“What about this one?”

“No, you haven’t got the legs for it,” Paul jeered.

Brad pouted and put the short nightgown back on the rack. “Oh, what do you know,” he huffed teasingly.

“I’ve seen you naked,” Paul reminded him, “the image is permanently burned in my retinas, and believe me, you couldn’t pull that off.”

A woman who had stopped to peruse a nearby rack lifted her eyebrows and wandered off. “I think she got the wrong idea about us,” Brad giggled, eyeing and quickly rejecting a pink lace nightie.

Paul grinned wickedly and shrugged, then picked up a sultry black silk and lace bra and panty set. “What do you think?”

Brad cocked his head and bit his lip as he considered the outfit.

“Well?” Paul prompted.

“Well what? I’m imagining Gina in it.”

“Well stop looking like you’re enjoying yourself so much,” Paul said, raising an eyebrow in such a manner that Brad didn’t know whether to take it as a sign of amusement or warning.

“I like it,” Brad shrugged.

Paul held the hanger at arms length and decided against it after all. “Not her style, too tame,” he grinned.

“Ooh, now this,” Brad cackled as he held up a leopard print silk negligee, “this is just begging for Fenny.”

“I have a hard time imagining Fen in that,” Paul laughed.

“Good,” Brad countered. “Wonder if it’d fit…”

“Nah, it’d be too short.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“As if the spots weren’t bad enough, you want her to look like she’s outgrown it?”

“I like the leopard spots.”

“Big surprise.”

Brad reluctantly put the leopard print back.

“What do you think about garter belts?” Paul asked.

“Hmm, sexy, but take too long to get off.”

“Good point.”

“Oh, Gina in a pink feather boa,” Brad gasped, pulling one from a shelf and draping it around Paul.

“And Fen in a leather corset?” Paul suggested, wrapping the boa around himself as he fingered some paten leather.

“Hmm, maybe we should switch,” Brad smiled.

“I’ll take Fen in a corset,” Paul piped.

“I’d like to see Gina in nothing but a boa,” Brad agreed. They nodded at each other until Brad broke into a snigger, and they collapsed together in a giggle fit.

“You’d never be able to satisfy Gina,” Paul said, trying to regain a bit of composure but losing it entirely as Brad held up a lacy thong.

“Not even if I was wearing this?” he asked.

“For fuck’s sake, Sherwood, don’t make me think things like that!” Paul yelped, shrinking away.

“Can I help you?” a crisp voice in a surprisingly American-sounding accent demanded. Paul snapped out of his laughing fit and Brad snapped the thong halfway across the room, which only served to get Paul snickering again.

“Um,” Brad babbled, “we’re, um, looking for some gifts for our girlfriends. Well his wife and my girlfriend.”

“They’re different people,” Paul added hastily.

“Women,” Brad nodded.

“Right,” she agreed after a moment. “And what exactly are we looking for?”

“Um, we’re not sure,” Brad said, giving Paul a quick jab in the chest with his elbow as he tried to swallow his giggles, but the thong was dangling from the elbow of a very seductively posed mannequin and doing nothing to quell his laughter.

“Do you know what size?” the woman asked, obviously losing her patience.

“Oh, uh, well, about—”

“Maybe, I dunno, like—”

Brad and Paul began making a series of gestures and mimed gropes with their hands, arms, legs, and any other body part that might come in handy when trying to rough out the size of “intimate apparel” for the woman you’d just spent the night naked with.

“Ok,” the woman sighed, “let’s see if we can’t work with what we have…”

“So,” Fenny cooed as they wandered down the street, “we’ve got another, oh, 45 minutes or so before we’re supposed to meet the boys, what do you wanna do?”

“Do?” Gina echoed, wary of the emphasis her friend had put on the word.

“Well yeah, time for you to do something un-Gina-esque.”

Gina paused and regarded her carefully, eyebrow raised in disbelief.

“Ok, right,” Fenny sighed, “there’s probably very little you won’t do. Something that’ll shock Paul, anyway.”

“That’s quite a task to undertake.”

“Hey, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? It’s liberating to do stupid things,” Fenny grinned, “especially in Paris. I’m not asking you to pierce your tongue or anything, although Paul would probably be pleased if you did. I doubt you could beat a tattoo anyway,” Fenny said, a hint of smugness in her voice, knowing full well that Gina couldn’t resist a challenge like that. Gina would out-stupid Fenny if it killed her.

Gina’s eyes turned skyward, pondering, and seemingly growing pleased with the idea. “I’ll do it,” she beamed. “Let’s go.”

She grabbed Fenny by the wrist and dragged her across the street and down half a block to the nearest beauty parlor, which Fenny reluctantly let herself be coaxed into.

“Aah, bonjour,” the woman at the desk chimed. “Bon matin.”

“Uh, yeah,” Gina smiled. “Hello.”

“Ooh,” the French woman oohed. “Beatrice,” she called towards the back. “Deux Americans.”

“Australian, actually,” Gina corrected, knowing full well it wouldn’t help.

A young woman sauntered up smiling pleasantly, Beatrice, judging by her name tag. “Hello,” she greeted them in reasonably good English. “How can we help you today?”

“I think I want to get my hair colored,” Gina announced proudly.

“Of course,” Beatrice smiled. “Lovely. And you?” She turned to Fenny.

“I’m just watching,” she smiled pleasantly. “I’ve done my time with self-mutilation for the day, thank you.”

“Right,” Beatrice chimed, smile still plastered on her face but eyes dropping a bit worriedly. “If you’d come with me?” she said and led Gina into the flurry of razors, creams, scissors, waxes, curlers and squirt bottles, and Fenny waved good luck and perched in the waiting area to go through preposterous fashion magazines.

“The girls should be back by now,” Paul announced as they meandered into the hotel lobby. “Didn’t we ask to meet them here ten minutes ago?”

“Yeah, they’re probably still trying on shirts or something,” Brad sighed, dropping his bag into a chair and giving the room another glance over. “Hey, has it been raining Kool-Aide?” he chuckled, pointing to a blonde woman with brilliant red streaks highlighting her hair.

“God, what would possess someone to do that to themselves?” Paul laughed, then stopped short when the small woman turned around. “Gina?!”

She and Fenny wandered over to their shocked partners, Gina in her “Bitch” shirt with red streaks through her hair, Fenny in her “Vixen” getup and a bit of hesitance in her gait, each with a smugly self-satisfied grin on her face.

“What the fuck did you do?” Paul gasped, laughing in spite of himself.

“We decided to liberate ourselves,” Gina announced.

“Making yourself look like you lost a fight with a magic marker is liberating?” Paul teased.

“Need I remind you of some of the hairstyles you’ve had over the years?” Gina countered.

“I thought you liked the Tin Tin look,” he pouted.

“You couldn’t have looked more adorable,” she cooed, leaning in to kiss him. He kissed back fervently, running his fingers through the newly-colored locks.

“Is this the only hair you had done?” he whispered.

“You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?” she giggled as she pressed her lips to his again.

“And what did you do to yourself?” Brad asked, peering closely at Fenny, checking for new hair styles, new glasses, and new piercings, but coming up empty.

“I can’t show you here in the middle of the lobby,” Fenny smirked.

“Huh? Why?”

“Oh, she’s gotta take off her pants to show it,” Gina sighed.

“Can I see?” Paul chirped excitedly.

Fenny scowled at him a moment before breaking out into a smile and leading Brad by the hand to the far corner of the lobby. Once convinced she was hidden by Brad’s frame, she undid the zipper of her pants. “Ready?” she smiled, and when Brad nodded eagerly in response, she gingerly pulled back the bandage.

“Shit,” he laughed, leaning down to get a better view of the little simian on her hip. “You’ve seriously lost your mind, haven’t you?” Brad asked.

She shrugged and smiled coyly in response.

“Why there?” Brad asked, reaching out to touch her stained skin.

“Well I’d have liked to have it over my heart, like yours, but as I’m sure you’ve noticed, my heart is covered with some significantly sensitive tissue, and it’s bad enough that my hip is starting to ache, I certainly didn’t need anyone sticking a needle in my left breast, thank you.”

“Does it really hurt?” he asked concernedly.

“Yeah, didn’t yours?”

“Well I, I don’t exactly remember,” Brad smiled lopsidedly. “I wasn’t exactly in the best mental condition when I got them done. They hurt the next morning, that I remember.”

“I’ve got something to look forward to then,” Fenny said with a nervous smile as she reattached the patch and readjusted her pants.

“No, wait,” Brad said, “hold on. Paul, c’mere, see what Fen did,” he called across the lobby.

“Brad,” Fenny giggled, but Paul and Gina headed for their corner. He gleefully peeled back the bandage on her leg as he showed off

“Oh, Fen,” Paul breathed, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you.”

“We match now,” Brad beamed.

“Yeah, but notice how my monkey isn’t doing anything raunchy with naked men,” Fenny countered pointedly.

“You two have got to get off this monogramming thing,” Paul sighed.

“You tease a girl about being a frumpy wallflower, and she goes off and gets herself a tatt,” Gina sighed.

“It’s special because it’s from Paris,” Fenny announced, poking her tongue out at Gina, who reciprocated the gesture.

“Hey, it could’ve been worse,” Brad announced, “Fen could’ve streaked her hair to look like a starlight mint.”

“Oh, and trendy hair is worse than a permanent voluntary scar how?” Gina jeered.

“I only look foolish to people who see me with my pants off,” Fenny announced.

“Which is gonna be a lot of people if Brad keeps up this trend,” Gina laughed.

“Do you know how worrying it is that I’m the sanest of this lot?” Paul giggled.

“What a horrifying prospect,” Fenny cringed dramatically as she zipped up her pants again.

“So,” Brad perked as Paul glanced between the other three strangely, “I guess we go to the Louvre, right?”

“Ooh yeah,” Fenny enthused.

“How did I end up with Rainbow Brite and the Monkey Twins in Paris?” Paul sighed.

“He’s starting to sound like Proops,” Gina gasped.

“Well you and Fen have taken over my role as the inexplicably weird one, someone’s gotta take over the Fen and Greg role of being grumpy.”

“C’mon c’mon,” Fenny urged, grabbing Brad by the arm, then Paul, who grabbed Gina, and dragging them out towards the rented car, “Louvre, art, culture, Paris. God I miss my sketchbook.”

“I don’t,” Brad laughed, earning himself a “playful” kick in the shin.

“What’s in the bag?” Gina asked as she noticed the pink plastic bag hooked over Paul’s arm, and the matching one in Brad’s hand.

“Later darling, I promise,” he cooed.

“So what is it?” Brad asked after he and Gina had stared at the same painting for probably a bit too long.

“Something about trees,” she answered.

“Trees?” he gasped.

“Yep.”

“But there’s not any green.”

“Not all trees are green,” she shrugged.

“Or trunk, or leaves or even a squirrel. It’s not a tree, it’s two purple lines and something that resembles a duck.”

“It’s modern.”

“Modern,” he scoffed, “I’ve pissed better art in the sand.”

“Such culture,” Gina mused, “such refinement.”

“This coming from the woman who advertises across her chest that she’s a bitch.”

Gina scowled playfully at him. “Let’s go bug Fen and Paul, they can explain this shit to us.”

“How can you take everything so seriously when you’ve got a monkey itching your hip?” Brad asked as he wandered up behind Fenny, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“I seem to be able to get the thought of my flesh out of my mind from time to time,” she smiled back at him, then shrugged, turning back to the paintings on the wall as Gina slipped her hand into Paul’s.

“What’s it say?” Gina whispered.

“Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” he whispered back.

“Right. And that means?”

“ ‘This is not a pipe’.”

“Yeah. And the other one, in English?”

“ ‘This is still not a pipe’.”

“But aren’t those two identical paintings of pipes?”

“Yes.”

“But they’re not pipes.”

“Nope.”

“I see.”

“The theory behind it,” Fenny offered, “is that it’s not really a pipe; it’s a representation of a pipe, but not an actual pipe.”

“Right.”

“This is odd,” Brad announced, tilting his head at a nonrepresentational piece across the room. “Where’s the statues of naked women?” he grinned.

“I agree,” Gina added, “take me to some art that makes sense.”

“Uncultured swine,” Fenny chuckled. “Heaven forbid we should enjoy some art that makes you think.”

“No, they want art that makes you horny,” Paul agreed.

“I see nothing wrong with that,” Brad shrugged, and Fenny rolled her eyes.

“Who’s she?” Brad asked, looking up the long corridor where Fenny had stopped dead in her tracks to stare.

“Winged Victory of Samothrace,” she breathed. “Isn’t it…I don’t know what to say.”

“Headless?” Brad chuckled, taking her by the hand and leading her towards the sculpture.

“Brad, please,” she huffed. “This is probably my favorite sculpture of all time.”

“Why?”

“Well, look at her, doesn’t she just take your breath away?”

“Sure,” he shrugged and wrapped his arms around Fenny from behind again, one hand placed gently over the lump of her bandage under her jeans, the other pushing away her hair so he could gain access to the skin of her neck. As his lips brushed against her, she silently shrugged him off. Pouting at Fenny as she resolutely ignored him in favor of the oversized headless winged woman, Brad glanced around in search of Gina and Paul. They were standing on either side of a smaller sculpture, a man with one leg, half an arm, and no genitals. He glanced around the room filled with chipped and broken bodies. “How come the chicks get to keep their tits but the guys lose their dicks?”

“Brad,” she hissed, her patience wearing thin.

“Sorry,” he whimpered, leaning down to kiss her and recoiling when she stepped away from him.

Fenny looked at Brad sternly. “Look, you obviously don’t know how much it means for me to be here, in the Louvre, but this is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, and you’re, well, honestly, you’re not helping.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but succeeded only in looking aghast.

“Face it Brad, trying to kiss me while cracking jokes about penises in the world’s finest art gallery is a bit crass and immature, and I don’t really appreciate it.”

“Well they have all lost their dicks,” he murmured, and Fenny stormed off to another part of the gallery, muttering incoherent obscenities under her breath.

“Is there any part of this museum we haven’t seen yet?” Gina asked as she glanced around the gallery of statues.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface, hon,” Paul declared with a smile as she visibly slumped, “but we’ve seen most of the really good bits. I figure we’ll drag Fen out when she’s done in this gallery, she told me these are her favorites, it’s a good place to stop.”

“So we can get out of here and do some more sight seeing?” she perked. “I’d like to see the Eiffel Tower, maybe go up to the top?”

“Oh, well, I thought we’d probably get headed back to Edinburgh soon,” Paul sighed cautiously. “I’ve got things to do, you’ve got work to make up.”

“But it won’t take long,” she cooed.

“I know darling, but really, we’ve got to be going real soon if we’re gonna make it back to town, y’know, at a reasonable hour.”

Gina folded her arms defiantly across her chest. “Yeah, ok, you’ll take Fen to a museum all afternoon but you won’t take half an hour out of your busy schedule for a romantic little rendezvous with your wife? Fine, I see where I rank.”

“Well, it’s just, I promised,” he said meekly.

Gina nodded in a sardonic way. “Yeah, and what I want obviously doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? Keep Fenny happy, sure, but who gives a pair of dingo’s kidneys what the little wife wants.”

“Genie,” Paul moaned as she turned on her heel and headed back down the corridor from which they’d come.

“Fuck off,” she gasped.

Paul froze, knowing he should chase after her, but not having a single idea of what was the right thing to say to her. He was more than surprised to see Fenny storm past him as well, and turned to see Brad sulking over. “What happened?” Paul asked.

“All women are insane,” Brad declared angrily.

“Tell me about it,” Paul sighed.