It is.

Penny looked at them both with a comical expression of surprise on her face. A second passed, then another. Matt couldn't tell if she was thinking or zoned out again.

"...Pen? You ok?" he asked. Her eyes tracked his voice and focused on his face. Her eyes met his and they sparked with happiness.

"I'm cold!" she said with a huge smile. She looked down and back up. "I'm naked!"

"Wow," Tilda said to a weird honking guffaw from Penny. "She's... pretty out of it, huh?"

"I think she's still just getting used it," Matt said hopefully. "She'll level out in a few days. Right, Penny?"

She was still smiling at him with her mouth open. "Penny?" he asked with concern. "You still with us?"

Her eyes swam into focus slightly and she nodded. "Can you act like you were before you were boosted?" Another nod, then her face went slack.

After several seconds, she slowly opened her eyes. Her pupils now darted around the room, taking in her surroundings. Matt realized that in her normal state, her pupils almost never moved from that fixed middle-distant point.

"Hi!" she said. Even after all this Matt felt a pang of love for this cheap imitation of a husk of her. "I'm back, at least for a little bit."

She grinned and glimpsed back and forth for a second, waiting for one of them to speak.

"How's it feel?" Tilda finally offered.

Penny responded immediately. "It's drinking a hundred bottles of whiskey while someone licks your tits," she said with a chuckle.

Tilda was surprised at the reference. "That's from a TV show, right?" She assumed the boosteds lost a lot of trivia. It seemed like they often lost more than they kept.

"Yep," Penny replied after a brief pause. As Tilda watched, her face took on a slightly slacker, looser appearance. All of her muscles were relaxing again. She was looking woozier by the second.

"Oh," she slurred and leaned really far forward. "You wanna play with me?"

They stared at her in shock. Nobody spoke for a long moment. "Play with you?" Matt asked incredulously. She stared at him in confusion for what felt like minutes. Finally Tilda spoke up.

"I think she means sexually," she said. "And I never got an answer on that question."

Matt smiled that malevolent smile again. She was getting used to it. "Why don't I see what kind of nasty shit I can make you do to my wife, then see what she can do to you, then I'll decide whether I want to deal with keeping your husk clean and fed."

She shrugged. "Or maybe I turn out high-functioning and I do your taxes. Either way, what do I have to lose? And Penny could probably use a playmate. You gotta keep her intellectually stimulated, man. Penny, you wanna be my sister-wife?"

Penny smiled brightly at nothing. "Okay."