Jayne won the argument over who would drive, her longer legs having helped her overtake Mavis just as they got to the car. It was a short but frustrating trip to the Club located in a seedier section of the downtown area with Mavis encouraging Jayne to run red lights and not pay any attention to speed limits. Mavis's frustration increased every time she redialed the number of the Club and got no response.

It was six twenty-eight when they reached the Club. Seeing no place to park, Jayne stopped the car, leaped out, told Mavis to find a place to park the car, and headed for the front door of the establishment. Mavis did not argue, knowing that Jayne's nurse's training would be more useful than her own frenzied concern.

By the time Mavis had parked a half-block away, ran back to the Club, successfully entered her code into the electronic lock on the third try, and made her way up one flight of stairs and through the door that lead to the lobby of the Club, what she saw at first almost made her heart stop. A half-eaten pizza was on the reception desk and Jayne had Jimmy pinned to the floor while she forced a feather down his throat.

"Jimmy, it's for you own good! You have to throw up the pizza you just ate!" Jayne ordered.

The big man could have easily heaved Jayne off his chest but instead he tried to make verbal protests, a very difficult task under the circumstances.

Jayne's expert ministrations were successful and Jimmy soon erupted like a pizza-filled volcano.

Putting the feather in a waste basket, Jayne said, "Well, I don't think any of the girls will want to be tickled with that."

"Yeah?" said Jimmy with more than a trace of anger. "I'm not too crazy about that feather either. What is this all about?"

"Jayne may have just saved your life, big guy." Mavis fought to keep tears of relief from streaming down her cheeks.

"That pizza you got out of the refrigerator may have been poisoned," Jayne explained as she dismounted from Jimmy.

"Yeah! Is that a fact? Well, that pizza didn't come from the fridge! I got it straight from Bob's hands. Had to pay him for it, too," Jimmy fumed.

"Got it from Bob? When?" Jayne asked.

"He brought it here after he tried to deliver it to Katie's place." Jimmy started to get up, looked at the floor and the front of his shirt. "Jeez! I'm a mess!"

"When was this?" Mavis wanted to know.

"About ten minutes after six. He said he had an accident and it made him late." Jimmy continued speaking as he went to the linen closet, got a towel, and went to the bathroom to wet the towel. "When he didn't get an answer at Katie's door, he thought he would try to catch her here, but he went back to the pizzeria to pick up a fresh pie. I knew I would wind up eating the pizza anyway 'cause of the switcheroo Sarah has been pulling on Katie, so I just paid for it and ate it -- well, half of it, anyway." Jimmy started to wipe his shirt with the towel.

Rushing to the aid of a helpless male, Mavis took the towel from Jimmy and began cleaning him up, saying as she did so, "That means that there were three pizzas instead of two. Somebody really did try to kill Katie."

"Kill Katie!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Who? I'll break his fucking neck! Is she all right?"

"She's fine, Jimmy," Jayne assured him. "We don't know who and we don't know why. All we know is how and when. But why were you here so early?"

"Oh, the new girl, Suzy, had an early appointment. I felt like obliging her since the date was with that Case fellow." Jimmy looked down at the slight progress Mavis was making on his shirt.

"Oh, Justin. He does like to check out all the new girls." Jayne looked at the video monitor installed to insure the girls' safety and saw Justin in action. "He's a real eager beaver!"

"Well, he wasn't all that eager tonight. He was almost a half hour late. His appointment was for five thirty. Suzy was really steamed. After fifteen minutes, she said might as well take a nap. She went into Room Two and laid down and told me to switch her off. When Justin finally got here at about six, he promised to pay for the extra half-hour. I'm going to give him until a little after seven. It'll be slow for a Friday night. The next appointments aren't until eight o'clock."

"Well, it looks like he's getting his money's worth," Jayne commented. "He's giving Suzy a heck of a ride! Emm!"

Jimmy looked down at the results of Mavis's efforts and frowned. "Mavis, I'm sorry, but this ain't working."

"Well, take your shirt off and I'll handwash it in the bathroom sink," Mavis offered.

Jayne smiled as she saw Mavis sigh with admiration as Jimmy's huge manly chest was revealed.

"I'll be right back." Mavis took the shirt from him. "I think there's a hairdrier that I can use to dry it off. Oh, Jayne, you should probably call Lieutenant Christopho and tell him about the pizza."

"Good idea" Keeping her eyes on the video monitor, Jayne picked up the phone. "Hey, there's no dial tone."

"Oh, geez! I'm sorry. I ran the vacuum cleaner when I first came in and I must have pulled the cord out of the jack." Jimmy bent down to plug the phone back in.

"That could be why you didn't answer the phone, I suppose." Jayne dialed the number on the card that the lieutenant gave her.

Jimmy listened with bewilderment as Jayne left a message for Christopho.

"Please tell the Lieutenant that Jayne Harrison called and she now has three pizzas: the one Sarah made, the one sent from Tony's; and the one delivered to Katie's apartment. She'll bring the third one down to the station for testing. Yes, he will know what all that means. Thank you."

After Jayne hung up, Jimmy asked somewhat anxiously, "Uh, Jayne that sounded like a call to the police. Are the police going to be coming around here?"

"Well, I hope not, but if they do, remember that this is a meditation center where we practice," Jayne paused and glared at Mavis who was emerging from the bathroom with Jimmy's shirt in one hand and a running hairdrier in the other, "the teachings of the great Neh Kro Baba."

"Who the hell is that?" Jimmy asked.

"You'll have to ask Mavis. She is his most devoted disciple and she gave birth to him less than an hour ago."

"Well, I was kind of proud of my inventiveness," Mavis said, coming as close to Jayne and Jimmy as the cord of the hairdrier would allow. "I mean, I gave a basically accurate description of how the control boxes and implants work, except for the fact that instead of sending a mantra to the ear, the boxes send a shut-down signal to the voluntary nervous system."

"Yes," said Jayne. "Of course, you also left out the part about how men pay huge dollars to fuck the hell out of us, like Justin is doing to Suzy right now." Jayne looked at the monitor again. "Wow, she must be having a good time!"

"Oh, really?" Mavis started to move closer to watch but was held back by the cord. "Could you turn the monitor a little so I can watch, too?"

"Well, I would do that, Mavis, except that my right breast is so sore from your little demonstration that I don't want to make any unnecessary arm movements." Jayne's voice dripped with barely suppressed anger.

Not entirely sure that he was doing the right thing, Jimmy reached over and moved the monitor slightly so everybody could watch. While it was clear that there was tension between the two women, he knew better than to try to make peace between Jayne and Mavis; they had a way of working out their differences.

The three spent a few minutes watching Justin's vigorous attack on Suzy's limp body. The tension seemed to subside a little as they all became so engrossed that they did not notice Katie and Sarah arrive at the front door and let themselves in.

Seeing both of the new arrivals gasp at the sight of the half-eaten pizza, Jayne quickly said, "Oh, don't worry. Everything's cool. We've got some proof that Katie's story is true. It seems...."

"Jayne, before we talk about anything else, Katie has something to tell you." It was very uncharacteristic of Sarah to interrupt anybody and everybody stared at her in surprise. Sarah turned to Katie and said with enough sternness to make her words sound like an order, "Katie, tell Jayne what you have to say. Now."

Katie stepped forward, her head bowed, not meeting Jayne's eyes, and said, "Jayne, I'm really glad that you were so concerned about me and that you rushed right over and everything, but when you called me an underachiever, well, that really hurt."

Jayne got up from her chair and moved to hug Katie, saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

Sarah, again with uncharacteristic assertiveness, stepped between Jayne and Katie, saying, "Wait. There's more. Katie, go on."

"Well, uh, the reason why it hurt so much is because it's true. I haven't done as much with my life as I could. But I'm trying to change that." Finally, Katie found the courage to raise her head and look at Jayne. "Jayne, I've decided that I, well, want to try to be a nurse like you. I've enrolled for some classes at the University. I was going to wait to see if I could hack it or not before I told you, but, I, well..."

Sarah stepped aside and Jayne rushed forward and embraced Katie. "Oh, Katie, that's wonderful. And it really makes me feel proud to know that you want to be, well, like me. I don't think I've ever been told that before by anybody!"

Katie returned Jayne's hug and said, "Let's see how I do before you decide how proud of me you are. I might not be smart enough to be just like you, but I'm sure I can learn to be a technician or lab assistant or something."

"This is so exciting!" Jayne beamed. "Come over and sit down and tell us all how it's going. Justin's giving Suzy a real workout. We can watch and talk at the same time."

Everyone was pleased to have something pleasant to talk about and a semi-circle formed around the monitor as Katie described her first weeks as a coed.

"Well, at first, I was really lost and it was like I couldn't find my ass with both hands." Katie went on to tell her anecdotes about picking up the wrong books in the union, going to the men's gym instead of the women's, and her misunderstanding of the word "matriculation," which she had later looked up in the dictionary and laughed at her own mistake.

All during Katie's recitation, Justin continued to bounce Suzy's unresponsive body. Suzy's eyes were closed, but her mouth hung open as her arms flooped about and her breasts bounced. At one point, her leg fell off the bed and remained dangling there until Justin finally reached down and pulled it up in the process of flipping her over for a back-door assault.

Katie had just finished describing how she had semi-gracefully backed out of her awkward intrusion on the three surprised men in the gym when Jimmy announced, after tucking in the clean shirt Mavis had just handed him, "Justin's time was up a couple minutes ago. I hate to interrupt a good story like Katie's or a good show like he and Suzy are putting on, but I suppose I'd better tell him it's time to kiss Suzy good-bye."

"Yeah," Jayne agreed. "Katie and Sarah need to get ready for work and Mavis and I should make a run to the police station with the third pizza. Oh, I didn't tell you two about that."

While Jayne related to Katie and Sarah the developments that confirmed Katie's story, Jimmy focused his attention on the activities in Room Two. He did not want to interrupt Justin in mid-stroke. Finally, when Justin paused for a moment, Jimmy spoke into the microphone at the console. "Justin, you're time's up, I'm afraid. Better get dressed."

"Gee, already? Wow! This has been terrific. I'd like more time, but I'm already paying for an extra half hour." Justin withdrew from Suzy and stood, somewhat shakily. As he began to dress, he said, "Suzy, that was terrific. You are sensational."

"Sounds like a satisfied customer," Jayne commented. "Well, Katie and Sarah, you two go to the locker room get undressed and ready for the toy box. Mavis, now that the laundry is done, why don't you go into the kitchenette and get the pizza out of the refrigerator so we can run it down to the police station."

"Yeah," Katie said as she and Sarah walked toward the locker room, "make sure the guys at the cop shop know that you're delivering evidence and not a midnight snack."

Mavis nodded and was heading to retrieve the evidence when the phone rang.

Seeing that the caller I.D. indicated that the call was coming from their own home, Jayne said, "Oh, hold on, Mavis. It's Rick. Maybe he will want to talk to both of us." Picking up the receiver, Jayne said, "Hi, Rick. How's my favorite guy tonight?"

"Hi. If he's who I hope he is, he's a little worried right now." There was some nervousness in Rick's voice. "Jayne, there's a Lieutenant Christopho here. He says he wants to talk to you and Mavis and Katie and Sarah as soon as possible."

"Oh, gee, uh, is the speaker phone on? We could talk to him right now."

"No, it isn't. Do you want me to..."

Jayne cut Rick short. "No, DON'T put the speaker on. I want to tell you: he thinks this is a meditation center. I don't think we need to put him straight on that matter, if you get my meaning."

"Yes. The lieutenant was hoping that he could come down to the meditation center and talk to all of you. He says it's very important. I told him that would probably be all right, if I called first to make sure you would all be available -- I mean, not in a deep state of hyperconsciousness or something." Rick sounded a little unhappy about having to mislead a policeman.

"Good job, Rick, Nice improvisation. Bring him down right now. We won't have another appointment until eight o'clock. Why don't you ride with him in his car and then you can go home with us? Ask him if that's okay."

After a moment of speaking with Christopho, Rick returned to the phone. "The Lieutenant was kind of amused. He says people don't often ask to ride in his car, but it will be all right with him. Oh, and he wants to be sure you all stay together. He said not to be alarmed, but he wants to make sure Katie isn't alone."

"Hmm. Okay. Oh, tell him that we have a third pizza to give him." Jayne waited while Rick relayed the information.

"He says that's no surprise. Look, Jayne, I get the feeling that we had better get right down there." Obviously, Christopho was making Rick more nervous every minute.

"Yes. Come on down Well, all be ready to go over to that coffee shop across the street. Without explicitly saying so, we'll try to give the impression that the meditation center is some kind of sacred space that we don't want disturbed with mundane affairs. See you soon. Love you."

"Yes. We should be there in twenty minutes," Rick told her. "Love you too."

"I take it that Rick and the lieutenant are coming," Mavis said as soon as Jayne had hung up.

Jayne saw on the monitor that Justin was planting a final kiss on Suzy's open mouth. "Right. As soon as Katie and Sarah come out of the locker room, I'll tell them to get dressed again. Suzy looks like she can handle things while we're gone. You go get the pizza so that we can almost meet them at the door."

Mavis withdrew to the kitchenette just as Justin emerged from Room Two, a broad smile of satisfaction on his face.

"Jimmy, that was the best ever!" he exclaimed. "That new girl really has it! I don't want to take anything away from Katie or Sarah or any of the other girls, but Suzy is different. That was so realistic."

"Really? I like to think all of the girls are pretty good," Jayne said.

Justin turned toward Jayne. "Oh, they are! But Suzy has something special. I mean, usually I can hear the girls breathe or feel some involuntary jerks. But with Suzy -- wow! I've got to get back here again soon."

Jayne was pleased to hear Justin's enthusiastic praise. Seeing Mavis emerge from the kitchenette, she was about say something when she saw the stunned look on Mavis's face.

And saw that Mavis was bearing an open pizza box.

Containing half a pizza.

Justin didn't notice Jayne's jaw drop and her eyes widen as he went on with his praise of Suzy. "I mean it, Jimmy. You've got to get Suzy to teach the other girls how she does it..."

As casually as possible, Jayne reached down and touched Suzy's "On" switch on the panel. Looking at the monitor, she saw that Suzy did not move at all.

"Oh, well, Justin, that's very, very nice." Jayne turned off the camera in Room Two and began to head quickly for the door. "I think I will, uh, go tell Suzy how very, very much you enjoyed the evening." Jayne disappeared into the room.

"Honest Jimmy, I've never had anything like it!" Justin continued. "I could swear her temperature was even just a little below normal. I can't imagine how she could fake that! I have heard of people who meditate being able to control stuff like heartbeat and so forth, but I've never seen it."

Jimmy, who had not yet noticed the half pizza in Mavis's hand, said, "Hey, Mavis, maybe Suzy's been studying with that Baba guy you and Jayne were talking about."

"Yes, the great Neh Kro," Mavis said blandly as she sank into a chair, still holding the pizza.

Wondering why Mavis suddenly seemed so down, Jimmy looked at her, saw the half pizza, and quickly added things up. Jayne had said that the pizza in the fridge was poisoned. Somebody had tried to kill Katie. And Suzy had mentioned when she came in that she hadn't eaten all day.

"Oh-oh." Jimmy muttered.

"Well, I don't care how she does it. I want you to book me for another session with Suzy three weeks from now. I promise I'll be on time," Justin assured him.

Jayne, looking pale and dejected, emerged from Room Two in time to hear Justin's request.

"Uh, Justin," said Jayne, trying to make her voice sound natural, "that won't be possible. I'm afraid this was Suzy's last night...her last night, here, I meant to say."

"Really? But she just started! She's terrific! She's the most convincing necrobabe I've every been with! You can't let her go!" Justin pleaded.

Jayne sat heavily in a chair by the console. She started out looking Justin in the eye, but gradually dropped her gaze until she was staring at his shoes. "Well, I'm afraid we really don't have any choice. When a necrobabe reaches the state of, um, perfection in her art, like Suzy has, it really is time for her to, um, move on to another venue. It would be, uh, wrong to keep her here."

"Well, maybe before she goes, she could pass her secret on the other girls who work here," Justin suggested.

Jayne sighed, looking at the floor. "Oh, I don't know that it's much of a secret how a woman gets to be like Suzy. It's not a matter of something a woman can learn really -- more a matter of something that just happens suddenly. Besides, I don't think any of the women here are ready to, um, advance to Suzy's state of perfection. I know I'm not." Jayne looked at Mavis. "How about you, Mavis?"

"No, me neither." Mavis shook her head.

Hearing Mavis speak, Justin looked at her for the first time and saw what she was holding in her lap. "Oh, pizza! I worked up quite an appetite with Suzy. Can I have a piece?"

"NO!" Mavis, Jayne, and Jimmy said in unison.

"Uh, I'd be willing to pay for it," Justin offered.

"We promised to take it to a friend of ours -- a hard-working civil servant," Jayne explained.

"And besides, it's cold," Mavis added.

"Here, you can have a slice of this one." Jimmy offered the pizza he had been eating. "A ain't very hungry. I'm afraid this one is cold, too."

"Like Suzy," Jayne muttered under her breath. Then she asked Justin, "By the way, why did you make such an early appointment with Suzy?"

"I'm catching a flight to London tonight." Justin helped himself to some pizza. "Thanks, Jimmy. I wanted to get my necro-fix before I went. I don't think there's anyplace quite like this in England. My plane leaves in," -- he looked at his watch -- "oh jeez! I've got to get going!" Heading for the door while munching on the pizza and almost walking backward, he added, "Look, this trip is only supposed to last a few weeks, but it might stretch into months.. I hope you can talk Suzy into staying."

Trying to smile, but not having much success, Jayne said, "I'm afraid she's beyond persuasion. Have a nice trip." It was something of a relief to know that Justin would be unavailable for an interview with the police for some time to come, as an account of his evening with Suzy would make it difficult to perpetuate the explanation of the club as a Meditation Center. As long as Justin Case would be abroad for a while, Jayne would not find herself wishing that it were possible to encase or otherwise isolate him just in case Lieutenant Christopho would ask if anyone else might be able to testify about the events at the Club.

Jimmy and Mavis echoed Jayne's bon voyage, to which Justin replied "Thanks" as he closed the door behind him.

As soon as Justin was gone, Jayne slumped forward, head in hands, elbows on knees and muttered, "Oh, poor Suzy!"