Robert Asprin - Sween Myth-tery of Life

A pounding headache ... a nauseous stomach ... the works!

There had been times in the past when I had gotten sick, but nothing like this! At first I was afraid I was going to die. Then I was afraid I'd live. Misery such as I was feeling should have a finite end.

Groaning slightly and burrowing into my pillow, I tried to gather my thoughts.

What was going on here? What happened to make me feel ...

Suddenly, the memory of the previous night flashed across my mind ... or, at least, the beginning of it.

The blind date ... The Wooden Stake ... the admiring crowds ... Cassandra!

I sat bolt upright and ...

Big mistake. BIG mistake.

Every pain and queasiness I had been feeling slammed into me threefold. With a moan, I fell limply back onto my pillow heedless of the new unpleasant sensations this move caused. You could only feel so miserable, and I had bottomed out. Nothing could make me feel worse. Forget any effort at rational thought. I was just going to lie there until my head cleared or I died ... whichever came first.

A knock sounded at the door.

Disoriented as I was, I had no difficulty deciding what to do: I was going to ignore it. I was certainly in no condition to see or talk to anyone!

The knock came again, a little louder this time.

"Skeeve? Are you awake?"

It was Bunny's voice. From what I could recall of the beginning of last evening, I really didn't want to talk to her right now. All I needed to make my misery complete was to have her carping on me about my taste in dates.

"Go away!" I called, not even bothering to try to make it sound polite.

As soon as I uttered the words, however, I realized I would have been better off just staying quiet. Not only had the effort increased the pounding in my head, I had inadvertently let her know I was awake.

As if in response to my afterthought, the door opened and Bunny came in, a big tray of food in her hands.

"When I didn't see you at breakfast or at lunch, I figured you might be a little worse for wear from last night," she said crisply, setting the tray on my desk. "I had the kitchen put together a tray for you to help you back to the land of the living."

Food was definitely low on my list of priorities at the moment. If anything, I was more concerned with things going the other way through my digestive tract. It did however, suddenly occur to me that I was thirsty. In fact, VERY thirsty.

"Have you got any juice on that tray?" I managed weakly, not wanting to sit up far enough to look myself.

"Do you want orange or tomato?"

The mention of tomato juice brought memories of last night's Bloody Marys to mind, and my stomach did a slow roll and dip to the left.

"Orange will be fine," I said through gritted teeth, trying hard to talk, keep my mouth shut, and swallow at the same time.

She favored me with a speculative glance.

"Well, it wasn't Screwdrivers or Mimosas."

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Orange juice, coming up."

I could have done without the "coming up" comment, but the juice tasted fine. I downed it in two long swallows. Strangely enough, it left me even more thirsty. Not that the juice wasn't a welcome input of cool moisture, but it made me realize just how dehydrated I was.

"Any more of that?" I said hopefully.

"Got a whole pitcher here," Bunny replied, gesturing toward the tray. "I had a hunch you were going to need more than one glass. Take it slow, though. I don't think it would be a good idea to gulp down a lot of cold liquid just yet."

I resisted the urge to grab the entire pitcher from her, and instead simply held out my glass for a refill. With a major effort, I did my best to comply with her suggestion and sipped it slowly. It lasted a little longer that way, and did seem to have a greater effect.

"That's better," she said, refilling the glass again without being asked. "So. Did you have a good time last night?"

I paused in mid-sip, trying to force my brain to function.

"To be honest with you, Bunny, I don't know," I admitted at last.

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"What I remember was okay," I said, "but after a certain point in the evening, everything's a blank. I'm not even sure exactly when that point was, for that matter. Things are a bit jumbled in my mind still."

"I see."

For a moment, Bunny seemed about to say something else, but instead she pursed her lips and wandered over to the window where she stood staring out.

My head was clearing now, to a point where I felt almost alive, and I decided it was time to try to set things right.

"Um ... Bunny? About last night ... I'm sorry I left you standing like that, but Vie had set up the date for me, and there was no real way to back out gracefully."

"Of course, the fact that she was quite a dish had nothing to do with it," Bunny commented with a grimace.

"Well ..."

"Don't worry about it, Skeeve," she said quickly, waving off my reply. "That's not what's bothering me, anyway."

"What is?"

She turned to face me, leaning back on the windowsill.

"It's the same thing that's been bothering me ever since I arrived for this assignment," she said. "I haven't wanted to say anything, because it's really none of my business. But if what you say about last night is true ..."

She broke off, biting her lip slightly.

"Go on," I said.

"Well ... Simply put, I think you're developing a drinking problem."

That one caught me off guard. I had been half expecting her to make some comment about how little I was helping on the kingdom's finances, or even the parade of women I seemed to be suddenly confronted with. It had never occurred to me that she might be taking affront at my personal habits.

"I ...I don't know what to say, Bunny. I mean, sure, I drink. But everybody drinks a little from time to time."

"A little?"

She came off the windowsill in one easy motion and came to perch on the edge of my bed.

"Skeeve, every time I see you lately you've got a goblet of wine in your hand. It's gotten so that your idea of saying 'Hello' to someone is to offer them a drink."

I was really confused now. When she first mentioned my drinking, my immediate reaction was that she was being an alarmist. The more she talked, however, the more I found myself wondering if she might have a point.

"That's just being hospitable," I said, stalling for time to think.

"Not when you're making the offer first thing in the morning," she snapped. "Definitely not when you go ahead and have a drink yourself, whether they join you or not."

"Aahz drinks," I countered, starting to feel defensive. "He says the water on most dimensions isn't to be trusted."

"This is your home dimension, Skeeve. You should be used to the water here. Besides, Aahz is a Pervect. His whole metabolism is different from yours. He can handle drinking."

"And I can't. Is that what you're trying to say?"

The misery I had been feeling since I awoke was now taking the form of anger and annoyance.

"Check me on this," she said. "From what I've heard, during your recent trip to Perv, you got into a fight didn't you? After you'd been drinking?"

"Well ... Yes. But I've been in fights before."

"From what I hear, if Kalvin, the Djinn, hadn't sobered you up, you might not have survived this one. True?"

She had a point there. The situation had been a bit hairy. I had to admit that my odds of surviving the brawl would have gone way down if I hadn't been jerked back to sobriety by Kalvin's spell.

I nodded my agreement.

"Then there's last night," she continued. "You really wanted to make a good impression on someone. You dressed up in one of your spiffiest outfits, probably dropped a fair hunk of change, and then what? From the sounds of it, you got carried away with the drinking until you can't even remember what happened. You don't even know what went on, much less whether or not your date had a good time. That doesn't sound like you ... at least, the you that you'd like people to remember."