Libertionne. Anna Tishchenko
me, even for free? Up to now, I’ve had only the best reviews.”
“What, I have to write a review as well?”
“Well, just a small form to fill out. Here,” the minotaur nimbly ducked under the table, which was draped like a sacrificial altar, and extracted from its dark nether regions a sheet of lined paper.
Tiberius read from the top. “Assessment report of the activity”… – “Not my luck today.” He always felt sorry for trainees. Powerless creatures, their entire career was at risk because of someone’s bad review.
“Let me fill it out,” he signed, taking the piece of paper.
The minotaur fell on his knees before him for the second time.
“You can’t do it so easily! The camera will see it.” He took Tiberius by his lifeless arm. “You’ll like it! I have, you know, talent.”
And then, not waiting for a decision, got down to business. Tiberius closed his eyes and tried to imagine the same doomed Nausicaa, dreamily wiggling her hips over the polished bar countertop. It didn’t work. There were definitely men’s hands touching his thighs, men’s lips expertly but unsuccessfully performing their work. “Okay, let’s try again. We’ll make Nausicaa lay down on the bar. No – the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. No. It’s not happening. Maybe some more whiskey. Aqua vitae. Now why aren’t you working? According to legend, you can raise the dead. Looks like not completely… OK, one last try… No way… Sorry, minotaur.” He opened his eyes and looked at the genuflecting youth. He had seen those eyes and hands somewhere before. Definitely. And very recently. They held a scroll in a brown envelope.
“Sam?” he queried, then, not waiting for a reply, he literally grabbed the bull by the horns and pulled off the gold mask.
To be honest, his student didn’t look particularly confused. Disappointed, but only slightly. But Tiberius flew into a rage.
“My best student! Here?” His voice acquired a poisonous quality. “And going through a trial period! Three different departments wanted you as a graduate student, but you said you had a better career opportunity.” Tiberius gestured widely at the improvised boudoir. “Really?”
“It’s true!” said Sam, still on his knees, but raising his head proudly. “Judge for yourself, sir – when they give me an official contract here, I will be making a thousand a night, plus tips.”
“Who would argue?” Tiberius snorted, “I always said the main thing is to find a profession where you can use your best talents.”
He picked up the end of the long tail. Sam looked into his eyes hopefully.
“Sir, why don’t we try it one more time?”
“Sit!” barked Tiberius, only now remembering that he was still sitting with his pants undone in front of a student of his, albeit a former one.
Sam jumped up timidly (recent seminars suddenly came to life in his memory), trying to sit next to his professor on the couch, but failing. The tail got in the way.
“So tell me,” Tiberius began sarcastically, when they ended up reaching a diplomatic agreement instead of going to war, “how is everything organized here? Pensions, vacations, overtime pay? Tell me, I’ve always been interested in what my best students end up doing, how their careers pan out.”
They ordered coffee and chatted for another ten minutes. But meanwhile at the Gnarly Duck, passions were flaring.
“He doesn’t love me at all,” Moopechka whined to the world-wise Colin. “Each time I have to beg him for sex. And he never even takes off his shirt! And he’s never kissed me!”
“Then leave him.”
“I can’t. He’s so handsome and strong, and smart…”
“I see.” Colin glanced condescendingly at the unfortunate victim of hopeless passion. “In that case, here’s the best thing to do…”
And then he poked a finger at a menu item: The Secret of Priapus! Just one gram of pure sexuality, and you will turn into an unbridled stallion!
“Do you think one gram will be enough?” Moopechka asked anxiously.
“Better take three; he’s pretty big.”
A tough night
Tiberius decided not to sit around in the boudoir. The young man was on the clock, and enough was enough. He went back to the table unnoticed, poured himself some more whiskey and fell into a sleepy drunken state. Colin was babbling about something, and Moopechka and both Melissas were discussing a burning question: how to take a photo with the immortal Don Largo in the background so that it would look like they were together? Tiberius, who was fairly drunk, made an unexpected, strategic proposal.
“Why don’t you just go up to him and ask?”
They hissed and waved their hands at him; it was as if he had suggested they go to a club with the emperor himself. At that moment his smartphone went off – a message from his insurance company. If he didn’t immediately stop the intake of alcohol into his blood (that’s what was written!), they would immediately raise the price of his medical insurance by twenty percent. Tiberius pulled himself together. He was pretty far gone; one mustn’t get so completely relaxed.
“Paul,” he shouted to Moopechka without turning, “pour me some water, please.”
“Of course,” came the reply, with a treacherous smile.
And, encouraged by Melissa “number two”, he passed Tiberius a glass to which the Secret of Priapus had been quietly added. All three grams right away.
Tiberius drank the water with a single gulp, and only at the very end did he notice a strange honey flavor. All the blood drained from his face and went to another place, slightly lower, the room was floating in colored lights, and sounds flowed together in strange, intrusive buzzing of notes. And something soft hit him in the back of the head. Already falling into a darkness filled with brightly shining stars, he abruptly got up from the table, leaning on an unsteady hand.
And then, all at once, everything disappeared.
The subsequent events melted together into a sparkling fireworks display, with crazy bursts of color; he returned to reality, only to be thrown again into the delirious darkness. The first time he woke up, he was in the middle of the dance floor – in one hand was a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, and in the other, two laughing girls who were clicking their cameras like crazy. Fortunately, he was able to recite from the stage Tennyson’s fairly politically correct “Lotus Eaters”. Tiberius looked around. Hands were reaching for him from all sides, all around he saw flushed, half-mad ecstatic faces, the music was like red-hot nails being driven into the brain, and the strobes from the light show was blinding him. The survival instinct demanded that he immediately leave this monstrous place, and he drank the rest of the bottle in one gulp.
Again there was darkness.
When consciousness returned for a second time, he found himself in clearly friendly company, in a recreation area. Here the music was blaring quieter, there were drinks on low glass tables, and across from him on the couch he saw Moopechka with two unfamiliar girls. They were talking, and joking with him, and he was responding. Colin, who, journalists later discovered, had unsuccessfully tried to attract Tiberius’s attention, ultimately did not come up with anything better than to poke his little finger under his shoulder blade. His besotted brain was thinking very slowly, but his body hardened over the years by training worked perfectly and instantly. Just a moment before, Tiberius had been sitting, relaxed, his eyes half closed; then like lightning he turned and grabbed Colin’s wrist, knocked away a nonexistent knife, and sent him flat onto his back. The gray eyes staring in horror seemed vaguely familiar, and Tiberius loosened his grip.
“Sorry,” he murmured, releasing his victim.
An