"Careful you don't slice anything off, okay?" "I never cut anything *unintentionally*," she said in a silly-dramatic voice, and socked him in the shoulder. He snorted and went back to the driving, putting the hammer down, eating up the kilometers toward Huntsville and beyond. She fed him slices of apple and ate some herself, then rolls of ham with little pieces of pear in them, then sips of cherry juice from a glass bottle. "Enough," he said at last. "I'm stuffed, woman!" She laughed. "Skinny little fucker -- gotta put some meat on your bones." She tidied the dinner detritus into an empty shopping bag and tossed it over her shoulder into the back seat. "So," she said. "How long since you've been home?" He stared at the road for a while. "Fifteen years," he said. "Never been back since I left." She stared straight forward and worked her hand under his thigh, so he was sitting on it, then wriggled her knuckles. "I've never been home," she said. He wrinkled his brow. "What's that mean?" he said. "It's a long story," she said. "Well, let's get off the highway and get a room and you can tell me, okay?" "Sure," she said. # They ended up at the Timberline Wilderness Lodge and Pancake House, and Mimi clapped her hands at the silk-flowers-and-waterbeds ambience of the room, fondled the grisly jackalope head on the wall, and started running a tub while Alan carried in the suitcases. She dramatically tossed her clothes, one item at a time, out the bathroom door, through the clouds of steam, and he caught a glimpse of her round, full ass, bracketed by her restless wings, as she poured into the tub the bottle of cheap bubble-bath she'd bought in the lobby. He dug a T-shirt and a fresh pair of boxers to sleep in out of his suitcase, feeling ridiculously modest as he donned them. His feet crunched over cigarette burns and tangles in the brown shag carpet and he wished he'd brought along some slippers. He flipped through both snowy TV channels and decided that he couldn't stomach a televangelist or a thirty-year-old sitcom right then and flicked it off, sitting on the edge of the bed, listening to the splashing from the bathroom. Mimi was in awfully good spirits, considering what she'd been through with Krishna. He tried to think about it, trying to make sense of the day and the girl, but the splashing from the tub kept intruding on his thoughts. She began to sing, and after a second he recognized the tune. "White Rabbit," by the Jefferson Airplane. Not the kind of thing he'd expect her to be giving voice to; nor she, apparently, for she kept breaking off to giggle. Finally, he poked his head through the door. She was folded into the tub, knees and tits above the foamline, wings slick with water and dripping in the tile. Her hands were out of sight beneath the suds. She caught his eye and grinned crazily, then her hands shot out of the pool, clutching the hunting knife. "*Put on the White Rabbit!*" she howled, cackling fiendishly.