I grab up my sword and the three of us go around the clubhouse to the front to meet Ni— we’re not going inside to see Dot getting reamed. I look to G to see how we’re gonna handle this. “We’re just getting in the Pony and going, G? No need to say anything to them? Sonja has intuited it all? Or you explained it to her? I thought you were crazy about her.”

“That was ten minutes ago. Now all I can think of is some lines in translation that are flitting around in my head from Baudelaire’s ‘Giantess.’ Something about ‘loving to watch her body ripen and grow tremendous with her terrible games and to guess from the rainclouds darkening her eyes what thunderbolts are gathered in her heart.’ Except I’m not loving it. In other words, Sonja’s a cosmic shitstorm.”

“Is that from Fleurs du Mal?” I ask. It’s the best I can do under the circumstances. I haven’t even read all of Fleurs du Mal. In translation, of course, I couldn’t read French to save my derriere, and I’m sure that should get an accent mark, but fuck it. I’m terrified Joy or Ni will say something stunningly incisive about Baudelaire, but they don’t. They’re looking at each other hungrily and I suspect they may be communicating telepathically.