“I was with you on the dry pants and chocolate sundae, but where did your mother come into this? Am I supposed to be psychoanalyzing you?” Janet asked.<\/p>\n
“You know, they talk about the donkey inside the term ‘assume’ but they never talk about the ‘anal’ in analyze,” I said. “But…” I let it stretch out until she rolled her eyes.<\/p>\n
“Skipping the butt stuff for a moment, I see what you’re saying. Are we really that blas\u00e9 about the breaking of divine rules?” She brought her leg up on the tall chair, leaning over her knee, considering.<\/p>\n
“Depends on the divine, I suppose. Pretty much if you like it, someone says it isn’t allowed. \u00a0Then if you don’t like it, someone says it’s mandatory. \u00a0Oh, and don’t forget, if it feels good, you should definitely feel guilty.” I hoped she saw the wry portion of my smile.<\/p>\n
“Sounds pretty Puritan to me. \u00a0Or is it Victorian? \u00a0Strait-laced, anti-crime, or work-until-you’re-dead, and then feel like a slacker?”<\/p>\n
“I don’t remember the Puritans being necromancers,” I said, musing. \u00a0“Isn’t Steampunk all Victoriana? \u00a0Strait-laced corsets, umbrellas, goggles around top hats, and watches on chains?”<\/p>\n
“You forgot the gears hot-glued to everything.”<\/p>\n
“So basically it’s glitter for grown-ups?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think you find gears in wrinkles years later, but you might be right.”<\/p>\n
“Wrinkles?” I asked.<\/p>\n
She shook her head. “Don’t ask.”<\/p>\n
“Too late,” I pointed out. “But I’ll drop it and just leave it to my imagination.”<\/p>\n
“That sounds a lot worse than the truth. \u00a0Had a niece obsessed with unicorns, thought she could do a glitter tattoo with glue on her arm and a lot of mess,” she answered. “And by ‘her arm’ I meant, ‘her babysitting aunt,'” she sighed.<\/p>\n
“What does glitter have to do with unicorns?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Congratulations, you passed the guy test.” \u00a0She rolled her eyes. \u00a0“I don’t actually mean unicorns, either. That’s a Victorian obsession with purity, right?”<\/p>\n
“I thought unicorns were all about blood?”<\/p>\n
“That’s a virginity test, I think.”<\/p>\n
“That’s gross,” I said. “Why would little girls…?”<\/p>\n
She shrugged, leaning back. “Society is messed up when you look at it. But not everyone is hopeless. There was someone,” she dropped her leg and looked around, “who made sure you weren’t seizing or anything. \u00a0Don’t know where she went, I was going to buy her a cake pop or something. \u00a0Not here anymore; you can’t miss a white headscarf in this day and age.”<\/p>\n
Rayya? I guessed. Just playing invisible or something now. I resolved to get her a cake pop, whatever those were. \u00a0I guessed if I just ordered one confidently, the person behind the counter could guess at it. \u00a0It was at least more specific than “that book I heard about on NPR with a wizard kid?” which is how I found Harry Potter.<\/p>\n
“Found Harry Potter,” sounded like finding some religion. \u00a0I guess Mr. Potter did go through a resurrection cycle, and a lot of people wore his particular lightning bolt stigmata, but…<\/p>\n
“You went away again,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Sorry, I was thinking about Harry Potter, our lord and savior.”<\/p>\n
She pushed away the long hair from the side of her face. “Headscarves to Harry Potter?” she asked. “Interesting train ride, I bet.”<\/p>\n
“It’s the journey, not the destination,” I grinned. “I’m sorry. I’ve been told a couple times that women like it when you pay attention to them, and maybe it’s obvious that I’m single.” I cringed. “Um, did I say that out loud?”<\/p>\n
“Yep,” she grinned back at me. “And yep. \u00a0So, besides some helpful advice on how not to flirt, what do I owe you?”<\/p>\n
“Are cake pops any good?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Caaaaaaaaaake,” she said, making it sound like a happy zombie. \u00a0“How can anything with ‘cake’ be bad?”<\/p>\n
“Urinal cakes,” I said immediately.<\/p>\n
“Oops. Okay. \u00a0I take it back. \u00a0Hold on a second.” \u00a0She hopped down off the chair, while I finished cleaning up the mess. \u00a0I took a look at the picture again, frowning. \u00a0It looked like something familiar. \u00a0I had a shiver and closed the portfolio, snapping it back into place.<\/p>\n
Janet came back with some kind of frosted things on lollipop sticks. \u00a0Cake pops. \u00a0I got it.<\/p>\n
“Chocolate?” she asked me, passing me over one.<\/p>\n
“Not even a question,” I answered. \u00a0“Unless they had butter pecan.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t think so.” She bit right in, so it didn’t look like it had some kind of teeth-destroying crust or anything. \u00a0I followed suit. \u00a0Yep, I was getting some to go for the Spriggan Scouts. Provided they were still talking to me. \u00a0If not, more cake pops for me.<\/p>\n
“But seriously, will $40 cover it? I don’t know what the going rate is for preventing a demon apocalypse I accidentally started with some blood ink.”<\/p>\n
“Blood ink?” I blurted out.<\/p>\n
“Oh. \u00a0Yeah. \u00a0Empowering it.” She paused. “It’s not like, menstrual blood, if you were worried. \u00a0I know guys get turned to salt if they accidentally touch that.”<\/p>\n
I managed not to drop my cake pop. \u00a0“No, I… I’m a guy, but I have had girlfriends,” I said. “I’ve bought tampons before, if that helps pull me out of that hole. It just made sense. I know a lot of sigil witches just use the symbology, so the additional power had to come from somewhere. \u00a0And sure, I will take your money if you insist, but really, isn’t saving the world reward enough?”<\/p>\n
“I don’t know where it counts on the sexual favor scale… if you get a kiss for a small dragon, a demon’s got to be worth something, but I think the rates have actually decreased since medieval times.” \u00a0She had a little pink in her cheeks as she said it.<\/p>\n
I turned back to the cake pop to prevent similar pink, I think. \u00a0“Um, that’s… weird?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, it is.” She seemed relieved. “I know some people need to recharge after a working, and if you didn’t want money…”<\/p>\n
“Um. \u00a0This is really uncomfortable for both of us. I don’t think I’ve ever traded sex for magic, and I sure hope Rohana didn’t make you think I was… that kind of guy,” I ended lamely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The butt of the joke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-10-opener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}