Page 83 of Shroom for Improvement

Jasper shook his head. “Kids these days.”

I was acutely conscious of his raging erection hanging between us. It looked heavy, cumbersome even, like a battering ram, or a fire extinguisher. Same colour too.

“It’s just that the house is always watching,” I said.

He shrugged. “So? Nothing wrong with an audience now and then. And if you don’t leave right away, you’ll be in one. Helena’s coming, and once that door shuts, no one leaves, and no one enters.” He smirked. “Except me, obviously.” His laughter cracked through the room like a thunderclap. “Anyway, what’s taking that woman so long? Should have been here twenty minutes ago.”

“Probably stuffing pee-hay into your mattress,” Claude said under his breath, but Jasper whipped his head round to him.

“What?!” He didn’t wait for clarification. He pushed Claude and Mr Greene to either side like a bowling ball parting pins, sending Mr Greene to his knees. Then he stomped down the corridor and out of view. “HELENA!”

Claude ushered us out and shut the door. “Is there any point in continuing this tour? Or shall we call it a day here?”

“Oh, yes, continue,” said Mr Greene, though he sounded a lot less certain than he did an hour ago.

Claude subtly rolled his eyes and let Mr Greene and Mr Cope get ahead of us. “What by-product was Mr Dupont referring to?” he asked me.

A bubble of nervous laughter escaped my throat. “Um, jizz.”

“I should have guessed,” Claude said, before giggling adorably.

We ascended the stairs to the second level and Claude began opening doors systematically, offering the visitors barely enough time to poke their heads in, before he shut it and moved on to the next.

“This is the thrift shop,” he said, of an actual, fully functioning thrift shop, complete with cash register and harried-looking sales assistant.

He opened another door. “Here’s where we keep all our creepy dolls.” Paused. “Correction, sorry, here’s where we keep our haunted dolls.”

“This is the formal lobotomy room. For formal lobotomies, obviously.”

“And here’s the casual lobotomy room. When you want to perform discredited neurosurgery but without all the paperwork and restrictions.”

“This here is the frisbee cemetery. Where frisbees are apparently buried, but are also used as gravestone markers.”

“The room of minute hands. Just a bunch of minute hands from old broken clocks. Because... reasons.”

“The bank-vault blueprint room.”

“The taxidermy honey badger and wolverine room.”

“The mirror maze.”

“The courtroom.”

“The javelin-stick cupboard.”

“The cloud forest? Does it end?”

“The—really, Jenny?—the butt-plug storage? Fine, whatever.”

“And obviously, the interchangeable butt-plug tassels and tails storage.”

“The confession booth.”

“The dry dock.”

“The alligator insemination room.”

“The manure room.”

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