Emma booked us a room at this B&B she’d heard about from her sister, and we checked in just after noon. The lovely room had a good view of the gardens. After making sure the toilet flushed, we tried out the bed. Lovely. The shower was nice too. “A good room,” I told Emma. “Yeah,” she said, adding that she liked the sound the floor made, just the right sort of creak with each step, and she liked the color of the chiffonier.

“Chiffonier?” I said.

“The cream-colored chest,” she said, nodding toward the piece of furniture.

I smart-phoned chiffonier. “Says it’s supposed to have a mirror on top,” I said.

Emma shrugged. “Maybe it broke.”

“Or maybe they took it down so we could see the hideous painting,” I joked. There was no painting. But upon closer examination I noticed a nail upon which, presumably, a painting had hung.

“If there were a mirror,” Emma said, “we could watch ourselves fuck.”

“Maybe that’s why they took it down,” I said.

“Or that’s why it broke,” Emma suggested. “Some hooker’s orgasm was too intense and her stiletto flew off and shattered it.”

“You think hookers stay here?” I asked.

“Only very high-class hookers—the kind who have real orgasms.”

“How many orgasms do you think have happened in this room?” I asked.

“At least two,” Emma said.

We tested the bed again to see if we could see ourselves in a pretend mirror, and then we took another shower. Dressed, we went out shopping.

We explored an art gallery filled with paintings we didn’t like and which we agreed were way too expensive for us. “Fox and grapes?” I said as we were back on the street. “No,” Emma said, “that was truly shitty art.”

Around the corner was a clothing boutique. Emma tried on three outfits, and they all looked great on her, but she didn’t want them. “Why not?” I asked. “I’ve only got so much room in my little carry-on,” she said. I bought her a cap without consulting her. Her smile delighted me.

We did three more shops and had some ice cream and did two more shops. At the last of these Emma found a statue of a rearing stallion. It was blue. “What do you think?” she asked me. “I think it’s missing a tail,” I said. “It’s also missing something else,” Emma pointed out. I studied the horse. “What?” I asked. “I’ll give you a hint,” she said. “It rhymes with sock and it’s not a hock.” I wasn’t exactly sure what the hock part of a horse was, but I didn’t need to smart-phone it. “Poor thing,” Emma said, “Let’s take him home.”

Before leaving the shop we noticed a print of a strange bird, and Emma decided it would be a good companion for the injured stallion. We lugged horse and bird back to the B&B and set them both on the chiffonier. “Shall we take a nap before dinner?” I suggested. “You just want to up the orgasm count,” Emma said. We upped the orgasm count.