Chapter Twenty-Three - About Hugs

“You want to know all of this to... make a pamphlet about it?” Madam Graham asked.

Pam nodded. “Yeah. A pamphlet about hugs.”

“That’s interesting, dear, but why a pamphlet? I can hardly imagine a scenario where someone needs to learn that hugs, that physical affection in general, are good,” she said. Madam Graham gestured past Pam and to the nice lady that had escorted Pam to her. “Can you get us some tea, dear, just plain black.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the lady said before leaving the office.

Madam Graham leaned forwards. “So, tell me, Pam, you really just want to know to make a pamphlet? That seems... strange to me.”

Pam shrugged. “It’s why I exist. To distribute pamphlets. But sometimes, I’ve learned, the reason you live can’t be something so simple. Sometimes you need more. Like giving people pamphlets is a good reason to exist, I think, but those pamphlets need to come from somewhere, someone needs to make them. And there’s a quality tied to it. Good pamphlets and bad ones. You don’t want the spirit of the reason you exist to be tainted by poor quality.”

Madam Graham blinked a few times. It was an expression that Pam found didn’t suit her very make-up covered face. “That was a little deeper than I was expecting, I’ll be honest,” she said.

Pamphlet rooted around and found one of her Not Today pamphlets. She placed it on the table and slid it forwards. “Here,” she said.

The lady took it, opened it, then carefully read through it. Her expression changed a few times, becoming a weird mashup of happy and sad that Pam understood all too well.

“May I keep this?” she asked. “I think, maybe, some of my girls might appreciate it.”

Pam nodded very quickly. “That’s what they’re for.”

“This is impressive work, Pam. I’ll be honest, I was expecting something very different. Usually, when a girl off the street... well, nevermind. You said you wanted to know about hugs?”

“Yes. So that I can make a pamphlet about them, because hugs are good, so maybe... maybe I can make a pamphlet that’s like a hug. Reading a pamphlet tells you things, it makes you feel feelings, and I want to make something that helps people feel those feels just from reading the pamphlet.”

“That seems like a tall order,” the lady said.

“Maybe,” Pam replied. “But this is what I live for, and it seems like a good thing to do, a good reason to keep on going, yeah?”

“I suppose so,” Madam Graham said. She leaned to the side, eyes half-lidded as she considered things. “I haven’t considered physical affection from the point of view of someone who doesn’t have any carnal needs in some time.”

“What are those?” Pam asked.

“Nevermind that,” Madam Graham said. Pam made a mental note to ask Abigail later. “Hugs, and any kind of close physical affection of the sort, are a way to be close to someone, to share in their warmth and assure them and yourself that things will be alright.”

Pam nodded very hard, and removed a crayon from inside her dress, then a piece of paper she had for future pamphlet making. She started taking notes, in bullet form, along one half of the paper.

Hugs = warm

Hugs = two people

Hugs are sharing

She nodded some more. This was good material.

The nice lady that had escorted her to Madam Graham’s arrived, with a tray that had tea and some biscuits on it. Madam Graham poured two cups, then gave one--on a little saucer with some biscuits and a dab of honey--to Pam.

“What else?” Pam asked as she set her stuff on her lap and took the tea cup.

“Well, there’s an amount of shared intimacy in a hug. It’s not necessarily a more... degenerate sort of intimacy either. Rather, it is the closeness of allowing someone you care about within your personal space.”

“That’s good,” Pam said. She downed her tea. It was good, and warm, then she picked up her paper and pencil and added a few lines to her notes. “What about, ah, things to make hugs better?”

That was important too, she figured. It wasn’t enough to know why hugs were good. If she was really going to teach people about them, then her pamphlets had to not only sell people on the idea of hugs, but also explain to them that hugs, like all things, were an art, and that because of that, they could be improved.

“Well, I suppose the strength of the hug matters. One that’s too tight can obviously hurt, and you don’t want to grab a person the wrong way. Of course, there’s one factor that might be easily overlooked in times of distress, but which I find more important than the rest.”

“What’s that?” Pam asked. A few biscuit crumbs flew out out her mouth, and she licked her lips to help them stay in.

“The smell of a person. I insist that all my girls bathe regularly. No one wants to have to smell another person who hasn’t taken the time, and decency, to bathe.”

“Oh,” Pam said.

Baths were awful though. She reluctantly added that to her list.

Smelling nice was probably a bonus. She imagined hugging someone that smelled like fart, then someone that smelled like freshly cut paper, and the latter sounded a lot more fun to hug.

“Okay,” Pam said. “That’s a lot of things. I think I can work with that. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Madam Graham said. “Now, if you’re heading out, let me escort you to the edge of the red light district, just in case.

Pam opened her mouth as wide as she could and fit the teacup into it. Madam Graham and the nice lady watched as she crunched and munched through the cup, chewing as quick as she could to be polite.

“Okay,” she said after swallowing. “Let’s go then!”

***