[ just call me lucifer, 'cause i'm in need of some restraint ]

"I think I'm going to puke," proclaimed an uneasy Adora, her forehead wrinkled unbecomingly with worry. She was perched precariously above the toilet's blinding, white porcelain, and she fought with futility to resist wrapping herself helplessly around the bowl's circumference.

"That's what I said when it happened to me!" Morgana exclaimed as she clung to her friend's ratty ponytail, her tone and reaction more chipper that Adora expected.

"Well what the bejesus am I going to do? Ask Corey Page to install a changing table off the side of the apron?" Adora shrieked, her face reddened by the force of her retching; fine groupings of capillaries burst beneath her eyes and along her jaw line as she cried. "I was sort of hoping I was infertile or something."

"You could overdose on vitamin C and shove bundles of parsley up your cunt!" Morgy offered unconvincingly.

"Dude, no home abortions..." she looked up at her friend with nervous suspicion. "Stop looking at me like that! I can see the coat hangers shining in your eyes!"

"But I have a medical degree," she pouted, jutting her full lower lip out dramatically, "and I can baptize and perform last rites..." her voice trailed off with sadness. "At least your kid would be in good standing with our Lord Jesus."

"I can do those things too," Adora countered before pausing thoughtfully. "And writing 'Dr. Aborto' on a piece of card stock doesn't certify you for anything."

"Dr. Reverend Aborto," she corrected primly. "I'm a man of God, too."

"Oh, God," Adora wailed as a wave of vomit surged forth through her esophagus. The thunderous sound of her own puke shooting into the toilet water made her think she was sicker than she was, and as the last of the offending chunks sunk to the bottom of the bowl, she sat back and gazed thoughtfully into the matter-infused liquid. "Huh... did ah eat cream cheese today?" she asked Morgy, fiercely perplexed by her own question.

"I don't know, Wifey," she exhaled deeply, "what did you eat?"

"I think I ate a baby," Adora cried again, after hiccupping pitifully, and an uncharacteristic urge for chicken overcame her as she did so.

"Ewww, you swallowed?!" Morgy gasped, her fingers momentarily releasing the grip on her friend's hair. Adora looked up from where she drooped, her gaze scolding.

"Yes, Wifey, I swallowed some jizz and now I'm knocked up," she shot back, her eyelids sagging with exhaustion and her lips puffed and red. "The baby is also going to come out my poopshute next time I take a crap."

"Oh, shut up, woman! I've done this before; I know how it works. I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble believing that you actually got pregnant on your first one night stand. That's too ridiculous."

"Isn't that just how life goes?"

"Pretty much, but you've probably taken one too many punches to the gut by far too many dudes to even be capable of gestating anything in there."

"Then why am I two weeks late and sick every single day?" Adora demanded, trying to ignore the feeling of her mouth salivating in preparation of another hurl. Morgana breathed deeply, her brow furrowed with concern.

"You silly woman," she shook her head slowly and sadly with obvious concession. "You just might be pregnant."

[ i've been around for a long long year
stolen many a man's soul and faith ]

The last thing Adora wanted to do that day, after wiping off the last of the vomit from her chin, was anything related to work or business. While at what had become her porcelain throne, she had settled on the idea of sitting in bed all day, alternating between tears and laughter at the predicament she was almost certain she was in. She had been doing it each day for a week, and it brought her a certain peace to focus on her womb and try to feel the presence of something -- anything, even if it was a tumour with teeth and hair -- and to come up short each time. She felt no maternal instinct kicking in, no uncontrollable urge to protect her belly, and if she ever found her hands resting on it, they were tensed and clawed, rather than patiently anticipating any signs of life from within.

Did this mean that she wasn't pregnant, but rather suffering the physical representations of stress? Or was this symbolic to the kind of mother she would be? Regardless, she felt disgusting and bloated in her favourite jeans, leopard print tank top and loose, black, off the shoulder t-shirt, cut off at her midsection in an undeniably late '80s-slash-early '90s manner. She struggled in the bright pink pumps she donned in an attempt to feel less cumbersome in her own pregnant mind, but she felt altogether unattractive and wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction and she neared Brian's office.

Naturally, Morgy accompanied her for moral support, and Adora envied how thoroughly unpregnant she looked in comparison.

"How am I going to squeeze into a She-Ra tunic looking like this?!" Adora demanded, gesturing wildly to her stomach, which looked firm and toned through her top, though all she could see when she looked down was an unbecoming bulge. "How can I let Brian see me like this?!"

"See you like what?" Morgy asked, exasperated by her friend's over the top, preemptive concern. "If you are knocked up, you're only about three weeks in and nobody but you can tell."

"He's going to be all, 'Yo bitch, where be my baby? You can't be a superhero with no baby! That's not my baby!'"

"Holy crap, stop saying the word baby!" Morgy shrieked with annoyance. "And stop imitating Brian like he's 50 Cent or something."

"I'm sorry," Adora exhaled, her breath short from constant anxiety. "It's just scary to see him for the first time since we slept together. It's never particularly fun facing someone after a huge and embarrassing mistake went down."

"He was there too, you know. He instigated things more than you did, and he breached the rules of his own profession's code of conduct, so he should be feeling pretty stupid too."

"If that's breaching rules, what about Anna Nicole and Howard K. Stern?"

"Well that's different; you can afford to pay him with money and you weren't obligated to do what you did. And your tits aren't big enough to compare this situation to them."

"Really? But I thought all I brought to my job was T&A! How can I do that without the T?"

"Don't ask me, ask the morons who come up with this shit." Morgy waved the question away, as though she were so fed up with hearing such accusations that even mild mockery of them no longer brought her any pleasure, cheap as it was.

"That's okay; I'll let that question's answer remain one of the universe's great mysteries," Adora chortled derisively, flipping the length of her blonde hair over one shoulder. She paused mid-step and extended a hand towards Morgy, who was several steps in front of her, resting it on her shoulder to slow her. "Okay, how do I look?" she asked nervously, the sight of Brian's office building looming ahead making her stomach churn with even more anxious nausea. "Pregnant? I don't have that stupid 'beautiful' glow about me or anything, do I?"

"No ma'am; you looked positively queasy!" Morgana assured her, casting a thoughtful glance over her best friend. "You know," she began after a moment of silence, "I'm not acting so nonchalant about this because I don't care; I'm just hoping that if I don't give it that much credence, it won't be true and that..." She hesitated to once again study Adora's face and reached out to wipe away a smudge in her usually immaculate red lipstick that, as a testament to her state of mind, jutted awkwardly over her lip line. "That maybe we can both come out of this relatively unscathed by unfortunate memories. Pregnancy and babies are supposed to be wonderful, and the last thing we need is a third experience with it ending in some sort of tragedy."

"I know," Adora replied softly, bobbing her head with agreement. "I know." She straightened her posture and thrust her shoulders back with as much confidence as she could muster, her thoughts decidedly unclear no matter how hard she tried to focus. Certainly she had anticipated this man being a long-term part of her life, but as her lawyer; not as the man who stopped by every Saturday to pick up little Bridora Reed for a picnic. Morgy took Adora's hand into her own and clasped it tightly before taking the first step to the building's entrance doors. "It'll be okay either way; I'll be there for you," she promised with a sternness in her voice that suggested she was not to be doubted.

[ what's puzzling you is the nature of my game ]

"What do you think about babies?" Charlie asked casually, glancing coyly at his wife to gauge her reaction. Her body stiffened and her eyes froze momentarily before drifting uneasily to meet his.

"I don't know... they're round?" she offered, hoping to diffuse the question with humour. At nineteen, thoughts of babies were largely limited to mindless plotting of potential names -- Axl for a boy and Charlie for a girl -- for use during a time she prayed to the god Tri Cyclen would be in the distant future.

"Seriously, though," he pressed, his brows furrowing to illustrate the gravity he felt accompanied the question.

"I think too many people have far too many of them with little regard for the fact that..." she trailed off, uncertain of how he'd take the revelation that she had no inclination to breed on her own. "With little regard for the fact that there are already millions of babies in this world with no one to care properly for them."

"I think it's the most romantic thing a couple can do!" Charlie protested. "To combine what you love about each other to create a new life that you love even more; that's truly amazing."

"Maybe so, but for now my uterus is better left unaware of such wonders."

"It binds people to one another forever," he continued, his eyes now focused on something in the distance behind Adora. "And it's a bond stronger than any marriage or commitment. There's no escaping it."

"Yeaaah... for shizzle," Adora nodded, allowing a small, tight smile to play on her lips. She rose to her feet and darted out of the room, explaining that she had to pee as she did so. The words fell on deaf ears, as Charlie was now lost in his own thoughts, and she wished she couldn't say with strong certainty that he was still pondering the topic.

[ please allow me to introduce myself
i'm a man of wealth and taste ]

When Morgy and Adora entered his office, Brian was stacking, with great interest, large tomes back on the shelves they belonged on, and he paused to carefully read the spines of each one, bound in green, brown or navy leather. He grunted a curt 'hello' to greet the women, but his back remained turned to them as he continued about his task.

"Researching for a big case?" Adora asked with a sheepishness she didn't even know she had in her.

"Uh, yeah, sure," he replied, straining his eyes to make out the embossed gold typeface on a particular book.

"This is Morgana," Adora heard herself speak with more confidence now. "I don't believe you've officially met, though I'm sure you've seen her photo many, many times."

He sighed with excessive exaggeration and set the book down before reluctantly turning to face them. He smiled slightly and offered a small wave as welcome to Morgana, but kept his eyes conspicuously averted from Adora, whose own gaze flittered aimlessly about the room.

"You did call us here, right?" Morgy asked, as if she were unsure whether they imagined his request to see them. Brian seemed flustered and began to sputter out a choppy reply.

"Y-yeah, I, uh, errr uhh --"

"Come on Mayor Quimby, out with it," Adora suddenly interjected, staring Brian down. Finally, he looked up at her, amusement twinkling in his eyes. She grinned back at him, her jaw rising and falling steadily as she ground her gum down in her mouth, her nerves manifesting themselves there. He looked as though he were suppressing a sardonic grin, and so Adora winked playfully to egg him on. This is good, she thought to herself; better that they return to their ways of mutual dislike than to endure another moment of discomfort in each other's presence.

"You ladies have to start reporting to the set of She-Ra tomorrow," he said, and Adora smiled at the return of his perennial arrogance. "Nothing serious, just meeting the cast, getting preliminary scripts. Mainly pre-production stuff."

"Works for me!" Morgy chirped with excitement. "This is going to be so cool! I wonder if we can loot the costume department after!"

"Judging by that there mop of pink hair you have going, you already have looted it," he mused as he looked at Morgana.

"Ohhhhh," she said, turning to Adora, a look of revelation on her face, "this is what you meant when you called him insufferable!"

"Yes, and all those other things, too. Glad that someone is here to sympathize with me in what I have to deal with."

"Alright, alright, my lovely cackling hens, sit down so we can hammer these details out so I can --"

"Hammer out Adora's details?!" Morgy interjected with a cackle, clasping her hand regretfully to her mouth as soon as the words left her lips.

"Duuude, Wifey, what the jesus?" Adora cried, her eyes wide with shock. Brian said nothing and instead opted to stand there like a mannequin, stunned.

"Oh someone had to cut the tension, and I just couldn't resist," Morgy waved them both off easily.

"I was trying to do that, but you just --"

"Oh shush so we can get to work, I can see this afternoon is going to be quite promising." With that, she made her way to a chair by the desk and plopped herself down. "Shall we?" she asked expectantly, drumming her pink fingernails on the armrests.

Sometimes bluntness was the best way to go.

[ dead end road ]

I see that in trying to stir some life into SW's roster, the Wife and I have gotten everyone's panties in twists. We had a goal: address our opponents each week, instead of pretending that our individual exploits are interesting enough to keep fans and coworkers alike enthralled. Gotta keep ratings up, right?

Well, unfortunately, all we did was start an irritating new trend where people think that by simply trashing the higher ups -- however sad many of these attempts have been -- they, too, can be successful and win titles and awards and make lots of money. Nifty idea and all, but the key behind achieving favorable results with this formula would probably be to... oh, I don't know, have the skill to back up all your claims, maybe? Fine, you trash one of the champions and you get their attention. Then what? If you don't have the talent to beat them once all eyes are on you, what's the point in saying anything at all? Is fleeting recognition worth being very publicly destroyed by said higher ups?

I wouldn't think so, but I've been wrong before.

Then again, some of these people already have titles -- by sheer, mind-boggling fluke-slash-luck that competition is sluggish in some divisions -- so they think they're entitled to the next step up because of that.

(Notice that magic little word "entitlement" there)

It's pretty delusional, I know, so a new approach has to be taken in dealing with such people. They've had a taste of pseudo glory and now want a purer concentration of it, and they figure it's time to go after the big fish. So now the big fish must altogether ignore the little sea parasites that lurk and force them to make names for themselves.

So there, if I'm so awful and so mean and such an all around wench, I won't say shit about any of you unless I absolutely have to. If you want a name, make it for yourself, because the Team Wifey fame generator is closed for business, and the lower card must learn to pull their own weight and dredge themselves up and out of obscurity without any assistance.

The question is: can any of you really do it? Yeah, I thought not.