Chapter 6 by Gambio

What's next?

A formal response

“Marcie, this is so obviously bait.”

“I am perfectly aware of that, Gina.”

“You don’t even like the guy anymore! Just let it go!”

“My Gina, whatever do you mean? I have no intention to attend the wedding of that silly little insignificant, irritating man. I am completely over him.”

“...really?”

“Why of course. A shame for you though. I have it on good authority that your sworn nemesis, Daphne, the mermaid is also attending the wedding. That would have been a perfect opportunity to get your **** on her.”

“You know, I really don’t care all that much about her, Marcie.”

“Enough about Daphne and your deranged obsession with getting back at her. That is not why we are here.”

“Ok, Marcie. Why are we here?”

“Because Norah disagrees with my criticism.”

“Marcie, no.”

“Yes.”

“It has not even been three moooonths!”

“I do not care. The timing is perfect. We are doing a rebuttal to the rebuttal.”

REVIEWING THE REVIEW IN PROGRESS (BGM)

“You know,” Norah said, to nobody in particular, “I had really hoped that by Round Two, people out there would be calling it something other than the Andy show.”

“Perhaps if your season had a better title we would be using this instead. The HH? Really?”

“I have a marketing degree, three industry certifications, and I once reorganized an entire regional distribution network in eleven days because my predecessor had the filing system of a concussed golden retriever.” She put the tablet down on her knee. “The incompetent one.”

“I took over an entire school. Twice. Founded my own company at twenty-two(we are planning to go international next year) and came back from the ****.”

“and you’re the bottom bitch of a Yakuza Heiress.”

“And I am the bottom bi...don’t mention that!”

“I appreciate Gina’s troglodytic humor,” Norah said. “Is 'troglodytic' a word?”

“Ehem, that was me. Tsk, tsk, can not even keep myself and Gina apart. And Norah wonders why we call her incompetent.”

“You do realize, she just called you a Troglodyte.”

“...I think that was addressed to you.”

“Her math is not always right,” Norah said. “I got four, so far. Four, via Hand-Me-Downs. And the game's not over." She glared at the tablet. “I can forgive crass humor, but failing math... My estimation of her has plummeted.”

“That is mathematically impossible!”

“Haaah….”

“Norah received Hand-Me-Downs as the round two transformation. That means three more rounds to go, six transformations in total. Subtracting the three transformations she had gotten anyways, plus Hand-Me-Downs means Norah only receives two more transformations than she would have normally!”

“So...you admit you got the math wrong?”

“Moving on!”

Mildred said, “It was not offered as one. But poor minds taste better when you decide their flavor before you swallow them.”

“Heh, Mildred called you poor.”

“Focus on the important part, Gina…”

“Sam,” Norah said, without looking up, “is not a token anything. She's the most competent person in this building." A pause. "Present company excluded, obviously.”

“No offense, but she is pretty token. Blue hair? Please…”

“For the record, you have my permission to spray paint Marcie’s hair blue at the wedding.”

“Which will not be happening, because we are not attending said wedding.”

“And give her an undercut.”

Mildred said, “You were not solving problems. You were setting down weights.” She paused. “I have catalogued each of yours. I have known their precise measure since before you arrived.” The pleasant expression did not move. “Guests always sleep more deeply after. Their breathing becomes very regular. It is my favorite part of the night — when the suite goes quiet and I can move through it without disturbing anyone.” A small pause. “You all take up so much less space, when you are finally still. So much softer to tend.”

“Mildred is pretty hot.”

“She is an eldritch being, Gina. Her body is probably 90% tentacles.”

“Big deal. I’m pretty tight with Cthulhu.”

“We do not talk about that branch, Gina.”

“The flesh-being Gina is not entirely wrong, blind as she is,” Mildred said. “Though she was not in the room. I was. I am in every room. Always.”

“I want Mildred to blind me and watch me squirm.”

“Gina, snap out of it!”

“Woah! That was close! She almost got into my mind with her dimension altering sex magic.”

“She is getting hungrier,” Mildred said. “I know the look. She has been circling him for many hours and she has not let herself bite down. It is starting to cost her. The ache in her womb from the emptiness that consumes her thoughts. I find I have some sympathy. Wanting a thing and refusing to eat it is a particular kind of ache.”

“Those are a lot of words just to say that Marcie should have jerked off.”

“H-Hmph. No comment.”

“Eh, we’ll see how you do when you’re in that situation,” Norah said. “Though I'll note mine wasn't perfunctory.”

“Not sure how that’s ever gonna happen. It’s not like we will ever join a Harem Hotel season.”

“Gina, in terms of things you should absolutely never say, this one ranks pretty high.”

Mildred turned the question over with the slow care of someone deciding how to carve something. “She lies to herself. It is delicious. She has made herself a Master Andy,” she said. “She rendered him out of the viscera she liked and none of the viscera she didn't. Flesh beings have so many viscera. She keeps him very fresh. She would like everyone else's Master Andy to slide inside the one she keeps.”

“Man, Mildred is awesome.”

“Utterly absurd. My reading on Andy was perfect.”

“Until it wasn’t.”

Norah skimmed the fanmail section, skipped the part where Gina appeared to have a medical event in response to the dolphin blood entry

“IT WAS THE SHARK LIVER!”

“Gina contain yourself.”

“Grrrr...cuuurse you Daphneee! You will pay for thiiiiis!”

“Hm, maybe there was some value in doing this after all.”

“I'll tell you what happened,” Norah said. “Dawn was there. Her ribbon was gone. She was about to be eliminated. And I thought: obviously. That's it. That's the whole calculation. Three seconds, start to finish.” She picked up her iced tea. “The audience was not in the maze. Marcie was not in the maze. The debt Dawn may or may not be in was not in the maze. Andy's veto was not in the maze.” She took a sip. “Just Dawn, about to lose, and me, thinking: obviously.”

“I do not get this woman.”

“Apparently.”

“What is the point of making a sacrifice if you do not benefit from it, in the end?”

“Some would say that is the entire point, Marcie.”

“Yes, people like this fool. Her incompetence is almost starting to grow on me. People with no self preservation skills do have their uses, after all.”

“And there she is,” Norah said, “furious on my behalf, several chapters late.” She ate an olive. "Welcome, Marcie. We've been expecting you.”

“Oh, do not flatter yourself. This is about Andy. Not you.”

Norah laughed — short, bright, real. “I like Marcie,” she said. “I fully change my position.”

“You disliked her thirty minutes ago,” Mildred observed.

“I disliked the hypothesis. The person is fine.” Norah scrolled. "She's catastrophizing because she's invested and doesn't want to be. That's just — that's human, honestly.”

“GRRRRRRR….!!!”

“What are you even pissed about, Marcie?”

Mildred's head tilted, the motion holding a beat past the point of comfort. “As a fellow human flesh being, do you see yourself in her.”

It was not quite a question. Norah opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at Mildred with narrowed eyes. “Sometimes,” she said, “I can't tell if you ask the obvious questions on purpose.”

“Hmph, of course she does. It is painfully obvious that I am everything Norah wants to be.”

“Sure, Marcie…”

“Right,” Norah said. “So. You get best girl.” She paused. “I get almost-best girl, which was taken away from me because my sacrifice was apparently genuine, which — and I want to note this clearly — is the most insane reason to lose a title I have ever encountered. Claire gets worst girl from Gina. And Marcie gives worst girl to Andi because she's holding a grudge.”

“Marcie, let me take this one.”

“By all means, Gina.”

“Listen, you stupid bitch. Sacrifices suck. You think you’re doing a noble thing but the people you leave behind will be in agony Dawn in particular. She would have felt responsible for whatever horrible fate you ended up with for the rest of her life. And that’s a fucking shit feeling.”

“Hm, well, not the reasoning I would have used, but very well.”

“...fucking hypocrite.”

“What was that, Gina?”

“Nothing. Ugh, man that was fucking annoying! At least Mildred was cute. We’re done? I want to go back to sleep.”

“We are done.”

“Good.”

“Incidentally, Gina. Would you care for some lemon cake?”

“That’s on odd thing to...eeeeeeeeep!”

*Gina suddenly stands up*