Chapter 3: Taxes, Trolls and Tribulations

Birmingham, United Kingdom

May 12, 1996

It was just past 11:00 PM in the Greenwich Mean Time Zone, which was defined by the planet Earth’s prime meridian. Just over an hour ago, the first of two Matt Tisdale concerts scheduled for Arena Birmingham had concluded. The band and Matt’s tour paramedic, Jim Ramos, had all had their post-performance food, their post-performance bonghits, and their post-performance blowjobs delivered by a gaggle of English groupies. They were now getting ready for some serious partying in Matt’s suite at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the city center.

Nine groupies had accompanied them back to the hotel for the festivities, every last one of them hot, slutty, and dressed for easy access. Music was playing from the room’s sound system at a level that was undoubtedly disturbing other guests in the vicinity. Liquor was flowing freely from the room’s bar. Three joints were currently being passed around—Matt thought the English weed was pretty shitty compared to what he was used to—and two of the groupies were making out on the sitting room couch for the entertainment of all. Austin was getting a blowjob from the short-haired, punk looking groupie in the Metallica shirt. Matt himself was sitting between two of the groupies on the other couch, crunching up a healthy pile of cocaine on a mirror with his right hand while his left was feeling up the bare inner thigh of the groupie with the leather miniskirt.

The phone began to ring that shrill, rapid double ring that English phones were known for. Matt looked at the phone, which sat on the room’s writing desk, in annoyance. It was probably the manager wanting them to turn the music down. That happened quite frequently. Usually, if they called early enough in the festivities before Matt reached maximum belligerence, he would comply.

“Hey, Jimbo,” he barked at the medic, who was sitting in one of the chairs, his football on the floor next to him, watching the two groupies suck each other’s tongues. “Get that fuckin’ thing, will you?”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Jim said, reluctantly dragging his eyes away. “What’s your hotel name again?”

“Norm Worthington,” he said, telling Jim the diminutive of his middle name and the name of the street he had grown up on.

“Right,” Jim said, getting to his feet.

“Tell him we’ll turn the tunes down if he promises not to call up here again,” Matt said.

“Right,” Jim said again, heading over to the writing desk. He picked up the phone. “Norm Worthington’s room.” He listened for a moment. “What? Who?” A pause. “Oh ... hi, how are you?” Another pause. “Yeah ... he’s here. Just a minute.” He turned back to Matt. “It’s Kim.”

“Kim?” Matt asked. “What the fuck does she want?” Kim had never called him while he was on the road before.

“She didn’t tell me,” he said, “but she says it’s very important.”

“All right,” he sighed, wondering what kind of shit was hitting the fan now. “Tell her to hang on a second.”

Jim told her this and put the phone down on the desk. Matt quickly finished crunching up the cocaine and then expertly separated it into six fat rails. He picked up the mirror and then pulled his sterling silver straw from his shirt pocket. He snorted up two of the lines, one for each nostril, and then handed the mirror to the leather mini-skirt groupie.

“Here you go, hon,” he told her. “Fire up.”

She took the mirror and the straw from him. He got up, grabbed his Jack and Coke, and walked over to the desk. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Mattie,” Kim’s voice said from five and a half thousand miles away. “It sounds like you’re having some fun there.”

“I’m trying to,” he said. “What’s the deal? Why did you call me?”

“I got a call from your accountant earlier today,” she said.

“Hopple?”

“That’s the one,” she said.

“What the fuck did he want?”

“He says he needs to talk to you right away,” she said. “That it’s very important.”

“Did he say what’s so important about it?”

“Not to me,” she said, “but he did make a point to stress that he really needs to talk to you today.”

“It’s not today anymore, it’s tonight.”

“Not here it isn’t,” she reminded him. “It’s just past three in the afternoon. He said he’ll be in his office until six tonight. He gave me the number in case you don’t have it with you.”

“I do not have it with me,” Matt sighed. “The last fucking thing I want to bring to Europe with me is that fucking asshole’s phone number.”

“You got a pen?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, picking one up and then pulling over the pad of courtesy hotel stationary. “Go ahead.”

She rattled off the number to him and he wrote it down. She made him repeat it, just to make sure he had written it correctly. He had.

“Okay, thanks,” he told Kim. “I guess I’d better see what dicknose wants.”

“I guess you’d better,” she said. “Talk to you later, Mattie.”

“Yep,” he said and then hung up. He looked at the number on the paper for a moment and picked up the phone. Just as he was about to dial, a loud cheer of enthusiasm erupted throughout the room. He looked and saw that the two groupies on the couch had progressed a bit in the action. The short-haired one had pulled off the long-haired one’s pants and was now licking away at her slit.

“Yeah!” cheered Corban. “Suck that fuckin’ snatch!”

“Make her come!” yelled one of the other groupies.

“And don’t try to fake no orgasm!” Jim yelled. “We know the difference.”

“If she keeps doing that, I won’t need to fake it,” the groupie said dreamily.

In a rare moment of discretion, Matt decided he should maybe make his phone call from the bedroom phone. He got up, taking the piece of paper with him. He walked by the two groupies he had staked his claim on and told them he would be back.

“Make it quick,” the leather mini-skirted one said, “or we might get started without you.”

“That works for me,” Matt said.

He picked up his pack of cigarettes and his lighter and went into the bedroom. He closed the door behind him, dampening down, but by no means eliminating, the whoops and cheers and shouts of those watching the two women going at it. He listened to the sounds of them with envy. Just as the party was getting good, he has to call his fucking accountant.

“I’m calling that motherfucker collect,” he said. And that was just what he did.

He went through the hotel operator to the international operator and gave her the number. The phone rang on the other end. A woman answered.

“Hopple and Hopple,” she said brightly. “How may I direct your call?”

“This is the international operator. I have a collect call from Mr. Tisdale to Mr. Hopple. Will you accept the charge from the United Kingdom?”

“Excuse me?” the secretary asked.

“This is a person to person call from Mr. Tisdale to Mr. Hopple,” she repeated in a nasally voice. “Will you accept the charge from the United Kingdom.”

“Whoa,” Matt said. “This is some serious Pink Floyd shit here.”

“I beg your pardon,” the secretary said, confused and upset.

“It’s Matt Tisdale calling,” Matt said impatiently. “Hopple needs to talk to me. Now accept the charges and put me through.”

“Uh ... well ... he did say he was expecting a call from you, but...”

“Then accept the fucking charges,” Matt barked. “Come on. I’ve got a couple of chicks dyking out in the other room and I’m not watching it because Hopple seems to think there is something more important than that. Now accept the goddamn charges, please.”

“Okay,” she said meekly. “I’ll accept the charges.”

“Thank you,” the operator said, seemingly unfazed by the conversation. With that, she clicked off the line.

“I’ll put you through, Mr. Tisdale,” the secretary said. There was brief pause and then, “Do you really have two women ... you know ... doing that in the other room?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “And I’m going to miss the finale if you don’t get dicknose on the line for me.”

“Right,” she said. “Putting you through.”

There was a brief period of on-hold music—the Muzak version of Motley Crue’s Home Sweet Home—and then the phone clicked. “Matt?” said Hopple’s voice. “Is that you?”

“It’s me, Hopple,” Matt said. “Kim said you have some shit you need to talk to me about?”

“Yes, yes I do,” he said. “Where are you at tonight?”

“In fucking England,” Matt said. “Birmingham, as a matter of fact. It’s eleven-fucking-thirty at night here, we just got back from the show, and I got a couple of English groupies munching each other’s muff on the couch of my suite. Now please tell me what is more important than that.”

“English groupies?” Hopple asked, his voice envious. “What do they look like?”

“Like fucking groupies!” Matt barked. “Why do you need to talk to me, Hopple? What kind of shit is hitting the fan back there?”

“Oh ... well ... it’s not really a big deal, actually, and I don’t want you to worry too much about this, but ... well ... uh...” He faded out.

“What?” Mat shouted, loud enough to drown out the sounds of the partying. “Spit it out, dude! Tell me what you don’t want me to fucking worry about!”

“Well ... it’s just that I got a notice that your taxes from 1995 are being audited.”

“Audited?” Matt asked, suddenly forgetting about the groupies outside. That was a terrifying word.

“Yeah, audited,” Hopple said, “but don’t worry. First of all, it’s not the IRS who is auditing you, it’s just the California Franchise Tax Board.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” he asked. “An audit is an audit, right?”

“Well ... kind of,” Hopple said. “But this shouldn’t be bad at all. They’ve already told me what the issue is.”

“What is the issue?”

“It’s the one-hundred- and eighteen-thousand-dollar medical deduction you took for that heart surgery you had back in December. You remember? The one you paid out of pocket for?”

“Yes, Hopple,” Matt said, shaking his head. “I do seem to remember them burning away parts of my fucking heart and me paying a hundred and eighteen big for it. What is the issue? You said that out-of-pocket medical expenses are deductible.”

“They are,” Hopple said. “That’s why I don’t want you to worry about this. There is no question whatsoever that your heart surgery was a legitimate medical expense that was uncompensated by your medical insurance carrier.”

“Then why are they questioning it?”

“The amount you paid triggered an alarm,” Hopple said. “You see, paying that much out of pocket in medical expenses is far above the normal amount that the average taxpayer pays—even taxpayers at your income level. They just want to see documentation of the procedure, the financial transaction, and why the insurance company did not reimburse you. It’ll be nothing. Like I said, there is nothing the least bit questionable about the legitimacy of this deduction.”

“Are you sure about this?” Matt asked.

“Absolutely sure,” Hopple assured him. “I just need you to fax me a written authorization to represent you at the audit. Under the assumption that you did not want to fly all the way back home to appear in person for this minor matter, I’ve already taken the liberty of scheduling it for May 25^th at the Los Angeles branch office.”

“Uh ... well ... yeah, I guess I don’t want to come all the way back to LA for this shit. We’ll be in France then, I think. Do I just write this up on a piece of paper?”

“That’s right,” Hopple said. “A handwritten authorization is fine. Just say that you authorize the firm of Hopple and Hopple to represent you before the California Franchise Tax Board, date it, and then sign it. Let me give you our fax number.” He rattled the number off and Matt wrote it down.

“Does this shit have to be done tonight?” Matt asked.

“No, just do it in the next twenty-four hours,” Hopple said.

“All right,” Matt said. “I’ll do it in the morning, before we go out to do the meet and greets.”

“That will work,” Hopple said. “And, like I told you, don’t worry too much about this. It should be nothing.”

“Yeah,” Matt said bitterly. “A nothing tax audit. That happens all the time, right?”

“Actually, you’d be surprised,” the accountant reassured him.

“Uh huh,” Matt said. “I’m gonna go back to my groupies now.”

“Any chance you could snap some pictures?” Hopple asked.

“I already have,” Matt told him, “but you’re sure as shit not going to see any of them.”

“That’s too bad,” Hopple said, genuine regret in his tone. “Oh ... and one more thing before you go. I just wanted to say how happy I am about you and Jake Kingsley.”

Matt wrinkled his face in confusion. “What about me and Jake Kingsley?” he asked.

“It’s all over the entertainment news here in LA,” Hopple said. “About this Tsunami Sound Festival and about how you and Jake are going to share the stage for it.”

“What?!” Matt barked.

“You and Jake,” Hopple said, a little confusion in his tone now. “He’s going to be the act before yours on both nights of the festival. Didn’t you know that?”

“No, I did not fucking know that!” Matt nearly screamed. “Are you sure about this shit?”

“Very sure,” Hopple said. “Music Alive released their press release two days ago about the TSF. It listed the bands that will be playing on each night. Jake is there right before you on both of them. You can see it on their website if you have internet access there.”

“And the entertainment media are talking about this?” Matt asked next.

“They’re making a big deal out of it,” Hopple said. “They’re calling it the ‘first step toward a possible Intemperance reunion’. Is that true, Matt? Do you really think this might lead to that?”

“No, it’s not true,” Matt said through gritted teeth. “There is not going to be an Intemperance reunion—never! In fact, there’s not even going to be a ‘this’, as you put it. I will not share a stage with Jake fucking Kingsley. Either he is going to go, or I am.”

“Oh,” Hopple said slowly. “That’s too bad as well. I was kind of looking forward to it.”

“I gotta go, Hopple,” Matt told him. “You’ll have that fax tomorrow. For now, I got a few more phone calls to make.”

He hung up the phone without waiting for Hopple’s reply. He then got the hotel operator and then the international operator back. He had her ring the main line for his home in San Juan Capistrano, where he assumed Kim would be staying (she rarely went to her own house, even when Matt was away). It was an assumption that proved to be correct. She picked it up on the second ring and agreed to accept the international charge from the United Kingdom.

“Hey, Mattie,” she greeted once the operator clicked off the line. “Did you talk to Hopple?”

“I did,” he said. “It turns out I’m being audited by the state.”

“Oh,” she said, worry in her voice. “That could be bad.”

“He says it’s nothing,” he told her dismissively. “They just want documentation on my heart surgery and why I deducted it.”

“That should be okay then,” she said. “As long as that’s the only issue they look at.”

“I didn’t call about the audit,” he told her. “I called about the TSF.”

“The festival in September?” she asked. “What about it?”

“Have you heard anything about the lineup?” he asked. “Hopple told me the entertainment fucks are all talking about it.”

“I haven’t heard a thing,” she said, “but I don’t watch those entertainment shows. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “Are you at your desk right now?”

“I am,” she said. “I was just going through some emails.”

“Get on the internet and bring up Music Alive’s site. Hopple says that the press release is there.”

“Okay,” she said. “Hang on a minute. Let me close out the email and bring up Yahoo.” He heard the sound of her tapping on the keyboard and clicking the mouse. “It’s coming up now. I really love this DSL modem you had them put in. It’s so much faster than the dial-up.”

“It had to be,” Matt said. “It took forever to download a fucking porn video with the dial-up. Even the pictures took like fifteen minutes apiece. You can’t jack off at that pace.”

“I suppose that’s as good a reason as any,” she said. “Okay, here we go. Music Alive ... Music Alive ... where are you? I wish the damn search engine would give me the relevant fucking sites I’m looking for and not a bunch of articles about past concerts and speculation about whether or not music is still alive.”

“Yeah, that is a bitch, isn’t it?” Matt said. “Especially when you’re looking for porn.” Which was the only reason Matt ever used the search engine, or indeed the computer. “I was looking for some once and put in ‘great tits’ and do you know what it came up with at the top of the list? Pictures of fucking birds!”

“Birds?” she asked.

“Yeah. Apparently, there is some bird somewhere that is called a great tit. As if that is what anyone typing in ‘great tits’ is looking for.”

“Huh,” Kim said. “A bird called a great tit. Who would’ve thought? Well, hopefully, somebody somewhere is working on a better search engine. They’ll be able to dominate the market if they can come up with one. Here we are ... Music Alive Incorporated. Clicking the link now.” A pause. “Okay, here’s a link for the Tsunami Sound Festival. Loading ... Loading ... ahh, there it is. The lineup for both nights. Hopple was right. You’re listed as the headliner on both nights. Jake Kingsley is listed as the second-to-last act on both nights.”

“Motherfucker,” Matt said angrily.

“There’s even a teaser line here saying that this will be the first time that Matt Tisdale and Jake Kingsley have appeared together since the breakup of Intemperance.”

“Fuck me!” he barked. “Even if I would allow myself to step onto the same stage where Kingsley just fucking played—which I will not—we weren’t going to be playing together. Those fucking record people and their goddamn lies.”

“I’m sure they prefer to call it innuendo,” Kim offered.

“I’m sure they do,” he said. “Get in my rolodex and get me that fuckhead Stillson’s phone number. I need to give his ass a call.”

“All right, hang on.”

A minute later, the number was written down and Matt was making yet another international phone call. This time Jerry Stillson’s secretary tried to refuse to accept the international charge on the grounds that Mr. Stillson was unavailable to speak to Mr. Tisdale currently.

“You’d better make his ass available and do it now,” Matt cut in. “If he’s not talking to me on this phone in the next thirty seconds, he can take his fuckin’ Tsunami Sound Festival and shove it up his ass!”

“Uh ... well ... in that case ... uh ... let me see what I can do,” she stammered.

“Then you will accept the charge from the United Kingdom?” the operator enquired again, her voice still monotone and bored.

“Yes,” the secretary said. “I will accept the charge.”

“Thank you,” the operator said. She then promptly clicked off the line.

“I’m going to put you on hold, Mr. Tisdale and see if I can track down Mr. Stillson.”

“Thirty seconds,” Matt warned. “That’s all you got.”

“I will try,” she promised.

The phone clicked and the on-hold music began. It was classical music. Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 in G-major. Matt did not know that was the name of it, but he recognized it instantly because one of his favorite porno flicks had an awesome lesbian shower scene that was set to the piece.

Twenty-seven seconds later, the phone clicked in his ear, cutting off the Mozart. It was Stillson on the line. “Matt!” he said, his voice glad-handed and smooth. “Gloria came and got me out of a meeting. She said you had something of importance to discuss?”

“That’s right, Stillson,” Matt told him. “I just found out that you got fucking Kingsley set to open for me on both nights of the TSF.”

“Uh ... well ... yes, that is correct,” Stillson said.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were going after Kingsley before?” he demanded.

“Well ... the fact of the matter is, we just signed Mr. Kingsley a week or so ago. Until then, we weren’t sure he was going to be performing.”

“But you’ve been talking to him about this shit since long before then, haven’t you?”

“Well ... yes, we did approach Jake several months ago about the possibility of performing.”

“So, in other words, you didn’t tell me about that then because you knew it would fucking piss me off. And you didn’t tell me about it when he signed because you thought maybe I wouldn’t hear about it over here in Europe, right?”

“Matt,” Stillson said soothingly, “I think you’re reading too much into this. There was no conspiracy to withhold the truth from anyone.”

“Did Kingsley know I was going to be the headliner when he agreed to play?”

“Not at first,” Stillson admitted. “Of course, when we offered the gig to him initially, we had not even approached you yet.”

“But he knows about it now?”

“It did come to his attention,” Stillson said.

“And he still agreed to play?” Matt asked angrily. “Knowing that he would be opening for me?”

“I will admit that when he first found out that you were to be the headliner, he initially withdrew his verbal commitment to play. But then, a few days later, Pauline Kingsley called us up to tell us that he had changed his mind.”

“Really?” Matt asked. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

“He did not explain himself to us,” Stillson said. “Nor did we ask for an explanation.”

“Well, I’m going to explain myself to you,” Matt told him. “I will not play on the same stage as Jake Kingsley. Drop him from the lineup or drop me. The choice is yours.”

“We cannot drop Jake from the lineup at this point,” Stillson said. “We have signed a contract with him.”

“Then I guess you’re going to have to drop me. Good luck finding another headliner.”

“Matt, we have signed a contract with you as well,” Stillson reminded him.

“I don’t give a fuck about that contract,” Matt said. “You can shove it up your fuckin’ ass! Keep your million-four! I don’t fucking need it!”

“Matt, you need to be reasonable on this,” Stillson said. “And you need to consider the ramifications.”

“What ramifications?”

“We’ve already laid down a significant amount of money to National Records to obtain the performance rights for your music. That money is nonrefundable. That is the first thing.”

“Sue me then,” Matt challenged.

“Don’t you understand, Matt,” Stillson said, “that is exactly what you will be forcing us to do if you back out of this contract at this point in time. We have already publicly announced that you are the headliner for both nights of the TSF. People are already buying tickets for the event based on that information. We have already invested money and time into the event. If you back out without just cause—and the fact that you do not wish to have Jake Kingsley open for you is not just cause—you will be liable for all expenses related to your withdrawal and may be subject to punitive damages on top of that.”

“Do your fuckin’ worst,” Matt told him. “I’m giving you an ultimatum. Kingsley goes or I do. Make your choice.”

“We cannot ask Mr. Kingsley to stand down at this point.”

“Then I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about, do we?” Matt asked.

“Matt...”

“I’m hanging up the phone now so I can go tear me off some English gash,” he said. “I’ll give you thirty days to think this shit over and do the right thing. Call me if you decide to tell Kingsley to take a fuckin’ hike. Do not call me for any other reason.”

“Matt ... you can’t just...”

“Bye now,” Matt said.

With that, he hung up the phone. After that, he went and tore himself off some English gash.

Meanwhile, just across the pond in Boston, Massachusetts, it was 6:30 PM and Njord Miller was in his fourth-floor room of the Boston Sheraton Hotel scoring himself a little American gash (the only kind of gash he had ever scored, unless you counted, as a category of gash other than American, that one time he managed to get some Eskimo gash up in Alaska). Her name was Jessica something or other, and he had met her down in the bar about two hours ago. She was a cute brunette in her mid-thirties, big titties with huge nipples, and she had been impressed as hell to be meeting Celia Valdez’s personal pilot, which was how Njord had introduced himself to her.

“Yes! Yes! I’m coming!” Jessica cried out four minutes and eighteen seconds after Njord inserted his condom-capped member into her body in the missionary position and started thrusting away.

“Yeah, baby!” Njord said, picking up the pace a little. “You dig my cock, don’t you?”

Her answer was inarticulate, just a series of guttural moans. She scratched at his back with her fingernails. She thrust her pelvis erratically back at him. Njord had no doubt that this was the real deal here. In fact, the thought that she (or any woman he had ever fucked) might be faking an orgasm never even entered his mind. Which was probably for the best, since the orgasm Jessica was experiencing was indeed as artificial as NutraSweet, as phony as an email from a Nigerian prince in exile.

When she wrapped up her performance, Jessica began encouraging Njord to produce a real orgasm. It did not take long. She simply used a few aeronautical themed euphemisms, scratched at his back a little more, told him he was the best fuck she’d ever had, and his circuit breaker fell smoking to the ground. He spasmed and exploded, filling the little reservoir tip at the end of the condom with his offering.

He rolled off of her, onto his back, panting and sweaty. When he caught his breath, he pulled the condom off and dropped it into the little garbage can next to the bed. He looked over at his companion, seeing she was looking up at the ceiling, a contented expression on her face. He felt rather proud of himself for putting that expression there.

“You were great, baby,” he told her, reaching out to stroke her breast.

She cooed a little. “So were you,” she assured him. “I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of slut or anything.”

“Of course not,” he said, although he thought exactly that, but that was okay because he had absolutely nothing against sluts. In fact, he relied upon them for the majority of his sexual encounters.

“It just that ... you know ... there was such a chemistry between us, such a connection. I never jump into bed with a man two hours after meeting him, but with you ... I just couldn’t help myself. I knew five minutes after meeting you in the bar that I wanted you and I wanted you today.”

“And you got me,” Njord said slyly, quite enjoying the stroke to his ego she was giving him. She was a little different than the average slut he fucked. She was more intelligent, more articulate. He actually enjoyed talking to her. Usually, by this point in an encounter, he was trying to figure out a way to get them out of his room so he could take a nap.

“Yes, I did,” she said with a little giggle. She patted him high on his naked thigh affectionately. “And I’m glad I did. That was probably the best sex I’ve ever had. I don’t come very easily from fucking, but you pulled one right out of me. You’re a wonderful lover, Njord.”

“I’m just me,” he said modestly, though inside he was high-fiving himself, feeling very worthy of the name his parents had saddled him with.

“Just you,” she said with another giggle. “A man who gets to fly Celia Valdez and her band around all over the country. What a cool job! Where are you going next?”

“They have one more show to do in Boston tomorrow night and then we’ll be heading up to Portland the next morning. There will be two shows in Portland. From there, it’s up to Bangor to close out this leg. After that, we’re on break for five days and then we’re going to Quebec and then three dates in Montreal.”

“Up to Canada, huh?”

“That’s right,” he said. “The final leg of the tour is the Canadian cities. We’ll finish up in Victoria near the end of September.”

“That is just so cool,” she said. “What’s she like?”

“Who? Celia?”

“Yeah,” she said. “She’s so beautiful, so talented. Is she a nice person? Do you like working for her?”

“I don’t work for her,” he said stiffly. “She just flies on my aircraft. She does what the hell I tell her when she’s aboard.”

“Ohhh, I see,” Jessica said. “So ... you’re actually the boss then?”

“Goddamn right I’m the boss,” Njord said. “I don’t put up with no shit from no Hollywood rich bitch like her.”

“It sounds like you don’t like her much?”

“I can’t stand the bitch,” he said. “She’s a stuck-up, overrated lesbo.”

Jessica’s eyebrows went up. “Lesbo?” she asked. “Do you mean that in the literal sense?”

“I wouldn’t have said it otherwise,” he said. “She’s getting it on with my lesbian copilot. They’ve been rubbing their clams together for the past month or so now.”

“Really?” she said, obviously intrigued by this revelation. “Have you actually seen them doing it?”