Jamie arrived home to find Nils had caught the mouse that had been living in the garage. “What do you think?” Nils asked, indicating the painting still on the easel, the paint still wet.

“I guess now we don’t have to worry about it chewing up the cables in my car,” she said. “Poor little thing. Its paws and nose are so pink. Like a little boy’s penis. Something strange about it, though.”

“Maybe you’re noticing it’s upside down.”

“That must be it,” Jamie said. “How come?”

“When the trap springs shut, snapping the mouse’s neck, everything flies up into the air, then comes down who know which way.”

“Poor little thing,” Jamie repeated. She brought her finger close to the mouse, but then backed away. “It makes me think of this time when I was a teenager—I was babysitting the neighbors’ little girl, Amelia. She was almost four, and I’d given her a bath and dressed her for bed and was reading her some Mother Goose rhymes.

“Little Betty Winkle, she had a little pig.
A wee little pig it was—not very big;
And when he was alive, Piggy lived in Clover,
But now that he is dead, it’s all forever over.

“No sooner had I finished than Amelia said, ‘What’s dead?’

“I didn’t know what to say. My mind froze. Then I remembered something from an old movie or somewhere when this soldier said, ‘This radio is kaput,’ so I blurted, ‘It means kaput,’ and before Amelia could ask what kaput meant, I began kissing her and tickling her, and dead was forgotten.

“But you know what?” Jamie continued. “I think our poor little mouse deserves some dignity.” She turned the painting over, getting a touch of paint on her thumb.

“You know what else? This painting is making me so hot. Nils, I need to be fucked. My pussy needs your cock so bad. I need you to fuck me right now.”

Then and there Nils fucked her, right on the studio floor, right beneath the painting.

“That was just what I needed,” Jamie said, as they lay in each other’s arms.”

“Me too,” Nils said. “But I do have a confession to make. I didn’t really catch the mouse. I just painted her.”