“Your intimacy… deepest… you say, Babe. And do you know what is my deepest intimate thing?”
“I don’t, I don’t dare…”
“Princess, my Princess! That’s what I’ll tattoo! Princess!”
“I was wrong,” thought Babe, pressing her chest with her hand so that her heart would not burst. “A tattoo behind the ear equals ‘Prince’ instead of ‘Mr. Kaella’ plus ‘Princess’ instead of ‘Babe’.”
Chapter 38
Jagdish came up to Raul and Margot and asked:
“Do you know what I don’t get, Raul?”
“What?”
“Where did this information about such a high percentage of votes suddenly come from? I mean, we did our studies, locally, in our cities, but…”
“Jagdish, we couldn’t get the real picture based on that. We couldn’t even guess that so many people from consumer cities, from places we had never set foot in, with censured media, the Internet… that people there knew about us, about Pascal… Not only that they knew, but that they would vote for him. I find something else odd. That’s what the three of us mainly discussed yesterday. This informant of Seneca’s has been sending him the results of their polls every two, three week, since the beginning of the presidential campaign.”
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier, Raul?”
“We couldn’t. Seneca didn’t want anyone to know about this informant of his.”
“I understand. And how did the percentages change? They increased in time, right?” Jagdish asked.
“They didn’t. That’s what’s odd. The entire time they were around twenty seven, no more than thirty percent for Pascal.”
“And for Xing?”
“Close to forty.”
“So how did it suddenly…?”
“We don’t know. We can only assume that their pollsters this time falsely introduced themselves as being ours or neutral… I don’t know. So the people weren’t afraid to say that they would vote for Pascal. Kaella also received all those periodical results of the polls. And this is now a great shock to him, as it is to us. That is why we concluded, just as you did, that they would try to carry out an assassination.”
“Raul… alright, we understand now. I mean, the situation changed so suddenly with this information about the certain victory in the elections… But, where does this trust of yours in Seneca come from? As Liam said, how do you know that he didn’t immediately hand him over to Kaella?” Margot asked.
“He could have arrested us all and handed us over to Kaella whenever he wanted. At any moment, during all these months. And he didn’t do that. So, you tell me, Margot, what is the most important thing to Seneca?”
“Megapolis,” Margot said.
“Exactly, Megapolis. And had he arrested us, banished us, handed us over to the villains… what would Megapolis have done to him? What would the students have done - all those educated people, experts, scientists, athletes, artists of all profiles, which Megapolis is full of. They would have despised him. Spat on him. He could rule by force, but Seneca is not like that. He loves Megapolis precisely because of those people. Because of the youths, because of the University. That’s all he boasts about. He hands out scholarship, rewards the best students, that’s why I… I mean… that’s why we trusted him… that’s why we trust him to keep Pascal safe.”
“I understand, I agree,” said Margot, already much calmer.
“People…” Raul said loudly, addressing the entire staff. “Calm down, think it over, talk among yourselves… You’ll see that I’m right. And that is only until the elections. We simply moved out of the way. And we got Pascal out of the way. We’re calmly waiting for Kaella’s move. And that’s when we’ll decide how to proceed.”
“Raul’s right,” Margot supported him. “He and Pascal have done the right thing. We can be at ease. There, I’m already completely calm.”
Chapter 39
Babe and Prince twitched when the old Mr. Kaella returned from the toilet, and they moved away from each other. Luckily the makeup artist immediately rushed in an started powdering the sweaty Mr. Kaella, her body concealing the two of them.
Babe used the opportunity and turned up the volume on the monitor, so that her conversation with Prince could not be heard in the salon.
The voice of the speaker rumbled from the monitor:
“On that day it is time for all the bathroom accessories. That means we change: bathtubs, sinks, toilet bowls, bidets, faucets, showers, tiles, both wall and floor. We’re looking forward to the new designs and new wonderful pastel colors, dear Consumers.”
And after that came a completely different, joyful and frivolous voice in the next advertisement:
“Our Planet is heating up, dear Ladies. The temperatures are increasingly higher. You’re hot in your stockings. But you don’t reject them, since they make your legs long and sexy. Unfortunately, you cannot fully enjoy your sexy appearance because you’re sweating. Look, dear Consumer, how Miss Babe has solved this dilemma.”
Prince swiftly turned towards the monitor and was petrified. Babe was lying on her stomach, in a luxurious pink stand, covered from her armpit to just below her derriere by a pink towel. Two top, publicly well-known tattoo masters were at that very moment doing the lace on her floral stockings.
“What is Miss Babe doing, dear Consumer? Yes! You’ve guessed it! She’s tattooing stockings. Let’s hear what Miss Babe has to say, what is her experience with tattooed stockings?”
In the next shot, sitting in a tight miniskirt on a bar stool, with her legs crossed, revealing to the viewers the very edge of the lace on the tattooed stockings, this time with a star pattern, Babe said:
“I will never again put on real stockings… Forgive me, dear Consumer, I didn’t express myself properly, because these tattooed stockings are the only real ones. Tattoo them just once and you will see for yourself. You’ll confine the old ones to fashion history, where they belong. You can feel comfortable, with cooled legs, and look equally attractive or even more attractive,” here Babe moved a bit, her skirt rode up also revealing the skin of her thighs above the lace, “and feel…” Babe winked at the camera. “Girls, you know what I mean.”
“Why are you doing this to me, Babe?” Prince panted after the advertisement.
“You mean, Princess?”
“Why are you doing this to me, Princess?”
“What am I doing to you, Prince?”
“Why are you clenching your knees the entire time? The entire world can look at your long, wonderful legs in tattooed stockings, only I can’t. And now, when they are fishnets. Why am I not allowed to see them? Why?”
“You’ll see them.”
“Babe, Mr. Kaella, please sit down. We’re live in thirty seconds,” the assistant director said.
“When will I see them?” Prince asked.
“Now,” answered Babe, and walked towards the couch.
Chapter 40
The students of the fifth and eighth grade, standing in line one after another, took black scarves with a blue Earth on them from one large box, and black hats with a blue Earth from another, which Mitke the janitor had brought from out of storage to the school hall.
The boys from the eighth grade, some of them already young men with thin moustaches and a few hairs on their chin, with their highly changed voices, cursed as rudely as they could, aggressively shoving the fifth-graders, and without having tied the scarves around their necks or placing the hats on their heads, they went out into the yard, strutting as they walked. They were very angry because they couldn’t watch Babe’s show to the end.