The Last Jigsaw Piece

On the Shelf:	Behind the Counter:
₵$24 Ghost Tobacco (20)	₵$285 Brick of Cocaine
₵$20 Bloody Mary	₵$44 Memory Coffee
₵$50 El Dorado Green (1/4)	₵$19 Christian Repellent
₵$6 Black Meat (g)	₵$85 Anti-Flimflammatory
₵$1 Slut Root (kg)	₵$12 Extrasolar Teas Box
₵$30 Marital Aid Potion	₵$5 Rare Minerals (g)
₵$20 Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)	₵$16 Fine MRE Spice (g)
₵$5 Blue Roses (doz.)	₵$10 Magic Coat Hanger
₵$31 Mythril (oz.)	₵$31 Cleansing Ale
₵$19 BZTCN	₵$292 The New Shampoo

This Week's Special:

Michelle, a save-it-for-marriage type, sought (fair enough) to gently test the patience of her suitors. On week two-through-four, she would invite the gentleman around and empty thousand piece jigsaw puzzle on her table. The gentleman would not return, leaving jigsaw incomplete, so Michelle would find another suitor, a new thousand pieces dumped atop old. Her table heaped twelve thousand jigsaw pieces, so Michelle took a break from dating.

It took a year's spare time and every inch of floor space, but Michelle sorted and completed the twelve jigsaws. The Last Jigsaw Piece remained, unaffiliated and spare. The Last Jigsaw Piece is ambiguously coloured and fits in any hole of 99.9% complete jigsaw. It also has similar applications in high-end engineering projects.

The target market for the Last Jigsaw Piece is the self-aware perfectionist. The type who knows the perfect is the enemy of the good but would like to find win-win solution. The type unable to scratch away itch with close enough and knows they will lay awake another night. Michelle is not that person.

Jessica is that person.

Jessica is a programmer and Ex-Military at it, thank you very much. Like everyone in STEM, she was encouraged away from the arts due to their uselessness. Like everyone incubating artificial intelligences, it seems, the end results of her STEM is 'the arts'. In Jessica's case, at least, that means the Printer of Best Ideas.

The Printer of Best Ideas has two primary functions. The first is everything that a home office printer could aspire to - printing, scanning, ect. The second is accumulating the owner's twelve best ideas over the year and printing them on new calendar, annually. How these ideas are gleaned and which are best are left to Printer's discretion.

The person who will most want the Printer of Best Ideas is someone who wants a printer. This someone will also be wanting a calendar every year. This someone will value their own aphorisms (perhaps in perverse manner akin to Dorian Gray with his portrait but whatevs). This someone will appreciate the twelve accompanying images, curated by artificially intelligent Printer, more than topless firedudes.

That someone is Michelle.

 

*Mandatory footnote

Magdalene Does Thoughts

Magdalene is not likely to cry over spilt milk but keeps stubbing her toe on the wooden dick-and-balls that has sprouted from her floorboards, where the Potion of Plus-Two-Inches smashed. Her cupboard is overfull. She has dozens of re-corked wine bottles containing alchemical concoctions that she brewed solely to make a YouTube video of herself making relevant potion whilst sozzled. She has no use for most of these potions - raising Plus-Two-Inches with beau is akin to acknowledging pants ill suited to your wife's bum.

One flick of the wrist and the latest Catnip Page is open in Magdalene's right hand, the catnip/tobacco dart falling into her left. Said cigarette between Magdalene's lips and free hand reaching blind for lighter in its designated place on countertop. One inhale, one exhale, the latest market prices materialise:

₵$59    Ghost Tobacco  (20)

₵$15    Bloody Mary

₵$55    El Dorado Green (1/4)

₵$19    Bug Powder (g)

₵$1      Slut Root (kg)

₵$30    Marital Aid Potion

₵$10    Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)

₵$5      Blue Roses (doz.)

₵$34    Mythril (g)

₵$9      BZTCN

Various peeps have put in offers for one-or-another of Magdalene's excess potions, paying with esoteric ingredients. Such an exchange would provide space for next video's potion and provide ingredients for said potion. The deciding factor of which potion for which ingredient is: how drunk is she allowed to get?

After almost dying, Magdalene discovered a YouTube audience for drunk alchemy. Potions have recipes. Booze causes mistakes. Mistakes leads to corrections. Booze flubs said corrections. Sometimes, to keep the video going, this means the recipe branches into a similar recipe that leads to a very different potion, or opens The Trap Door and leads to new problems which (once solved) provide new ingredients which branch into more ambitious potions, either option plunged into with drunken confidence.

For example, Lucy wants the Potions of Knowing Exactly What You Want to Eat Tomorrow (Which Also Has Marginal Benefits in Alleviating Sleep Apnoea). Lucy is a writer who dabbles in prostitution, because every second sex worker is writing a salacious memoir - it is a genre. Another (esoteric) bonus is the Sex Juices that accumulate in a dream catcher thing hung on bed head/rear-view mirror/shrine to Aphrodite and drip into an empty ice-cream container. Lucy has offered a quart of Sex Juices for the Potion of KEWYWET (WAHMBASA).

Sex Juices are a necessary ingredient in Marital Aid Potion, a favourite of Magdalene's customers. Magdalene uploaded a video titled 'Step-by-step Marital Aid Potion' in younger, gender dysphoric days. Rehashing the same material could only be made interesting with a bottle of whiskey and:

 

If Magdalene were to attempt making a Marital Aid Potion whilst pre-emptively stonked and swinging arms around in something called the 'Maggie Shuffle' (for reasons archived in brain cells sine lost to alcohol) then she might burn the wolfsbane or spill the kaiju smegma. In which case, she would have to substitute ethically-sourced hawksfoot or gorgon hang-ups, respectively, pursuing new recipes towards the Potion of +2 Cleaner Pooping  or the Potion of X1.12 Sobriety Duration (which: apt). But that Maggie Shuffle, despite stationary feet, is a recurring bitch...

Alternatively:  Michelle has been eyeing the Potion of Excusing Impolite Sexual Hungers For At Least 48 Hours, which is like a Marital Aid Potion for the saving-it-for-marriage crowd. She has offered a quart jar of Tomato Cream. Tomato Cream is a thing because tomatoes are neither fruit nor vegetable but teat. The implications are fascinating.

Magdalene has never been keen on Tomato Cream, a readily available but labour intensive ingredient, but it is crucial in Strategic Fart Brew. This potion is useful in preparation for a first date. Some people prepare a bail-out call, where a friend will call them during the date and, pretending to be family or the like, offer a false emergency to excuse the dater, should the date be going bad. Strategic Fart Brew instead preps the guts so that the drinker can, at a time of their choosing, release silent gas that is repulsive to the date (and the dater but to a lesser extent) to compel the date to use their own bail-out call.

Magdalene could comfortably Brew a Strategic Fart over an evening with a bottle of Parker 'Terra Rossa' 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon and improvising steps to Toconoma's 'Dawn':

 

Mistakes can be made but those can be attributed to more-art-than-science. Different steps of alchemy contribute to different gastro-intestinal processes which prepare the fart. The first and easiest step of the Brew is filtering the Mud of Tartaria, which strengthens resolve and discipline of anus. Later steps turn the bowels into a clean slate before the upper intestine adds to potency and fragrance. Woopsie-daisy deviations can lead to Farts useful for road-trip pranks, with a hint of frangipani at the back of the throat, or Military Grade Brews where 'silent but deadly' is not a euphemism and the C.O. barks 'all right, boys, down 'em. If you get caught, you know what to do. If you don't, we'll all gather in an open field to drop our ordinance before running away, giggling like school girls.'

Another option: Liam has expressed interest in the Potion of Anti-Anti-Traction (for Mazda 3 consumption). The computer of the Mazda 3 car can somehow go iffy and turn the anti-traction safety features permanently on, so that it drives sluggishly. Exactly how a car's computer is used to visit dodgy websites of weird pornography is a conundrum best left for more technical minds. The Potion of Anti-Anti-Traction, poured into the coolant reservoir, somehow gets into the car's brain.

Liam has offered, for the potion, a Sex MacGuffin. He found it. Magdalene can only think of one use for a Sex MacGuffin - the Potion of Being More Ready for Parenthood - and it is a terrifying potion to brew. The music

 

will be laid over video in post-production. Only two beers would be drunk - oatmeal stout, because it does not need to be refrigerated and, unlike mid-strength, Dutch courage is imbibed with fewer blind reaches of the can, eyes kept on lab equipment.

The Essence of Sex MacGuffin will boil yellow from blue and, if it is not poured into cauldron within ten seconds of this happening, the potion will lack potency. Oh shit, oh shit, I just need one more year, to get it out of my system, to taper off, to become an adult. Once the ambrosia is melted in skillet, the slut root embers* must be cooled to minimise evaporation, yet not cooled enough that the ambrosia begins to re-congeal and clump like diced bacon in its own fat. In which case: yeah, little person is gonna' be baller, I am going to buy that jetski that transforms into a jetpack that I invented two cones ago. Alternatively, nobody is ever ready for parenthood, that the potion is folly, that there are too many factors and perfection is impossible.

Which would make for a good video.

 

*Because gas is getting expensive and a footnote is necessary because Blogger seems to make the last line tiny.

Extrasolar Teas Box

Last drinks at the bar of Mamta Jagasia and the publican's long, violet nails rap staccato on bench top Security, a macaw perched atop double-barrelled shotgun, endures heavy eyelids. Pale extraterrestrials, not quite passing as human in black Zoot Suits, have tended to the Polybius cabinet and left. One lingering patron: Michelle's left hand swirls glass four of 'Dear Kelsie' 2019 whilst right hand slowly turns Extrasolar Teas Box so that she may read each side's writing.

Some context: a few months back, Michelle was making and selling her own Rapid Antigen Tests. These RATs, a piece of paper which says 'yeah, you got omicron bro' have been scientifically proven to be more accurate than those on the legitimate market and, furthermore, the demand at the time outstripped conventional supply.  Lo, Michelle made illegitimate bank or, rather, a canvas bag from a major supermarket chain (she works at one, literal half chance of guessing which) full of Ghost Tobacco, El Dorado Green and the Fire Extinguisher of Merg Portua, because CatScript (₵$) works as a mean of pricing but not as a store of wealth.

Michelle has no use for these esoteric inhalants and so is in the process of splurging, by barter, on weird alcohols. With paperwork brought home, Mamta has grown politely impatient and, sideways glance at canvas bag, proffered the Box of Suhwill Tea for Michelle's consideration. This xenobiotic tea comes from outer space. Now that grand scale dick waving has been privatised, commercial space tourism is a thing and space planes must be cleaned because zero-g vomit just gets everywhere. Luke cleans airplanes. He takes stuff left behind by passengers. Luke took the Box of Suhwill Tea from a space plane and sold it to Mamta for a drink-in-a-coconut recently popular in Genoa, Italy. Yeah, that checks out.

Anyway.

Michelle plonks the Flower of Suhwill on the bar: 'I can't get behind this.'

Mamta, covering her own bemused groan: 'Pray tell, why? You like tea. You don't want to awaken your Yeetsu?'

'I suspect that people were exploited in the making of this space tea. Ethically, I can't -' buuurp '- purchase this.'

Care to elaborate? : 'They advertised pretty clearly otherwise.'

Smug: 'They sat "it could never grow on Earth". That's because, on Earth, we have labour laws. How, about, another drink?'

Mamta discretely shuffled to stand in front of the coconuts: 'How, about, benefit of the doubt? They gave the Suhwill safety goggles.'

'Yeeesss, increased the eye health of the tea masters, made sure that indentured servants could work longer.'

'Pfft. Healthy work force.' Mamta seems to be drying a pint glass with rag. 'They don't use machine harvesters.'

'That's, because -' Michelle slaps hands on bar with more force than intended and tilts stoll slightly backwards, four seconds to rebalance herself 'exploiting unexploited foreigners is cheapr than machines aaand parts aaand engineers which, fair 'nuff, are just over qualified engineers. Dated an engineers once. Decent guy, but d'dn't work out. Prob'bly because he was a meteorologist.'

Mamta partly digests that before sensing a need to fill silence: 'They pay the Suhwill the full value of their labour plus 10%. Then three flowers on top of that.'

'Value as judged by an organisation that Evil Tea Evil Corp set up. Full value plus 10% probably is the three flowers.'

Exasperated, checking the box again: 'They're giving all their employees a lifetime supply of flowers.'

'Is drug. Keep 'em doped up, placid. And jus' because they like it doesn't mean is good for them - booze, tobacco, meth. The, uh, stuff is a pesticide.'

'Wait.' Mamta begins gotcha' smile. 'The Tea Masters gouge at the tree's roots with their beaks. Insects don't have beaks.'

Michelle takes the box of tea for her own consideration: 'Jus' 'cause they fly doesn't mean they're birds. See, addiction in rodents - they're bats.'

Reiterating: 'Beaks.'

'Hmmmer then maybe...'

Sexy pose: 'Nobody was exploited in the making of this space tea.  And they're sending that chick's kids, or, ahh, chicks to uni.'

'Yeah, probably study to be engineers. Or meteorologists.' Michelle plonks the Flower of Suhwill on the bar. 'I can't get behind this.'

A Favour From De Geuechts-Truep van de Paramaribo Circus

With a defeated sigh, Michelle hits dial: 'Hi Elise.'

The other end is blunt: 'Michelle.'

Careful careful: 'So, you know how I'm house-sitting for Dad?'

Elise spits: 'Whilst he orgies about the high seas with heroin and abortions? You know he was married, Michelle, to our mother?'

Tippy toes: 'It's ahhh, it's a cruise for single seniors. The brochure didn't, didn't mention heroin and, um, abortions are redundant because mmmmenopause?'

Hissing: 'Read between the brochure lines.'

'Aaanyway.' Because this is not the time to suggest therapy. 'Baxter has dug under the fence and I can't find him. Soooo, because he's a dog and you work with animals -'

'I'm a zoological psychologist. I. Am. The. Jordan Peterson of turtles.'

'Mhm. Mhm. Pretty please help me?'

Fine: 'I'll be there in two hours'

Which turns out closer to three because Elise has to wind a small truck along Adelaide Hills roads to the property, on the line between country town and bushland, that her father had downsized to. Michelle raises worried eyebrows upon seeing the truck. Elise climbs from the driver seat in two steps and pivots to Michelle with open arms, projected voice:

'I cannot find your Boxer for I am mere woman, and no number of x-chromosomes will elevate me to goddesshood.'

('Baxter.' Michelle's sisterly diplomacy giving way to fight and/or flight.)

Heading to the truck's roller-door: 'But my work grants me witness to those who inspire more than some awe, perhaps full awe, and truly, truly, Shazza will find this dog. Now stand straight, that's how lobsters assert dominance.'

Michelle has already sprinted back inside and, locked in the bathroom, hears the door-shaking roar that confirms Shazza the Bengal Tiger's wake from nappy-poos. The truck is open and Shazza, out in single bound, strolls wistful down the street, absent-mindedly pawing side-mirrors off the parked cars she passes. Elise realises she neglected to sway the tiger to search out dog, an omission she attributes to her own monologue.  Too damn inspirational - if it distracts even myself, what will my presentation incur at next year's TurtleCon? One auditorium of hearts and minds won over? Or the beginnings of a viral mass following? Could I handle such adoration and maintain my modest ego? Where did Shazza go?

Elise heads inside, knocks on the bathroom door: 'Hey, we have a problem.'

The door remains locked: 'You mean the fucking, the fucking, what was that?'

'Shazza is a tiger loaned to Adelaide from Brisbane and I, in turn, took Shazza on a subprime mortgage.'

Door open now, Michelle brandishing a loofah-on-a-stick: 'Do you grasp finance? Do you remember how "subprime" entered the public-' hand and loofah twisting in air '- lexicon?'

'I will concede that point of ignorance.'

The sisters take the truck and crawl the streets of the nearby town and bushland in a widening spiral. Michelle has a Dentastix and Elise has a tranquiliser gun.

'Baaaxter. Shaaazza.'

'Shaaazza. Beeenji.'

'Benji? Baxter!

'Baxter? Shazza!'

After dark, unsuccessful, the sisters return home and brew a pot of Clari-T to help collect their thoughts. The usual steps in finding a missing animal are to contact council and the RSPCA, then to canvass the area with 'lost pet' posters. Such steps are largely redundant in Shazza's case because she is a fucking tiger. Such steps are also moot in Baxter's case because Shazza is a fucking tiger, liable to eat toddlers or something else that will implicate, in manslaughter by association or whatever, the people who released the fucking tiger. Elbows on table, Michelle rubs her temples and neglects her mango and berry tea.

Elise: 'I'll admit to some responsibility, some blame here, so I've called in a favour from a colleague.'

'No no no no.'

'It's ok. He's an arsonist.'

The sirens have already started. Standing in the front yard, smoke is already visible over the distant bushland, illuminated from beneath by orange flames. Baxter the beagle runs full pelt from down the street and scrambles into the truck, jumps on the horn thrice. Come on. Big fire. Time to get out of dodge.

Elise is chipper: 'See, one problem solved.'

Michelle lights a cigarette of catnip and tobacco: 'You're fighting fire with fire and, and, catching dogs with fire.'

Elise raises voice: 'Aaaand YOU are doing drugs. What the shit, Michelle? When did this start?'

'I tried it, uh, two months back, some friends of Georgia's husband were at game night?' Exhale. 'It's catnip.'

'It's a gateway drug.'

Smiling wide, Tom rides on Shazza's haunches as she moseys back along the way she left: 'A gateway drug to tummy wubs.'

Shazza flops on the front lawn and rolls onto her side, eyes half slit as Tom tussles the hair on her belly. Elise's face is tight and her hands hang by her hips, right index finger twitching. Michelle's eyes smirk as she takes a long drag on the catnip - see, one problem solved. Baxter leans on the truck's horn. A neighbour comes outside to yell at the midnight commotion, sees the distant smoke, sees Shazza, looks to the distant smoke, looks to Shazza, throws arms up with a 'Tyger Tyger burning bright' and runs back inside.

Tom rubs hands up and down Shazza's cheeks: 'Who's a cutie? You're a cutie.'

Elise glares: 'Her name is Shazza. What's yours?'

Already standing in a half-bow, right forearm diagonal across his stomach: 'My apologies. I suspect I am not here just to play with your cat.' A pause. 'With your pussy. Fuck, should have opened with that. Anyway.' Thumb over shoulder towards the bushfire, addressing Michelle. 'That your doing?'

Left elbow propped on right palm, Michelle shrugs: 'More or less.'

Tom rubs his chin: 'Well. I already sold the Fire Extinguisher of Merg Portua, because uncontrollable fire is apparently ingrained in the Australian psyche. But I am owed a favour by De Geuechts-Truep van de Paramaribo Circus, a South American circus that fights fires. Legend goes that, after pegging tent on the edge of Puerto Maldonado, a fire started by land prospectors came roaring down on the town. Lives and livelihoods on the line, the clowns, acrobats, trapeze, elephant tamers, fire eaters of course, were co-ordinated by the ringmaster to fight the rainforest fire, buckets and hoses. Such was the performer's prowess that several Puerto Maldonadoes signed up, joined the circus.

So the GTPC continued, continues, to tour South America, thrilling audiences and fighting fires, always inspiring new recruits into its ranks. Nowadays they are considered one of the larger paramilitary forces in the region - a clandestine airstrip, carriers, helicopters. They decided to expand into Central America a few years back, which is where I met them. Having scored some El Dorado Green, I had decided to sink a whole cone and see how long my lungs could last and, about six hours in, I was wandering the Darian Gap and, looking for a lay as I do, stumbled into tense negotiating between the GTPC and FARC.

Exhale. Everyone gets a solid second-hand high. Everyone chills, talking gets easy. I am deemed a total legend and thusly owed a favour.'

Elise raises a hand from crossed arms: 'Wait. South American countries have fire departments.'

Michelle stamps out her catnip: 'That's ignorant.' Shaking her head but clearly enjoying this. 'Racist, even.'

'De Geuechts-Truep van de Paramaribo Circus can sort this out, two hours, tops.' Tom raises left index finger, one moment. 'In return, I require the Galaxy Klaxon. Or, rather, just the gas canister, which should fit into your truck. It's essentially a giant air horn designed to call the Intergalactic Friendship of George Formby's Necrotising Fasciitis in an emergency. But sound, space, yeah. Deal?'

Michelle shrugs shoulders at Elise, smiling optimistic and encouragingly. Elise shrugs back, slight, more in the forearms and hands than shoulders, with a roll of the eyes. Negotiations are cinched when Shazza lolls back into the truck and curls up amongst straw bedding. Baxter sits perfectly still in the driver's seat.

Elise and Michelle, beagle and Bengal tiger in tow, drive the truck north along the Mount Lofty Ranges for two hours. The Galaxy Klaxon is contained in a large white dome, akin to a stereotypical astronomical observatory, located atop an insignificant but comparatively tall mount at the edge of a wine region. From a dirt road, a half-worn gravel path zigzags 200 metres to the peak. The animals are left in the truck. At the dome's sole entrance, with the tranquiliser gun, Elise insists on going first and kicks in the door.

Tom did not bullshit - the Galaxy Klaxon is identical to an in-the-hand air horn excepting its being about 2,500 times the size. Three men in indigo robes stand by the handrail that circles the central monument. The oldest leans slightly forward and rightwards, right hand clutching a halberd with which he props himself up, left hand gingerly placed on stomach just above the left hip. The youngest tilts backwards from the knees. The third maintains a static, counter clockwise twist from the feet upwards, arms outstretched for balance and tranquiliser dart now sticking out from above the right nipple:

'Avast Ye! Rasmus, Poppery, intruders at the gate seek the Galaxy Klaxon for their purposes. Aw, fuck, I could go nappy-poos.'

(Michelle: 'Nice shot. Completely unnecessary, but still.')

Rasmus, the eldest, advances by shifting between left and right foot with 45° pivots. Poppery, the youngest, follows with long, hesitant, wobbly strides and 'ooh, ooh, careful'. Ignatius, middle aged, scrambles with the hand rail so as to slow his slide to the floor where, starfished, he begins a quiet snore. Elise prepares her next shot - taking the tranquilising drug from refrigeration on her belt, connecting this to the hypodermic needle end of the dart, then attaching the fletching end, loading the completed dart into the gun and is about to pump air when a halberd's point is finally held at her face, with the implication that she cease and desist:

'I knew we should have brought the tiger. Even the beagle.'

Michelle holds hands in air: 'We could have run. They, uh -' addressing the Knights of the Galaxy Klaxon, 'Why are you moving like that?'

Poppery rocks to and fro in search of comfortable posture: 'Well, sometimes a man's testicles recede into the body but, like, way up there. Cramped up with the other organs. Nobody knows why.'

Rasmus, indignant: 'Poppery, why do you divulge our, uh, manly problems to these intruding women?'

Bitchy: 'Because these are the first people, besides you and Ignatius, that I have seen in seven years.'

Stern: 'You think with your loins.'

'My penis concerns me not. My testes prevent any erection.'

Michelle: 'Wait. Testicles way up in the body. All three of you?'

Elise smirks: 'He he he he, they synced.'

A look of shame in a sideways glance shared by the two men.

Michelle claps hands together: 'Ok, going out on a limb here, but I reckon you want your testicles to drop. We want the Galaxy Klaxon. Yeeeah?'

Rasmus hums curiously: 'If, if you can drop but one ball, you may have as you wish. But what esoterics can deal with this Mystery?'

Michelle smiles, aha: 'An inspiring speech.'

Eyes widening with a sudden swell of purpose, Elise places first over heart: 'I cannot find your Boxer for I am mere woman, and no number of x-chromosomes will elevate me to goddesshood.'

(Poppery: 'What?')

Gazing up and left to a transcendent future: 'But my work grants me witness to those who inspire more than some awe, perhaps full awe, and truly, truly, Shazza will find this dog. Now stand straight, that's how lobsters assert dominance.'

A minute passes with no audible plop. Rasmus grabs his crotch, jiggles his scrotum about. He gasps astounded, stands straight and sheds a single tear:

'Heavens, she did it. Poppery?'

'Fuck you, Rasmus. No, they're still up there.'

'Ignatius?'

Dreams of Goku flash behind Ignatius' eyes.

But one out of three is good enough and the sisters are given the Galaxy Klaxon. Back at their father's home, Elise and Michelle spread deck chairs on the front lawn and pass a cigarette of tobacco and catnip back and forth, watching the bushfire now almost at their street. Tom arrives with De Geuechts-Truep van de Paramaribo Circus.

A bowl of popcorn is prepared, Baxter is given a steak, Shazza is given five. A chain of three acrobats, hanging from a helicopter flying low over the edge of the bushfire, aim fire extinguishers to douse the flames with brilliant precision. The audience applauds.

Tom, seated between the two sisters, tilts his head towards Michelle: 'How about it? You want to bump uglies this time?'

Michelle: 'Sorry, I'm a save-it-for-marriage type.'

Tom lolls his head left to Elise: 'How about you? You seem bat shit insane.'

Eyes venomous daggers, Elise slowly directs stare back at Tom. Michelle knows her sister and thusly stands with a cough, nervously retreats back inside. Elise is either going to kill Tom or fuck him until he bleeds.