"I saw a cartoon mouse," I cried as Jessica slammed the door shut.

"Sure." She undid my tie. "Anything to distract me from this."

She shoved me against the wall, kissing me.

"Honest to God!" I shouted as I pulled away from her. "It was real! It was playing with the ice machine!"

"Let's play with something else." She unbuttoned my suit coat.

I frowned at her outfit. Avoiding sex hadn't been the only reason for me jumping off the bed and hitting my head on the floor.

As my eyes traveled downwards, I quickly came to the conclusion that she wasn't merely obsessed, she was insane.

Instead of letting the airy silk be itself and cling to her curves, she had sown patches all over it.

Daisy Duck.

Roger Rabbit.

Hello Kitty.

Fifi Skunk.

There were others. She must have been planning something like this for months. Unless those were her normal evening clothes...

The one sown onto the front of her panties was (what else) a cartoon beaver.

"That's a tad immature...the patches, I mean..."

Jessica ran a hand down her outfit. "Let's make it mature."

"Are you trying to make yourself feel young, or are you just trying to make me think of you as a kid?"

She shrugged. "Maybe both?"

"I know, you're trying to make me more comfortable with this by trying to relate to a younger generation. That's it, isn't it?"

"Maybe I just want you to feel my patches!"

She pressed me against the wall, tasting all the parts of my mouth.

"Let's not do this," I protested. "I know, I know, we're technically consenting adults, but..."

"See? You said it yourself. We're consenting. We implies you, which means you just gave your consent. What more do we need to discuss?"

"Actually," I said. "I didn't mean it that way. I never actually gave my consent, and I don't feel that this is the right time-"

"You're not gay, are you?"

I shook my head.

"I'm not that ugly, am I?"

"Why do you want me? What is it that attracts you to me so much?"

She threw my coat aside, unbuttoning my shirt. "You know more than you're telling about Cool World."

"I'm not," I said. "Me and dad weren't even close."

She kissed me some more, removing the rest of the buttons. "Someone's been making Cool World comics. Continuing the series. Even without your father being here. Care to explain?"

"It wasn't me. I don't know any more than you do about that."

"A pity." She unbuckled my belt.

"Look. You think I'd be asking you all these dumb questions and being skeptical about it if I knew something?"

She kissed me again, sliding my shirt off. "Well, maybe you don't know anything, but you have your father's blood..."

"And you think by bearing some, you can open a gate to Cool World."

She gave my pants a tug, and they slid to the floor, leaving me standing in my boxer shorts. "You got a better idea?"

I started to say something, but then her tongue was in my mouth.

When I got my lips free enough to talk, I said, "As fun as this is, I actually do think there is a better way."

She pressed her body against mine, sliding her hands down my shorts. "You sure?"

I pulled her hand away. "Positive. I wasn't joking about the mouse."

I pulled my pants back on, haphazardly tugging my shirt around my shoulders as I drew the door open.

Jessica was throwing on one of those filmy silk robes with the fur trim all around it. I would have told her to dress more decently, but I had more important things to think about than her manner of undress (though it wasn't far from my mind).

I peered into the hallway, checking from the left to the right, but saw no sign of the mouse.

"Anything?" Jessica breathed into my neck.

"No."

"You really are gay, aren't you?"

Not replying, I crept down the corridor, checking the spot where the creature had been carelessly poking the ice dispensing lever. Melting cubes lay scattered all over the carpet.

"This is where I saw it," I said. "It said `shit' then ran off."

She ran her hands across the machine, gently touching parts of the mechanism.

"What are you doing now?" I asked.

"I'm looking for toon residue. Maybe some of that black stuff..." She frowned, pulling her hand away.

"I don't know," I sighed. "I'm going to keep looking." And I crept to the end of the hallway, peeking around the corner.

Jessica's heels clopped loudly as she followed. I scowled at her.

"I can hear you coming a mile away. I know it's sexy, but could you please remove that footwear?"

Grinning, she nodded, yanking them off. "Anything yet?"

"No!" I hissed.

We passed a security guard, an old guy, roughly in his sixties or seventies. When he passed us, he just chuckled. "Don't enjoy yourself too much, or it'll get old by the time that second anniversary rolls along."

Shuddering, I gave him a nod.

"Don't worry. We're not the type of couple that gets easily bored," Jessica replied.

I cringed.

We waited for the man to pass, then watched the end of the hallway.

"Anything now?"

"Not since the last time you asked," I muttered.

We reached a locked security door.

"Banning people from admiring the view," I deadpanned. "A shame."

Jessica frowned at the keypad, practically sticking her nose into the buttons. "Definitely a shame."

I blinked, and for a moment, her lingerie appeared to be made of bright blue paint.

It flickered, reverting to silk and patches, ceasing to be animated.

"Did you see that?" I said.

She nodded. "I first found out about it when I was sewing the patches on. Only does it once every thirty minutes. I timed it. Pretty sexy, huh?"

"What other toys do you got?"

She reddened. "Well..."

Imagining her `toys' to be in the adult category, I blurted, "Don't answer that."

Then I frowned. "You don't even wash it, do you?"

"What, and lose the magic?"

Noting my look of disgust, she added, "This was worn on Holli's body! You can't wash something like that! It's like the holy grail!"

"I don't think that's a fair comparison," I said.

"Regardless of what you think, this outfit is special. I'll never do anything to weaken its power."

I thought about the old body sweat and musty `tuna' smells it probably still retained and shuddered. "Which is why we should sleep in separate beds."

"It's not as bad as you think. Whenever it becomes animated, I can feel the fabric renewing on my skin. It's like the substance from the other world flash burns all the bacteria away."

"Sure," I groaned. "And the dirty towels I put in the gym locker in high school were perfectly clean after I left them in there a month and let the mold fall off."

"See?" she said with a grin. "You're not a germaphobe, either."

Rolling my eyes, I turned a corner, continuing our search.

Soon we had gone a full circuit around the square of hotel suites and soda machines, passing the elevators.

Nothing.

The door to our suite was closed, and, worse, I didn't have the key.

"Where's the card key?"

"I thought you had it," she said.

I sighed in frustration. "Great. We're locked out."

Before I could say anything about the check-in desk, Jessica shrugged off her robe and kissed me.

"What are you doing?" I blurted as she slid my pants to the floor. "We can't be doing this out here! Someone will see us!"

"So? Maybe they'll open the room!"

I blushed. "C'mon. We could get in trouble."

"We're right in front of the suite," she said as she rubbed against my lap. "What are they going to say?"

"You're crazy."

"And it gets you excited. I can feel it."

"Jessica!" I cried. "Stop!"

"Look," she said, giving me a kiss. "According to paranormal literature, ghosts and spiritual entities never appear when you're looking for them. That's why you need to look busy doing something else!"

"You sure have some lame excuses for getting in my pants," I said.

She gave me some tongue. "And you don't care. Admit it."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pastel colored blob.

Turning my head slightly, I could see it was the mouse.

It appeared to be some sort of baby, for it wore a diaper and carried around a bottle.

In fact, I thought I recognized it from an actual cartoon show. Maybe Baby Looney Toons or something, though since I couldn't stomach the program, I would have only recognized that from hospital smocks in the pediatrics ward.

"Don't look now," I whispered. "But we're being watched. By someone animated."

Jessica playfully nibbled my ear lobe. "Probably wants a free show."

She hooked a finger into the waistband of my boxers, tugging down. "Let's not disappoint them."

"No," I murmured as she pulled my shorts and inch lower.

"Your body's saying yes."

"The last time I checked, that line won't hold up in court."

"How about this one, then?" she breathed, pulling on the boxers some more. "That creature over there is going to run away if we don't do something to sustain its interest."

The cartoon rodent stroked the front of its diaper as it watched us. I suddenly felt sick.

"What about knock knock jokes or juggling? It works in the cartoons."

She unsnapped something between her legs, and I saw she had on the kind of panties that opened in the middle, for convenience. The flaps of fabric dangled invitingly. "Let's not give it any reasons to go away."

I thought for sure we were going to take things to their natural conclusion.

I guess, if I were truly honest with myself, I wouldn't have minded (well, except for the dirty lingerie).

However, at the precise moment she had my shorts pulled down to my knees, positioning herself for entry, I heard a sniffle, then a loud "wachoo!"

All of a sudden, we were thrown down the hallway by a strong, hurricane force wind.

Our bodies slammed into a sheetrock wall, which crumbled and fell inward with the force of our impact.

"Bless me," the mouse muttered.

It was then that I recognized our animated voyeur. Little Sneezer from Tiny Toons.

Little Sneezer had blown us through a hotel wall.

Almost completely naked.

Through a wall.

Damn, I thought. What kind of screwed up planet are we living on?

We lay sprawled in a dirty old hotel room with peeling wallpaper partially defaced by cartoon drawings.

We coughed in plaster dust, staring at each other in amusement.

Jessica laughed as I pulled my shorts back up. "Was it good for you?"