"Why the–" Hack, cough. "– play-by-play?"

"Because I want you to know that I know what I'm doing."

"Again, why?"

"So your instinct will be to fear me. Eventually, my very presence becomes torture. If a man abuses a dog enough, soon the dog fears all men. The dog becomes weak. The creature exists in the flight mode of fight or flight, always ready to piss itself and turn tail."

Miriam almost laughs. "Trust me, I fear you. I fear the unmerciful shit out of you. Though, truth be told, I also fear that haircut of yours. It looks like someone cut it with a fire axe. Jesus, you could probably slit somebody's throat with those bangs."

Harriet just delivers three hammer punches to Miriam's armpit.

Miriam's body is a switchboard of pain. She cries out.

"Armpit. Another major bundle of nerves."

"What do you want?" Miriam shouts. "You want to ask me something? I'll tell you! Just ask. Stop it, please. Just stop."

"Begging. That's new for you."

Miriam almost weeps. "I like to remain versatile. Like a shark, swim forward or die. So, just ask me what you want to ask me. I'm an open book."

"I have nothing to ask you."

"You're not trying to find out how Hairless dies?"

Harriet shakes her head.

"Then why are you doing this?"

Harriet smiles. It's a scary sight. Her teeth are small, tiny white pebbles in that ankle-biter mouth. "Because I really enjoy it."

Shit. She's going to kill you.

Miriam has to find a way out of this. To forestall it, then stop it.

Miriam reaches: "Hairless wants you to torture me endlessly? Seems strange that you're just going to abuse your new coworker into bloody, babbling uselessness."

"He doesn't know. This isn't his desire. It's mine." Harriet's eye twinkles. "Sometimes a girl has to take a little time for herself."

"And a mani-pedi just wouldn't do?"

Harriet puts one foot up on the tub's rim.

"You and me," she says, "we're alike."

"That's true," Miriam says, going with it. But she thinks: On Bizarroworld.

"We're both survivors. We both do what we have to do to make it to the next day. But even more important, you and I enjoy what we do. You're a monster, and I'm a monster, and we embrace it. I embrace it more than you, of course. You still pretend that you're troubled, tortured, a little drama queen with the back of her hand pressed to her head – oh, woe is me. I've moved past that."

"Nothing about you is troubled or tortured?" Miriam asks.

"Nothing that bothers me anymore. I've let it all go."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Ingersoll showed me the way."

"Hairless? And how's that? I bet it's a real interesting story."

Harriet tells her.

INTERLUDE

Harriet's Story

I chopped up my husband and ran him through the garbage disposal.

THIRTY-THREE

Short, But Not Sweet

Miriam waits to see if there's more.

Harriet stands firm-jawed, flexing her fists.