"Catechumen."

"Bless you."

"That's not... Uh, do you know what catechumen means?"

"What, do I look like a dictionary? No, no, hold on; you wouldn't know anything about that. Let me start over. I'm in it tighter than a pre-op transman's chest and that is to say that I'm in a bind. I've got two corpses and no answers. Well, calling them corpses is a bit of a stretch considering that one of them mysteriously turned into liquid and the other one mysteriously turned into bones. Now I have to find who did this and why. Or something. Also I may have killed one or both of them but that's really beside the point. I'm unclear on the specifics of the case, but there is a case in here somewhere. I take it by your blank stare that you don't follow me. Well, neither do I, but somebody's got to wear the coat and it might as well be me."

"You aren't wearing a coat. You aren't wearing anything but a pair of gloves and some overdesigned sneakers."

"No, see here?"

"That's a safety pin stuck through your chest and a Post-it note with 'COAT' written on it."

"Genuine smooth-head leather. You wouldn't believe how many babies they skinned to make it. I sure don't."

"Why did you use a safety pin when you could have just stuck the Post-it on?"

"Hey, do I come to your work and tell you how to do your job?"

"No... why are you here?"

"For... dramatic effect? Like that? Is that how you do it?"

"Close! You have to make this shape with your mouth."

"Oh, like... that."

"Yeah! You've got it!"

"..."

"Exactly!"

"..."

"Alright, you can stop that now; we've read that joke in a different fanfic. If you're here about the bodies you've found, detective, I'm afraid I know nothing about them."

"Would you put your hand on a Bible and swear on that in a court of law so help you God?"

"If you really felt the need to summon me to court for that, I guess so. Now what is it I can do for you, other than show you the door?"

"You know what, kid, I like the uniforms you wear here. What do you say about getting me a job?"

"Sir, this is a monastery."

I guess that explains all the crucifixes on the roof I saw coming in here. Wait, crucifixes? Or crucifixii? Guess it doesn't matter. "Listen, I like your robes. That's what you call them, right? Robes?"

"Yeah. Robes."

"I think white and red's my color. Colors, I mean. White and red are two different colors. So how does a guy go about getting a job here?"

"Well, for starters, you have to live here—"

"Free board's a company benefit. Got it."

"—and pretty much renounce all your worldly affairs—"

"Oof. Limited free time. Okay."

"—which I'd think strange of someone as famous as you, Sonic."

"Eh, the celebrity life isn't all what it's cracked up to be. That reminds me: I have to call my agent and tell her to cancel my appearance on Celebrity Camera: Privacy Invasion; tell her I've got a new job at a monastery."

"I thought you were a detective now?"

"Well, somebody's got to wear the robes. So what's the interview process like?"

"How do you feel about God?"

"Depends on how much DMT I've had, and if it's any good DMT. Not cut with formaldehyde or fentanyl or any of that street shit."

"Uh-huh. What's your position on homosexuality?"

"I don't know what you've heard, but not anymore."

"Okay. Good. And your position on extramarital sex?"

"According to the Internet, I'm a power bottom."

"Hmm, we could always use some more of those around here. Judaism?"

"Kosher food's great."

"Definitely. Islam?"

"Halal food's great."

"Smile at the service goers?"

"Only on Ash Wednesdays and only if I remember them from last year."

"Yeah, C&E Catholics suck ass. Alright, let's do a little scenario roleplay. Bear with me here. Someone comes in on your day of silent penitence and enters the confessional booth. You figure, what the hell, you're already here, right? So you get in there and it turns out it's your ex-girlfriend. She doesn't know it's you. She confesses that she's trying to track you down—she doesn't know it's you in the confessional booth listening, do you follow? Okay, so, she says that she had a pregnancy, thinks it's most likely yours, and has been trying to track you down to let you know that you have a child but isn't sure if it's a sin to try and tempt you back into the secular world. What do you say?"

"Were we married?"

"No, I said ex-girlfriend. She's your ex-girlfriend."

"Call her a harlot and sentence her to the sweatshop laundry for single mothers?"

"Wow, I can't believe it but you passed with flying colors. This has never happened before. When can you start?"

"Right after you stop teaching choir boys how to sing hymns with their lips around your dick! Gotta juice!" And then I speed out of there.

No, I can't tell you why I did it. You know what they say. Something something Missouri, something five of something. Something like that. What even is a Missouri, anyway?

"Hey, Amy," I sez, I sez. "Listen."

I'm back at Amy's apartment and she's on the couch, staring at the ceiling, grey-eyed, not saying a word. A fly emerges from her mouth and begins making slow, lazy circles around her head.

"I have something I have to tell you," and I produce a brown paper bag from inside my coat. "I, uh, went shopping today for something that I think is going to help spice things up a bit."

The fly lands on her eyeball. She doesn't blink or try to shake it off or anything. it begins rapidly cleaning its proboscis.

"Don't look at me like that," I say, I guess to the fly. "I know you feel it too. Things have been getting a little stale between us." Petting the mottled skin on her naked chest with my hand. The fly's still on her blank eye.

"Don't worry, it's nothing too kinky. I promise you'll enjoy it as much as me," I lie as I pull the rubber mask out of the bag. Affix it to her head. The fly escapes the delicious surface of her unfocused eyeball just in time.

"There you go. Wow, you look so fuckable right now. Jesus."

Tails's rubbery face peers back at me from Amy's head.

"Lookin' good," I say. "But I'm not the gay one, Tails. Not anymore. So you know what else I got—" and then I pull the neon blue wig I got out of the bag and fix it on Tails's head. His I mean her face gets a little pinched as the wig starts bunching it up, his eye sockets moving too far up for his eyeballs, but whatever.

"Yeah, that's it. I'm gonna fuck you hard, you woman," and then I spread Tails's legs wide open and go right in for the pussy, no foreplay. Foreplay is for losers. If there's anything chicks should know about me, it's that I live hard and fast and fuck the same way. Or something. This sex is beautiful because it's everything I want and nothing she wants, and I don't have to worry about apologizing or anything. I am perfectly safe here in a world where everything caters to me and nothing is complicated or terrifying. Isn't that what everybody wants?

That is what everybody wants, right?