NOVEL NEXT 5 mg
After suffering through an entire five minutes without pets, Pickle began to loudly alert the nearby humans of their terrible mistake. Hunter, who was now leaned up against Mel, sat up a bit more when reminded there was a cat in… their(?) lap. “Aw, sorry kitty,” they said and resumed petting. Pickle, presently placated, purred in pleasure.
“I feel like I’ve had a busy day,” Hunter said, “even though I guess all I’ve technically done is go to the mall and then talk to a girl for a few minutes.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. I feel like having emotions can take a shocking amount of energy, honestly. Feel free to just lie here, if you want. I’m pretty comfy right now,” Mel said.
“Honestly, god, I think I’m going to need some more time to process all this,” Hunter said. “For today I just wanna turn my brain off.”
“You want some… drugs?” Mel asked. She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Oh no, corrupting the innocent youth,” Hunter said.
“That’s right!” Mel said. “It’s me, the gay agenda. I’m joining the war on drugs on the side of drugs.”
“Damn. I’m pretty sure in this context I’m supposed to just say no and then talk to my parents or another trusted adult.”
“Anyway! As much as I hate to ask this, could you, uh, scoot over a little so I can get up? So that I may present the drug smorgasbord to you.”
As Mel got to her feet, Hunter decided to impart a fun fact. “Oh, that word actually has a really interesting etymology! Smorgas means sandwich but it’s cognate to the English words smear and goose. It might be named after the chunks of butter that tended to float to the top of a churn.”
“You’re such a dork! It’s adorable.” Mel quickly leaned back down to give Hunter’s forehead a quick kiss. “Cutie.”
“No, you.”
By now Mel was over by a shelf in the corner of the room. “Alright lemme see… We got edibles and an eighth and a bong and some rolling papers. Oh, and I have some vodka and some shrooms although I think I might’ve gotten scammed cuz I swear they do nothing.”
“What’s an eighth?” Hunter asked, then immediately regretted asking. Mel would probably think they were dumb now.
“Oh, it’s just, like, an eighth of an ounce I think? Standard amount for weed to come in.”
“Ah, okay. Makes sense. Uh, maybe just the edibles? I think the rest of the cannabis options would probably make me cough a whole bunch. And maybe less than a whole one.”
Mel laughed. “In fairness, these have a lot less THC than the homemade one you had before. That was probably like 20 or 30 mg and these are 10 each. You want to have half of one, maybe? Oh, assuming you don’t need to drive home anytime soon.”
“Shouldn’t be an issue. Here, let me just text my mom real quick and let her know I’ll be home later than planned.”
Mel smiled but looked sad around her eyes. “I think it’s really nice you’re close with your mom like that.”
Hunter, focused on their phone screen, missed Mel’s momentary melancholy. “Yeah, she’s pretty great compared to things I hear other people say about their parents.”
“Is your dad around? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Nah, that’s fine,” Hunter said, glancing back up from their phone. “He died when I was really young. I don’t really remember it.”
“Aw. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s really fine. It’s just something I know about, you know? I don’t have a real emotional attachment. My mom doesn’t really talk about it much but I’m pretty sure he died of cancer. Anyway, I’m done texting my mom! Good to go.” They gave a thumbs up.
“Gotta fill out another square in bisexual bingo,” Mel muttered to herself.
“What?”
“Oh, just making a joke about thumbs ups being bi. I don’t think they actually are but it’s fun to have, like, harmless stereotypes about groups you belong to. Like if I said my cat has a stereotypical name.”
Hunter looked confused. “How so?”
“Oh, there’s, like, a running joke about how trans girls like pickles. It’s cuz one of the common testosterone blockers makes you pee out more water and salt and then you tend to have cravings for uh I guess salty wet things.”
“Huh. I thought that kind of medication lowered your libido,” Hunter said with an almost entirely straight face.”
“Not like that! I mean, not that I don’t, but I don’t think it’s related to medication.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re this horny naturally?”
Having come back over to the couch bearing a bag of gummies, Mel used it to lightly bonk Hunter on the head. “Correct. Hey, uh, wanna Lady and the Tramp this edible?”
Hunter broke up laughing for probably longer than the joke warranted. “Sure!” they said. “Why not.”
Mel stuck her thumb into the edge of the bag’s child lock to pull it open, pulled out a single orange square gummy, and clamped the end between her teeth. “Go for it!” she tried to say around the gummy while bobbing her head to make it wobble at Hunter like some kind of alien tongue. It came out more like “Gah whoa ih.”
After Mel lowered herself down onto the empty half of the couch, Hunter turned and leaned forward to grab the other end with their teeth. They tried to pull the edible apart by leaning back but ended up just biting off the closest third of it. The remaining two-thirds tumbled out of Mel’s mouth and onto the couch.
“Pickle, no!” Mel said and thankfully managed to scoop up the gummy before the inquisitive cat on Hunter’s lap managed to pounce on it. She shrugged and popped the remainder in her mouth.
“There’s hair on it,” Hunter pointed out with a disgusted look on their face. “You sure you didn’t want to rinse it off first?”
Mel shrugged. “At least I know all the hair is mine or the cats’. Nowhere near the worst thing I’ve put in my mouth.”
“I–You know what, I’m not even going to ask. You’re gross.” Hunter said with a mock stern expression.
They looked over at Mel and their face softened. “Good thing you’re so cute,” they said.
“No, you,” said Mel.