When I settle myself awkwardly into an armchair, I notice the inside of the place doesn't at all reflect the outside. Every inch seems delicately decorated in varying shades of dark reds and darker greens (it feels like perpetual Christmas). The place is overflowing with pretty plants and pollens, all of which make me sneeze repeatedly. I cover my mouth, and make an awkward squeak each time. It rattles me right down to my insides.

"There's a blanket on the couch, before you turn into a human icicle. You've still yet to explain you're reasoning for this little visit, but I suppose it'd be rude of me to leave you outside until you do. How do you take your tea?" says the firecracker.

I get up on my feet in a dizzy haze to retrieve the blanket—only to wonder why a green extension of a thing is handing it to me. I take it, and the weird, long vine slithers away. I'm scared, now.

"Doe sugar, jus' a li'l bilk." I sneeze again, cough, and inhale so hard that the freeze-burn shoots to my brain. I flinch, and feel around the cushion to be sure that mysterious, drug-induced vine doesn't creep up again.

"I'll just assume that was cohesive and hope for the right concoction." Her voice is such an unnerving drone of a purr. I find I need the blanket for more than just the cold.

I look around, survey the place carefully. She has excellent tastes, elegant ones, soft ones, and the warm sophistication of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony floats through the air. I don't question the piles and piles of various plants scattered around, and the sad part is that I can identify every one. It's my curse, to know the smallest, most trivial facts. I can pick apart facts; I can tell her every genus of pretty flower, every type of leaf in my sight. It's the same as I know all the populations in all fifty states.

I inhale, so deep it makes me rasp a little, but for the moment my destroyed nose calms down and I can inhale the various, deadly toxins floating through the air. I don't enjoy this place one bit.

After a few minutes of losing me in the folds of her warm, fluffy blanket, the woman with legs for miles and cherry hair emerges. She holds a tray neatly with two little, china cups that are white, decorated with what I know as a blue, Grecian pattern.

"It's chamomile. It's good for your throat, so you don't incidentally eject your lung in this environment." I wonder, curiously, if her sense of humor is as weird as Cleave's. Hastily, I find myself checking my cell phone—

Bitterly, all I can think is I'm carrying your child, you fuck, the least you can do is send me a text of the 'r u ok?' variety.

"Anytime you'd like to spin me a tale so I can understand your predicament, feel free." Her tea is warm and perfectly heated. It's soothing, since my throat was inevitably burning. I avoid her hotly emerald gaze at all costs, and stifle another sniffle.

"I'm pregnant with his ki-kid, and I left, and I-I—"

"Now I will guess—no, not guess, I will perceive that this pregnancy of yours is not of the most honorable means?" She leans forward, sips at her cup, and I almost spit-fire with a nasty remark before I swallow it hard. I want to back-hand her at that moment, and say that the desecration was enough, but the verbal desecration is just unnecessary. I don't realize her matter-of-fact disposition is the damn truth; she's actually not mocking me.

"If it was honorable I-I-I wouldn't have shoved everything—" I sneeze, so hard I rattle, nearly out of my chair, but catch myself at the arm quickly, "—in dat bag an' left like ah dit."

"You have horrendous allergies."

The look in her eyes says she's up to something. I protectively cuddle around the blanket, embroidered with little vines. It's a forest color. I've always loved green.

"Dawgs-uh, birds, flowers, polle-d," the word 'pollen' doesn't work out so well. This time, I rock forward and then excuse myself, so quickly I realize I'm rambling. My head is clouded with floating stars and the awful sensation dandelions give me behind my eyes when they become too swollen to do a thing with but squint.

"Human contact," She adds in, sarcastically, and reaches for something I don't really see. I shudder, but she picks up before I can go on speaking, "To paraphrase, you need a place to stay because the clown has leapt on your last nerve—or, maybe, you have leapt on his. It's hard to tell, with the way he acts. I wouldn't be surprised if your departure was just from losing tolerance. I couldn't handle that many bad jokes in a single day, let alone an entire relationship. Was the sex highlighted by a whoopee cushion? I'm sure face-paint is thrilling."

This must be why he called her a man-hating bitch.

I find myself almost ecstatic that I'm a female.

"We-Well...I-I…it was…it was…" I choke, so hard, so hard, "It was…bad."

I nervously wriggle around and wonder if I can disappear within the crevices of this material. She's making me feel like Cleave usually does. In a word, nervous. I pause, and question myself mentally. Was the sex bad? I'm still trying to dig up the memories. It…must have been pretty good; the flickers of things I see seem pretty decent.

"In short, you're looking for a place to stay, and this is your only option." She folds her hands just under her chin and her legs cross primly. They're clad in a pair of green denim jeans that cling to her curves. She's perfectly aesthetic in every way. I can't help but feel like the prey just under the hunter's gun.

"Th-Th—" I look up far enough to glance at her red lips. They're glossed, shiny, "This is my only o-option."

"Well," She says, and rakes a nail through her curly, fiery hair, "As soon as you finish that tea, I'll show you to your room."

Those lips, they pull into a smile.