“All will be known shortly, Gretchen, including the quote sexy unquote incense,” Ildefonsa giggled. “No questions now. I’ll give you lunch, and then you’ll come along with me to the hive.”
* * *
It was an avant-garde apartment in the chic, nostalgic style of the Communist era of Old New York City in the 1930s. A fortune had been spent transforming it into a converted brownstone flat with naked linoleum-covered floors, fruit and vegetable crates and barrels for furniture—designed and built by Antique Plastique, Inc.—monk’s-cloth drapes over the windows, oil lamps constructed of piled books, a battered player-piano, old wooden kitchen tables covered with front pages of The Daily Worker, posters of Marx, Lenin, the Kremlin, and Moscow University tacked to the walls. This simulation of left-wing poverty was an extravagant luxury; hardly a hive.
The bee-ladies were already assembled when Ildefonsa Lafferty ushered Gretchen into the lounge. They looked up with surprise and delight.
“Nellie, dear, you’ve brought a new face. How wonderful! Will she join our commune?”
“That’s up to her, Regina. This is Gretchen Nunn. Gretchen, our Queen Bee, Regina.” (The name on the registry board of the Oasis had read; Winifred Ashley.)
“Good afternoon and welcome, BB,” Regina said in a lovely, mellifluous voice. She was a large lady in a flowing gown, gracious and aristocratic.
“BB?” Gretchen asked.
“My dear, do forgive me, but you’re such a ravishing Black Beauty that the nickname just tripped off my lips. Let me introduce your new friends. You’ve met Nell Gwyn of course. This lady is Mary Mixup.” Regina indicated a slender fair girl with her hair cut like a helmet and the body and legs of a dancer.
“Hello, BB,” she said. “So nice meeting you. I would have thought that Regina would give you more a name like Trojan.”
“How do you figure that, Mary?” Nell asked.
“They were both horses, weren’t they? Not that BB’s a horse.”
Nell nodded. “Makes sense. To her.”
A small, compact woman, dark, with vivid blue eyes and an emphatic manner, stepped forward. “I can’t WAIT to be introduced, BB. I MUST clasp your hands and welcome you. ALAS! Alas! alas! Too, TOO im-PET-uous.”
“Sarah Heartburn,” Regina smiled. “Our favorite diva. And this lady is our conscience, Miss Priss.”
Miss Priss looked like “Alice in Wonderland” to Gretchen. Her girlie-girlie lisp seemed to be half a stammer and was most winning.
“Nice to be properly introduced, BB. I hope you’ll join us. A new person will put them on their best behavior. Their manners are shocking. And their language!”
“I’ve been known to use Guff Blurt myself,” Gretchen smiled.
“Where did you get that marvy tuta, BB?” a tall butch-type demanded. “I’ve got one not half so good. I paid a fortune, and it doesn’t fit the crotch worth a damn.”
“Please, Yenta,” Miss Priss said. “We shouldn’t use five-letter words here.”
“Six in ‘crotch,’ Priss,” Nell Gwyn said.
But Mary Mixup was doubtful. “Six?” She counted on her fingers. “C-R-O-U-C-H. You’re absolutely right, Nell.”
Regina laughed. “The tuta misfit is Yenta Calienta, BB. She’ll probably try to set you up for a swindle. And these are our twins, Oodgedye and Udgedye.”
Two identical women; jet-black hair, white, white skin, dead ringers for the beautiful Greek slave in Monte Cristo, smiled and nodded to Gretchen.
“Hi, BB. I’m Oodgedye.”
“No you’re not. You’re Udgedye. It’s my turn to be Oodgedye this week. Hi, BB.”
“They swap identities,” Nell explained to Gretchen. “I’ve got a bet on with Yenta. I say their husbands will spot the switch. Those two are look-alikes but they couldn’t be identical in bed, could they?”
“Of course not, Nell. No two women are.”
“Then I lose the bet?”
“No, it’s a standoff.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The psychodynamics of human behavior. Their men have probably spotted the swap but they’re enjoying it, too, so they keep their mouths shut. The cute question is whether the husbands have told each other, and I wouldn’t bet on that.”
Nell Gwyn looked at Gretchen with awe. “Help, Regina! I’ve gone and brung an intellect-type bee into the hive.”
“How lovely for us. Do make yourself comfortable, BB. Let’s get acquainted, Pi-girl! Coffee!” Back to Gretchen. “We’re all grateful for the introduction of someone clever. We’re running out of entertainment ideas.”
“That’s what brought her, Regina. She wants to know about one of our games.”
“Does she, Nell? Which?”
“She doesn’t know yet. I brought her along to show her.”
“This is getting complicated,” Regina laughed. “You’d best tell us yourself, BB.”
Gretchen was perplexed; whether to go along with the lie she’d told the redhead or tell the truth. She opted for the lie.
“There’s a pharm in Canker Alley called Rubor Tumor.”
“Is that dirty?” Miss Priss wanted to know.
“Why should it be dirty, Priss?” Nell inquired.
“They’re five-letter words.”
“They are suggestive, Priss,” Gretchen smiled. “Rubor and tumor are characteristics of tumescence.”
“What a brain! She’s staggering.”
“Can anyone understand the words BB’s using?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gretchen smiled. “Many times the words just pop out—I don’t know where from—and I don’t understand them either. Maybe I’ve got an unknown twin who’s switching identities when my back is turned.”
“Oh, I like her. I LIKE her. She has the soul of the true creative artiste.”
“Do you use words like that on him when my back is turned?” Oodgedye (or Udgedye) shot at Udgedye (or Oodgedye).
“Here’s our coffee,” Regina interrupted tactfully as the Pi-faced slavey wheeled in a trolley. “Serve our guest first, Pi.”
The trolley was wheeled before Gretchen who was overwhelmed by the centerpiece: a block of clear ice with a single rose frozen in it. After she had received her coffee, the trolley went to the Queen Bee, who first passed her hands gracefully over the face of the ice and then dried them with a napkin. Only then did she receive her coffee.
“A fingerbowl!” Gretchen exclaimed to herself. “This is luxury on a fantastic scale. I’m glad Blaise isn’t here. He’d be perfectly furious.”
“And now, BB dear, what’s all this mysterious, complicated business of pharmacies and games?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Regina. Rubor Tumor told me that they’d concocted an exotic incense for your Nell Gwyn. I jumped to the conclusion that by exotic was meant erotic. I went to see her this morning to ask her about it.”
“But why, BB?”
“She thinks she has problems, Regina.”
“Erotic problems, Nell?”
“That’s what she thinks.”
“A Black Beauty like you, BB?” Yenta broke in. “I’d trade—”
“Not now, Yenta dear,” Regina interrupted. “We all have our private problems and we mustn’t intrude. What happened, BB?”
“Nell laughed and said no, the incense wasn’t intended to attract men, it was for something else but she wouldn’t say what. Then she gave me a lovely lunch and brought me here to find out for myself.”
Regina chuckled. “Raising the Devil, of course.”
“What? The Devil?”
“I told you you’d never believe me,” Nell said.
“One of the entertainments we’ve been playing, BB. Trying to raise the Devil with diabolical incantations and ceremonies. We’ve read all the wicked books and memorized the sinister spells. Nell got us all the evil smells—that incense is one of them—and we’ve tried over and over again…”