Honour Bound

Corporal Honour Bound awoke to the sun shining on her face.

‘Why is it so bright this early in the morning? It’s only spring, damn it.’

Her eyes wanted to open in reaction to the light, even if the rest of her just wanted to get back to sleep. With a low groan, she found herself squinting and blinking into blindingly low-angle morning rays that were, mercifully, at least coming in slightly from the side instead of fully head-on. It took a supreme effort of logical processing to realize she could just bring a hoof up and mask out the visual intrusion, and greater effort still to commit to moving a limp foreleg up in front of her muzzle. Plopping it down roughly, Honour found herself sinking back into blissful deep sleep.

Except… something felt off, and it wasn’t just the sun’s radiant warmth beaming onto her. In her haze, it took an eternity of dipping in and out of consciousness to process even the most basic of input signals. Finally, scrunching her eyes closed as hard as she could, she reached back down to find her covers.

There was nothing there.

‘Buck, did I just pass out directly on top of everything last night?’

She scratched her hoof against the bed underneath her, hoping to dislodge the sheets and eventually wriggle and squirm her way underneath. But there was nothing there – no slack fabric of a blanket or sheet. She slowly came to realize it wasn’t even very soft.

‘Am I even in my bed?’

‘Did I pass out on the couch?’

More moments passed, drifting between wakefulness and slumber.

‘The shared couch is pretty soft, though; not firm like this…’

‘And there’s…’

Her train of thought was suspended by another blissful collapse into sleep.

‘Wait…’

‘There’s no window in the common area of our quarters.’

‘Where am I?’

It was then that she forced her eyes open, grunting as she faced the detested sunbeams.

‘That’s a huge window it’s all coming in through.’

Honour glanced down and saw she was, in fact, on a sofa, just not the plain and low Lawson-style one from her room. It was an elegant Chesterfield, in blue upholstery with white diamond pleats.

‘But where’ve I seen one of these before?’

A vision of a scene started to materialize in her hungover head. A long, royal-blue sofa, with three sitting chairs in the same fashion, all arranged around a large, round coffee table...

Honour’s breathing stopped and her heart skipped a beat and her eyes opened wide.

She was in the Royal Engineer’s chambers. She was lying on his sofa, facing his window. And now that she’d been shocked awake, she began to notice the limp weight across her barrel, the steady movements at her back, and the slow, regular movement of air rustling her mane.

‘The Royal Engineer is right behind me.’

‘Lying on the sofa.’

‘The sofa I’m on.’

Swallowing, she hesitantly turned and lifted her head to look. He was right there, passed out behind her, with his arm draped over her.

‘I’m being spooned by my VIP.’

To Honour’s relief, he was still dressed in his shirt and pants; his jacket had been thrown over the far armrest, though his vest was nowhere to be seen. She, meanwhile, was still wearing her dress and her panties. The shawl had been tossed next to his tailcoat. Part of her was relieved at the evidence pointing to nothing having happened between them, besides passing out together on the same couch.

The other part was starting to panic at the fact that she was still there.

Lowering her head back down to face forward once more, she tried to think. She remembered escorting him back to his chambers...

‘Or had he been escorting me?’

Both of them had been pretty wasted, not to mention exhausted.

‘What time did the dancing finally stop?’

She remembered staying to the very end; they were clearing the table linens by the time Anon retrieved his jacket from his seat. It was still dark outside at the time, Honour was certain. Three in the morning? Maybe four? There was hardly anypony left on the dance floor when they called it a wrap. There were hardly any guests left at the Gala at all, in fact. They almost did have to chase the two of them out at sword-point, just like Honour had boasted they would last night.

And...

And she remembered what he had said to her just before that. She remembered how it made her feel.

‘Oh…’

‘I need to get out of here.’

There was nothing for it but to slip away and hope he didn’t wake up. Cautiously, she slid her hind legs out and lowered her hooves to the ground; then, in a smooth motion, she slowly rolled away from her VIP and onto the floor. It shouldn’t have been easy to stand after last night, but the adrenaline somehow let her do it without falling over. Looking back, she saw that the Royal Engineer was still completely out, his arm and hand now lying on the sofa instead of her.

‘His hand…’

She remembered going to sleep with a reassuring grip around her barrel. And before that, how his fingers stroked her coat.

Her left ear twitched with the memory of him nuzzling into it.

Taking a deep breath and swallowing, she stepped lightly over to grab her shawl, picking it up with her mouth; she wasn’t willing to risk two-legged movement. Turning around, she slowly crept over to his door and gingerly depressed the lever handle. There was neither squeak nor creak when she pulled the door open.

‘Celestia bless the caretakers who kept all the Palace’s locks and hinges well-oiled, and bless Her decorators who put plush, sound-deadening carpeting in every hallway.‘

Thanks to them, Honour’s early-morning escape from the tender clutches of her VIP was completely silent. Looking up and down the corridor, she saw that her flight from his chambers would also go unwitnessed.

‘Bless the Chamberlain who placed the Royal Engineer’s chambers in the out-of-the-way south annex of the out-of-the-way west wing.’

After this brief pause of silent thanks, she set off at a trot that she blearily endeavored to make appear nonchalant, making for the staircase to the servants’ second floor. Up there, the risk of running into somepony was greater, since there were ponies quartered everywhere – but what would they see? A fellow serving-pony returning from wherever they’d spent the night, which could have been anywhere. The feeling of panic started to dissipate once she reached the stairs.

‘It’s okay; it’ll be alright. You only slept on the sofa with your VIP.’

‘So we cuddled a little; it wasn’t anything significant. Just two drunk, tired partygoers collapsing onto the nearest horizontal surface after an evening of singing and dancing.’

‘Singing…’

Somehow, he’d known the lyrics to one of her favorite old melancholy pop hits. Was it similar to a song where he’d come from? Or had he heard it in one of the nightclubs they’d visited earlier in the week? Maybe he had even gotten most of the words wrong; she might’ve been too drunk to notice. Either way, she remembered being thrilled that he had the self-confidence to sing along, and that made her want to sing with him. Which she did.

‘I don’t know why you don’t care.’

She remembered dancing closely.

‘You take all my love, but you’re not there.’

Very closely.

‘What is wrong and what is right?’

Her hoofsteps up slowed to a crawl and she closed her eyes.

‘Give me a sign.’

She’d given him a sign, alright. Never mind floofing out tuft, or popping wings, or leaking mana from a horn. All the booze from last night hadn’t suppressed the memory of Honour grinding her tail and plot right up against the Royal Engineer for most of that song — and much of the next. And he hadn’t resisted or pulled away; rather, he’d gotten into it, leaning down and back, swaying left and right opposite her motions, elevating her drunken attempt at a flirtatious groping into a provocative, sensual dance.

She stopped in place.

Whatever else had conspired to leave her sleeping in his arms on his sofa, Honour remembered one thing clearly:

She had wanted it.

That realization brought Honour to a dead stop at the top of the stairs. Sitting down on her haunches, she reached a hoof up to her brow. Her mouth opened limply, releasing her shawl onto the floor. It took her a while to catch her breath.

‘Celestia.’

‘You really messed things up this time, Honour.’

Never mind panicking over the potential embarrassment from being found sleeping with her VIP; now, a deeper fear set in from her betrayal of her relationship with Castlerook. What would he have said if he’d seen what she’d done? What would he say if word got to him?

And what would he do?

All after she’d just reconciled and made grand plans for the future.

Honour shut her eyes, and a couple of lonely tears dribbled out. It wasn’t just him she’d gone and hurt, either. So much for Sparkshower’s ambitions to pursue a new relationship. And so much for that advice to take things slow. The pegasus had cooled things down after the hot ending to her Lipizzaner Waltz with the Royal Engineer, and largely avoided smothering him with attention or affection at the dining table. Presumably, she’d gone and had a proper and congenial evening with that high-society colt she’d just met. And what had Honour, the gutter-trash underachiever from Fillydelphia, gone and done? Only smashed her plot up against his gear in the crudest way possible without somehow being obscene.

‘So, good job, Honour: a double disaster in one evening.’

Triple, if Anonymous hadn’t blacked out like after Tuesday night’s club crawl.

Truly a buck-up worthy of the Grand Galloping Gala.

‘Damn it all to Tartarus…’

He’d even spoken about getting her bumped up to sergeant just before they hit the dance floor! What if he thinks she was engaged in plot-for-promotion trading, and reports it? Or what if he really does submit the recommendation, and somepony else recalls what she’d gotten up to at the Gala? That could land her in some real hot water.

The catastrophic possibilities of being discharged from the Royal Guard and being disowned by her coltfriend danced for a while in her pounding skull before they were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Honour? Are you okay?”

‘Oh, buck, no; not her.’

The big, cream-coloured pegasus with the yellow mane that stood before her looked weary, with some puffiness around her eyes, and her ears flopped sleepily back along her poll. Clearly, Honour was not the only one who’d stayed up late, as was certainly to be expected.

“Sparkshower, what are you doing up at this hour? We’re not on duty today.”

Sparkshower shrugged. “I know. But I guess my internal clock won’t let me sleep in any more right now. I was tossing and turning in bed for a while so I thought I’d just get a little breakfast in me and then see if I could rest more after that.” She tilted her head and bent it down a little to scrutinize Honour’s guilty face. “...What about you? You’ve got a diamond pattern pressed into your coat. Did you wind up sleeping on a chair downstairs, or something like that?”

‘Buck! The sofa fabric!’

Mercifully, that pattern was, from what Honour remembered, pretty common throughout the palace. She touched a hoof to her cheek and tried to brush away the evidence of her misdeeds. “Yeah... Yeah, something like that.”

“It can’t have been very comfortable. I guess that’s why you woke up now, too.”

Honour sighed. “I’m up because the sun was in my eyes.” Bending over, she picked up the dropped shawl with her mouth and threw it over her back, before squinting down the hallway in the direction of her room. She tried to lick her lips, only to find it was like rubbing sandpaper over bare rock. “Is our water jug full? My mouth’s dryer than Tartarus.”

Sparkshower slowly shook her head, and that’s when Honour noticed she had a small saddle-strap with their shared copper jug on it. “It’s empty. I was just going to the kitchen to fill it up.”

Honour sighed. As hard as it would be to fall asleep with her head in this state, it’d be even harder when she was also so cotton-mouthed. “I’ll come with you, then.”

Sparkshower cocked her head slightly. “Are you sure? You look pretty exhausted. I’ll be back quickly.”

Honour slowly started towards the nearest servants’ kitchen in their wing of the castle, and the pegasus followed behind. “No. Now that I’ve said it, I’m too thirsty to wait.”

“Maybe you ought to eat a little something, too. You don’t look very good.”

Food was absolutely the last thing Honour wanted inside of her. In fact, the reverse might’ve almost been preferable, but thankfully she didn’t get hammered enough last night to suffer that fate, apparently.

‘Just keep things moving, make small talk as needed, get your water, get your rest, and pray that the truth won’t get out.’

‘To anypony.’

As Honour proceeded down the hallway, she realized that the worst part of all this wasn’t just the maximum potential penalties that she could suffer, in terms of career and conjugality: it was the fact that she just had no way of knowing what would actually happen. And one big reason for that is that she had no idea what Anonymous was going to do, assuming he even remembered. Beyond questions about how much he could recall — which probably wasn’t more than Honour did, but might be as much as that, and that would be bad enough — there was the simple truth that every time she had tried to predict what he was going to do, she’d been proven wrong.

She thought he might have been about to make a move on Sparkshower at the theater — well, only suspected the possibility, really; Glamerspear was the one who completely misread it — but no, it was just an evening’s entertainment. She’d assumed he would retreat from the pas-de-sabots, or give up Artemis and the other tokens as hostages to pass, but then he actually put it to Honour’s choice. She never thought he’d come up, sheepishly, when Sparkshower and Glam had blown up on each other over the Gala, and then offered tickets to all of them — even to Sparks’ now-estranged coltfriend. With Luna’s visit, at least, she simply had no idea what to expect at all: from him, from Her, from Her Presence.

But when she’d blown up at him over his rearranging his room without any of them present? With workers and servants moving around his furniture and taking his directions all day long, without even one of his bodyguards present, against protocol? He’d said the one thing she couldn’t tolerate, and Honour had gone from giving a stern talk to completely flipping out. Yet after that explosive outburst, he’d gone out with Sparkshower and bought Honour an apologetic bouquet.

That was when she realized: she had no idea what was going on in his head.

He was a Very Important Pony, and he wasn’t a Pony, and he was Very Important, and he wasn’t anything like any other VIP she’d ever worked for, or even heard of. Honour’s train of thought barely slowed as she entered the kitchen, this morning little more than a jerkwater outpost to scoop up water before steaming off to her bedroom terminus. At least she could read Anon’s emotions well enough, for the most part; when he was riled up, he certainly wore them right on his sleeve, plain to see. And now that she’d worked with him a few weeks, she felt that she understood his often detached, logical way of looking at things, even if she couldn’t completely simulate it.

But somehow, taking in those inputs did not let her predict his actual output. Often enough, she couldn’t even understand what made him get emotional, either. How come he was so happy and bubbly last night, but restrained and subdued for Tuesday’s club crawl? Well, until he got completely hammered, at least. But what VIP would have accepted Eb’s offer to venture into the batpony Rookery, just for a place to train? Honour had gone along with it, and to be fair, Her Majesty Princess Luna had asked for something like this, but his easygoing attitude had still surprised the corporal. For someone so meticulous and whose work involved such accuracy, how could he throw himself into the unknown like that?

It boggled her mind a bit. He’d even shrugged off the revelation that his batpony bodyguard was actually an assassin!

And what really confused her sometimes was the way he’d let her walk all over him. The bouquet was bad enough, but letting her sit in on his massage at Spa Dalecarlia? Not demanding she avert her eyes when he was naked in the Well of Souls? Overall, just allowing her to impose Equestrian social customs to the absolute hilt?

And yet not, sometimes.

He wouldn’t let her take the fall for him with Major-General Hoofstrong over the live-fire Whirlwind exercise, and he refused to be held aside as a non-combatant during Marcos’ ambush. Even though both of those actions were very clearly part of Honour’s job description as a bodyguard. And then there was the even bigger bunyip in the room...

What did Anonymous actually want?

Even if they’d touched her deeply, his compliments and that hoof-kiss after that pole-dance last night could’ve been dismissed as just the innocent reassurance of a friend — a close friend. But after waking up in his arms? Maybe not. Had he simply fallen victim to her blatant seduction? Or was he genuinely interested?

She thought back to his lonely, sad-drunk outburst on Tuesday night, when he mumbled about not wanting to be alone any more. And when he whispered about how she ought to let her hair down… And when he ran his fingers through her mane, massaging her crest...

“Uh, Corporal? Are you done?”

Sparkshower’s voice shook Honour back to her senses and she realized she was still standing right in front of the sink, with the water-jug and a single kitchen cup, both full before her.

Her mouth, however, was still bone-dry.

Shaking her head quickly to jolt herself awake, Honour snatched up the cup and guzzled the water, before wiping her mouth and looking over to her pegasus comrade as she holstered the jug on her saddle. “What about your breakfast?”

Artemis lifted an eyebrow. “I already had it: a couple of slices of toast with butter and jam. You’ve just been standing here the whole time while I ate. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Honour scowled at herself. She wasn’t doing herself any favors by trying to mull everything over right now.

‘Focus on what’s important: making sure nopony finds out. Especially not Sparkshower.’

“I’m just tired. Come on, let’s head back. We could both do with more rest.”

The pegasus nodded. “Right.”

Honour really did need to be careful; even as bleary as she was, Artemis had still managed to pick out the pattern imprinted onto her coat from the Royal Engineer’s sofa. And Honour had foolishly admitted being woken up by sunrise. That was a dangerous amount of information to have fed to a recon-expert pony already, even though plenty of palace windows faced east. It was imperative that Honour avoid divulging anything else that could incriminate her.

‘Buck, who actually had spotted me and Anonymous together last night?’

She knew they were the last ones to leave, so nopony she knew should have spotted her as she actually went into the Royal Engineer’s chambers. Glamerspear had abandoned dancing with their VIP out of exhaustion, but Honour couldn’t imagine the unicorn had outright left the Gala then and there. Had she seen Honour’s pole dance?

Her grind?

What about Ebonshield? Had the batpony been too wrapped up with her latest acquisition to notice Honour’s first and very public display? And where had Artemis been the whole time? Did she go so far into giving Anon some time-out that she didn’t even glance over at him when dancing with her colt? The pegasus hadn’t mentioned anything, yet.

Honour’s heart started to race again, as it had but minutes ago when she’d realized where she’d spent the night. With luck, Sparkshower would go back to sleep longer than Honour, and she could check the other potential witnesses first. Not to mention, talk to her VIP.

‘OK. You can run damage control on this; it won’t be too hard.’

Upon reaching her room, Honour almost breathed a sigh of relief as she opened the door.

Only to have that relief obliterated by panic when she heard the toilet flush. Somepony was in the washroom, and in two seconds, they were going to see Honour walk in with Sparkshower. Would it be Glam, or Eb? And would they be in a chatty mood or just in a hurry to get back to bed?

Sparkshower stepped past Honour to deposit the filled water-jug on the sideboard. As she did so, the door opened to reveal a very tired-looking Glamerspear. “Is that water? Thank Celestia, I’m parched. You’re a lifesaver, Sparks.”

“You’re welcome, Lily. I guess we’re all a bit dry after the late night, right, Honour?”

‘Ah, buck.’

Midway through a guzzled cup, Glam lazily glanced over at the corporal. “Damn, didn’t even notice you there.” As she telekinetically lowered the vessel back down, she cracked an exhausted grin.

Honour’s eyes slid to Glamerspear, widening in alarm.

‘No, no, don’t you dare…’

“Heh. Lot less conspicuous when you aren’t up on a pole.”

‘Damn you to Tartarus, Specialist Lily Glamerspear!’

Sparkshower cocked an eyebrow and turned to look at Honour. “Up on a pole?”

Honour screwed her eyes shut.

‘Buck!’

The pink unicorn snorted. “Oh, you didn’t see? Turns out our corporal is one heck of an acrobat, and a bit of a closet exhibitionist too, I’d say. Where’d you learn to pole-dance like that, huh?”

‘Shut it down; shut it down, now!’

“A class I took during my post-divorce crisis. And you won’t see it again unless I get very, very drunk. So you may as well forget it happened.”

At that, Glamerspear whinnied hoarsely. “Forget it?! A performance like that? Even if I could, there’s a hundred others who’ll remember. Especially our VIP, given his front-row seat, complete with participation award. How late did you two stay up dancing, anyways? They must’ve had to kick you out.”

Sparkshower’s head swiveled to Glamerspear, a confused look on her face, at that last statement.

‘This is getting out of hoof.’

Steeling her expression, Honour turned towards the unicorn. “I’m exhausted; I don’t want to discuss anything right now. Let’s just get back to bed, and we can blabber all about the Gala in the afternoon, okay?”

Glam’s smirk faded, and she nodded slowly. “Yeah, sure.” She started towards her door, and Honour towards her own.

Sparkshower, however, remained still.

‘Just go to bed, just go to bed, just go to bed, just go to bed.’

The corporal stepped past her, and a few steps later, she reached her forehoof out for the door handle.

“Honour...”

‘No-no-no-no-no!’

“...last night, when you fell asleep downstairs...”

‘Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!’

“...was it on the Royal Engineer’s blue sofa with white diamond pleats? The one in his sitting area that faces east out the big window behind his desk?”

Honour’s eyes cringed shut.

‘I’ve been made.’

With a sigh, she lowered her hoof, but she stayed facing the door. There was nothing left but to come clean; at least she could truthfully say that nothing happened. “Yes. But we just cuddled, okay? He didn’t even take his suit off.”

There was no reply.

After a moment, Honour lifted her head from the door and looked back.

Glamerspear’s jaw was hung open in shock.

Sparkshower’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

It was the unicorn that broke the silence with a hoarse, hissing, whisper-shout. “’JUST CUDDLED’? YOU MEAN YOU SLEPT WITH ANON?!”

‘Oh, bucking damn absolutely everything and everyone to Tartarus! Sparkshower had only figured out where you’d slept, not with whom!’

The pegasus in question started to pant. “You... I just... I just thought you fell asleep on his sofa after helping him get home, like on Tuesday.”

‘Congratulations, Honoria, you just played yourself!’

Choking on her own spittle, the earth pony held a forehoof up in supplication. “That’s what—That’s what it was supposed to be, and— and— and somehow it just turned into passing out on the couch together, okay? But nothing happened, Spar—”

Interrupting her, The pegasus just threw up her wings and stomped off towards her room. “No, no, you’re right; I don’t want to discuss anything right now, either! I don’t want to discuss anything at all!” With a loud bang, she kick-slammed the door shut behind her. There was a clattering from inside as she rattled on. “I don’t want to discuss you spooning with Anonymous on his sofa! I don’t want to discuss how you pole-danced with him when I couldn’t! I don’t want to discuss how I ought to ‘play it slow’!”

Honour faltered over towards the door, absolutely dejected with herself. “Artemis, please!”

“I SAID I DON’T WANT TO DISCUSS!”

There was one final rustle from inside, and then Honour heard Sparkshower’s window slide open.

‘Well, this isn’t the first pegasus defenestrative rage-quit I’ve witnessed.’

But a moment after she heard the pegasus’ wings open, there was the unmistakable and deafening CLICK-FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSHHHHH of the Bradamante Lance rocketing off into the distance.

‘Damn it all to Tartarus.’

Honour collapsed onto her haunches in front of Sparkshower’s room door, curling up into the crumpled mess that she was.

Glamerspear was still just staring at her in shock.

Moments passed in silence, and then there was another click and creak. Ebonshield’s door opened and the violet batpony poked her head out. After surveying the apparent damage, she stepped into the common room and gently shut the door behind her with a wing-arm. She probably hadn’t slept alone in there.

Honour looked up, dejected, a scattering of tears streaming down her muzzle, as the sergeant sidled up next to Glamerspear, shooting her an inquisitive glance. With a sigh, Glamerspear spilled the beans. “Honour slept on Anon’s sofa last night. With him. But she says that nothing happened.”

Honour tried to chime in, but her voice came out as a croak. “Nothing happened.”

Glam didn’t seem to believe her. “Well, either way, Sparks didn’t take that too well.”

Eb considered things for a moment, then sighed as she looked down at Honour’s miserable form. “Well. Ordinarily for such a situation, I might have some joke or tease to make, given my own introductory proposition to our VIP, but I see that things are well beyond such a point.” Approaching the corporal, she held out a forehoof to help her get back up. “What has happened last night?”

The earth pony took it and hauled herself onto her hooves, though unsteadily; Eb led her to one of the chairs at the breakfast-table and, once Honour was seated, grabbed another for herself, scooching in close. Glam just watched from the sideboard, pouring herself another cup of water.

“Eb, I don’t really want to talk about it. I just want to get some sleep.”

The master of assassins patted Honour’s forehoof. “The short version, then. In case Artemisa returns while you slumber, that I might help settle things.”

Honour really didn’t want the batpony to have to take care of her affairs.

‘’Affairs’, now there’s a word.’

Sighing, the corporal gave in. “A song I used for my pole-dance recital came on, so I performed it. I made mistakes and almost fell off, but Anonymous helped me avoid complete failure. And he’d danced in support. After a short rest, we kept going the rest of the night. We got... pretty close. Didn’t leave until the DJ packed up. By the time I helped him back to his room, we were both exhausted enough to just collapse on his sofa. I woke up with the sun in my eyes and the Royal Engineer’s arm around my barrel, and left as discreetly as I could. He was still asleep when I left.”

The batpony’s dark nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply. “I see...”

She considered Honour’s words for a few moments.

“... And how did you feel when you were dancing with him? When you fell asleep together?”

Honour shook her head again, furrowing her brow. “I don’t know. I can’t remember, exactly. I had something like half a liter of rum in me, you know.”

“Mmmm, yes, of course, but come now, Caporal...” Eb lowered her head down to look up into Honour’s eyes. “...If you remember the events so clearly as this, surely you remember also how you felt about them?”

‘That’s…’

‘Damn it.’

Honour knew she was right. All morning, the earth pony had been thinking about how she felt. It was a tangled mess of emotions and questions.

‘How to sum it all up succinctly?’

She cast her memory back to find a reference point, and when she finally found one that fit all too well, she shut her eyes and cringed all over again. It shouldn’t have been that, but it was.

With a sniffle, Honour muttered out the truth. “I felt like how I did when my ex-husband and I first met.” Opening her eyes again, she saw Purity’s sympathetic, yet concerned, face.

Over at the sideboard, Glamerspear nickered and then clacked her tongue. “Hnn-hnn-hnn. Tsk. Well...” She cocked her head sideways and rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling. “...At least this time you don’t gotta worry about him wanting to marry you for your money.”

Suggested interlude music: Haddaway - ‘What is Love’ [1993]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXWRTEbj1I