Page 72 of Flirtasaurus
“I think you’ll find that mushrooms are different, kid,” Otto says. He looks and sounds like a flesh-colored Yoda chugging from an old-school thermos. Oh my God, why does Otto suddenly look and sound like a flesh-colored Yoda chugging from an old-school thermos?
Ralph must see the glaze come over my eyes and makes a split-second decision. He reaches his hand out for the thermos Otto is clutching. “May I?”
“May you what?” I say in a voice that doesn’t quite sound like mine. It reverberates around my brain on a loop, and dare I say, it sounds kind of … sexy? “May you what? May you what? May you what?” Oooh. I never realized what a sensual voice I have. Yum.
“Course, kid!” Otto says, seemingly without a second thought.
“You sure? Because I don’t want to take what’s left of your stash.”
“Kid, my fridge is full to the brim with brew. My dehydrator is always at the ready, and I have enough pizzas speckled with psychedelics in my freezer to feed an army. Drink up.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Shhhhhhh!” I whisper so damn loudly that it defeats the point of whispering in the first place. “I wanna show you something.”
I point down the long hallway to the locked door leading to Trix and Monty’s exhibit hall. Then I look Ralph square in the eyes. Well, as squarely as I can when things are looking all blurry and beautiful. Lifting the badge hanging from the lanyard around my neck, I pretend to nibble it. And lick it. And fondle it. You know, like a seduction. Though I don’t actually put my mouth or tongue on it because… germs.
He laughs. Not exactly the reaction I was going for, but okay.
“You’re taking me into the exhibition hall?” he whispers.
“That’s right, baby. I’m a girl with… access. Come on.”
I grab his hand and start tiptoeing like I’m in an episode ofScooby-Doo.
“Hey,” I say, “how come you don’t seem loopy at all? You chugged that stuff, and I only had like a sip.”
“Well, I have a lot more experience than you.”
As we continue to tiptoe down the hall, I whisper, “Oh, I’m not actually a virgin. So don’t worry that pretty little head of yours.”
“No, no! I meant I have more experience with shrooms, not with… Wait. Why would I think you were a virgin? And why would I be worried about that?”
“Remember when we were in the heart, and I confessed that I had a dirty dream about you?”
“You actually didn’t fully specify that it was dirty”—he smiles—“but yes, I remember.”
“For the record, it was filthy. Anyway. After my confession, I treated you to a list of the recurring dreams that I have, one of which was being pregnant even though I’m still a virgin.”
“Right, right...”
“Well, I’m not. A virgin, that is. That’s just the case in the dream.”
“Fair enough. Hey, why are we talking about this? Do you think we’re going to—”
“This is where you say ‘Neither am I.’”
“Calliope, I’m really confused right now.”
“Oh, shit.Areyou?”
“Am I what?”
“A virgin. Yet to be deflowered. You know, ‘Not a girl, not yet a woman.’”
“Brittney fan?”
“Duh.”
