Page 136 of Shroom for Improvement

The urine sample.

“You. You are the magic.”

The water from Claude’s butt. The flowers growing in the dusty courtyard.

Claude told me the house began speaking after he’d showered. Presumably that shower had been more enjoyable than he’d initially let on.

My beards. Those random beards I’d grown, only happened on mornings after I’d swallowed Claude’s...

The magic was inhisspores. Not the house’s.

Amor sui vitas salvat.

Self-love saves lives.

It was him. All along.

It was crude, sure, but so perfect.

“What snacks do you want?!” Jasper bellowed. I heard a few gasps emitted from other garage patrons, but couldn’t pinpoint their location. “Honeymoon,” he said, for their benefit. “He loves role play.”

“You can put me down, you know?”

“And have you run away? Don’t be so fucking daft. What snacks do you want?”

“I don’t know. Peanut Goobers, please,” I said. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I needed to give myself more thinking time.

I’d figured out the ritual. I was ninety-nine percent certain of it, but I was currently dangling between the very large and firm ass cheeks of an angry, supermassive surtr, who also happened to be my kidnapper.

Jasper paid for the snacks. Of course no one asked him any questions. Nobody seemed to care that he had a literal prisoner hanging down his back. He began heading towards the exit. I had to act now.

“I need to pee. Is there a bathroom here?”

He sighed, stomped farther back into the shop, and set me on my feet outside the bathroom. I opened the door and walked inside. Jasper made to follow.

“Woah, what are you doing?”

He burst out laughing. “You think I’m going to leave you alone? So you can fucking escape?”

“I can’t pee if you’re watching,” I said, which must have been the truth.

Jasper stuck his head in the door and looked around the tiny, one-stalled bathroom, probably for windows. After satisfying himself there was no obvious escape route, he straightened himself up to his full height. “You have two minutes. I’ll be right outside this door, so don’t try anything stupid.”

“Two minutes? What if I need to poop?”

“You hold it in,” he said with a sycophantic smile. “And give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone. I’m not having you call anyone for help.”

“There’s not enough signal to make a call anyway,” I whined, but slapped my phone into his gigantic smoking hand regardless.

I shut the door and pulled the lock across. Right, two minutes to figure this out. I didn’t have my phone, there was nowindow, and my imprisoner was waiting for me one foot beyond a flimsy wooden door.

Think, Sonny.

I turned the tap on just fast enough for it to sound like I was peeing and extracted something from my pocket. Something I had taken only moments ago from Jasper’s hotpants.

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