet and lined with bookcases full of crumbling old books. Frankie hustled him toward a striped tent in the corner, an ornate sign out front announcing:

THE SPIRITUAL ARTS BY MADAME EVERLEIGH

Tarot Readings $15 | Palmistry $25

NO Ouija, NO Seances, NO Refunds

“On second thought,nothanks.”

Kostya turned to retreat, but Frankie halted him.

“Get in there, Bones. You’re gonna have some fun if it kills me.”

“Not if it kills me first.”

“Hey, you guys coming or going?” a voice from inside the tent asked.

“Go!” Frankie breathed, giving him a push. “All else fails, at least try to get laid.”

Kostya flipped him the bird, pulled the flap of the circus tent open, and stepped inside.

THE SPIRITUAL ARTIST,Madame Everleigh, reclined on a cheap, peeling love seat, an issue ofGame Informerpropped open on her knees. She hadflickering, wide-set eyes and sharp, intelligent features. Elaborate hair—long, wavy, dyed violet at the ends and silver at her roots and lavender in-between. A slender frame made slighter by so many shades of black—black Converse and black jeans and a black hoodie (in this heat?!) that read:More Freddie, Less Retrograde.A careless hand held up a finger—one sec—then turned the page of the article she was reading.

Frankie hadn’t lied. Shewasa dime. The most beautiful woman Kostya had ever seen. So far out of his league that he wasn’t sure they were playing the same sport.

He cleared his throat and Madame Everleigh lowered her magazine just enough to peer over it at him. She registered his presence and gestured to a table and a couple of folding chairs to his right, and then lifted the magazine back up, her gum snapping noisily at him from behind the cover. Kostya nodded and sat down, deeply regretting the shirt he’d worn—a too-snug aquamarine number to which he’d taped some badly cut construction-paper fish—as it stretched across his gut. He sat up taller and sucked in.

“You seem tense,” Madame Everleigh noted from behind the magazine. “Try and clear your mind before the reading or you might get mixed messages.”

Kostya frowned. It wasn’t his mind that needed clearing, he thought mutinously, but his mouth, his tongue, the taste buds that seemed to tingle, even now, with restless energy. He was having second (third?) thoughts about coming in here, and shifted in his seat, about to stand up and abandon the enterprise, when she suddenly lowered the magazine.

“And… done!” she announced. “Sorry. There was a piece on the new Zelda, and I couldn’t stop once I started. Like Pringles. You ever get that?”

Kostya nodded, gaping at her and trying to remember to breathe and swallow. Holy smokeshow. It almost hurt to look.

---