The lady cleared her throat and batted her eyelids, “I travel out to WestNorthSouth Caldonia every two months to find new proteges. It is as thrilling as it is tedious, but you know what they say, those who are amazing artistés only get better when they teach.”

Pamela thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure that that was what they said, but she decided to roll with it.

“Say, you wouldn’t be interested in taking a course, would you? I’ve got very affordable payment plans, which I know is a plus since you’re in the Loyal Gourd.”

Pamela gawked, unsure what to say.

“No pressure. I only suggested because of what you seem to be drawing on your napkin.”

Pamela looked down to realize she indeed had been drawing an enormous set of breasts on her gravy-stained napkin. They appeared to be not lightly inspired by the bodice of the lady before her.

“Oh, erm, excrete me, I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry, I find it quite flattering. I’m an artisté, I’m meant to be admired just as I’m meant to be inspired.”

Pamela scratched the back of her neck and crumpled the napkin into a ball, shoving it in her pocket.

“There’s no need to do that, dear! We all start somewhere. Here, take it back out,” the lady reached over the table, grabbing for Pamela’s pocket.

“No! Stop it!” she swatted the lady’s mitts away with self conscious groans.

“Come on! I just want to critique your form!”

Pamela sighed and produced the sketch, laying it flat on the table beside a stack of salt packets.

“Now, this isn’t bad at all! I might’ve believed you’d actually seen my breasts, though I will add that the shading could use a bit of twerk. The areola there might need a touch up as well. All that said, I think you’re well on your way, miss—what’s your name again?”

“I am Pamela Gaye. Member of the Loyal Gourd.”

“I am the Mistress von Inkwell. Artisté extraordinaire, instructor by trade, lover in the night.”

Pamela shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the last line, “Pleased to make a vague social association with you, Mistress don Urkel.”

“No, no, von Inkwell.”

“Prawn Finkel? Now that’s a name.”

“Not mine, Pamela. Mine’s Misstress von Inkwell.

“Well, I’m pleased to make a vague social association with you.”

“Same to you, Pamela Gaye.”

“Once again, I am honored to enscribe your moniker in my mental lexicon, Lipstick non Stinkwell.”

On they continued for about twenty minutes, saying essentially the same thing with progressively absurder language. It took about twice as long due to Mistress von Inkwell’s desire to ensure Pamela actually spoke her name correctly, which was something most people upon meeting Pamela and engaging in an acquaintanceship quickly learned was at best a lost cause.

“Anyway, Pamela, you truly ought to consider an introductory course with me, so I can show you the ropes, as it were. I like to teach my classes by candlelight. I find it enhances the artistic juices and fully envelops those participating in what is known as artism.

“Say, do you know much about artism, Pamela? Artism, it can be said, is the ism in which you are by the sight of your twerk so clearly affected under. Artism is not simply a means of expression, though it often presents itself as so. No, dearest Pam, if I may—”

“You may not,” Pamela growled.

“Very, ehm, very well. Dearest darling Pamela, artism is something that impacts and glorifies yet everything that you do in life. Yes, Pamela, you live your life through the lens of the artist, through the lens of artism. I see that now, clearly, through my own artistic perception. What you must do now, Pamela, now that I have discovered this clammy pearl for you, is to decide what you will do with it.

“Some people fight against their artism and their artistic lens. They try to hide it, either with therapy or illegal substances or a combination of both. Or possibly by wearing anti-artism glasses, which help present those glancing behinds them a less artistic world. But all those tools combined cannot forever bury the insticts, inclinations and impressions of a true artisté, as you yourself undoubtedly are.

“Now, assuredly you have some questions as to what you might do with your artism now that you have learned that, yes indeed, Pamela, you are artistic. You ought to have already had them but clearly your life thus far has kept your artistic tendencies buried like a zombie with leprosy.

“But no more! Let your zombie leper out from its tomb, Pamela, unwrap its wrappings, murder its conspirators and eject from it its embalming fluid!”

“Excrete me?” Pamela nearly choaked on her biscuit in confusion.

“Free your mind, Pamela!” Mistress von Inkwell slammed a fist on the table, “Embrace the truth, and embrace your artism! It is only through artism that you will succeed! Without artism you are but a shell, a mold seeking for but naught! Artism is the all, the one, and art is the only, and the hot, sweaty coneption of that art is what life, Pamela, what life is all about!!”

“Are you insinuating that I want to cluck a bunch of twerks of art or something?” Pamela squinted quizically.

“Well, not necessarily, though it often helps. All I am insinuating is the truth, Pamela, and the truth is that by realizing your own artisticness you will have found the key to the lock that chains your own abilities. Through art, you can and will achieve, earn and behold anything you truly long for.”

“Anything?” Pamela was looking at her chest again.

“Well,” Inkwell smirked and covered herself curtly, “Almost anything.”

“Oh, come on.”

“If you want any more of me, Miss Gaye, you’ll have to take one of my many engorging—erm—engaging figure drawing courses. I actually teach sculpture, pottery, and weaving as well, but I think you’d be a hood fit for figure drawing.”

“What’s that again?”

“Hood cock, Pamela, you have been but so abhorrently sheltered from artism in all its forms! Figure drawing is that so lovely study of the endless beauty of the naked human bodice, ever changing and ever unique.”

“Oh,” Pamela’s eyes grew wide with intrigue.

“There is but nothing more artistic than gazing onward as a single naked person poses for you in all their glory for an extended period of time while you commit them to papery eternity.”

“I can imagine.”

“You don’t have to imagine—though your artism makes you more likely to do so, I will admit. Take a class with me and feel the euphoric release you’ve been longing for but your whole life. I do groups and one one ones, whatever suits your fancy,” Mistress von Inkwell winked and handed Pamela a card, which read on one side:

MISTRESS VON INKWELL

and on the other side:

ARTISTÉ EXTRAORDINAIRE

“Um,” Pamela started, “There’s no address on this. Or magickaphone number. Or really any information at all.”

“Oh, trust me, darling, that’s all the information you’ll need.”

Pamela raised an eyebrow, sighed and shoved the card in her pocket to comingle with her belovedly lewd sketches.

KRKKSKSKSKKKKHKKKSKHKKHHKHKSKHHHHHHHHHH

EEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRR

BBBFBKFBBFKFBKBKBBKBFBBBFFFFFFFFFFFFF

KSHUMMMMMMMMMMMBFFFFFFFKKKKHHHHHH

Pamela jostled aroung in her seat, her eyes unable to stop watching Mistress von Inkwell’s bobbies doing about the same thing—they looked tantalizing yet painful. Then Pamela’s face slammed into the remaing leaves of lettuce on her plate as the skytrain halted with an irksome ratchety spasm.

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

“Are they really having another emergency test?”

“Oh my no,” Mistress von Inkwell started, “They only do those in the middle of the night. To keep from disturbing folks, of course.”

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

“Hello, this is your friendly skytrain conductor,” said a voice that sounded somehow even more spiritually eviscerated than the last time it had addressed the skytrain passengers, “This is not a test of the skytrain’s emergency preparedness system. I repeat. This is not a test.”

KKRKKRKKKSKKSHHHHHH

The skytrain rumbled and jumbled as those flanking it exploded, senidng shrapnel shooting through the air and shattering many windows of the dining car. Mistress von Inkwell gasped in shock. Or was it shock? It was not shock. It was because a large piece of scrap metal had bored through her back and was shooting out between her bleeding cleavage, the point of which but just brushed Pamela’s nose, dotting one prick of blood upon it.

“In the event of a skytrain crash, which would be not dissimilar to the what you just experienced because you just experienced a skytrain crash, do whatever it is you just did, assuming you are still alive. If you have perished, then don’t do whatever you were doing that caused that to happen if we ever get in a crash. Thanks, and have a splendiferous da—OH COCK WHY WHY AAAH THE PAIN THE HORRIBLE PAI—” the speakers crackled off after the sound of what could only be described as bowels exploding along with the violent bursting of a jugular vein.

“Pa—Pamela,” rasped Mistress von Inkwell, “Pamela, come hither. P-please, Pamela.”

Pamela came hither, coming in close to Inkwell’s sweaty face, smelling the floral perfume wafting form her neck and powerful heartburn wafting from her lips.

“Pa—Pamela, I fear I am not long for this Gurth,” she hacked up some blood for emphasis.

“I fear the same, Mistress Dawn Thinkwell.”

“It’s Mistress von—you know what? N-never mind. Just, would you, would you do something for me, Paaaa—Pamela?”

“Anything.”

“Kiss me.”

Pamela jerked her head back a little. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“Not really. Also, I’m dying. Come on, don’t be a sp—sp—don’t be a spuh—a spuhhh—a spuhhhh—a spoilsport.”

Pamela rolled her eyes and slapped Mistress von Inkwell in the face gingerly, “Fine. But not because you told me to. I’m choosing to do this of my own volition.”

“No sh—no shhhh—no shhhhhhhh—no shit.”

They shared a warm, albeit bloody, kiss. It was very nice. Inkwell’s lips were incredibly soft. But once again, it was not necessarily enjoyable for Pamela to have blood bubbling under her tongue and dribbling down her chin afterwards.

“Pamela, don’t you ever forget about your art. Believe in your art. Believe in it, like you believed in me.”

“I believed in you?”

Before Mistress von Inkwell could inform Pamela as to whether she had believed in her or not, her eyes rolled into the back of her head as it fell limp and to the side. Pamela quickly found herself wondering if any of the onboard bathrooms had survived the apparent skytrain wreck.