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IT'S ALWAYS TIME

Act Two: Secret Origins

Chapter Four: Weird Science

"You promised."

"I lied."

"You don't lie."

"Yes I do! I lie a lot! I lie all the time! I'm lying right now!"

"I mean you don't make false promises. You lie about them, but you never break them. There's a difference."

"All right, Dee, you win. You can go to that stupid store. But I still think you need to work on your priorities. Priority one: fuck me. Mm. Priority two: fuck me. Mm, God, you taste good. Priority three: fuck m--oh, fuck me, Dee, just fuck me!"

"I have! I will! Wait a minute, I think I am--Ga-Galatea! No more ambush sex, you promised!"

"We've had this conversation already! It ends with--mm--you fucking me so--ooh--so why stop now?"

"You know, I think you've got a point ..."

"Mm--God, Dee! Yes. Fuck! More. God. More!"

* * * *

Dee examined his profile in the bathroom mirror. It was hard to be sure through the grimy crust accumulated over three days worth of nonstop, sweaty sex with an amorphous, amorous, dangerous, nymphomaniac dessert foodstuff, but he had to ask. "Galatea," he called, "do I look any different to you?"

"Say what now?" she called back from the bedroom.

He traced a few fingers over the line of his jaw and pushed up his cheek. "Do I look any different to you?"

"I've only known you for three days. Dee," she added, petulant, "come back to bed."

Dee performed the unflattering half-twist everyone makes when failing to catch a glimpse of their own butt. "We broke the bed when you tried to tie me to the bed frame," he said, twisting the other way.

He heard a sighing, slurping noise. "Oh, I've made you a bed," Galatea said, her voice so smoky it gave him goose-bumps. "Come here and let momma tuck you in nice and tight."

"I'm serious," Dee said, "I mean, all my zits are gone, for instance. Even that big one that just seemed to move around on my ass for the past five years."

"Will the wonders of nookie never cease. C'mon, let's have s'more before it gets a chance to grow back."

Dee struck a few silent poses. He scratched his head, his hair a calcified mass overdosed on green hair gel.

Galatea huffed in frustration. Dee heard a loud slosh and then the patter of dainty feet. "Alright, then, what do you think is different?"

"I'm not sure. I think I look sort of 'streamlined,' maybe?" He shrugged wide, surprised to see the muscles in his mirror-imaged arms and shoulders bunching. He had been getting a Hell of a workout lately, he admitted to himself. "Maybe I lost weight? I mean, I haven't eaten anything but, well, you, for a while now."

Galatea stood, stark naked, her back pressed against the bathroom doorframe. She slid down the frame like a pole dancer, bending at the knees, rolling her fingers through her hair, head swaying, hips rocking. "'Doesn't just taste good--it's good for you too!'" she baby-talk mocked. She pressed her palms to the floor between her legs and sat like a cat. "You look like you've always looked to me," she said, her voice tender. "I don't see any difference. Honestly." She gave him a sly upward glance. "But the view from here is mag-fucking-nificient."

"All this attention is making me feel self-conscious, and I must be coming off as really self-absorbed. I'm sorry," Dee said, smiling. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"Think of it this way," asked Galatea, standing tall. "Is your dick any bigger?"

Dee panicked. He looked down. "No," he sighed, relaxing.

Galatea whirled around and threw her hands in the air. "Then who cares?" she said, marching back into the bedroom.

She grinned wide at the sound of Dee's laughter and leaned back in to wink at him in the mirror. "You coming? You really oughta give my new bed trick a shot. A money shot, I mean. Maybe a dozen."

"Definitely," said Dee, "but please, later. If I go to bed now I'm sure I won't come up for air until midnight--"

"At the very least, bright boy."

"--And I really want to get to SRU today, and it's already, what, eleven o'clock?" Dee plucked a purple bathing scrubber out from beneath the sink and tossed it into the tub. "After today I've only got one more day of bereavement leave and then I've got to go back to work on Monday."

"You've got two other grandparents, two parents, and a sister yet to kill," Galatea said, "I'm going to keep you locked in here for a fucking month."

Dee unwrapped a new bar of soap. "You know that won't work."

"I know," Galatea sighed, "but I'll think of something! What are you doing in there anyway?"

Dee's hand froze above the shower tap. Had he really not been in the bathroom in three days? "Got to get clean," he grunted, twirling the tap. "Got to go back to SRU," he said, pulling the mildewed, plain plastic shower curtain across the tub to avoid the freezing first jet of water. "Got to figure out what the fuck is going on."

Galatea pelted into the bathroom, her rubbery feet squeaking on the cheap linoleum floor as she came to a juddering halt. She started to bounce and clap her hands. With her elasticity and curves, it was like watching an Orion slave girl porn starlet jumping on a trampoline in slow motion. "Shower scene! Shower scene!" she sang after each bounce.

Dee, a mere mortal, ogled the spectacle for a good long while before remembering what language he spoke. "Galatea," he said, "we can't. You're water soluble."

"Nuh-uh," she scolded, reaching a hand into the showering spray. "I'm water absorbent."

Her breasts fluxed and filled out two extra cup sizes. "How big you want 'em?" she asked, turning her back to the shower to give her burgeoning bust some room and sticking both hands under the water. "Just say 'when.' Oh, you're just going to stand there with your mouth open? Well then step back because it's going to get awful crowded in here. You might get tucked into my bed trick after all. And then momma's gunna tuck and tuck and, mm, tuck until she tuckers you out. And then she'll just keep on tucking. That's what happens to naughty boys when they say no to momma--"

"Enough games," Dee demanded, hurling the bar of soap into the sink. It smashed into perfumed shards.

Galatea tried to cross her arms but settled on drumming her fingers atop her glutted tits, lips compressed into a grouchy moue. "You take all the fun out of having a sex slave," she said. She pried her fingers between her breasts and peered down. "Can you see my bellybutton? I can't." Pushed corset-tight by water pressure, her cleavage only gave about an inch before springing shut over her nose. "I can't even see my feet," she said, voice nasal and plugged.

Dee grinned, exasperated and world-weary. "A minute more under the shower and no one would be able to see your feet. Honey, I love your games, but I--hey, what's wrong, honey?"

Her gaze glistened. "You never called me that before."

"What, you mean 'honey?' You don't like it?"

"I...love it."

He stepped close and took her hand. The top points of her hair tickled under his chin. "But it's such a little thing."

"Not to me."

The tips of his fingers kissed the curve of her hip. "I have an inner vocabulary when I think of you. Do you want to hear it?"

"I...I'm not sure," she whispered.

"Nectar, jade," he said, stealing quick kisses from her trembling mouth, "Ocean, emerald, wine." Galatea's tears ran free. "Darkling, thunder," Dee said, kissing, "fire, river, rain."

"But more than anything," he said, and cradled her face in his hands. "Honey," he said, and kissed her deep. "Honey," he said again and she threw her arms around him and crushed her lips to his, sobbing into his mouth. "Honey," he whispered, and held her tight until the shaking stopped.

"You know," she sniffled, "this would be so much more romantic if..."

"You're breasts weren't shoved up my armpits," Dee said.

She nodded, adding "...and if you didn't smell like ass."

Dee snagged a shard of soap from the sink. "I think the stupid shower is finally warming up," he said, watching steam rise.

Galatea leaned close, sniffing. "Hey," she said, "that smells damn good. Wuzzat?"

"Homemade castile soap, olive oil and cream tallow and stuff. Don't look at me like that, the goth girl who makes the absinthe in her bathtub made it for me...Now don't you start looking at me like that, either. Ursula isn't interested in guys like me. Little Miss U isn't interested in guys, period."

"Hmf," Galatea grumped, hugging herself to Dee's chest. A moment later she perked up. "Let's get you cleaned up." She maneuvered Dee over to the toilet, checked the lid was closed, and pushed him down. "You sit here."

"Okay," said Dee, curious.

She skipped over to the tub and turned off the tap. "What's--" Dee started, but was struck dumb by the gleaming emerald smile Galatea threw over her shoulder. "You just sit right there," she said.

She stood straight, and inhaled deeply, her furled fingers tracing a circle around her tummy. A strong fluxion in her fluidic gel pulled water down from her chest into her abdomen. An inner waterfall transformed her from a pornographic titty queen to a beatific gravid maiden in a matter of moments. She ran her hands over her taut, round belly. She hummed in thought.

"It does not make you look fat," Dee marveled.

She bedazzled him with that starry smile again. She swayed close, plucked the shard of soap, now warm and molded, from Dee's hand. "Thank you," she chirped, and popped it in her mouth.

"What's--" Dee tried again, but Galatea shushed him, and a soap bubble burst against his chin.

Galatea rummaged through the sink, feasting on select slabs and crumbles of soap. She collected the few slivers that remained into a little pile and vigorously poked them down the drain. "Pfft. Ursula. Hmf," she grumped again.

"Now," she said, whirling back to face him, hands clasped to chest, her smile beguiling. "Gimme fever."

Dee moved in to kiss her, but she said, "That would taste pretty soapy right now."

Dee met her gaze for a moment. He pushed her chin up and scraped his parted mouth down the entire length of her graceful neck and across to her shoulder blade in one, slow, warm, breathy exhalation. He sat back, coming away with a swath of runny green icing from his nose to his chin. "You mean something like that?"

"Yeah," she gulped, eyes closed, chewing hard on her lip. "Something--ah--something like that, yeah."

She stepped back, her ample belly blooming into turquoise like milk swirling into green tea. The curious color spread until her entire substance turned an opaque, pale jade. "Now," she panted, "come close to me." Dee did as he was bid. "Yes. Good. Stand right there. Give me your hands."

She cupped his hands together, palms up, and positioned them level with his chest. "Hold them just like that," she said, stepping back. He felt supplicant and embarrassed until she bent down, kissed his fingertips, and blew cool, citrus-perfumed air over his palms. His hands started to tingle and the citrus bouquet grew very strong. Galatea stepped back, eyes shining.

His hands had been filled with creamy pale jade foam. "Wow," Dee said.

"How does it smell?" Galatea asked, biting her thumb.

Dee shut his eyes to concentrate on the aroma. "Soothing. An orchard of citrus trees in blossom." He smiled. "I bet this is what really expensive spas smell like."

Dee felt her step close and push his hands up onto his chest. "How does it feel?" she cooed, moving his hands over his skin gentle arcs, spreading the stuff around, before pulling his hands away again.

"Oh, God," Dee said, eyes squeezed shut, chest heaving. "Uh. Tingly--no, stupid word, not strong enough. Electric. Searing. But gentle, all at once. Like--" He gasped as he felt her finger trace a thread of the foam down his abdomen. "Like dozens of nibbling little lightening kisses. No. Hundreds. Thousands. I, I can't describe--"

"Shh," whispered Galatea, gathering up his hands. "Those," she said, kissing his fingertips again, "are nanogasms."

She blew cool, citrus-perfumed air over his palms. They started to tingle again. She pushed his hands back toward him, this time massaging the sensuous foam in his stomach. He nearly doubled over from the carnal thrill it drove into him. He still could not open his eyes. "You're...you're not covering me in my own, uh..."

"No," Galatea purred. He heard her exhale through puckered lips for a long moment. "I'm covering you ..." she said, and a pair of hands smeared foam down his thighs. Dee groaned and fell to his knees. While her hands worked their creamy way toward his groin, another pair of hands started slathering even more across his back, making him arch and bark, senses running wild. "... in me."

Galatea was working foam into his hair and down his neck when Dee cried, "I can't--"

"Yes you can."

"No, I can't take it!" He fell to all fours as a dozen foamy hands rove over his feet, his arms, his ass. For some reason they really liked playing with his ass.

"Yes you can!" Galatea smoothed the foam gently around his face. "You're about to experience what the female orgasm feels like, Dee." Her many hands gently pushed him down and rolled him onto his back. "That's all." She massaged it deep into his calves, the pits under his arms, and between his toes. "If any man could take it, it would be you. You can do it. I love you. I love you. Okay. It's time. Here we go."

Galatea blew cool, citrus-perfumed air over his dick, and Dee flew mad.

Dee flailed, every muscle jittery with wave after wave of tension and release, his cream-covered body slapping and slopping the floor with foam. Galatea coddled his cock, kneading the jade elixir deep into his very most sensitive skin. "What does it feel like, Dee?" she asked, and blew, heaping his lap with more sizzling foam. She rolled and folded it over his balls, her hands slipping up his shaft and down into the crack of his ass. Dee could only groan. "Talk to me, baby," she said, blowing and working in more cream, "even just a little. Tell me how it feels," she said, and blew.

"Flying," he managed, "flying. It really is just like..."

Dee could say no more for a few minutes, as she blew and salved every inch of him with more and more cream. "It's," he said, his eyes flickering open. "It's not stopping."

Galatea lay down and cuddled up against his side, sleeking herself with foam. "It hasn't happened yet," she said, her chin on his shoulder. "You're still plateauing, baby."

"Oh my God," Dee said, his laughter warm. "How long does it last?"

"That depends," Galatea said. Her hand skated down his stomach and settled over his raging dick. "How long do ya wannit?"

"I don't think I can take much more."

"Mm." Galatea slid atop him, her breasts and big belly sandwiched in cream against his chest, her knee pushing his slippery erection into his stomach. "You got it, baby," she said, spreading her legs over him. She scooted down and guided him into her, frictionless as silk.

Galatea glided on a thick layer of cream. "Cum in me," she said, humping faster, "cum in me, baby." Each upstroke slicked a heavy breast across his face, a cream-covered nipple popping in and out of his mouth. "Cum for momma. Come on. That's it. Yeah, you're doing it." She pivoted against him, sitting up. "I can feel it coming."

She grabbed his hands and clamped them on her tits. "Let is happen, baby, there's nothing you can do." She rocked her hips in topsy-turvy circles, keeping pace with Dee's racing pulse. "Momma's gunna make you cum. Momma loves to make her baby cum. Momma always--ah." Dee's violent shaking suddenly stopped.

"Ooh, good baby," Galatea said. "Baby's giving so much cum to mommy." She let his hands fall to the floor where they pawed feebly at the tile. "Baby's got so much cum for mommy." Her rocking slowed, lingering on each arching upstroke. "Yes. There. Baby's filling momma up to bursting. Such a--mm-- good baby," she said, hugging her round tummy. Her downward thrusts grew faster, harder, each agonizing upstroke lasting longer and longer.

"But momma wants more ... Nuh-uh," Galatea fussed, shaking her head, treating Dee's dick like a piston buried deep within her pumping hips. "Stay hard for mommy. Momma knows her baby has more. Baby has much more cum to give, and momma wants it all. Momma's gunna take it all, there isn't anything baby can do to stop it. Oh, baby's gotten so hard again. Oh, oh! Baby's cumming so fast! Mm, and so much more than last time, too. Was baby holding back from mommy? I bet he was. Naughty baby. Is baby holding back now? I bet he is. Oh, look, baby's so tired he can barely move a muscle ... but momma's got him hard again. Momma knew he was holding back. Baby should know better. Momma's never gunna stop. Not until she--gets--what--she--wants."

* * * *

Dee guessed the plastic, battery powered clock hanging sideways on the bathroom wall read one o'clock. Or maybe two. The jade foam dripping from the clock face made it hard to read.

Galatea flattened herself out a bit to fit into the tub behind him. Dee tried to pop the stopper in the tub's drain but it zipped out of his cream-coated fingers and skittered out into the hallway. "Don't bother," Galatea said, rubbing Dee down with the purple bathing scrubber. "I've got enough of the three Ds in me right now to sink a battleship, so a little nanomek down the drain is no big loss. Besides, it almost always finds its way home." She blew cool air against his back and rolls of the soapy, jade cream poured over his shoulders and filled the tub. "Can you handle it?"

Dee hugged his knees, feeling countless nanogasms coursing through him. "Yes, it's wonderful." He leaned back and stole a kiss. "Thank you. You gave me an incredible gift. Thank you, thank you."

Galatea just smiled, humming tunelessly, and scrubbed him down. "I wish I could go with you," she said after a while. "To go out in broad daylight and be seen with you, I mean. I want everyone to see us together--especially that Ursula bitch."

Dee laughed. "Speaking of U, I need to remember to pay her back for all that absinthe. Wait a minute." He turned to face her. "Food coloring," he said.

"Huh?"

"You wanted to go out and be seen," Dee said, "Ursula has got to have some food coloring in her apartment. Maybe we can--"

"Hey, yeah," said Galatea. "Why didn't I think of that. RGB, right? I've got the G, I just need some R and B."

"I don't think it works that way..."

"Shut up," Galatea said. "And you, move your lazy ass!"

"What--" Dee began, but startled when the background nanogasms suddenly vanished. The jade foam boiled out of the bathtub and onto the floor, leaving Dee spotless and squeaky clean from head to toe. The foam whisked up fluffed out and a willowy, ghostly Galatea rose above him, an abstract apparition sculpted from curling arabesques of cloud and cream.

"I'm going, I'm going," the apparition said, its wispy voice little more than a crackle of bursting bubbles. It wafted down the hallway. "I'll get it."

Dee shook his head, and called after it. "Don't forget to leave Ursula some money! My wallet's in my pants, wherever they wound up."

"Okay!" it bubbled back.

Galatea slipped sideways around him, pancake flat, and filled out to sit in his lap. She grinned like a cat.

"I can see through you again," Dee said. "As much as I ever could, which wasn't really all that much was it?"

She just grinned at him, as translucent as green glass.

"Was it--that is, were you--aware and awake this whole time?"

"Yes!" she said, bouncing. "Covering every scrumptious, solid inch of you." She cupped Dee's face, kissed him, and pinched his cheek. "Getting into every pore. Giving you all those nanogasms." She drubbed merrily on his chest with her fists. "Oh my God, I can't wait to remember it. It must have been awesome."

"It was," the apparition said, drifting back in through the door, a handful of colorful plastic vials suspended in the core of her vaporous body. Dee thought it looked much less substantial. "But getting these was a real pain in the ass. Thank God Ursula leaves her window cracked open. And the gardening crew almost saw me. And I almost blew away in the wind. And I nearly burned all my nanomek just carrying these things around." The vials dropped through her to the floor.

"And I couldn't give a shit," said Galatea, leaping out of the tub. "I can't wait any longer." She knelt beside the apparition, eyes closed, mouth open, and tongue peeking out over her bottom lip like a shameless Catholic schoolgirl awaiting a communion wafer from a really cute priest.

The apparition pressed her spectral sex around Galatea's tongue. Galatea ate her out and then ate her way in. "Why does this always make me so freaky-hot?" Dee asked.

"Because you're a freak," Galatea said, sucking on the apparition's left breast from the inside-out. The apparition soon disappeared down Galatea's gullet. "C'mon, c'mon," she muttered. "Fuck, I'm too excited to concentrate. Wait. Oh. Oh my." She unraveled in long, coiling curlicues, the daggers of her hair leading the way.

"Galatea?" Dee said.

The green curlicues sewed themselves back up and Galatea was lying face down on the floor, her disheveled hair curtaining her head. "I think I'm just going to lie here for a while, Dee, if that's okay," she said, hushed and muffled.

Dee listened to her giggle and sigh for a while before sneaking out of the tub and into the bedroom. It looked like a paintball war zone. Galatea had moved Dee's computers and equipment into the living room before really letting herself loose. The bedroom was entirely her territory now. It reeked of citrus-and-sex and a hint of Nyquil, her essence permeating the plaster behind peeling wallpaper and the stucco ceiling and eating through the varnish of the hardwood floor. The bedroom closet door had come off its hinges. He moved it aside and inspected the closet's contents. Much of his clothes, kept in cheap plastic closet organizers, had been spared, although Galatea had taken to wearing his underclothes and all of his ties had been lost to her bondage/tickle experiment earlier in the day. Dee still could not remember how he managed to snap the bed frame in half. He picked out undamaged pairs of briefs, socks, blue jeans, an undershirt and a melon-colored polo. Dee was threading a black leather belt through the loops on his jeans when he heard Galatea crow, "Tah-dah!"

She struck a classic "tah-dah!" pose in the bedroom doorway, emptied food coloring vials born aloft in an upturned hand. She wore a tight, white, tube-top jumpsuit that clung to every accentuated curve and starkly announced her utter lack of bra and panties. Her skin was the color of peach ice-cream, her hair orange as flame, her lips red as blood. "Check this out!"

Dee said, "Um."

"What," Galatea said, her ivory-white smile blinding. "Can't even manage a 'wow'?"

"Wow," said Dee. "Definitely 'wow.' But, um, I don't think it's going to help us in the lets-be-seen-together department."

"What?" Galatea said again. "Why not?"

"Um..."

Galatea's eyes narrowed. "What? And you better not make me say 'what' again, motherfucker."

"...Have you looked in the mirror?" Dee said, and shut his eyes.

He heard dead silence for a moment, then the *slap-slap-slap* of open-toed sandals, and finally a mortified scream from the bathroom. "Oh my God," Galatea wailed, "I look like a fucking toon!"

Dee hustled after her. "Actually," he said, his brain kicking into automatic pilot and launching a routine lecture, "the signature stylization of anime is very different from American cartooning in several key--"

"Shut up, dumb ass! Okay, okay. Let me think. What if I try imitating somebody?" Her gel morphed and color-cycled with a soft, metallic sigh. "Nooo! I wanted Betty Paige and I got Betty Rubble!"

Dee stood, frozen and staring, from the hallway. Complement, complement, he thought desperately, think of a complement. "Betty Paige as Betty Rubble," he heard himself say. Okay, which brain cell came up with that one? Because when I find out, you're fired.

Galatea squeezed her fists over her eyes and morph-cycled again. "I can't look," she said. "Tell me: is it Angelina Jolie, or..."

Honesty works, right? Try honesty. "No," he gulped, "it's Lara Croft, but the rendering is quite impress--"

She pounded against the mirror, morph-cycling on each punch. "No! *--Punch! Carmen San Diego--*This is so fucking *--Punch! GI Joe's Baroness--* humiliating! I could never *--Punch! Jessica Rabbit--* be seen like this! I could die, Dee, I could just *--Punch! Princess Jasmine--* die! Dee, don't look at me! Dee? Dee, why are you so quiet--Oh." She cycled back to her jade self. "Oh," she said again, the sound drawing out as realization dawned.

"Don't worry about going out," Dee said sotto voce. He stepped into the bathroom and gently closed the door behind him. "Now isn't the time."

Galatea giggled, "Ah-hah, ah-hum, hm-mm."

* * * *

"Dee," Galatea called out, "how long will you be gone?"

Dee was back in the closet foraging for a second set of clothes. His first attempt at getting dressed in three days had wound up in the laundry hamper soaked through with pastel rainbows of honey. "It's an hour round-trip to the SRU place," he said, scraping flecks of green icing off another pair of jeans with a fingernail, "so I'll get there right around six. In all honesty, I'd like to stay until I've gotten all my questions answered, but they will be closing up by then, I don't think they'll be very forthcoming, and I really don't want to force anybody to tell me anything -- I'm not even sure if I can -- but I'm going to try." He buttoned down a yellow shirt. "That makes it two hours, tops. Is that okay?"

"No," Galatea sighed, "but you gotta do what you gotta do. I'll miss you."

He wrestled into his black leather jacket. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'll make it up to you."

"Ooh, I like the sound of that."

"Did you ever find my wallet?" Dee asked.

"Yeah, it's on the kitchen table."

Dee rummaged around the kitchen, filling his pockets. "Honey," he asked, "what's up with the Auberjon-eoises?"

"The what?"

"The Odo cut-outs," Dee said, staring.

"What about 'em?"

"Why are they all standing in the recycle bin?"

"Forget 'em," Galatea said. "That was just a school girl crush. Baby-girl, really. I'm onto solids now."

Dee found the tin of thickener next to his wallet on the kitchen table. "Hey, this thing feels lighter than I remember. You sure you didn't take any more nanomek?"

"I told you, I don't need it. It wouldn't do me any good. I've got the three Ds, remember?"

Dee joined Galatea in the bathroom to give her a quick squeeze. "I remember."

She kissed him before turning back to the mirror. She restyled the swooping X above her left breast, giving it a slight slant and staggering the curves a bit, its shape evocative of a dancer with arms upraised. "What do you think?"

"It's very sweet," Dee said, "but you don't have to wear it at all. I trust you."

"I know," she said, turning this way and that, looking at the mark from all angles, "but I want to. I like it."

"All right," he said, hugging her. "It's just...wait. Are you going to stick with that design?" She nodded. He squeezed tight, making her sigh. "Can I add another hour?"

"What? Why?"

"I've got an idea. You'll see. You'll like it."

"Okay," she pouted, "but you gotta make it up to me twice as hard, you got that?"

"I got it." He goosed her. "And you're going to get it."

"Good," she said, slapping his hands away. "Now get the fuck outta here. I've got Internet porn to catch up on."

"Actually," he said, handing her a thin box, "I found an old DVD for you. It's a comedy."

"'John Carpenter's The Thing?'" she read aloud. "Is it funny?"

"Trust me; you'll love it."

* * * *

Dee's banged-up Volkswagen drove past fields of wild grass, land zoned for commercial use decades ago but left fallow thanks to its invisibility from the elevated highway. No signs were posted to name the local roads and the MapQuest print-out proved just as wrong now as it did four days ago. Dee half expected never to find the place, or if he did, to find it boarded up and seemingly deserted for years. After all, his previous excursion to SRU Medical Technology had taken him across the Twilight Zone and beyond the Outer Limits to that little curtained-off cubby in the far corner of the video store of cosmic reality that the likes of Rod Serling, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King and Clive Barker visited in their imaginations but knew better not to write about it.

A much-relieved Dee pulled into the oversized SRU Medical Technology parking lot just a few minutes before six o'clock. The pickup truck was nowhere to be seen, but the old Mini still sat exactly where Dee remembered it at the very edge of the lot. A dusty blue van rumbled past, its driver apparently lost, the only other traffic Dee had seen since turning onto the local off-ramp.

Dee parked one space away from rose=colored Mini Cooper out of some ancient herding instinct. He listened to the click and clack of the cooling engine, trying to screw up his courage. He might have to shout, he realized, or even threaten violence, to get what he wanted. But could he? He glared at the Mini Cooper. The owner had taped a "For Sale" sign in the passenger-side rear window. Instead of a price, someone had written "What are YOU looking at?" in an elegant longhand calligraphy. Below that was a phone number: (555) GET-LOST. "I know the feeling," Dee said, but got out of his car and made a bee-line for the store anyway.

A "Help Wanted - Inquire Within" sign hung amid the clutter of collapsible crutches, orthopedic pillows, home blood pressure kits, and posters for various medical manufacturers crowding the glass storefront. The bell hanging on the front door clattered even louder than Dee remembered. The elevated counter ran down along the wall to the left; the cash register perched on the countertop just a few feet away from the front door, providing the occupier of the stool behind it a clear view of the remaining three corners of the store. The stool's occupant, however, was currently frowning over a book of Sudoku puzzles as thick as a phone directory, rubbing down the open page with an eraser worn away to the nub. Dee stepped over to the counter directly in front of her, but she did not look up until the puzzle box on the open page was clean. When her eyes eventually met Dee's, however, she startled with a lightning-quick double-take, as if surprised at being surprised at who she saw, but her poker faced mask of happy inscrutability flicked back in an instant.

"Oh, hey!" the young woman said, sounding delighted. "Thick Jell-O boy. How'd it go?" Her dark eyes twinkled. "Let me guess: chocolate, right?"

"Who are you?" Dee asked.

She brushed pink eraser shavings off her white blouse. "You can call me Tomoe Exposition."

"What kind of name is 'Tomoe Exposition'? Other than the obviously fake kind, I mean," Dee said.

Tomoe made that all-inclusive, one-shouldered shrug again. "What's your name?"

"Dieter Detwiler. Who are you, Tomoe, really?"

"Oh, hey!" she said, exactly as before. "Dieter Detwiler. How'd it go? And what kind of name is 'Dieter Detwiler'?"

Dee sighed. "Call me Dee. Who are--"

"Oh hey!" she said, a pitch perfect repeat. "Dee. Now are you going to tell me how it went or am I going to have to call in the big guns?"

Dee reached into a jacket pocket. The SRU Thickening Agent tin clicked onto the countertop. Anticipating a samurai staring contest, he did his best to match her inscrutable smile, trying to act cool but certain he looked like a terrified dweeb. "Call in whoever you want," he said, hoping it did not sound as stupid to her as it did to him, "I don't kiss and tell." They matched stares. Dee's stomach knotted as the moment stretched. "Do you?" he said, thinking: I'm not going to get anywhere with her. This is her Mysterious Foreign Shopkeeper schtick, she is a master at it, and she knows that I know and vice versa. I'm never going crack it, and I'm never going to hurt her, or even bluff about it, because I like her too much. How can I not like her? She set me up, all right, but she set me up with the best thing that's ever happened in my entire life--

Tomoe blinked and swiveled her gaze down to the floor. "No, I don't," she said.

Dee, bewildered over winning the standoff, said, "Huh?"

"I don't kiss and tell," Tomoe said, her grin wide and very real. "But for you..." She held out a small hand. Dee clasped it, expecting a handshake, but instead Tomoe used his arm as leverage to stand on the stool. Dee wondered at her strength and grace. "For you, Dee," Tomoe said, "I will show and tell."

She pumped her fist three times at the window. "Wait a minute," Dee said as the Mini Cooper started forward. "What's going on?" he asked, as the little rose-colored car picked up speed. "Look out!" he shouted as the Mini Cooper showed no sign of slowing down, but Tomoe just stood there.

Dee guessed the little car had accelerated to at least thirty miles per hour before hitting the curb of the sidewalk and his mind shut down while his hindbrain kicked in. He stepped up onto the countertop in a single, glass-crunching stride, Tomoe turning to face him just as the front tires cleared the curb.

"What--" Dee plucked her up into the air by the armpits as the front tires bit down on the sidewalk "--the--" Dee spun about, carrying her in both arms as the car's rear tires cleared the curb "--fuck--" Dee leapt and ran into one of the aisles across from the counter, laying her flat on the floor and shielding her body with his "--do you think you're doing!" Tomoe shrieked at him as the car careened into the front door.

The doorbell clattered and for one vertiginous moment Dee thought that a strawberry jam factory must have exploded nearby. "What the Hell is going on?" he cried as great bows of rose colored jelly zipped and ricocheted throughout the store.

Tomoe, still pinned beneath him, batted her fists against his shoulders as the springy bows of gel bounced one by one behind the counter. "I'm trying to introduce you to my girlfriend you idiot! But, uh..." Her battering slowed, her fists unclenched and Dee had the sneaking suspicion he was being felt up. "Thanks for trying to save my life, I guess. No, no, don't get up," she added, grabbing his collar. "You, ah, really knocked the wind out of me. You wouldn't mind picking me up...again...would you?"

"Hey," someone said, voice soft but warm and sparkling, "you totally ruined my entrance!"

Dee glanced up and Tomoe's hands returned to their surreptitious roving. An aquiline, angelic face chiseled from the pure pink of flawless rose quartz watched them from behind the counter. "What are you two doing?"

"Dee thought you were trying to run me over," Tomoe said. "Dee? Meet SB. SB, this is Dee."

SB stood, shaking out a long, thick mane of narrow dreadlocks spun from cotton candy. Where Galatea had the overripe, fit-to-bursting figure of a Hollywood bombshell from the Fifties, SB took on the lithe power and athleticism of an Olympian. Her coppery spandex one-piece, however, made damn sure everyone knew she had all the curves and swells anyone could possibly want. Her eyes narrowed. "So this is the latest Jell-O aficionado, huh? How's about you standing up and getting the Hell off my merchandise?"

Dee stood and helped Tomoe to her feet. SB did that same quick double-take Tomoe had given him earlier but resumed her "what-are-you-looking-at" glare just as fast. "You can turn into a car?" Dee asked, not even believing the words were coming out of his mouth.

"It's a dick thing," SB said, but Dee did not understand what she meant until she stepped out from behind the counter and, suddenly, he did.

"He's gone pretty pale, T," said SB.

"Probably feeling a little inadequate, SB," Tomoe said.

Dee had read too much hardcore manga not to know where this was headed. "It's not that," he said, but, looking down at the gargantuan bulge in the overstressed crotch of SB's once piece, confessed, "Well, I guess it kind of is. No, it just is. But that's not important."

"That was refreshingly honest," said SB, binding up her dreadlocks into a thick ponytail. "If that's not the important part, though, what is? Go on. You can see you have my full attention."

Dee took a step back. "Actually, I bet I don't. I suspect your attention can get a lot, er, fuller."

"You'd win that bet," Tomoe said, her inscrutable smile back in place.

Honesty seems to be working, Dee thought. It had better, or else I am truly fucked. "I jerk off to comics about dickgirls as much as the next man," Dee said. "But when I do, I don't fantasize about being with a dickgirl, you see, I fantasize about being the dickgirl. I hope you don't take offense."

"Interesting," said SB, cupping her chin. "I think I'll let this one live, T."

"You want to be a dickgirl, Dee?" said Tomoe. "Why didn't you say so before? I've got just what you need, SRU-label hormone supplements. Right in there." She pointed to the supply closet behind the counter. "You want some? For you? Five dollar."

Dee opened his mouth, waiting for his conscience to voice an objection, but then he remembered he did not possess a conscience any more, at least when it came to sex, so he just turned to the supply closet with a thoughtful, "Hm."

"Go on in and take a look around," Tomoe said. "Don't worry, nothing in there will bite you, at least not until you get it home."

Dee wandered into the supply closet and SB pulled Tomoe aside behind the counter. "You said he was cute!" she whispered.

"He was!" whispered Tomoe.

"You didn't say he was so panty-soaking fucking fine!" SB hissed, teeth gritting.

"He wasn't!"

Dee clambered up the short ladder at the far end of the closet to get a better look at something and SB yanked at the collar of Tomoe's blouse. "Oh, lover-girl, would you look at that ass!"

"I am! I am!"

"I don't see any more thickener in here," Dee said.

"You wouldn't," Tomoe called back, trying to keep the anxious quaver out of her voice, "not when you don't need it. One of the rules."

"I see you have some SRU-label herbal-enzyme male enhancement supplements. I bet I know what those might do."

"You want some?" asked Tomoe as SB chewed on a fist and whispered, "God, no, what if he took some right here in the store I don't think my mind could take it," but Tomoe steamrolled ahead out of habit and arcane ritual. "For you? Five dollar." She squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, "No, no, please say no."

"No thanks," said Dee.

The two girls relaxed.

"Maybe later."

The two girls clutched each other in fear.

"We've got to get a grip!" SB said.

That seemed to snap Tomoe out of her panic. "Like this?" she whispered and grabbed SB's dick. Her slight hand barely wrapped half-way around its girth but her grip was long-practiced and ironclad.

"You guys okay?" said Dee, coming out of the closet. "I thought I heard someone shout. What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," said SB, coughing to smother her case of the giggles, walking away from the counter,

Dee shrugged and turned to Tomoe. "'Rules,' you said? What 'rules'?"

"I can tell you rule number one," Tomoe said "We get to ask the first questions around here."

"Very well."

"So," said the well-endowed rose girl, "What flavor did you start with?" SB wriggled out of her one-piece, rolled it into a jelly donut, and ate it. She pirouetted, with the elegance and dignity of a Bolshoi ballerina apart from the monster cock flapping like a windsock glued on her groin. She rode the momentum of the revolution to spin and reweave her gelled body into the form of a slinky, doe-eyed bimbo lying supine on the store's checker-tiled floor. She bent her legs at the knees and spread them, obscenely wide, dick replaced with a pink and puffy pussy. She turned her head away bashfully and bit down hard on a curled knuckle. "Vanilla?" she asked through clenching teeth, her voice shuddery with anticipation.

"Eh," said Tomoe, shrugging. "He doesn't look like the vanilla type."

SB clucked impatiently and rolled onto her belly, facing Dee. The color of her crystal-polished skin cycled down to a rich, ruby red. She clasped her hands behind her back, wide leathery bands snaking around her arms to bind them tight together. She scooted up on her knees, rump rising in the air, two ruby pseudopodia morphing into bloated, knurled, thrumming dildos that stuffed themselves up her cunt and down her ass. "Ch-cherry?" she managed to sob before a ball gag popped itself into her mouth.

Outside, something clattered like a garbage can overturning. Dee looked out in alarm but a purring croon from Tomoe drew back his attention. "Ooh," she said, eyes locked on SB's reddening, violated derriere. "I don't know about him, but I could go for the cherry-treatment right about now."

SB swallowed the ball gag and blew Tomoe a petulant raspberry. Then she chuckled and leapt up, filling out into a toothsome Amazon, round ass pressed up against the glass counter, proud tits mashed together with her elbows. "Chocolate?" she asked in honeyed, fiery voice, drawing out the first syllable as she leaned in toward Dee, leering.

From behind the counter, Tomoe looked down and wolf-whistled. "That's my bet," she said. "Bet you five dollar he's a chocolateer, SB. But don't answer yet, Dee!"

SB bounced up to sit on the countertop and quivered back into her original, chisel-perfect form with one glaring exception. "Strawberry?" she asked in her own voice, "or..."--with a crick of her neck and a jut of her jaw, her dick billowed out, a tumescent fire hose--"...Strawberry-Banana?"

Dee sighed, took the crumpled, soggy, empty Jell-O box out of his jacket pocket, and placed it on the countertop next to the tin of SRU thickener.

SB took one look and toppled over backward into a display of vitamin supplements, her massive manhood weighty and elastic enough to stick tight to the countertop as she fell. Tomoe backpedaled away from the box, swearing a blue streak in Japanese. The pull of the SB's fall eventually caught up with her enormous dick and sack and they squeaked over the countertop glass, flipping up and then slapping down behind the counter with a loud *thwap!* and a muffled *oof!* from SB. "Lime?" Tomoe cried, nearly twisting an ankle on a Vitamin C bottle SB had sent spinning her way. "Lime?! Doaho! What did I say? What. Did. I. Say!"

SB peeped up from behind the counter. "You went lime?" she whispered, eyes wide in wonder. "You went lime...first time?"

Dee flushed. "It was an accident."

"No way, José," Tomoe said. She jerked a thumb back toward the SRU supply closet. "Once you take something from there, nothing is accidental. That's one of the rules."

"So there are rules?" asked Dee, while SB murmured, "Wow, a real lime-guy."

"Hundreds and hundreds," Tomoe said, "and I hardly know half of them. Lost the franchise manual a day after I assumed the place, although I bet that was just a rule in action, too." She glared at the gaping SB and gave her an annoyed kick, "Pick your jaw up off the damn floor, SB."

SB pouted but pulled herself together.

"Anyway," said Tomoe, turning back to Dee, "I'm glad you got away. She'll lose cohesion quickly without that first infusion of sperm."

Dee shuffled his feet.

"What?" Tomoe said while SB breathed, "Uh-oh."

"She got that four days ago," Dee said.

"Four days," Tomoe said. "Four days? You've been with lime for four days?" She drew close to SB who gave her a loving, reassuring squeeze. "Never mind about me," Tomoe said, shaking her head, "Who the Hell are you?"

"I'm not answering any more questions until you answer some of mine," said Dee. He tapped a finger on the top of the thickener tin. "What is nanomek? Is ... SB ... made out of it too? SB, if you're made out of Jell-O, how come you're so, well, cut? And how does it all work?"

"You want the long answers or the short ones?" asked Tomoe.

"Short will do."

"Okay. Nanomek is a magical powder, some 'techno-alchemical' handwavium stuff or something. I don't really know, I'm not science fiction fan. It's a basic component of a lot of the SRU gimmicks and gimcracks. When used as a thickener for sweet liquid, it makes meliae." Seeing Dee's confused expression, Tomoe repeated, "Meliae. Honey nymphs. Goo girls. Just look it up on the Internet later, will you?"

"Why goo *girls*?" Dee said.

"Nanomek is entirely female," Tomoe answered. SB cleared her throat, and Tomoe looked up at her, smiling, "even if the meliae it makes aren't."

"So that's why it needs sperm," said Dee. "That makes sense, I guess." Then, after a beat: "No, that actually doesn't make any sense at all."

Tomoe continued, "As to your second question: yes, SB is a meliae. And as to why she's 'cut,' as you so delicately put it: I cut her collagen-based gelatin powder with the polysaccharide pectin when I made her." She nestled further into SB's protective embrace. "So that means she's my meliae, Dieter, and don't you damn-well forget it."

"I'm a one-woman man-woman," SB told her, "you know that, lovey."

Dee said, "So then how do you get ... well, you know ..."

"We used to steal from sperm banks," said SB. "But that was too complicated, random, and not a very nice thing to do in the first place."

Tomoe smirked, running a finger up and down SB's breastbone. "So now, every once in a while, we go to a club and make some guy really, really, lucky."

SB stepped back, rolled her trim, broad shoulders, and stood proud, fists pressed to outthrust hips. "Any very, very surprised."

The couple collapsed together in a fit of cackling laughter. Dee found himself grinning like an idiot.

After a minute, SB brushed tears away from Tomoe's eyes with her thumbs. "You okay, lovey?"

"I am now," Tomoe said, bussing SB's lips. "This just isn't the way it's supposed to work. When they go lime, they're not supposed to come back at all. Something is going on here."

"He's a real lime guy," SB told her with a shrug. "We always suspected there had to be some out there, somewhere."

Dee felt like he was intruding on something that should have been very private, but the questions were burning too brightly in him, and he had to interrupt. "I'm sorry," he said, giving them a moment to drift apart, "But what's the deal with lime?"

"Let's start with how the nanomek works, how the meliae is born." Dee felt a flash of panic at hearing the word 'born,' although he did not know why, but Tomoe must have read something in his eyes and added, "I mean made, or summoned, if you prefer."

"Sure," said Dee, relaxing.

"The goo girl takes on characteristics associated with the flavor you make her with, often with unexpected results," Tomoe explained.

"Huh?" said Dee.

"The nanomek metamorph assembles by a process of allopoeis informed by a collaborative-learning neural net filter trained in the recognition of poetic justice and irony," SB girl translated. The coppery one-piece fanned out from her shoulders to cover her Olympic diver's physique again.

"Oh," said Dee, one of nature's nerds. "Duh. You should have said. So what's so bad about lime?

Lime meliae are tarts or something?"

One of the women in the store harrumphed indignantly.

"What's Latin for 'slime,' Dee?" Tomoe asked.

Dee thought for a moment. "Uh. 'Oblimo?'"

Tomoe and SB shared an awkward, embarrassed glance. "No," Tomoe said slowly, "that's the verb."

"Latin has a verb meaning 'to slime?'"

"Forget about 'oblimo,'" Tomoe said, waggling her hands. "The Latin word for slime is 'limus.'"

"'Limus,'" Dee repeated.

"Yep."

"'Limus' as in 'lima?'" Dee said.

"Yep."

"And 'lima' as in lime," Dee said. He got it now. "And lime as in lye. And lye as in 'will burn your face off.'"

"Lye's also used to make pickles," Tomoe said. "Your dick pickled yet, Dee?"

"I'll say," said Dee.

"The nanomek won't make the same associations with the flavor as you do," SB explained. "It won't behave as you expect. It never does. Rules are rules."

Dee thought about it. Why had he wanted the thickener in the first place? Oh, right, to keep Jell-O thick when it warmed up. Instead, the nanomek gave him a girlfriend that melted faster the hotter she got.

"When you went lime," Tomoe said, "you jumped ahead few dozen chapters of the story, like trying to graduate from Kindergarten with a PhD in fucking."

Dee felt foolish for asking so many questions, but that was why he came here in the first place, so he said, "There's a story?"

"There's always a story," Tomoe said, rolling her eyes. "Once you buy something from SRU, you're subject to the rules. And the rules demand a story. They won't just let us skip straight to the fucking." She grabbed SB's hips and mashed herself against SB's package. SB purred and tugged playfully at Tomoe's hair. "Believe me, we've tried. Instead it's always talk, talk, talk, romance, romance, heroes, villains, yadda yadda. The gods have hard-ons for melodrama, seems like.

"Anyway," Tomoe continued, "you deserve to know how your story was supposed to go. It's a fairytale. Lonely guy buys magic powder for mysterious stranger. She promises it will bring him riches and delights the likes of which he had never experienced--"

"You didn't tell me anything like that. You didn't really tell me a damn thing, if you care to recall."

"Shut up," Tomoe said, "I'm on a roll. 'But,' the mysterious stranger says, 'there is one thing you must never do: you must never mix the magic powder with lime.' So the lonely guy goes off and has all sorts of wild adventurers with honey nymphs, trying different flavors and concoctions that never seem to work as he intended, and much zaniness ensues. And then the story ends in one of two ways." Tomoe held up her thumb. "First, the Disney lovey-dovey ending. Our lonely guy learns about the true meaning of love, goes on some grand quest to truly earn the love of his beloved honey nymph, and in the process she turns out to be a warrior princess under an enchantment or something equally trite, his true love for her sets her free, and they live happily ever after and all that kind of dumb crap, at least until the straight-to-video sequel is released." Tomoe's forefinger joined her thumb. "Two, the Grimm's Tales cautionary ending, which seems to be getting more and more common these days: lonely guy fucks his way through dozens of honey nymphs, getting more depraved, bored, and even lonelier with each dalliance, until he finally decides that the mysterious stranger was full of shit and lime must really be where it's at, so he makes a lime honey nymph and he..." She rubbed her extended thumb and forefinger together, making a soft sandpapery sound, and mimed flicking away something tiny and distasteful. "Well, he sublimes."

Dee had a brief flash back ["...keep you cumming and cumming..."] and admitted, "It almost happened to me. A couple of times, in fact."

SB moved close, hands splayed on the countertop, her almond-shaped, diamond eyes narrowing as they hunted for something deep within Dee. "But it didn't. No man comes back from lime. No man denies sublimation. God damn it, Dee, Lime could probably devour me in a matter of minutes. Who are you? What did you do to Lime?"

Two more flashbacks ["...The fridge. You. Before that? Dunno..." "...It's time? It's time? Is it time?..."] brought Dee to the verge of tears. He tore his gaze away from SB and watched the autumnal gold sunset through the storefront window for a long, quiet moment. "Her name was never 'Lime,'" he whispered. "She is Galatea." He turned back to face SB wearing a smile so inscrutable Tomoe wanted to photograph it for future study and practice it in front of a mirror. "She's back at my apartment," Dee said, and touched his palm to the tips of SB's fingers. "I can introduce you if you'd like."

Little drops of sport-drink florescent red sweat pricked across SB's brow, and she started to stutter. "S-s-s--"

Dee arched his eyebrow in an unconscious but perfect imitation of Galatea herself. "Solid?" he said, and lifted his hand. It dripped like it had been dipped in red grapefruit juice.

SB took a few jerky steps backward, eyes glazing an opaque, milky pink. The fingers where Dee had touched her ran together into a formless flipper. The plum-sized tip of the bulge in her one-piece crept up past her bellybutton and a candy red, gooey stain spread over her stomach. Tomoe reached out to her but hesitated.

"Your precum is maraschino cherry syrup?" Dee said but shook his head. "I'm sorry, that was going too far. I haven't been myself lately."

Tomoe glared at him. "Maybe you just didn't know who you really were before now. Dee, you need to learn how to control it."

Dee matched her glare. "Control...what?" Dee growled in a deep, bass register.

Tomoe wilted, knees buckling, palms flat against her inner thighs. "Please, Dee," she said, gnawing the flesh of her bottom lip. "Call it back. Dial it down. Do whatever you want--" Dee snarled wordlessly and Tomoe's eyes fluttered up as her head lolled down "--ah, God, do anything you want, just please, stop playing games," Tomoe begged.

"Games?" Dee said, gripping the countertop. "What games?" A tracery of cracks raced away from his clutching fingers, weaving an irregular spider web in the counter's glass. I've said that before, he thought, haven't I? No, it wasn't me...One of his earliest memories of Galatea hit him hard. He blinked. "Tomoe? SB?" But the two women just gawked in fear. Fear of me, he realized. He slumped over the countertop. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wouldn't. I would never..." And this time he let himself cry for a while.

Someone stepped close. "SB," Tomoe said, "you were right." Her petite but strong fingers ruffled Dee's hair. "He is a real lime-guy."

SB strutted up, and gave Dee's shoulder a friendly punch. Dee stood and she greeted him with a wide, knowing grin, "Go on home, hero," she said and struck out her right hand. "Galatea is waiting."

He nodded, straightened out his coat, and shook her hand. "Man," SB marveled, "what a grip." She threw her other arm around his shoulder and slapped him hard on the back, taking the opportunity to bury her face in his neck and drink in his scent. Dee felt a very unfamiliar pressure against his groin. His absent conscience was dead silent about it and his raw sex drive did not care what was touching his dick as long as it got him off. Dee himself chose to postpone his final opinion for a later date. "Dee," SB sighed as she broke the oddly-mixed embrace, "if one day Tomoe and I invited you to go...clubbing..."

"I'd be sorely tempted," Dee interrupted, grinning, but SB just laughed.

"I was going to say, 'do you think Galatea would kill us,'" she said, peeking over his shoulder into the shadowy aisle behind him.

"I don't think so. Not for just asking, anyway," he smirked.

"Now scram, sport," Tomoe said, "but don't forget your nanomek." She held out the tin of SRU Thickening Agent.

"Galatea doesn't need any more," Dee said, "and I don't want any more meliae, just her. Can't you put it back wherever it came from?"

"No way, José," Tomoe said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Dee, but you brought it forth. You paid five dollar. It's yours, and whatever happens with it is your responsibility, your karma. I wish I could rewrite the rules, but I lost the stupid policy-and-procedure manual. Keep it close, keep if safe - and for God's sake keep it dry. One schmuck poured his down the drain and the next thing he knew his city was crawling with tentacled, sperm-stealing, sewage she-demons. That's how Atlantis sank, don't you know."

"No, I didn't know." He took the tin of thickener from Tomoe, carrying it as gingerly as he would a live grenade. "And I really didn't need to know, either. And please, don't let anyone else know. I do not want to see fan art of that on the Internet."

The bell clattered as he opened the front door. He paused. "Tomoe?"

Tomoe was counting out the money in the cash register. "Yeah?" she said, and turned to SB who was flipping through the Sudoku puzzle book and muttering in befuddled anger. "You had done them all wrong, so stop bitching," Tomoe told her.

"There were three questions I forgot to ask," Dee said.

"Go on," Tomoe said, working on a tall stack of bills. "One five dollar," she muttered, "two five dollar, three five dollar..."

"Why did you fire the other guy?"

"I didn't like him," said Tomoe, "and besides, I didn't fire him. I just said, 'Whatever you do, don't take anything from the supply closet.' Never fails."

"Oh," Dee said. "Tomoe?"

"Yes, yes, two more questions, I know, I'm listening. Galatea must have to sit on your face to shut you up."

Dee turned the tin over in his hands. "What would happen if you ate some nanomek?"

"Me?" Tomoe said, about halfway through the stack of five dollar bills. "Probably nothing. Unless I guzzled semen at the same time, then I might turn into a cum-powered hose-beast monstrosity or something. Remember, it never works as expected."

The silence stretched. Tomoe and SB looked up at him. "Dee?" Tomoe asked.

The nanomek powder scrapped and scratched the inside of the tin. Dee tried to steady his hands. "What if...what if I ate some nanomek?" Dee asked.

"Don't," said Tomoe, jumping out her seat and scattering the pile of bills, "don't even think about it. You can eat Galatea out as much as you like, but don't swallow any raw, non-patterned nanomek. That's even crazier than making a lime meliae."

"That would be giving nanomek its own source of sperm," explained SB. "Take me, for instance. I can cum. I can cum gallons. I'm a one man-woman bukkake extravaganza."

"She really, really is," breathed Tomoe. She reached out and twined a cotton-candy dreadlock around a lazy forefinger, her eyes roving up and down SB's crystalline angles and jellified curves.

SB flushed russet under Tomoe's hungry gaze. "Any-anyway," she stammered, as Tomoe slid her other hand down the front of SB's one-piece, "I c-cum seminal fluid, not semen. Letting nanomek--ah!--have its way with your balls would be--oh, yeah--no-don't-stop! Just, just keep doing that. Oh, wow."

Dee shuffled uncomfortably. "You, uh, could've just told me to get lost. I would've taken the hint."

Tomoe disappeared below the countertop. SB started, "I--" but gave a little yelp and threw her arms wide to clutch at the counter, the fat puzzle book flapping to the floor. "I-thought-I-told-you-that-when-we-first-met," she squeaked as fast as she could before a small, delicate hand with an iron grip reached up and hauled her down by the ponytail behind the counter.

Dee listened to the couple murmur and gasp for a moment before whispering, "Good night, guys." He shut the door as slowly as he could to keep that horrible bell from clattering.

A few seconds later, Tomoe, topless but with her blouse gathered up to cover her chest, jogged out from behind the counter. "T, you devil-bitch, get back here!" SB cried from behind counter.

"Fuck you I want to watch him walk," Tomoe said.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, me too!" SB ran to join her.

"Christ, SB, cover up, he might notice a three foot erection bouncing in the window."

"Oh, shit, sorry. Um. Do you have a tarp or something?"

"Never mind, SB, just let me look. God, what an ass."

"He's got a cute butt, though, T."

"Oh, hardy-har-fucking-har-har."

"Seriously, T. What's going on? What is she doing to him?"

"Her? Nothing. Him? Everything. Rules."

"I've known you for three thousand years, T, if you include the future and all those temporal continuum anomalies, and I don't even know what the fuck you just said."

The odd couple watched in silence as Dee started up his car and pulled away.

"He had company, you know," said SB. "An entire entourage, seemed like."

"I know," said Tomoe. "One I expected, the other I didn't. Still, it's best not to warn him. These things just get worse if I meddle. More than my usual meddling, I mean."

"What happens now?" said SB.

Tomoe reached up and wrapped her arms around SB's shoulders. "You know how this goes," Tomoe sighed, "they think they're in love, but all they have in common is sex, sex, sex. So, their love must be tested. You remember."

SB's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. You and your stupid rules."

"I didn't write them, SB."

"Bullshit. You're forgetting who you're talking to, T." But SB cradled Tomoe's head on her shoulder.

They stood in silence as twilight fell, a dusty blue van rumbling down the access road providing the only movement and noise. Tomoe stepped back to look SB in the eye. "Tell me truthfully, SB: Would you fuck him?"

"What, you mean would I fuck Dee?"

"Do you want to fuck him? Tell me true, now." Tomoe asked. Her eyes twinkled with the potential of tears.

SB glanced out to the window and sighed. "Yes, T. I would fuck him. I want to fuck him. In fact, lover-girl, I would fuck him and fuck him until his ass was as red as mine and then I'd keep fucking him until my dick fell off." SB turned back to Tomoe and locked her in a clinch, mashing their breasts together. Tomoe's legs had to bow slightly to let SB's cock slide tight against her crotch and under her ass. Now fully engorged, SB's dick curved like a scimitar, its head pushing into the small of Tomoe's back. SB's pale crystalline eyes flashed brighter than the stars. "But I'd much rather do that to you."

"Oh, honey," cooed Tomoe, flipping the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. "You say the sweetest things."

* * * *

My creation, is it real?

It's my creation, I do not know

No hesitation, no heart of gold

Just flesh and blood, I do not know

From my heart and from my hand

Why don't people understand

My intentions...

Weird science!!

-Oingo Boingo, Weird Science

* * * *