The old carpet with its Byzantine border
matted threads of burgundy and gold
ornate snowflake eye-of-God center
has a motif of predator and prey.

There are four ceremonial huntings
woven reflections in right-angled mirrors
a ring of Indian tigers mounted on deer’s backs
teeth sunk continuously in their necks.

The magi meditate on the rug’s middle
until the medallion draws them in
until they disappear
through its dilated pupil.

A cigarette has made a nickel-sized hole
big enough to peer through if the rug
were worn as a cloak and hood.

The cigarette scar’s burnt edges
seep into the fiber
like a puddle’s narrow edge.
The hole to nowhere, slightly left
of the mystic’s gaze.

Tooth mark the tiger left
The tapestry is devalued, worthless, ruined.
I’m ripping it off the wall, crouching
in the corner, swaddling it over my head.

Peering out the nickel, now
I am the center of the universe
wrapped in a skin.

When the wee hours of Tuesday morning arrived, Babs reached into her bag and pulled out the dormouse head. Four sets of handcuffs and a vial of sleeping pills followed.

I did a gut check. Last chance to pass on the whole thing. I played with my wedding ring and thought about being Mr. Jonathan Love. My pulse quickened. I accepted the sleeping aid and nervously washed it down. Babs cuffed me spread-eagle across her guest bed with my head on a pillow. “I’ll put the headpiece on you as soon as you sleep.” She laid a quilt over me made from scraps of gray flannel stitched with red yarn.

“What time will it be when I get there?” I asked.

“Evening.”

I tried to sleep as I waited for her to put the dormouse head on. According to the Key of Solomon, the lunar aspects opened for Lucien in Paris in fifteen minutes. I closed my eyes and. . . barely missed a step as I caught myself in a striptease to “Material Girl.”

I was dancing in a g-string on the stage of a small cabaret. It felt so weird to be another human, like I was trespassing. Was it me there? How much of my soul had made the transport? Or was it just my awareness? Was I invading the energy cloud of Lucien? What if part of his soul was in his heart? Or even kidneys. Surely Lucien (if that was who I inhabited) had signed up for this. Right? I flexed my wrists and bent my knees to get used to my new body and tried to determine if I bought my soul with me. Honestly, it was hard to tell. Was my relationship to my own soul so weak it was undetectable? I knew I loved Bigalow. There was that.

I flexed and strutted onstage to the pumpy pop beat. From how my head felt, evidently Lucien had been drinking. A bevy of young women in short dresses fawned over my muscles. To the left and right two naked hunks were taking showers in glass booths. They were excited to display themselves, links of sausage in a deli case.

A mime wearing a striped t-shirt under a black suit poked a note in my g-string. I nodded my thanks. I saw the white-faced figure exit behind the tables through an archway in the back.

The music stopped. I bowed and waved at the bevy of dilettantes. I picked up their euros and left the stage. A fireman replaced me and began to dance a sort of herky-jerky shuffle to “Pink Pony Club.”

Behind the curtain, I pulled out the wad of bills in my pouch. I found the note the mime had left. It read: Meet me under the windmill in front of Moulin Rouge in ten minutes.

Might it be a trap? Obviously, someone was expecting a blue dormouse to be working the party. I could always take my head off and be back in Seattle if need be. I discounted that idea—too curious to find out what track I was on.

I had no idea where I was in relation to the famous burlesque. I pulled the rest of the costume on, and entered the club’s boho-chic lobby. Huge curtained windows and a double-glass door opened onto the street. The afternoon streets were full of Parisians in long winter coats and flapping scarves.

I saw the legendary windmill just down the way. A sign made of light-bulbs mounted on a wire frame spelled Moulin Rouge. They glowed dimly in the pale afternoon light.

The mime was there, straining to push away the walls of an invisible box beneath the sign; he struggled until he found the invisible door. He pointed to the building’s side, and indicated for me to follow him to a back alley.

I did, and grabbed the door behind the sleight figure just before it swung shut. It took a moment to adjust to the dim light.

“En guard!” A blue dormouse tossed me a sword which I caught by the handle. He drew back and raised his weapon. We circled one another and parried. What should I do? Maybe being so close would cause us to switch bodies. Maybe it might set off a reaction resulting in my soul irretrievably separated from my body, with no going back. I hadn’t thought about the possibility until then. Chill. It’s probably not like that.

Clash. Clash. Clash. The sounds echoed on the concrete floor to the scaffolds above.

I stepped to the left, then twirled before attempting a sideswipe—which my opponent deflected.

Clash. The swords shrieked a metallic tone as their blades slid one another.

I stepped back with my weapon raised. “Who are you?”

“You first,” the stranger said as he lunged and thrust. “You sound American.” His accent seemed German.

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.” I stepped back and held my sword drawn.

“You can call me, Sir,” the dormouse stranger told me.

I lowered my sword. “Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.

“Sure.” My blue twin set his sword down and laughed. “Hope you didn’t mind a little swordplay.”

“Never too early in the day,” I said. An inane utterance, but I was playing a part. We passed through the building’s back offices and dressing rooms in search of the bar. I vowed to pace myself and not start blathering.

Smoked mirrors lining the back wall turned our reflections into murky shadows. I pulled a wad of bills from my pocket. Plenty of drinking money. “What will you have?”

“Courvoisier. ”

“Two Courvoisier,” I told the bartender. I wasn’t sure how to bring up Nico. “So, how did you know about the mice costumes?”

“I’m here on business for Cosmic Engineering. It occasionally pulls me away from teaching fencing at my boarding schools.”

“Boarding schools?”

“There are five in all. I’m most proud of the one on our horse farm. They start as boys and come out as men.”

“Interesting concept,” I said. Being 21, how was I supposed to know the difference? It seemed I was living my life as an adult when I married Bigalow. But I still felt like a boy most of the time. I grabbed a straw from the bar and put it in my drink.

“In America it seems to take forever for boys to become men. But I say ‘why wait?’” The mouse put his hand on my thigh. “I have a suite nearby.”

Uncomfortable as I was, I let the hand rest there. I needed to build a moment of trust. “About the costumes. Do you know anything about the magic eyeball and contraption that went missing the night of the murder of Madame Dodi in Seattle?” I asked.

“Maybe. Why?” His hand inched further up my thigh.

I gulped. “Because someone wearing a mouse suit just like ours was seen fleeing the crime. What have you heard?”

The man inside said, “Word’s getting around it was a botched robbery. The magic eyeball and apparatus didn’t make it to the client.”

“Any idea who wanted it?” I asked. He sipped his drink through a straw that passed through a small hole in the mascot’s mouth.

“No clue,” the man answered.

If it wasn’t Lucien in the costume, who’s to say I wasn’t talking to Nico?

###

I awoke to the sound of traffic noises in the rain outside Babs’ guestroom window. I’d slept late. Normally I was up by six in the morning. I climbed out of the quilt and pillows and remade the bed.

I bent over, then went into my wake-up yoga routine—a downward facing dog pose, then the cobra position which I held for a moment, before dipping into a one-handed pushup on each side. I did twenty of those before reaching into my backpack for deodorant. I put on a fresh t-shirt with a picture of Baryshnikov in a perfect split mid-air on it.

I pulled on my socks, jeans, and sneakers. I made my way down the dark wood stairs, and followed the sound of the radio to the kitchen. The welcome smell of fresh coffee greeted me.

Babs looked up from her plate. “Well? How’d it go?”

“Pretty well.”

“That’s it?” Babs gave half of a snort.

“Yeah, the spell really works and that’s super dope. But it felt majorly wrong being in a stranger’s body,” I said. I went on to describe everything I’d seen in Paris.

“I have to admit, the whole experience was off the hook. I totally can back up the Freaky Friday aspect of Bigalow’s alibi. I could have done anything I wanted to in Lucien’s body, and he’d be powerless to stop me. Why would anybody put themselves in such a foolish position?”

Babs sighed. “From what I understand, it’s more like a secret boys’ club. They operate on the honor system.”

“Pretty trippy. Why did the murderer want the magic eyeball?” I asked.

“Exactly what we need to find out.”

###

As I showered and shaved back in my room at the Bijou—which was cowboy-themed, filthy and hadn’t been redecorated since the 1960s—I had to admit teleportation into another body was a pretty god-like sensation.

I turned the stream of water off, towel dried and ran a pick through my hair, careful to detangle it. I tried to shower daily, but only wash and condition my hair every few days. Combing it was time consuming, and could be tedious if I was in a hurry. After my hair was sleek and almost dry, I pulled it up into a man-bun.

I put on the black pants, white shirt, red vest and tie Eduardo had provided as my work uniform. Tonight would be my first night as bar back.

I took long steps through the lobby into the ballroom tavern five minutes before my shift was to begin. Here and there, I spotted necks craning, covered lips no doubt whispering, and an occasional pointed finger. Was I being paranoid? Or were they throwing shade? Amidst the clinking glasses and subdued chatter, I imagined people discussed only Bigalow and me.

“You must be Jonathan,” the bartender said. He was youngish, and well-groomed with just a touch of scruff, which set off his high cheekbones and piercing eyes. “I’m Tommy. I’ll be training you tonight. Welcome.”

I shook his hand across the bar, and he opened the little gate to let me step behind.

“Thanks. Hope it won’t be too much trouble. I tended bar in L.A.”

“Oooh. L.A. I hope there’s something you can learn from me,” he said.

“Gobs, I’m sure. Why don’t you just tell me what’s expected. I don’t want any special favors.”

“No problem. Mainly you’re stocking and cleaning. If it gets busy you take and deliver drinks at the tables.”

He then got me oriented, showing me where everything was kept. Telling me I had one hour to slice a small bucket of lemons and lines. And how to change a keg, or take out the trash. If I was caught up, it was okay to smoke on shift. I got off at closing time, only five and one-half hours to go.

I looked around. Nobody was sitting at the tables. A small group of drag queens sat at the bar. I absorbed bits of their conversation as I grabbed a rag, and wiped the counter.

“Poor Dodi. Still lying in a morgue,” a devotee uttered. Her multi-colored hair added a festive note.

A drag queen with thin lips retorted. "A blessing, it seems to me, my dear Listeria. No need for a coffin. It would have to be a piano case.”

“Trivia, my dear, it would have to be a baby grand.”

“Who knows? She might be cremated. Not that the Bijou doesn’t have an ample supply of muscle-men to replace Bigalow as pallbearers,” Listeria said.

I wasn’t quite sure I appreciated her objectifying my husband that way. I lit a cigarette, took a puff, and flicked the ash into an ashtray behind the counter. I didn’t know these people, but did they know who I was? I wasn’t going to rush up and introduce myself like a dog.

“Such a shame there was no viewing. Her face appeared so lovely… in drag.” The small circle agreed as they clinked glasses.

Trivia lit a cigarette with a flourish. “She did manage to stir up a bit of controversy with her horndog behavior,” she said.

“A bit too handsy with the dancers. If you know what I mean.”

“Only when she’d had a few too many,” another drag queen said.

“So, like always, then.” Listeria laughed. “Ask Bigalow the Gigolo.”

I bristled. There were boundaries. I resolved not to let these bitches ruin my first night of work. Eventually, they left the bar almost empty. Tommy proved easy to work with, polite but not overly talkative. He was relatively new himself, so not a font of information about the Bijou.

Later on, a few tourists came in. Something about their festival t-shirts, constant checking of their phone, and out-of-town ball caps gave them away. I worked by cleaning and restocking, happy for the distraction from wondering about Nico and the Blue Velveteen Dormouse until 2:30 in the morning. I checked out only after the till was settled, and the bar closed properly—neat and clean—and Tommy gave me a fist bump.

###

“Whoever hired Nico got stiffed, huh?” Bigalow digested the news of the botched robbery the next morning. He put his fingers to his mouth, then pointed to me.“Okay. Here’s what we need to do. Use the dormouse to switch with Nico when the moon is in position. It’s highlighted in the Key. Follow Babs’ instructions.”

My guts froze inside me like giblets in the freezer.

“Nico? What if he did it?”

“He must know something. I want you to switch bodies with him to find out what you can about the eyeball.”

This was a big ask. “Are you sure? It seems dangerous.” Whack dangerous.

“Yes. I’m sure. Nico can’t harm you while he’s in your body sleeping at Babs. Nobody will be wanting to kill Nico, if he’s the one who knows where the eyeball and contraption are.”

It made sense in a way. One look at the Bigalow made me realize I couldn’t turn my back on him. Saving the lug from prison was the most important thing. “What should I do, exactly?”

“Ask the guy at the front desk if he has any messages for the blue dormouse. Don’t worry. He speaks English.”

###

I shivered barefoot on the black-rubber matting that ran down a gray hallway. The brown hair on my chest and legs was still moist. I could tell by looking down I was a muscular man of above-average height. I wrapped a skimpy-damp towel more tightly around my waist and adjusted the mascot head on my shoulders.

I ventured forward in the red light and came to a black-vinyl seating area. What the—? Other men with towels were watching gay porn on a big-screen TV. I’d heard enough about bath houses to recognize when I was in one.

I tried to come up with theories about why Nico would be in the baths. Perhaps it had to do with the anonymity of the location. People didn’t generally report who or what they’d seen in places like this.

A key dangled on a spiral bracelet made of rubber-coated wire that circled my wrist. It had embossed #19 on its tag. I explored the hallways venturing past a maze of cubicles. I skirted past a shower room full of naked men soaping each other. Steam escaped into the cold hallway. What could these men have to do with the murder of Madame Dodi?

I wasn’t in the frame of mind to join in group sex using a stranger’s body. I wondered what Bigalow would do in this situation, or if he’d even been here. Was I taking this too seriously? It wasn’t like I was anti-sex. It was more about how all this reflected on my spouse—not good. Maybe Bigalow had no control over where other costumes were at swap-time. That made sense.

I didn’t let myself get angry, especially after my experience in Paris. How could I hold Bigalow accountable for Nico? I focused on my mission to find the front desk. The maze of hallways didn’t make it evident which way to go, exactly. All the doorways had exit signs leading to other labyrinths.

I turned a corner and made it to the locker room. I found #19. I unlocked it using the key on my wrist and found the rest of the dormouse costume hanging on a hook. A pair of old running shoes, jeans and a t-shirt sat at the bottom. I picked up the jeans and found a wallet in the back pocket. I opened it to an I.D. It showed a handsome soldier with short hair and a square jaw. The name was in the Russian alphabet and read Николай Кузнецов.

I eyed the exit and considered putting on the blue velveteen suit and leaving. I thought that was too risky with no place to go. I put everything back as I found it and padlocked the locker.

I tingled with fear as I ventured back into the dim corridors to mill about looking for clues. The bathhouse had no name I could find. Whatever posters or signs I could see seemed to be multilingual, like at an airport, but none had any names I could make out.

I ventured down a different corridor, drawn by what I first thought sounded like barking. I turned a corner to find a room full of restraints and torture devices. A naked man was bent over, with his neck and wrists inside a stockade. A man wearing black-leather chaps and a vest, but nothing else, was spanking the man’s ass with a leather paddle.

I had heard of such things of course, but never seen it in real life. I was shocked, amused, even a little embarrassed for the guy. And yet, there was something undeniably powerful about the energy in the dungeon.

WHACK

“AHHH!”

WHACK

“AHHH!”

The two men both seemed to be getting off on it. This confused me, as all I could think of was how much each whack must sting. I needed to get out of there. All I have to do is take the helmet off, and I’ll be back asleep at Babs. But I didn’t do that.

I returned to where I first arrived, and found a different corridor to the front desk. “Do you have any messages for the Blue Velveteen Dormouse?” I asked.

“Bennet wants to know where the magic eyeball is,” the scruffy desk clerk replied.

###

“The clerk said Bennet wanted to know where the magic eyeball is,” I told Babs at her kitchen table the next morning. I took a swig of her strong coffee, and smoothed out the front of my New York Ballet t-shirt over my tights.

“Brilliant work!” she said.

I beamed. “I’m a little pleased with it myself. But what does it mean, exactly?”

She opened the blue curtains with yellow duckies. Sunlight filled the room. “Interesting. Bennet is noted in the Table of Planetary Hours. Either Nico hid the eyeball and is lying to whoever this Bennet is, or he never got it in the first place.”

“Right? All we have to do now is figure out where Nico is and arrest him,” I said.

“Slow your horses. Nico may or may not be the murderer. We need to know why Bennet is after the eyeball and where it’s hidden.” Babs rinsed a glass and set it in the drainer.

I brushed a strand of hair from my face and smiled. “I saw Nico’s ID. I don’t know what it translates to exactly. It looked like H-N-K-R-O-R-A-N K-Y-3-H-E-Y-O-B with backward Ns.”

Babs pulled her cell from her pocket and started poking at it for a couple of minutes. “If that were in the Russian alphabet, Николай Кузнецов would translate into Nikolai Kuznetsov. Google says it’s a very common name in Russia. Although, interestingly, one was a Russian spy in Nazi Germany.”

“He’d be too old by now. Show me their pictures. Maybe I’ll recognize one.”

She showed him the images.

I involuntarily twitched when I saw the spy in his Nazi uniform. “The picture I saw looks exactly like him! But how? He’s most likely dead.”

Babs smoothed her whiskers and said, “Not if he’s a wizard. Or maybe he’s a descendant.”

“I wonder if Bigalow knows Nico might be a spy? It says here he infiltrated Vienna on behalf of Stalin. I’m not sure I should say anything about it just yet. It was very presumptuous on my part.”

“Spies have to be presumptuous,” Babs said. “But he might not be that Nico.”

“Babs. Can I ask you a question?”

“About what?”

I proceeded to tell Babs about the man being spanked in the stockade. “I mean. . .I kind of get it, but I don’t,” I said.

Babs took a sip of her tea. “It can mean a lot of different things for different people. For some it’s performance art. For others a power exchange.”

“I still don’t get it.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “It’s a personal journey. There is a line, which if crossed is abuse. It’s all about consensually fulfilling fantasies. It’s not for everyone.”

I drew back. “Hmm. Definitely kinky. Not my cup of tea, to be honest. Why would the costume be used in a bath house?”

Babs dabbed the corner of her mustache with a cloth napkin.“I thought that sort of thing happened all the time. You know—the Furries are all about anonymous sex.”

###

I slammed into my seat upon meeting Bigalow in prison the next day. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sending me to a bathhouse?” I asked.

Bigalow looked shocked. “A bathhouse? Serious?”

Don’t give me that BS. I seethed as I leaned toward the window. “If you didn’t know where I was going, why did you tell me to ask the clerk? . . . Oh, by the way—the Russian desk clerk said Bennet asked where the magic eyeball is,” I huffed. “And I found Nico’s ID.”

Bigalow frowned and darted his eyes. “Who is he?”

“Nikolai Kuznetsov. It was hard to figure out because it was written in Russian.”

Bigalow’s face crinkled up. “Shhhh! That was a foolish risk you took.”

I felt I’d done as well as could be expected, “Babs told me to poke around. Now at least, we can identify the murderer.”

“Listen,” he whispered. “You’re lucky you didn’t get caught.” Bigalow dropped his shoulders, and said in his familiar sexy voice, “Just stay cool, baby love. They have operatives everywhere. Use the mask to go to Vienna the next time the moon’s right, then report back to me. Go with the flow. Use Bennet’s body to get word of whoever is looking for the eyeball or hired Nico.”

“Who is Bennet, exactly?” I asked.

“I wish I knew. Trust me. We’re on the right track. I love you. You’re my golden boy.”

“Thank you, Bigalow. I needed to hear that. I love you, too. But this whole idea of there being operatives around makes me nervous. Babs wants to investigate the crime scene tomorrow. I said I’d go with her.” I also wanted to slow things down just a bit.

Bigalow paused, then said, “No problem. Go ahead and see what you can find out, baby love. The moon won’t be right for Vienna until a few days anyway. Stay chill and stop worrying. Just keep your ear to the ground and be very discreet. Nico may very well be the hitman. But we have to prove Bennet hired him for Eduardo. I wouldn’t take you this far if it wasn’t important.”