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I furrowed my brow as it slowly sunk in. Could he have expected something more than just verbal appreciation from Ms. Waboombas?

“Left a little chocolate on the pillow and everything.”

Sex! That randy bastard! Clearly Woodruff hoped for a little Waboombas nooky! He never put chocolates on my pillow. I would have to speak to him about the appropriateness of doing things for people. I looked around, wondering why he wasn’t here—now— waiting on her every whim, spoon-feeding her cereal, wiping her chin—please, GOD, someone wipe her chin!

Through the pocket door I saw the foyer closet open—just a crack, Stephen King Boogie-Man-like—and wondered if Woodruff might be in there right this minute, watching Ms. Waboombas and choking his anaconda.

“I’m…” I fumbled like a man who’s been water-boarded one time too many, “…delighted—I suppose would be the word—that he…made you feel…welcome? He made you feel welcome?” I asked, an injection-molded smile embedding itself into my face.

She shrugged. “Most guys do.”

“Yes. Well. I imagine so,” I said, grinning, Joker-like, and clinging to sanity with my fingernails. “Now, as to our sharing a hotel, and who’s sleeping where…”

“We were all going,” Morgan interjected. “So I figured we could just split the cost, you know. Save us all a little money.”

I turned my smiling death mask toward Morgan, showing him I knew ‘cost’ to be the last thing on his mind when he offered her our room to our resident sex machine. My unspoken message hit him directly between the eyes, and he actually flinched.

Ms. Waboombas glanced around at the opulence of my home. Mine and Morgan’s to her understanding. “’Course, it’s not like you need to save or anything. You could afford to pay for the whole thing. You were going to anyway, even if I didn’t come.” She paused. Waiting. Then getting nothing, she looked around again—very slowly—at the posh surroundings to emphasize her point. Finally, she fixed her attentions on me again.

“Me?” she told me. “I’m on a variable income.”

“Well… ” I said, not sure what to say, which shows how dense I am. I glanced down at the comic book cover, pictured my own severed head flying from the bad man’s body and shuddered deeply. “Well…” I repeated uselessly.

Finally I managed to find the necessary words, which had to be forced out one word at a time, staccato-like. “I’d-consider-it-an— insult—if-you-didn’t-let-us-take-care-of-the—entire—trip-Ms. Waboombas. Your part—as—well—as—ours.”

She barely reacted, apparently never uncertain of this particular outcome. “Meals and everything?”

After a brief pause, and a menacing look at Morgan, I nodded slowly in agreement.

“Hot,” she said. “Thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do,” I said. “As a wealthy man who is not on a variable income.”

“And it really is the least he can do,” Morgan agreed.

I evil-eyed him again, but he was becoming immune. I slowly turned back to Ms. Waboombas. “Now. As to the sleeping arrangements…”

Abruptly, her smile collapsed. Her eyes squinched, and moved slowly back and forth between us, studying us carefully. Anger seemed to rise quickly within her. Her skin visibly bristling.

“You pay, so you expect me to fuck you? Is that it?” she asked. “Just because I take my clothes off for a living, you think I’m an easy lay?”

I was stunned. Of course I thought she was an easy lay. Especially when she appeared to be repeatedly offering to be an easy lay smothered in butter right there on the sausage plate. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be the layee. The thought had never exposed itself. Hadn’t even opened its raincoat and flashed a brain cell or two; well, maybe it had done that in my subconscious, but my subconscious is a pervert with no sense of personal consequences, and never even uses contraception.

I shook my head ‘no’ almost as rapidly as Morgan nodded his ‘yes’.

She began to pick her teeth again—slowly—looking at Morgan with grave intent. There seemed to be blood in her eyes, and I shifted nervously, trying to think of an out, nudging Morgan under the