The Queer Sycamore

Watchful Eyes:

A story by Caducee

Lily stalked across the hotel's rather large atrium. Everything around her looked expensive. Even the tiles that she walked on looked sparkle-clean and reflected the ceiling off them. Here the main colour was rich crème in many different shades. A flowerpot rested beside each of the rich prune dragon-hide seats that faced the woman handling owl mail and registry papers in the atrium without looking up. Lily paid no attention to her. The woman didn't seem like the type to talk openly to anyone without barking in their faces when she was in a mood and, right now, she would have bet that the woman scribbling away furiously on a short piece of parchment was in the middle of one of those moods.

Lily pocketed her wand - she had chosen an old faded pair of jeans where she had sewed a thin, long pocket running down the length of her right thigh for better wand access - and opened her jacket. Underneath, she wore a skin-tight camisole with a large dip between the breasts that weren't really hers, due to her disguise glamour. She shrugged, glanced at her thin muggle watch and strutted over to the receptionist.

"Excuse me," she said, leaning her elbows on the marble desk. The receptionist looked up at the sound of her milky voice. "Where could I find the manager?"

The woman looked her up and down with bored grey eyes, and then rose. "Follow me," she commanded as she led her towards an ancient tapestry which illustrated the Renaissance period and its wondrous art. She pushed open a small mahogany door that led to a grand luxuriously furnished room, which apparently served as the manager's office. "Mr. Wellman, someone wants to see you," she droned.

A balding man dressed in posh robes was sitting behind a desk made of mahogany wood, like almost all of the rest of his possessions. He nodded to the receptionist and folded his hands neatly over the desk as she left. "I understand you're here to apply for a night job?" he asked as soon as the door had closed.

Lily was taken aback by the fast assumption, but nodded her assurance.

"Please sit down. Have you ever worked as an exotic dancer before, Miss..."

"Blewett. Geraldine Blewett," Lily deadpanned automatically.

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Do you have experience?"

"I worked here and there," Lily said, shrugging. "Moved around a lot in the past few years."

He nodded silently, and studied her features. "Hmm, a redhead, I see," the man said. He seemed to be talking to himself now, staring her from head to toe and measuring, fixating her eyes and her swells as though it really mattered. It did, and she knew it. She only hoped the interview wouldn't last too long, because she really felt like slugging the man hard for being such a pig so openly. "We'll definitely need one. Good tone, good body shape... How old are you?" he asked suddenly.

"Just turned nineteen." This was true. From all the lies she knew she was going to have to tell, this seemed like a breath of fresh air in an environment that stank to her.

"We'll change it to twenty-one," Wellman snapped, shaking his head to himself. "From..."

"Surrey."

"You'll be from Bristol..." He studied her face, her breasts, her waist, her carefully manicured hands and the rest of her generously shaped body, then claimed, "We'll have to make a few changes here and there, but otherwise you'll suit just fine for the job. Can you wait tables as well?"

"Sure," she replied. "I waited tables at a restaurant in Hogsmeade last year." Of course, this was a lie but she doubted he would do a complete research on her past jobs. He might come to a surprise if he really did.

He nodded to himself, and then asked again, staring her in the eyes as if defying her, "Muggle?"

"Half-half," she lied with a straight face, daring him to look away first. Questions about her magical inheritance bothered her. What kind of respectable wizard, of muggle heritage or not, would ask a question so blatantly stupid? However, she didn't lose her amiable face and waited for the result.

His eyes narrowed just slightly. "You look like a muggle."

She snorted, rolling her eyes, and pursed her lips. "Don't we all dress in muggle clothing and use magic to spice up a costumer's evening in this world?" she said with a little wink.

Wellman smiled, twirling his expensive eagle feather quill between his stubby fingers and said, "I know they'll love you. You have a nice attitude and that is very rare in this business. You have a nice timbre of voice too. Do you sing?"

"A little bit," she answered earnestly, hoping against all hope that her glamour guise had beautiful vocal chords to match her own semblance of a good voice when she sang her baby to sleep.

"That's good. Come back tomorrow evening to try on your costume, and then we'll see if people like you. I see a potential in you."

He rose to his feet then and led her back out to the atrium, where the desk lady was filing her long red nails uninterestedly without as much as a glance her way as she strolled outside into the fresh north London air.

"Thank you, sir," Lily said before letting herself out and breathing in cool relief. It hadn't been so bad, really. Just enough skin shown off, a good general behaviour and good lies to back herself up with and that was a good formula, she thought to herself with a grin of triumph.

Let the games begin.