One Door From Heaven

believer in purging toxins through reverse osmosis in a properly formulated hot bath. She traveled with such a spectacular omnium-gatherum of bath additives that any citizen of medieval times would have recognized her at once as an alchemist or sorcerer. Extracts, elixirs, spirits, oils, essences, quintessences, florescences, salts, concentrates, and distillations filled a glittery collection of vials and charming ornate bottles fitted in two custom-designed carrying cases, each as large as a Samsonite two-suiter, and both bags now stood bursting with potential in this rank, mildew-riddled bathroom. Leilani knew that many intelligent, well-balanced, responsible, and especially good-smelling people practiced aromatherapy and toxin purging. Yet she shied from using the bath seasonings for the same reason that she didn't participate in any of her mother's eccentric interests or activities, even when some of them appeared to be fun. She feared that a single indulgence in the pleasures of Sinsemilla-for example, a luxurious bath infused with coconut oil and distilled essence of cocoa butter-would be the first step on a slippery slope of addiction and insanity. Regardless of who her father might have been, Klonk or not Klonk, she was undeniably her mother's daughter; therefore, her genes might be her destiny if she wasn't careful.
        Besides, Leilani didn't want to purge herself of all her toxins. She was comfortable with her toxins. Her toxins, accumulated through more than nine years of living, were an integral part of her, perhaps more important to the definition of who she was than medical science yet realized. What if she purged herself of every particle of toxic substances and then woke up one morning to discover that she wasn't Leilani anymore, that she was the pope or maybe some pure and saintly girl named Hortense? She didn't have anything against the pope or saintly girls named Hortense, but more than not, she liked herself, warts and all, including grotesque appendages and strange nodules on the brain-so she would just have to remain saturated with toxins.
        Instead of a bath, she took a shower. Her soap of choice-a cake of Ivory-worked well enough to scrub the snake ichor from her hands, to sluice away the sweat of the day, and to remove every trace of the salty tears that offended her more than oozing serpent guts.
        Mutants do not cry. In particular, dangerous mutants. She had an image to protect.
        Usually, she avoided the shower and soaked in the tub-though with nothing more fragrant than Ivory soap and sometimes with an imaginary sumo wrestler and professional assassin named Kato, with whom she devised elaborate acts of revenge on her mother and on Dr. Doom. This night, in spite of what Sinsemilla had done, Leilani wasn't in the mood to conjure up Kato.
        The shower wasn't as safe as the tub. Whenever she took off her leg brace, she was hesitant to risk standing on a slippery surface.
        As now, however, she sometimes showered without removing the brace. Afterward, she'd have to towel it well and use a hair dryer on the joints, but an occasional drenching wouldn't hurt it.
        The grim device wasn't a standard orthopedic knee brace; those were mostly designed from formed plastic, leather straps, and elastic belts. Leilani liked to believe that this contraption had a nicely ominous, killer-cyborg quality. Made of steel, hard black rubber, and foam padding, it provided to her some of the style and sexy allure of a robot hunter who had been constructed in a laboratory in the future and sent back in time by an evil machine intelligence to track down and destroy the mother of its most effective human enemy.
        After blow-drying her hair and her leg brace, the young killer cyborg wiped the steam off the mirror and studied her torso. No boobs yet. She hadn't expected any dramatic change, just perhaps vague swellings, like an attractively aligned pair of mosquito bites.
        A month ago, she had read a magazine article about enlarging your breasts through the power of positive thinking. Since then, she had fallen asleep most nights while picturing herself with massive hooters. The author of the article was probably full of beans, but Leilani figured she'd sleep better if she dozed off while positively thinking herself into a C-cup instead of brooding about all the many problems in her life, which she could dwell on if she ever wanted to explore the power of