Continues from part four
Meredith
The Limo that ferried the attendees from the helipad in a clearing in the woods, to the hotel arrived with the next guest. Before the doorman could perform his duty of opening the car door for the occupant, a lithe woman swung the door open and stepped from the car that had barely stopped. Most of the guests had familiar faces and wore full-length cloaks to hide there costume, or lack of costume. The woman who strutted from the car to the entrance of the lobby wore a bikini top that almost entirely covered her moderate sized breasts and a shimmery skirt, slit on one side and hooked up at the waist on the other side, where it was tucked into a fish tail. It was evident, beyond any doubt, that the mermaid costume was exactly that.
The guest strode to the reception desk and pinged the bell to summon someone to register her arrival, despite the young woman in a hotel uniform standing there waiting to do exactly that. The receptionist knew the type, the guest who wants everything done the instant they thought of it, if not before. The guest announced that she was Meredith, not giving a last name, as if she was as well known as Madonna or Cher. The receptionist scanned the guest list and found the one Meredith and had her sign in. She offered to have any luggage taken to her room and was peremptorily told that she had none; which to the receptionist meant that this guest expected everything to be provided, and instantly. She threw a beseeching look at the head of the organising staff for the event that they were hosting, in the hope that Jenny would come and take this guest off her hands, so she could help serve the more reasonable guests, who just wanted the occasional item and were prepared to wait up to five minutes before kicking up a fuss.
Jenny knew Meredith by reputation, but given that reputation was glad to have never met her. She floated her upper torso towards the formidable business woman and offered to escort her to the costume inspection room.
"Might as well get the unpleasantries over as soon as possible," was the reply.
Jenny floated herself along at the fastest speed she could manage, but was overtaken by Meredith as soon as the door labelled 'Costume Inspection' came into view. As Meredith charged in, Jenny beckoned over a footman to instruct him not to bother leading the woman that would soon be emerging from the room, along the corridor to the 'Transformations Room', but just to give her simple directions.
Inside the costume inspection room Meredith moved to the centre of the room and faced the panel. Before the chairperson could open his mouth, Meredith said, "I know that this costume is not up to snuff. I had an assistant get it for me, because I'm not here for the fancy dress; I'm here to have some fun and drop a ton of charity money to keep the tax man from taking all the rest." She walked forward maintaining eye contact with the chairman, daring him to speak and conveying that if he did, she would find a way to make his life difficult. When she arrived at the table she reached inside the bikini top and pulled out a cheque made out to the 'Transformations Trust' for five times the usual 'substandard costume fine', which she slammed on the table, before she turned and marched from the room.
Outside the door she almost ran into a very nervous looking footman. "Where do I go next?" she demanded.
"Down the corridor, that way, third door on the left, Madam," blurted out the uniformed man.
Meredith stomped in the direction indicated and found the door marked 'Transformations Room'. Without knocking she opened the door and stepped through. She hoped that the process of being given a replacement costume would not be as tedious as last time.
Once in the room, what she saw did not please her. A woman was fussing with several rails of dresses and costume paraphernalia. Another younger woman was fiddling with several ranks of various wigs. In the centre of the room was a guy straddling a chair; as he stared at her a smile spread across his lips, which she felt was more creepy than reassuring.
"Meredith, right?" he asked.
She nodded. She wondered who this young man in faded T-shirt and jeans was. He leaned down and picked a folder from the floor. He flipped through the pages and paused at one.
"Do you still want to be a mermaid? Because I have some other ideas that might suit you better."
"I came as a mermaid, I want to stay as a mermaid; if I had wanted to be something else, I would have come as that something, wouldn't I?"
"Fine," the young man said. "I just thought you might want some options. It's your funeral." The slouching youth turned his attention to the two women, with whom he shared a resemblance. "Sorry Mum," he said addressing the older woman, "This one won't tax you in the slightest, just get her naked and ready; and, if you feel inclined, some appropriate shell jewellery for the mermaid look." He turned to the younger woman. "You know what you're doing, first get rid of that ridiculous wig and tint the hair underneath something that you feel is right; when you're done we can adjust the length. I've got to get the rest of the fish ready and dig out the other item she'll be needing once we're finished."
Without a further word, he stood and shuffled into the other room dragging the chair.
"Is he usually that rude?" asked Meredith.
The woman addressed as mum, answered. "No. He can be rude sometimes, but not usually quite that rude, normally. My guess is that he picked up some vibe about you and felt that it was what he needed to do. To tell the truth, you're the first person he has offered a choice to. The others have got what they've been given and been impressed and enjoyed it too." She looked across the room at her daughter, before she said the next thing. "I suspect that it was some sort of, erm, test is too strong a word. But whatever it was I suspect that you will not be happy with what you get, and unlike others that have complained about Mike's attitude, you'll not get much of a hearing from the organisers. Let's get you out of that tacky rubbish you're wearing and that disaster of a wig, and maybe if you're nice to us, we might be able to moderate whatever he has planned for you."
"So what's going to happen? I hope it isn't as boring as last time I attended."
Hannah, the younger woman, said, "I don't know, but I think that you won't like the process or the result, but others will find it impressive."
Meredith stood where she was so Mary, the mother, went over to her and removed the bikini top, skirt and the bikini bottoms she found underneath. She then directed the client to a chair where Hannah had been setting up. Meredith sat in the chair and crossed her legs and sat still while the young woman pulled out the pins from the blonde wig that reached down to the small of her back.
Underneath the wig, Meredith's hair was short and red. Hannah set about the make up. She chose to make the client's upper torso and face a mottled blue-grey and sprayed in streaks of blue into the short hair, which complimented the body paint and made the red of her hair seem more vivid where it had not been treated.
Part way through, Mike pushed in a waist-high box with glass sides, inside which was a bucket that sloshed as the box was rolled to the middle of the floor. He took his mother to the side and they had a whispered discussion; both seemed disappointed when it was finished. He mooched back into the other room.
At the point when Hannah declared that she was done, Mike returned pushing a wheelchair.
"Right, let's get this done!" said Mike.
Meredith saw the shock on the faces of the two assistants, but did not know why, because Mike looked as scruffy and ill-kempt as he had before. The shock was due to the assistants' knowledge that at this stage in the proceedings, Mike usually transformed into his older more mature and charismatic self.
Mike opened the front of the cabinet and lifted the bucket out. Through gritted teeth, he said, "Please, step into the box and we can get this done."
Meredith, oblivious to the tone that Mike was employing. stepped over and looked into the bucket as she stepped into the box. She had hoped that there would be some specialist latex or similar that could be poured over her legs and then painted to match the paint that had been applied to her upper half. What she saw in the bucket was a small number of fish swimming in slightly murky water. This puzzled her as she stepped into the box. The upper edge of the box was waist height.
With Meredith in the box and turning to face the same direction as she would need to face to step back out again. Mike shut the door and tightened a few wing-nuts around the edge, compressing the foam rubber strips that would seal the box.
"Please, hold on to the top edge of the box, because we don't want you slipping and spoiling my sister's artistic work." He lifted the bucket and began to pour the contents into the box over Meredith's hips, as the box began to fill it was evident that there was a lot more water flowing into the tank in which the client stood than had been in the bucket and also more fish than she had seen when she had looked into the bucket.
As the water reached her knees, she felt a fish nibble at a toe and twitched to shoo it away. Then her entire lower legs exploded into pain. She looked down to see the water seething with movement and blossoming red as Mike continued to pour in more water, despite, or possibly encouraged by, Meredith's screams of pain and demands that he make it stop.
His only concession was to remind her that she needed to hold as much of her upper torso as she could above the tank. As the water reached her hips, the last few drops dribbled from the bucket and Mike put it aside. Next he tapped the side of the tank; this seemed to cause the murky reddened water to turn crystal clear in a matter of a few seconds. In the tank was a small shoal of fish circling and on the bottom where six long bones and a scattering of smaller bones; there was no evidence of Meredith's legs.
Mike did not answer any of Meredith's questions about what had happened, why it had hurt and when she was going to get her legs back. He moved the wheelchair to face the front of the water filled box and positioned Mary and Hannah either side of the gap between the box and the chair.
Mike produced an axe from about his body, despite there being nowhere to conceal an axe with a four foot handle in his jeans and T-shirt outfit. He swung the axe at the tank filled with water and fish, above which Meredith was trying to support herself to avoid getting more of herself eaten. The axe swung into the side of the tank shattering the glass and causing the wooden edges of the tank to splinter. The woman leapt at Mike and he grabbed her by her arms. In a neat piece of choreography, they switched places and he dumped the stunned woman into the wheelchair. The floor was covered in shards of glass and splinters of wood from the destroyed tank, but it was dry and without any fish flopping about gasping for oxygen.
Mike dropped the axe onto the debris that littered the floor and went to take charge of the wheelchair.
He nodded to the door and Mary went to open it. As he pushed the still silent Meredith out of the door and towards the foyer, his only comments were "You'll probably need to take a swim three or four times a day, to stop the fish skin of your tail from drying out and becoming too uncomfortable," and "You might try being nicer to people, because until the end of the weekend this is you and you can't go anywhere without someone's help." He parked her on the opposite side of reception from the reception desk, then went over to talk to the receptionist.
"See the mermaid in the wheelchair over there?" The receptionist nodded, then her face took on an expression of wonder at the transformation that had been made to Meredith. "Could you arrange that she gets dumped in the pool a few times a day, other than that I think that you should not do anything for her that you don't want to and if you could spread that about to your colleagues, I feel that most of us will be happier."
Meredith watched as the dapperly suited man returned from the reception desk. "I have given the staff some instructions that should help you a bit and I nearly forgot something." He stepped behind the mermaid in the wheelchair and grabbed a chunk of her hair and pulled. As he pulled the short hair lengthened until it flowed down the back of the chair to level with the seat. "Have a good weekend," he said before leaving her.
Meredith sat for about five minutes examining her situation, instead of legs she had what appeared to be a fish tail, which blended into the body paint on her torso. She tried to move the wheelchair herself only to find that the brake was on and she had no idea where the brake release was. Then she started to demand that someone helped her and take her to her room. After another five minutes, a footman arrived and exchanged a few words with the receptionist, before coming over to Meredith.
Another five minutes later she found herself tipped into the swimming pool, which did not feel too bad as she seemed to have more mobility there.