Jerry found himself thinking, ‘not again.’ Being a Sleestack, and seeing the universe as a puzzle in which similar events are grouped together, Jerry could not help but notice the irony of once again being caught between two powerful women.

The last time the two women were his mother and his now ex-girlfriend. While Sparticus and Spartamatrix continued their verbal sparring, Jerry did what he often did when torn between two demanding women, he checked out and started daydreaming.

He thought of the time in college when his therapist had said, ‘Jerry, you are obsessed with ‘why.’ We could spend 40 years in analysis only to discover that the reason you are afraid to talk to women is that your mother’s hair was so black it looked blue, but armed with this knowledge, you will still have to get up the courage to ask someone out.’

He did find a girlfriend, but it was short lived. After she dumped him, she said, “Your unresolved issues with your mother are why we did not work out.” As his mind drifted, he wondered how much he had in fact resolved considering he was too shy to ask the barista out….

A shout from Spartamatrix distracted him from his reverie. He thought, ‘given that I have not gotten laid in a while, there are worse fates than being a sex-slave to an Amazon-esque dominatrix.’ But then he thought, ‘fuck that, I just want the girl, not the superhero.’ He was rather pleased with this and took it as a sign that maybe all the therapy had yielded something after all.

He started singing, “Blaming it all on the nights on Broadway, Singing them love songs, Singing them straight to the heart songs…” When Sparticus turned to see who was singing her favorite song, he pulled the small vial of space dust out of his pocket, threw it in her eyes, blinding her, and remembering Iriving Finklebaum’s admonition, yanked the zipper on her head, pealing her open.

She was hollow inside… Jerry jumped in, thinking, ‘this is just like jumping into my favorite bunny pajamas with feet, as a child…’ He felt the curve of his bosoms with his hands, then exclaimed, “Now I am my mother, I AM Sparticus. Back off bitch, you are not going to play God, you are not going to decimate the male population….”