maxine_bastet (maxine_bastet) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-05-28 22:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | bastet, chernobog |
If You Like Piña Coladas and Gettin Caught In The Rain
Who: Max[Bastet] and Matt[Chernobog]
What: Max takes advantage of everything the Spa has to offer
Where: WiiLoft Spa
When: Thursday, May 24 2017
“Hey, Maxie; so it looks like our client cancelled for tonight. She has family in Manchester and she headed out yesterday on the first flight to England she could get to be with them, so you’re off the hook for the party. Sorry about the short notice, but it couldn’t be helped - and don’t worry about losing work, we’ll get you something asap. I’ll give you a call later.”
Max deleted the voicemail and turned off her phone, frowning slightly at the message. It wasn’t the work she was worried about; she knew that client pretty well and she was upset at the possibility of her family getting hurt. She resolved to try calling her cellphone later, after a respectful amount of time had passed, to see if she and her family were okay.
But now faced with an entire client-free day, Max wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She thought about doing chores around the apartment - her laundry needed to be done, and her kitchen needed some attention - but that just sounded boring. Besides, it was a free day. She was going to enjoy it.
And that was when her eyes fell on the brochure for the spa, the one the building was offering a free day at for all residents. And it was almost the end of May, and she had no plans for today, and she would really love a massage, and a dip in the hot tub, and a manicure…
She dialed the number. “Hi, I was wondering if you had any spots available today?” she asked the friendly voice on the other end.
“Let me check on that,” she said in a voice that clearly told her there were no spots at all open today. Max frowned, dejected.
“Okay; It’s just, I have a free pass from my building and I need to use it before the end of the month…”
“You’re from Pax?” the woman asked, her voice instantly changed to one of warmth and welcoming. “Let me see here...yes, we do have a spot open...we could fit you in at 1pm? That’s...about an hour from now.”
Max’s eyebrows rose at the sudden reversal. “That’s...fortunate,” she said carefully. “Sure, that would be great.”
“Okay! Just give me your name and apartment number and I’ll book you in.”
“Maxine Petrie, 204,” she said, instantly.
“Great, we’ll see you at one,” the woman said and hung up, leaving Max looking a little shellshocked from the conversation. But whatever, she was going to a spa!
She foraged in her kitchen for a somewhat filling lunch and then threw on some comfortable clothes, driving with her phone directing her towards the spa. Once she arrived and was checked in she was given a long list of services to try, which she marked off with glee.
First she was taken for a mani-pedi, with one lady working on her nails and another handing her cups of warm tea and giving her a facial at the same time. Then she was brought to the hot tub for a mineral soak, which she spent probably far too long in, lounging in the hot water and enjoying the flutes of champagne that were being offered. After her soak she dried off with the softest towels she could ever remember using (were they complementary? Could she swipe a few for home?) and she was led into a room for her hot stone therapy and deep tissue massage.
She lay down on the table and got comfortable as they worked on her with an expert touch, lulling her into a state of complete relaxation. Some time after the stones were taken away the manual massage began. Using the massage as a distraction, an unseen and unfelt needle injected her with a powerful sedative, causing her to drift off into a peaceful sleep.
* * *
“Candidate 2M04 has been sedated for five minutes,” Doctor Matthew Buchanan announced to his friendly recorder. Compared to the first number of test subjects, he was noticeably less plucky, less himself, more a washed out and tired version. The death of the candidate from the week prior still weighed heavily on him. Now he was exhausted, having had many strange dreams in the recent weeks of gods and monsters, and he couldn’t help but wonder will this candidate die, too?
But Candidate 2M04, at the very least, looked fit and healthy. Matthew flipped through her medical history and was content with what he saw, or at least a little content. Overall, this woman seemed much more put together than the man who had died. “She is a 29 year old female and has arrived on Thursday, May 24th. She’s quite healthy and athletic.”
Matthew stepped forward and began his work. Pressing, poking, prodding for any reaction from the sleeping woman and finding that she still remained quite asleep. He gathered his sample kit and retrieved the mouth swab, nail clippings, and blood samples. The blue light passed over her tanned skin and nothing shown that was indication of alarm. He listened to her heart, got her blood pressure, and all went without any issue but it wasn’t enough to relieve him of his apprehension. The thing that made him uncertain was the next step.
Retrieving the needle with the serum, he paused before the woman and looked at her for a long moment. He had done this test to a number of other people since the man’s death and it had yet to get any easier. His employers had provided him with no commentary about the man’s death either. Other than that it had been taken care of but that wasn’t enough.
Letting out a long-held breath, Matthew moved forward with the syringe. He knew this had to get done, particularly before the woman woke, but he was hesitant. “Here goes nothing,” he murmured to himself and found a spot to inject the woman with the syringe. “I’ve administered the serum to 2M04 and have begun the timer.”
He stepped back and quickly disposed of the needle before returning to the woman’s side, fingers twitching as he waited to react if anything appeared to be going wrong. It was quiet for a moment, nothing changed, and the nerves Matthew felt were finally starting to drift away.
Then the woman on the table grimaced slightly, as if in pain. A soft moan escaped her lips as changes started to happen, though they weren’t immediately apparent. Beneath her lips, her teeth were changing, molding themselves into different shapes as if they were made of soft clay and then hardening into their new form. Her incisors shrank considerably, making room for her cuspids to broaden and lengthen into sharp canines that just barely poked out of the bottom of her full lips. Her remaining bicuspids and molars shifted and melded together into the larger feline molars, leaving her with a far different set of teeth than she’d arrived with. Once the changes were finished, the pain of it seemed to subside, and the woman’s features softened back into an expression of blissful relaxation.
Alerted by her minor movement, Matthew stepped forward and quickly listened to her heart and her breathing but all was well. With a small sigh of relief, Matthew began to check over the woman once more, making himself beyond certain that she was fine and not about to choke to death on weird songs on the table before him.
He repeated the steps from earlier, noting to the recorder that there was seemingly no change in her body beyond the grimace, but paused when he reached her mouth to get a swab of her saliva. Her teeth, formerly very much human, had changed entirely.
“Jesus Christ,” he murmured, pulling his hands back from her mouth and stepping away. He watched the woman with uncertainty in silence for a few moments then slowly inched his way back to her side. Slowly, and this time with a tongue depressor, he opened the woman’s mouth and inspected her teeth once more. “Her teeth have appeared to change,” he explained to his recorder. “Not… dog teeth. They’re much sleeker and smaller than that. But somewhat like cat teeth? I have to admit I do not know, I’m not a veterinarian. But these teeth are certainly no longer human but of some carnivorous animal.”
As he looked in her mouth, counting each teeth he saw, something else began to change. The woman moaned and Matthew backed away again. She grimaced as she had before and then she seemed to settle back into her sleeping state. When Matthew looked at her mouth again, her teeth were human once more. “How odd…”
The rest of the procedure went by without any issue. He gathered her samples, listened to her heart rate at least three more times, and sent her on her way. Yet despite that, he still found himself worrying over the woman. Would she be alright? Would any of them be alright? Or was that death from weeks before only a fluke.
* * *
Max woke up back on the massage table, much like most of the other Pax residents had. Her eyes fluttered open and she sighed happily at the feeling of complete relaxation in her muscles. “Wow, that was amazing,” she murmured into the headrest. The masseuse laughed softly and instructed her to take her time getting up, which she did, slowly pulling her clothes on with weak limbs. Her earlier plan had been to spend the day at the spa and then come home to finish her chores, but that definitely wasn’t happening now.
She passed the masseuse on the way out, who smiled at her. “You okay to drive? You look a little spacey,” she said with a smirk. Max laughed and nodded.
“I’m okay, but I’m definitely napping away the rest of the day after that!” With a cheerful wave goodbye to the staff she headed out, forcing herself awake enough to head home and do exactly that.