Carole Douglas - Virtual Virgin

I’ve set the ruby red slippers on my dresser as a reminder.

No, they’re not a reminder of the night’s intense discoveries.

What I need to remember was that Dorothy had finally got her head and heart together and figured a way home from Oz.

Ric had called to say he was trying out an overnight at the Metropolis. He sounded as eager as a Boy Scout on a camping trip. I’d promised to come and see in the morning.

Sansouci was somewhere in the night ministering to needy cougar and choir girl alike, imagining I could someday be his sole companion for a short off-road idyll in his long, long life span.

Snow was still onstage, his unhealed back wounds massaged by tight leather, making him writhe even more incitingly for the groupies in the mosh pit. In post–Millennium Revelation Las Vegas, someone’s pleasure is all too often someone else’s pain.

Quicksilver is lying under my bedroom window, gnawing on a treat whose source I don’t want to know.

“Me Delilah, you Quicksilver,” I say.

He looks up with those winter-blue eyes, jaws calmly cracking unlabeled animal sinews.

“I rescued you in Sunset Park, you rescue me everywhere else.”

Chomp, chomp. Smile, smile.

“I master. You . . . sidekick.”

Pause. Paws crossed. Really adorable posture, not so adorable expression. Silence.

“We both should leave Vegas and relocate to a monastery in Tibet. What do you say?”

Pause. Growl. Leap up, nose open window. Vanish for the night to exercise his needs to chase prey and enticing bitches.

Males! Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

Correction: given recent events, they can’t live without me.

So I finally exit to Dreamland, where I’m climbing the seventeen-foot height of the Caesars Palace reproduction of Michelangelo’s David like I’d once climbed the pillar likeness of Shezmou to free the chained demon god of the slaughter by bringing his avatar to earth and commercial success on the Las Vegas Strip.

Michelangelo loved men and the male form. I’m not indifferent. In my dream, I find I can turn David’s sculpted muscles of white Carrara marble, cold stone, into living flesh tones with the kisses of my brimstone mouth, but it will take a really long, long time to cover all that territory.

I guess I can make the climb with a little help from my friends, lover and would-be lovers, and my frenemies.

Invented in Silver Zombie

“Love it. A Virtual Virgin, wouldn’t that be fun to dabble in again?”

—Psychic psychologist Helena Troy Burnside in Silver Zombie

3 ounces chilled Dr Pepper or cherry Coke

3 ounces chilled lemon-lime sparkling bottled water

1 ounce Rose’s Lime juice

1 ounce Rose’s Cranberry Twist mix

LAYER ALL INGREDIENTS in a Tom Collins glass, with ice to fill and a long-stemmed fresh Bing cherry garnish. This dark brew reminiscent of a hopped-up cherry Coke allows you to sip in sinless certainty.

3 ounces of chilled Dr Pepper or cherry Coke

3 ounces of chilled lemon-lime sparkling bottled water

1 ounce black cherry vodka

1 ounce lime vodka

1 ounce Rose’s Lime juice

1 ounce Rose’s Cranberry Twist mix

LAYER INGREDIENTS AS above. This alcoholic version allows you to look soda-pop innocent but drink like the Devil.

Invented in Silver Zombie

We have got one hot little Roomba robot vacuum cleaner on our hands. Master? I wonder if she does dudes.

—Irma, Delilah’s alter ego, in Silver Zombie

3 ounces chilled Fuze blueberry raspberry bottled water

3 ounces chilled lemon-lime sparkling bottled water or champagne

1 ounce Jose Cuervo Silver tequila

1½ ounces lime vodka

1 ounce Alizé Bleu with vodka, cognac, and tropical fruit

COMBINE ALL INGREDIENTS, then dribble a dash of blue curaçao down the inside of the glass to sink to the bottom. Be careful that you don’t sink to the bottom in the snare of the real Silver Zombie.

Invented in Vampire Sunrise

“Umm. Subtle yet spicy . . . for modern women like us.”

—Psychic psychologist Helena Troy Burnside in Vampire Sunrise

6 ice cubes

1½ ounces pepper vodka

½ ounce DeKuyper Hot Damn! Cinnamon Schnapps Liqueur

4–7 ounces orange juice, well shaken

1 ounce Alizé Gold Passion orange cognac

½ to 1 ounce grenadine

PUT ICE CUBES in 12-ounce highball glass. Pour in pepper vodka and cinnamon schnapps, add orange juice to fill to desired level. Add Alizé. Last, pour in grenadine, which will settle to the bottom. Keep adding ice to this classic brunch eye-opener and daytime drink as it melts . . . for a longer, more sensual experience to the very last drop.

Invented in Brimstone Kiss

“Sounds like something you’d sip on all night long and I’d knock back in a couple slugs.”

—Rick Blaine/Humphrey Bogart CinSim in Brimstone Kiss

2 jiggers Inferno Pepper Pot vodka

1 jigger DeKuyper “Hot Damn!” Cinnamon Schnapps Liqueur

2 jiggers Alizé Red Passion

Jalapeño pepper slice (optional)

2 ounces champagne (for Version 2)

VERSION 1: POUR all ingredients into a martini shaker with ice. Shake gently. Pour into a martini glass garnished with jalapeño pepper slice. A hell of a drink!

VERSION 2: POUR all ingredients into a tall footed glass filled with ice. Stir well. Top off with champagne. A frothy but potent libation that might lead to pleasant damnation.

Invented in Dancing with Werewolves

“A sweet, seductive girly drink, but with unsuspected kick.”

—Werewolf mob enforcer Sansouci, in Brimstone Kiss

1 ounce white crème de cacao

1½ ounces Stolichnaya Stoli Vanil

1 ounce Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur

½ ounce Chambord raspberry liqueur

(Other brands may be substituted)

POUR VODKA AND liqueurs except the raspberry in the order given and stir gently. Drizzle in the raspberry liqueur. Don’t mix or stir. The raspberry liqueur will slowly sink to the bottom, so the white cocktail has a bloodred base (for a final taste sensation with bite).