Page 235 of Bride of Choice

Another swatch was tossed at me. “Shut up.” Her face reddened but she laughed.

“Hey, so I’m gonna head off to Rosa’s. She asked me to stop by the next time I was making the rounds. I want to make sure she’s set with the kiddies’ duds for Festival. They are pumped their mama is making them “codsumes spedshul”.”

“Awww. I can’t wait.” Mal clapped her hands together and grinned like the crazy happy bitch she was.

“I’ll smell ya later, huh, mama-soon-to-be?”

“Snoochie booches,” she called back as I stood to leave and made my way to the door.

Onward. Forward. Fuck all, I kept telling myself, if only to get me through the day.

???

I was halfway home after hanging with Rosa and gushing over the job well done on the kiddos’ costumes when I realized I was beanie-less. I could have sworn I’d worn one out today…

Shrugging it off because I didn’t have it in me to give a single fuck right now, I jerked my hoodie over my head and pulled the strings tight.

Brrr. It was colder than normal tonight. Or maybe that was just me?

Perhaps I was a masochist for taking the route to my hut that cut past Bum-bum’s, but I’d wanted to see if he’d found my not-present or not yet. I needed to know.

The basket with his horns and pelt was gone and the hole in his door now had a plank of wood over it. The lipstick-painted liar remained.

Thinking the message was received and he’d taken it with a devastatingly chill amount of grace, I knew something was funky as I came up on my place and Gopher and Odix popped up from where it looked like they’d been waiting for me.

Stopping a few feet away from them, not particularly in the mood to have it out with them right now, my eyes slowly widened as Odix began to shift from foot to foot and I got a good look at the enormous dick sticking halfway out of my door, just behind him.

“What the hell?!” I burst out, rushing up to find my door not just dicked, literally, but kicked in. When I ran inside, I came to a screeching halt near the table. My bed was made neatly, Bum-bum’s blanket laid out over my comforter, his pelt neatly placed on top of it. New shelving had been put up, vases and what looked like small statues at first glance lined the walls. There was food sitting on a metal warming bowl like older households with larger families used to keep the food warm longer without having to keep it set over the fire.

Turning around, my eyes about bugged at the scratched in markings in the door. “Mine,” I read aloud, not quite sure how to take that. Nothing says I fucking love you like a psycho stalker etching Mine into your door. On closer inspection, eyeing bits of red, I realized the word mine was written over and over again all over the door, like some sort of crazy mantra.

“He’s insane,” I breathed. And by he I had no idea if I really meant all sides of him, one, or what.

“Bum-bum Jo mate?” Odix asked, his voice hoarse and croaking like he had a frog in it.

“Joanie doesn’t have a mate,” I muttered, unsure where to start with Bum-bum’s crazy vase lady with the knickknacks nuttiness.

Grabbing an empty basket, I stood on the bed, using my arm to brush everything off the shelves and drop them into the basket.

An odd, blue figurine caught my eye. Staring at it, I paused, then plopped down on my bed to rummage it out of the basket. Trying to figure out what the hell I was looking at, I held it up to the light.

Gopher made a noise that drew my attention, along with Odix’s.

“What the hell is it?” I muttered, turning it this way and that.

When I shivered where I sat, both males stepped inside and closed the door behind them.

Gopher’s head tilted as he eyed me. “Jo not know?” Humor laced his tone but I didn’t get it.

I mean… “Should I?” Squinting, holding it up higher, turning it upside down, there were what looked like two forms converging to one, but…

Odix made a choked noise. It was then that I noticed the pillow he was clutching to his stomach. “On side,” he pointed out, rhythmically kneading the pillow in his hands.

“On its side,” I mumbled, but then it all came into focus, crystal clear. “Good god, is that a…” Realizing I was looking at a sexy statue thingy, a small, startled laugh left me. That wasn’t a sexy couple, that was Bum-bum and me, in one of many compromising positions. Rummaging through the basket, all the little figurines were weird little sexy mementos from my romps with Bum-bum. In all of his alternate states of being/forms, I noted.

“Can I melt them down?” I wondered aloud. I didn’t want those things sitting on my fancy new shelves for all to see like, “Hey, look what I can do!”

“No!” Odix barked, rushing over to snatch the one next to me and hold it to his chest, along with his pillow.

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