Page 6

Adelaide spotted him immediately. She could read men like blind people read those bumps on paper, it’s all about the protrusions. He was attempting, without much success, to hide what was a physical representation of her effect on him. How wonderful that she had uncovered her first mark within minutes of her arrival. But was he with the convention? He didn’t look a bit Swedish.

She expertly arranged her long, blonde mane of fake hair. Damn, she hated wearing wigs in this weather. July Canadian heat was hotter than Brad Pitt when he took off his shirt, boinked Thelma (or what it Louise?) and then stole all her money. Adelaide had wondered on her way to the hotel if perhaps long and blonde was the wrong choice for the Swedes, perhaps she should have gone with something less stereotypic, but her gut instinct told her that today blonde was the way to go.

She tried to set her sights firmly on the man with the protrusion as she sashayed her way across the patio, her hips swaying like those soap-covered plastic things that hang down in a drive-through car wash and go back and forth across your windshield, but she found herself uncharacteristically distracted. She was typically so single-minded when it came to her marks, but her thoughts kept wandering back to the strangely sexy freak she'd met earlier. She couldn’t quite seem to put him out of her mind. His voice was locked in her head the way an awful Britney Spears song will go “Oops, I did it again” in your brain until it drives you crazy because it’s the only lyric you know and it repeats itself over and over and over.

No! She had to focus. She had to concentrate on the task at hand. This month's rent depended on it.

The man looked like he needed to be saved. He was obviously just barely enduring the company of the fat man sitting across from him, so evidently trying to be polite. Perhaps he was British? He was attractive in a decidedly non-Swedish kind of way, all dark hair, brown eyes and olive complexion. If she could only get York out of her thoughts, this might be a job she’d really enjoy.

She reached the table and the eyes of both men scanned her from top to bottom. Something she was completely accustomed to.

In her practiced, sultry voice she purred “Are you boys with the convention?”

Page 5

The fat man laid his hand on Crispin's shoulder and guided him into the hotel. "I just got checked in myself," he wheezed. "Fuckers put me in a non-smoking room, like that's gonna stop me. Came down here to get a drink, saw you standing there catching flies." They walked into the glass and steel bar, Crispin glancing nervously over his shoulder, trying to catch sight of the man who took his suitcase.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but perhaps I should just check in first, before, uh, before we. . . I say, you are a doctor, aren't you?"

The man barked out a laugh and shook his head. The effort left him winded, and they walked on a few paces before he could respond. "No, never got that far. Journalist. Writing up this convention fuckery for the Colorecto. Just through here, patio." His hand on Crispin's shoulder grew heavier as they walked through the bar and out into a dusty, brick paved patio containing a dozen cast-iron tables complete with umbrellas and uncomfortable-looking iron chairs. They reached the first table and the fat man collapsed into it like one of these plastic water jugs for camping. The collapsable kind. Only fatter.

He gasped and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. Crispin loked around worriedly, then decided to sit with the man for a minute, out of politeness. He perched on the edge of the wrought-iron chair and watched his companion strike a match and ruthlessly suck the hell out of his cigarette. Smoke billowed up over his head, until he finally exhaled with a soft moan and leaned back in his chair. The chair moaned, too.

"Paul," he said, and extended his meatloaf-sized hand out to Crispin.

Crispin shook the man's hand, frowning. "No, actually, my name is. . . Oh! Oh, I see. Yes. I'm Dr. Crispin Simth-Cri. . ."

Paul waved his hand, brushing Crispin's introducton away. "I know. Did a write-up about you last year, that home prostate kit? Talked on the phone. You make any money off that thing?"

Crispin decided to ignore the unbelievably rude question. Then decided to answer anyway. "Well, to be honest, it's become something of a 'hit', if you will, in London. Home prostate exams seem to have become quite popular."

Paul grinned. "Oi bet they 'ave, oi bet they 'ave!" he said.

"Sorry?"

"Monty Python. You know. Pho-to-graphs? Eh? Miss!" he shouted to someone behind Crispin. "Bring us out a couple of moose and some nuts, please."

"Moose. . . nuts?" Crispin felt that he was completely in over his head. Canadians weren't anything like they said back home. He was expecting something a little more, oh, Celine Dionish. Or Bryan Adamsy. Not this chain-smoking walrus with his snide implications. Crispin considered becoming annoyed. Or peeved. Yes, he could definitely see himself becoming a little peevish.

He was just about to work himself up into a proper peeve when she walked out to the patio. Blonde, slender, dynamite little dress, and a smile that could make a man forget to breathe. Crispin suddenly didn't feel peevish at all. He surreptitiously put his hands in his lap, trying to hide his sudden not-peevishness from view.

Page 4

Crispin Smith-Crispin Smith stepped out of the limosine and gawked at the size of the hotel confronting him. It was, by far, the most enormous he had ever seen. Metre after metre of shimmering brick rising far into the skies. 'Everything is so very large here,' he thought, letting out an English whistle.

'Beautiful, yes?' cooed the driver, who dropped Crispin's valise to the ground with a thud and proffered an open hand, as if it would be a sort of honour to pay him. Crispin um'ed and er'ed and fished a wrinkled Canadian bill out of his pocket and um'ed and er'ed some more as he tried to straighten it out.

'That will do, sir.' The driver sounded quite impatient, and Crispin's natural inclination to obey forceful direction had him limply handing over the money and spilling apologies and thanks from his thin, red lips.

A voice shook him from his reverie.

"Are you an ass man?" it said, loudly - embarrassingly loudly. Crispin turned and was confronted with the fattest man he had ever seen.

"Everything is so large here," he stammered, and immediately felt the familiar heat of blood filling his face, turning him as red as a [author's note: I'm cribbing Shora's style here] thing that turned really, really red.

"You're from England! Well, let me tell you, my friend," the fat man continued, pulling out a wad of money and motioning the hotel porter toward them. "A little ass goes a long way." The porter arrived by their side, "Get my buddy's bag inside and see to it a couple of Scotches are ready for us." He licked a toothpaste tube thumb and squeezed off a couple of bills from the wad. Handing them over to the staid porter seemed to take no little effort, for he was breathing more heavily as he turned back to Crispin. "This is gonna be one fuck of a convention."

Page 3

Torsten tried in vain to calm himself by arranging his massage oils in alphabetical order. Apricot, Castor, Emu, Olive. He usually found the task soothing, but nothing could quell the anger he was feeling right now.

For the past three years he'd been working in this hotel, enjoying the women who worshipped him for his fingers, his blonde good looks and his killer abs. Abs so rippling they reminded one of a guy who's been working on building rippling abs for a really, really long time.

In those three years he'd almost been able to forget his past in Hudiksvall, the city of his birth, from which he'd fled after eluding the Swedish police. Back home he was known as the "Keesterngen Killerenen", which roughly translated to "Ass Man Murderer", a moniker he'd earned after brutally slaying a string of proctologists.

And now this hotel was about to be descended upon by hundreds of the bastards. The very idea made him shudder in a way that a person might after they've driven over a racoon in the road that's been run over several times already, but only recently, and you know that some of the goo has got on your car. How could he continue to suppress the memory of his childhood proctology exam gone horribly wrong with these monsters at every turn? Monsters. That's what they were, with their monstrous tools and long, fat, probing, rubber-glove encased fingers. The mere smell of that rubber would send him into a fit of vomiting so violent and awful it was like, well, suffice it to say it was really gross.

He simply could not endure this. He'd have to think of something.

page 2

The stranger extended his hand and pulled her effortlessly to her feet. "I apologize for my clumsiness. It is rare for a man such as I to be in close proximity to a woman as stunningly attractive as yourself, and now I fear that this violent encounter will cause you to look upon me not, as I am accustomed, with pity, but with fear and disgust. Pray, tell me that I am wrong?"

His large gnarled hand still encompassed hers in a warm, strong grasp. She gazed blankly at him, trying to parse his words into something resembling normal speech. "Uh..." she said, wittily.

The man released her hand and straightened to his full height of not-quite 4 and a half feet. "Pardon the cliché," he said, "but allow me to introduce myself. My name is Prometheus Stanislaw Miholovich York, graduate of the Acadian Shakespearean Project, two-time grammy award winner for my work on Hiddenburg - The Musical!, Juno nominee for my role in Clan of the Hideous Trolls, and professional voice coach (although I hate that term) for dozens of lesser actors and actresses." He bowed before her, using a thick black cane to keep from falling to the floor. He paused. No response seemed forthcoming, so he continued. "I am currently working with an advertising agency in town, doing voice acting for several advertisements, but I hope to soon start working with the CBC in their production of the New Voices radio dramas. Perhaps You've heard of it? Miss...."

"What? Oh! Adelaide. Just... Adelaide. What was your name again?"

He smiled, and winked. "You may call me York." With the tip of his cane he reached out to the box that Adelaide had dropped on the floor, and pulled it towards him. "Ah, Medusa's! An excellent proprietor for the follically challenged. I know several artists in the business who swear by their temporary coifures, although they would never admit to it in public." He pulled the box close to Adelaide's feet and rested his hands on the pommel of his cane. "And are you an artist, Miss Adelaide?"

Adelaide smiled and raised an eyebrow at the talkative dwarf. "Some men have called me that," she said, "but they were just trying to flatter me. I do contract work as a hostess. More of a glorified waitress, but I get to meet a lot of very interesting people."

"Mostly men who become smitten by your charms, no doubt," York rumbled. "And is there a mister Adelaide for me to hurl to the ground with an hastily opened door?"

"An hastily?" thought Adelaide. She tried a giggle. "Not at the moment, but the night is still young," she said. She was way off her game, unsettled by the presence of York. The little man seemed to fill the room. She looked at her watch, remembered that she purposefully didn't take it with her, then blurted out "actually, I'm on my way to a job now, and I really have to get going. Maybe I'll see you later?"

"Most definitely, Miss Adelaide." He watched her as she walked out through the front door, noticing how effectively she swayed her hips. "Most definitely."

Page 1

Her bald head glistened. Damn it was hot. It was hotter than the blue and white flame that comes out of those cool windless lighters. Adelaide's stilettos clicked as she descended the stairs of her three-story walk-up, athletic legs on grand display beneath her impeccable Dior mini dress. She carried her wig box. Long and blonde was what she'd chosen for this day, she would become another person when she reached the ladies room of the hotel. A convention of Swedish proctologists was in town, and though she found their conversation as dull as a knife that is no longer sharp, she also knew from experience they were selfless when it came to sex. And they tended to be big spenders.

Unaware that her life was about to change forever, she reached the landing, extended one perfectly manicured hand towards the door and was knocked on her keester as it burst open like those wooden gates in a rodeo when the bull shoots out to chase the guy dressed as a clown.

"Shit!" she thought, "Proctologists can't abide a bruised ass".

But the vexation was wiped away when she realized a stranger was hovering over her, his form backlit by the July sun. His face was in shadow, but his hump was in perfect silhouette. A hunchback. And an extremely short one at that. A hunchback with such a large hump that it loomed higher than his head, much like woman's breasts if she was laying on her back and one was larger that the other. Adelaide was repulsed, sickened, grossed out even. But then he spoke.

"I'm terribly sorry. Are you hurt?"

His voice was a rumbling baritone so sexy it made her swoon. How was it possible that this voice was coming from such a creature? And how was it possible that she could be so repulsed, and yet so turned on, at the same time?

Front Cover