"Oh, I know it! I'd write a novel if I had the patience. But this isn't for publication -- yet. It's going into a drawer to be published after I die." "*What*?" "Like Emily Dickinson. Wrote thousands of poems, stuck 'em in a drawer, dropped dead. Someone else published 'em and she made it into the canon. I'm going to do the same." "That's nuts -- are you dying?" "Nope. But I don't want to put this off until I am. Could get hit by a bus, you know." "You're a goddamned psycho. Krishna was right." "What does Krishna have against me?" "I think we both know what that's about," she said. "No, really, what did I ever do to him?" Now they were on Queen Street, walking east in the early evening crowd, surrounded by summertime hipsters and wafting, appetizing smells from the bistros and Jamaican roti shops. She stopped abruptly and grabbed his shoulders and gave him a hard shake. "You're full of shit, Ad-man. I know it and you know it." "I really don't know what you're talking about, honestly!" "Fine, let's do this." She clamped her hand on his forearm and dragged him down a side street and turned down an alley. She stepped into a doorway and started unbuttoning her Alice-blue babydoll dress. Alan looked away, embarrassed, glad of the dark hiding his blush. Once the dress was unbuttoned to her waist, she reached around behind her and unhooked her white underwire bra, which sagged forward under the weight of her heavy breasts. She turned around, treating him to a glimpse of the full curve of her breast under her arm, and shrugged the dress down around her waist. She had two stubby, leathery wings growing out of the middle of her back, just above the shoulder blades. They sat flush against her back, and as Alan watched, they unfolded and flexed, flapped a few times, and settled back into their position, nested among the soft roll of flesh that descended from her neck. Involuntarily, he peered forward, examining the wings, which were covered in fine downy brown hairs, and their bases, roped with muscle and surrounded by a mess of ugly scars. "You...*sewed*...these on?" Alan said, aghast. She turned around, her eyes bright with tears. Her breasts swung free of her unhooked bra. "No, you fucking idiot. I sawed them off. Four times a year. They just grow back. If I don't cut them, they grow down to my ankles." # Mimi was curiously and incomprehensibly affectionate after she had buttoned up her dress and resumed walking toward the strip of clubs along Richmond Street. She put her hand on his forearm and murmured funny commentary about the outlandishly attired club kids in their plastic cowboy hats, Sailor Moon outfits, and plastic tuxedoes. She plucked a cigarette from his lips, dragged on it, and put it back into his mouth, still damp with her saliva, an act that sent a shiver down Alan's neck and made the hair on the backs of his hands stand up.