In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

which he did a lot. Of course there was no telling how Greek statues
tossed their heads, they usually had those bands to keep the sweat off at
the Olympic Games, or crowns of laurels or vine leaves if they were
poets or gods. What about Michelangelo statues, melting into their own
muscle bound glory? But that was another story, or was it?
Tilting his head to the side like a bird, he studied her. She
looked away. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Anyway,
whatever his orientation, he had to be the vainest guy she'd ever seen.
Not just a "let's check in the mirror" kind of vain, but floating in a
perfect bubble where nothing could touch him, as if nothing outside of
himself and his bubble were real…. or maybe it was just him who
wasn't really real. But then again, Ula was about as unreal as it got, so
maybe they were made for each other.
"Well, so," he was saying, "what do you say we fly to Paris,
crash at Dick's and go find Ula at the studio? She will be there around
lunch, so we can restore ourselves, have a bite and then we take the
metro there, okay? You need a break, will be fun!"
He moved his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx and
Penny wondered if he plucked them as he smirked again and stirred his
coffee in perfect time to the clicking of his jacket snaps.
"Do you have Internet?" He swallowed his coffee and pointed
to the monitors. "I will show you some of Ula's pieces. She is better in
the flesh, but this is okay." He sprang up and was at the control center
in two steps, sitting in her swivel chair.
Penny followed him to the permanent broadband display. He
typed in a URL, swore, "Merde! English QWERTY clavier!"
He typed again, slowly, looking at the keys, pressed GO. Large
Flash letters danced across the screen, spelling Ula's name, undulating
in a slow virtual breeze, and shimmering like rainbow gossamer through
layers of shifting fog.
"Can you make sound?" He asked, pointing to the speakers. He
slammed the mouse around, really mad now, not in his magic bubble
anymore. "This is a different piece, the work of amateurs!" he growled.
Penny thought it looked professional enough, commercial, run
of the mill, even. She adjusted the sound to come through the speakers
instead of the phones as she processed the other input. Whoa! This
music she was hearing? It was hers! Pure and unadulterated. They were
ripping her off! No wonder Ula was interested in the hazards of
working with this stuff!
"Hey, that's my music. I haven't been alerted as to its being
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