I suspected that the initial medical run did more for me than met the eye, and, to me, I was glad this gift wasn't under the tree. We needed another s...ower just to make us both comfortably presentable to face the rest of our family.I got to relax in one of the soft chairs in the "living" room while the kids were fed. Kate and Theresa were energetic in putting together breakfast, having gotten the raw materials, more or less, from the replicator, to make pancakes and sausage. It was reassuring. You get there. The building is indeed huge and swanky. And dark. You’re supposed to go to the northwest side door. Directions are written on a card that Becca’s been given. You find what you think is the door and try to open it. Locked.So you try another. Locked too.“We should go.” You say, starting to feel weird about the whole thing. Realizing that even if it’s real, do you want to spend the night watching your pretty girlfriend fuck a bunch of guys?“This door opens.” Becca says, at what. Her thighs rub together as she crosses her legs, and then uncrosses them, uncomfortable. The waitress threads her way back to the bar and Pammy reflects on what she is doing here. Her husband Mac left her a year ago. Their divorce became final the first of last month. She finally pried off her wedding ring last night, to put into her jewelry box along with so many other broken dreams. Her eyes darken and shimmer with unshed tears, and she again straightens her shoulders, and blinks. She is sick. It wasn’t really shampoo, since you couldn’t really wash your hair with it (and when you TRIED to wash your hair with it, and you finally got it all rinsed out, it left you hair feeling “weird” afterwards … I didn’t know what the term stripped” meant back then.) And the sound it made coming out, a “whooshing” sound, then when the can was just about empty, a sad “sputtering” sound, and air bubbles in the wad of goop you were trying to build. All in all it was magical stuff, but I had to be.