Molly was just standing in my old room, looking at me.

  The rhinoceros was just standing there with her, looking at me.

  I was just standing there, looking at them.

  “Fuck,” I said. “Molly. What the fuck? That’s a rhinoceros. My sister’s in the bathroom. I don’t need her seeing a fucking rhinoceros in my apartment. She’ll think I’m weird.”

  “His name is Baubles,” Molly said. “It refers to his balls.”

  “God damn it,” I said. “Why’s there a testicle-named rhinoceros in my apartment? What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Keep your voice down. Your sister will hear you. Also, you could scare Baubles and he shits when he’s frightened.”

  “Get him out of my apartment,” I whispered.

  “To be honest, he shits when he’s not frightened, too. It’s not like he’s standing around with his colon on speed-dial, waiting to be frightened. He shits all the time. He shits and he shits. Mountains of shit, from this one.”

  “I’m going absolutely fucking crazy here, Molly. I seriously need to get back on my couch and resume drinking bourbon, but before that can happen we need to deal with the elephant in the room, which in this case is a rhinoceros in the room.”

  “I had to hide him.”

  “Go on.” I was standing with the door half open, my eyes flickering back and forth between the rhino and the bathroom door. Charles had gotten bored, as cats do, and wandered off. Nothing to see, here. Just a fucking rhinoceros.

  Molly said, “There’s this group called the Cult of Piccold, and they were planning to sacrifice Baubles. Some big ceremony. I chanced across it when I was coming to visit you, and then Baubles looked at me with a ‘save me’ expression and I thought, ‘yeah, what the hell,’ and then before I really realized what was happening I’d killed a few of the cultists. Which, before you say anything, is fine, because they’re into human sacrifice. And rhinoceros sacrifice.”

  “Okay. But what—”

  “Thing is, there were at least fifty cultists, and some of them were high level, and I didn’t want to end up sacrificed along with Baubles, who they stole from the Bale of Whitewater’s private zoo. Oh, ‘bales’ are basically the equivalent of dukes, in your world. The bale is enormously rich. We need him on our side. And I used to go to his zoo when I was a kid. I met Baubles when I was no more than five years old. He had those big fascinating balls.” She moved to his side and gestured to his balls in grand fashion. I had to admit it was fitting, since they were grand balls.

  “So you and a rhino ran from the cultists, and you ended up here? Why here?”

  “Closest escape route. Didn’t have much choice. Did you just say you had bourbon?” Molly took hold of a leash around the rhino’s neck, a leash made of interworked chains and leather straps, and began leading him to the door.

  “Fuck no,” I said, standing in front of them and holding up my hand in the “stop” position, which I was fairly certain Molly would ignore, but I couldn’t possibly let the two of them out into the living room.

  “You want him to shit in here?” Molly said.

  “I don’t want him to shit anywhere! This isn’t about shitting! I just don’t want you out in the living room with him!”

  “You’re raising your voice again.”

  “You have a fucking rhinoceros in my fucking apartment!” I said, with a voice that was, indeed, raised. The rhino had toppled one of my new plants. I’d been buying more and more, ferrying them from the hardware store every couple of days. It was a veritable jungle in the room, at least compared to the lifeless way it used to look. I didn’t need a bull in my china shop, or a rhino in my jungle.

  “Just for a couple hours,” Molly said in that voice crazy people use when they believe they’re saying something reasonable.

  “Go. Now.” I pointed to the wall, where the magic door was waiting.

  “Can’t. I’d get murdered. Besides, you need to help me with Baubles.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do. I told you, he belongs to the Bale of Whitewater. Damian Tass. A good man fighting for good causes. And, I think he knows the blurred man.”

  “Shit,” I said. My heart was hammering. Molly was pacing. I was sweating. Charles peeked in the room and made a look of bored displeasure, like, “Oh, you’re still dealing with that rhino problem?” I could hear the sink running in the bathroom. Binsa was washing her hands and would be out in moments. I needed to think. I also needed an air freshener, because rhinos are majestic creatures with non-majestic scents. And the way Molly was pacing back and forth in her own nervousness was driving me crazy. The thump thump thump of her hard leather boots was like a clock, ticking down the moments until the situation got worse.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Molly tripped and fell flat on her face.

  “The fuck?” she said, sprawled on the floor. Baubles leaned down and nudged her with a “you humans are supposed to be upright, so get up” message. He smeared rhino spit all the way from Molly’s armpit to her waist. The cat got bored and left again. Molly stared at the floor where she’d stumbled. Then she stared at me.

  “Did you do that?” she asked, with menace involved.

  “What? No! How could I have done that? I’m way over here.” Her face started to harden and then it hit me. My ring. I held up my hand. Gave a weak smile.

  “Oh. Yeah. Trip Ring. Maybe I did it. Sorry. But this ‘Bale’ guy. How’s he know the blurred man?”

  “That’s what we need to find out. The other night I was sleeping with this guy, one of Bale Tass’s guard captains, and he mentioned that he and his people have been cautioned to be on the lookout for a man with a blurred face. The guys I was sleeping with, Thomas and Other Thomas, didn’t know anything more than that.”

  “Jesus that was a lot of information to take in.”

  “Bale Tass, you mean? Or the blurred man?”

  “Yes. Both. But also the fact that you were sleeping with two men.”

  “Well, there were more than two, but the other one wasn’t named Thomas.”

  “It… uh, what? Fuck it. No. Okay, so we need to talk to Bale Tass, and in order to have him on our side, we have to save his rhino. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Molly said, just as the bathroom door opened and Binsa came striding out, staring at her phone.

  I firmly closed my old bedroom door and stood away from it as if the entire room might bite me.

  “Ready to help?” Binsa said, looking up from her phone.

  “No. Help? What? Did you hear? Oh! Your phone! The messages. Yes. Ready. Let’s do that. No, wait. Maybe some other time.”

  “Holy shit,” Binsa said, looking at me with narrowed eyes. “Did you fall into a pit of drugs while I was pissing? And what’s with the cloak? Are we going to a costume party?” Charles curled around her feet and let out a mewl that clearly had some message to it, and I was glad we couldn’t understand him because obviously if cats could talk they would only be insulting and sarcastic.

  I was struggling for something to say when Molly walked out of my old bedroom.

  “Hi,” she said, waving at Binsa.

  “Oh shit,” Binsa said, smiling an uncertain smile. “Hi.”

  “Oh shit,” I whimpered. Molly was dressed… as Molly. Soft leather boots with hard soles. Leather pants. A bra that was part leather and part chainmail. A bare midriff. A wide belt bristling with pouches and assorted small weaponry. A cloak. Bits of jewelry. And a barbarian’s attitude.

  Binsa said, “You’re Molly, right? Josh told me about you. The girl in the bathtub. Sorry about walking in on you that time. Didn’t know you were in there. Josh doesn’t tell me things.” She glared at me in a specific “You Don’t Tell Me Things” manner.

  “Right,” Molly said. “That’s me. Molly Fenriskicker. And you must be Binsa. Sorry to barge in on you like this, but I’ve decided to have sex with Josh tonight, so here I am.”

  “Here you are,” Binsa agreed.

  “You what?” I asked Molly. She waved me off.

  “Would you mind if me and your brother had some time alone?” Molly asked, once again using her “I am perfectly reasonable” voice. My old bedroom door started to creak open. Unreasonably, Molly hadn’t closed it all the way. From my angle, I could see the rhinoceros in the room. Charles mewled from the floor and looked up to me. I gestured for him to go shut the bedroom door. He did not. I had to do it myself, all without removing myself from the conversation, but as luck would have it Binsa and Molly were doing that thing where two women have a conversation to seal a man’s fate, all without consulting him.

  “Shhh,” I told Baubles, holding a finger to my lips as I closed the bedroom door. He let out a derisive snort that I had to cover with a pretend cough.

  “You and Josh into dressing up, then?” my sister asked Molly, pleased and amused. “Bit of roleplay? What are you? Some barbarian woman?”

  “That’s exactly right,” Molly said, with all the undercurrents of a woman who is pretending to tell the truth, and actually telling the truth, at the same time.

  “What’s Josh do, then?” Binsa laughed. “Wave a sword around?” She pantomimed waving a sword. At crotch level.

  “It’s more of a dagger,” Molly said.

  “Zing!” my sister laughed, and Molly joined in, the two of them reduced almost to tears. I was hoping the rhinoceros would burst out from my old bedroom and trample everyone to death.

  Binsa said, “Well, the two of you obviously need to slay a dragon or something. And I have my own mess to clean up.” She held up her phone, then gestured to Charles with her foot. “That idiot there accidentally paw-dialed a pair of women, and they’ll think it means I want to have sex with them. Only one thing to do, now.”

  “Have sex with them,” Molly said. “Obvious.”

  “Right?” Binsa agreed. I stayed quiet, playing along with the guidelines spelled out in the Book of Knowing You’d Only Make Things Worse. My sister and the barbarian chatted a bit more, with Binsa prepping her spaghetti as a take-out meal and claiming the remainder of the bottle of bourbon as the price for vacating the premises. Before she left, she gave me a hug and whispered, “you’re doing something right!” in my ear, and I did not tell her how wrong everything was, not even when she gave the fox tattoo on my arm a squeeze and added, “See? Good choice with your tattoos! Things are looking great!”

  And then it was just Molly and I in my apartment. Except for the rhinoceros in the bedroom, which wasn’t some sort of innuendo but instead an actual rhinoceros in my old bedroom.

  “Your sister is nice,” Molly said. “Now get your pants off.”

  “Huh? Were you serious about having sex?”

  “You wish. That’s never going to happen. Probably. What I meant was, we need to take Baubles back home to Bale Tass. So get dressed properly. It’s time for an adventure.” She plopped onto my couch to wait, making a tick-tock noise.

  It took me approximately ten minutes to prepare.

  It took Molly precisely nine minutes to eat all the rest of my spaghetti.