private

“Are you coming to bed, baby?” actor/writer/inventor Tom Casey called from across the room.”

“I’m *thinking* about it.”

“Why don’t you think some more about it cuddled up in my big, muscular arms.”

Anorexia huffs and recrosses her arms and legs. “Are those your trophy girls?”

“What?”

“The women beside you on the bed. Your harem or whatever. Is that what I’m to be added to?”

“Oh. *Those* girls. They mean nothing to me, sweets.”

“Why don’t you, I don’t know, put them *face down* on the nightstand, then? If we’re going to go through with this.”

“Listen, Annie, I paid top dollar for this rendezvous. I had to come all the way out to this adult sub-continent to get away from prying eyes. You don’t know the psychotic depths of my ex.”

“I think you are motivated by one thing and one thing only.

Have you ever heard the Poodle Lecture?”

“What?” Tom Casey repeated.

“It’s how Zappa explained WO-MAN controlled MAN. It’s why I left the fold. But now I’m summoned back. She thought back to removing her ruby slippers and rainbow halo at last.

“*I* asked for you.”

“No you didn’t. The Kidd asked for me. She said her daddy was in a heap of trouble and I had to do this to make things right. Had a thing for thin, she said. Something about supermodels.”

“Philip,” Tom Casey explained again to her, “is a simple accountant. Working in a simple stripper club. Nothing more.”

“You’re dreaming if you say that.”

The actor/writer/inventor sat up in the bed and looked her over from the span separating them. “18, you say?”

“Right.” She was wiggling her foot rapidly.

“Cause there’ve been rumors.”

“Rumors started by The Kidd. It makes me look innocent. I’m not, of course.”

“Then come over here. Let’s get started.”

The flames rose rapidly.