A loud buzzer sounded. “Special announcement! Jerome the Meek, over in cubicle eight, has just set a new Madame Taylor's Hall of Supreme Exotic Dancers drool record! Let's all give him a big hand!”
Yvonne led Randall past the applauding guests, through a polka-dot curtained doorway, and down a hallway filled with the sounds of tap-dancing feet and squeak toys. She opened the last door on the end, and led Randall inside a bedroom decorated entirely in white, with ruffles everywhere.
There was a moan from the next room. “Oh, baby, take it off! Take it off! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, take it off! That's right! Oooooh yeah! Now throw that fake mustache over here!”
Yvonne shut the door. “Have a seat,” she said, motioning toward the bed. Randall sat down upon it, and Yvonne sat down next to him. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“This may be kind of embarrassing. Especially for me.”
“I work in an exotic dance hall. I think I can handle embarrassing.”
“I understand you're known as Yvonne the Pure.”
“Yes. I believe the body is a temple, one to be protected from invaders. And I really like the color white.”
“Okay, well, I have a very unusual request. Would it be possible, when you're asleep tonight, for my friend and I to catch some of your breath in a jar?”
“I know this isn't the most wholesome place in the Generic Fantasy Land, but that's a little—”
“No, I have an honorable purpose.” He proceeded to tell her the entire story, except for the accidental omission of the part where Sir William shouted “Check it! Check it!”
“That's awful!” Yvonne exclaimed.
“I know.”
“I mean, you can't tell a story to save your life! Ramble a little more, why don't you?”
“The point is, we need your sleeping breath.”
“You actually think I'll be able to sleep with two freakozoids in my room waiting to take my breath away?”
“We're not freakozoids. We're desperate. If I don't get the princess back, I'll be hunted down like a dog. A dog that's done something really bad, of course.”
Yvonne shook her head. “I'm not interested.”
“You hold my life and the future of an entire kingdom in your mouth. Please, don't turn me away.”
Some really awful male singing began to emanate from an adjoining room. “Magical Karaoke is an extra fifty dvorkins,” Yvonne explained.
“Dandy.”
“Listen, maybe I've been dropped on my head too many times this week, but I'm going to trust you. I'll leave my door unlocked after I go to sleep, and one hour from now you and your friend can come in and do what you need to do.”
“Thank you!” said Randall. “You're a true heroine.”
They returned to the waiting room, where Jack was encouraging the dance hall's mascot seal to balance a ball on its nose to the delight of the patrons. “We're all set,” Randall told him.
“I could get used to a life like this,” Jack said. “Watch, he can even bounce the ball up and down! Hee-hee!”
“Maybe I should arrange a chaperone for you guys,” said Yvonne, uneasily.
* * * *
ONE HOUR later, Jack pocketed the tips he'd made as a hostess and walked down the hallway with Randall. Elizabeth, the Employee of the Month, had been kind enough to give them a jar of pickled bananas, which Randall had emptied out onto a section of the floor that was already pretty dirty.
Very slowly, so as not to awaken Yvonne, Randall pushed open the door to her room. SQUEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAK.
“Huh? Who's there?” said Yvonne, sitting up in bed.
“Sorry,” said Randall. “We'll come back later.”
Later, Randall and Jack came back. After oiling the hinges of the door with some oil that Randall suspected was not intended for hinges, he pushed it open. Squeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaak.
“Darn you!” said Yvonne, sitting up again. “You interrupted an impure dream! Those things are few and far between!”
Later, they returned. After removing the hinges of the door and silently leaning the door against the opposite wall, Randall and Jack entered her room. Yvonne lay there, sleeping soundly, snoring like an angel.
“She's beautiful,” Randall whispered.
“A-yup,” Jack whispered.
Randall removed the lid to the jar. “Here goes,” he said, bending down next to her. Suddenly he recoiled. “Oh my gosh!”
“What's wrong?”
“Her breath. It's horrible!”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I'm sure! I didn't notice anything while we were talking before, but now it's like she's been gargling compost!”
“I wonder what she ate before bed?”
“No mere food could produce mutant breath like this! Maybe her status as Yvonne the Pure isn't wholly by choice!”
Yvonne stirred a bit, but didn't wake up. “Well, get the breath so we can get out of here,” Jack urged.
“Maybe I shouldn't. This breath could very well cause the resurrection spell to malfunction! Princess Janice could come back as a really dead skunk! I say we find ourselves another maiden.”
Then the loud buzzer sounded again. “We have a code red, ladies and gentlemen! Code red!”
Yvonne sat up, panicked. “What does that mean?” Randall asked.
“It means Madame Taylor is coming for a visit! Hurry, we have to go to the waiting room!”
They hurried out of the bedroom and back into the waiting room, where the employees and customers were seated, open books on their laps. Yvonne pulled a book from underneath the cushion and motioned for Randall and Jack to sit on each side of her. “Pretend I'm teaching you how to read,” she said.
The front door opened, and Madame Taylor entered. She was a short woman that could be described as “pleasantly plump” unless one was an insensitive cretin, in which case “mobile lard lump” would be used.
“Hello, Madame Taylor!” said Yvonne. “How nice of you to pay us this visit! We're giddy already!”
Madame Taylor beckoned for Yvonne to come over to her. As Yvonne did, Madame Taylor lowered her head in an attempt to speak confidentially despite the thirty people hanging on her every word. “I think we have a problem,” she said.
“Oh no! Problems are bad! What kind of problem?”
Madame Taylor hesitated, as if uncomfortable speaking the words. “I've heard a persistent rumor that there's...” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “...nudity going on here!”
“Don't be ridiculous,” said Yvonne. “This place is here to promote literacy in the commoners, just as you requested.”
The patrons and dancers all nodded vigorously.
“Are you sure? The rumors are very persistent. They say there's even bumping! And grinding!”
“No, no, that's preposterous.” She pointed to one of the men. “Albert, tell her how much you've learned here.”
“When I first came to Madame Taylor's Hall of Supreme Exotic Dancers, I couldn't even read the letter a,” said Albert. “Now, after going through this program of literacy, I can.”
“See, Madame Taylor? You have nothing to worry about.”
“But I've been told by several sources that a ‘Hall of Exotic Dancers’ is a place where the dancers aren't wearing any clothes! Or else they're wearing terrible, terrible things!”