Izzy and Jacob, now pleasantly full, walk back to the motel room hand in hand. As they open the door to the room, Jacob thinks it looks like someone had tossed the pce looking for where the secret thumb drive was hidden or maybe a tornado touched down but only in one small motel room.

  “We should really clean,” Izzy says, looking at the mess.

  “Yeah, I was just thinking that,” Jacob responds.

  “Why don't you start, and I will go ask what to do with the undry?” Izzy smiles and walks out the door. Jacob sighs and begins cleaning up.

  She heads to reception, and the woman behind the counter is intently pying her game. “Hey,” Izzy says, but the woman can't hear her above the sound of the combat.

  “HEY, WHERE CAN I DO LAUNDRY AROUND HERE?” Izzy yells loud enough to be heard; the receptionist jumps and looks up at Izzy like she is a ghost and pulls her headphones off.

  “You don't need to yell; I am right here,” the receptionist squeals. The sound of a Force missile emerges from her headset hanging around her neck; it makes her look down at her screen; she frowns as her character gets killed, ruining her streak on Eternal Realms. ‘Damn it,’ she groans to herself, ‘I spent all week getting to top 5000.’

  “Where can I do undry around here? Is there a service, or is there a coin-op machine?” Izzy asks. The receptionist, who is even more unhappy about her character's death, points across the lobby to an archway leading to the left wing of the motel.

  Izzy looks at the doorway, eyes blinking; she says, “There is an internal hallway on the first floor?”

  The receptionist sighs, “Yes, every room comes with 2 doors for entering and leaving; one leads outside, and one leads to the hallway.”

  “How come I never noticed it in my room?” Izzy remarks.

  “I have no idea,” she responds and fidgets in her chair.

  Izzy turns away and walks into the left-wing hallway; as soon as she enters, she can see a sign that says “Laundry—>.” She ughs. “Well, that expins where that is.” She turns around and yells back to the receptionist, “Thank you.”

  The receptionist, who had started gaming again, looks up and nods at her only to look down and find her character dead again. She groans, decides Eternal Realms is not the game to py today, and unches Turbo Gunner.

  Izzy walks down the hallway and turns into the undry. Inside she is confronted with a room with 10 vending machines, 5 on each side. Her eyes gnce through the machine's contents and is shocked it contains things like lube and condoms as well as the more normal list of things like snacks and drinks, and helpfully it contains undry powder and fabric softeners.

  Then behind that there are 10 washers on the left and 10 dryers on the right. And along the back wall of the cream-colored room, there sits an oversized, beach-ball-sized green glob. It is sitting on a comfortable-looking bench seat with a thick leather padding. She is unsure what she is looking at; the blob just sits there.

  As she watches, it extends two pseudopods, long and green, and then inside them form human-looking eyes that then focus on her; then, in an unexpectedly deep voice, it says, “Laundry day.” She looks at the blob, her mind asking the question ‘How does it speak?’ and a sinister part of her is asking ‘How does it have sex?’ She screams at herself in her head to stop being horny.

  “Yep, undry day,” Izzy says and waves to the blob. “I’ll be right back with my undry.” She leaves. She walks back to the motel room; when she gets there, she finds Jacob busy cleaning up the takeaway containers and the empty bottles. He has been making a pile of undry in the bathroom.

  “I found the undry not sure how we missed it 20 feet from the reception desk,” she says and starts mounding the undry on the bedsheet. “There is also a blob person sitting quietly talking about undry day, so if I don't return, come looking for me,” she adds as she gathers the corners of the sheet and lifts it up; she falls over on her first attempt, nding on the bed; her next try works better, and she staggers toward the door.

  “Of course, Izzy,” Jacob says and keeps cleaning. He moves close and kisses her. “Be safe out there, ok?”

  She smiles and rubs her nose against his. She thought about saying, ‘I never get in trouble,’ but she realized that’s not true any more and said, “I’ll try.” She waddles and half-carries the bag to the undromat. She is embarrassed by how bad the clothes smell and drops the bag on the floor of the undromat with a plop. She loads up three washers full of clothes and then goes to the vending machine and buys 3 overpriced undry soap packets. She opens the packages and dumps them into the machine and then starts it. The machines are front loaders; you can see the clothes start to tumble as the water is added.

  The blob watches with fascination. ‘Next time, buy the blue powder,’ it notes to itself. Izzy feels the blob watching her and turns to look, but the eye stalk is looking out the window faster than she can turn. She turns back to the machine before walking to sit down on the bench; the eye is not looking at her; instead, it looks like it is watching the pool area out the window. Izzy sits down and flips through her phone. The eye turns and watches what she is doing. ‘Huuummanns,’ it squeals in its head.

  She stares at the blob for a full minute then looks back at her phone slowly. She busies herself with checking email and responding to messages. After 10 minutes of this, she can feel the blob staring a hole in the side of her head. She looks over slowly and notices the blob is looking at her. “Can I help you?” she asks.

  “I was wondering why you didn't ask me about undry day. I can hardly wear clothes.” Two more pseudopods form and wave over themselves in a sweeping gesture.

  She ughs hard at the absurdity of the very expressive blob of goo. “Oh, you're right. What are you even doing here then? What are you washing?”

  The blob jiggles. “Oh, bedding and towels and washcloths, I still have to clean things even if I don't wear them.”

  “That makes sense,” she says; after 20 seconds, the room goes quiet, and she goes back to her emails. She opens her banking app and smiles at it. It looks like she got paid again. She makes the cha-ching gesture.

  “Ahh, payday,” the blob says as he forms himself into a symbol before returning to a shapeless blob.

  “Are you reted to the doctor?” she asks, looking at the blob.

  He waves a pseudopod dismissively. “Not in the slightest; I come from around the area of Delta Theta 2. While Doctor Alsdkjfowiutanglnblzxjoiugoirtlhlkgsldjblvjncxnxbnxcnlfdgjort is from the other side of the gaxy.”

  “That would expin why you are green,” she nods. “Oh, and a blob instead of a human shaped like him.”

  “My species is known as the blobbies, yes,” he wiggles with pride, starting at the bottom and ending at the top.

  “Have you heard about a minotaur somewhere at the motel?” She asks, still trying to get Scarlet's words out of her head.

  “You just met a creature from thousands of light years away, and your first question is, have I heard about the minotaur?” He jiggles from the top down. “You might be a bit jaded.”

  She sits in silence. “You're right; I might be a bit jaded. I haven't really been myself since I got here.” She thinks about it more: “I haven't been much like myself at all.”

  Her mind is filled with rampant sexuality and an obscene sex drive. Even now, hours after ying eggs, she can't help but think about the brute of a bull-man the minotaur must be.

  “GAHH,” she yells. The blob moves closer and touches her arm. There is a prickling sensation, and she can see his green surface turn blue. “Hmm, yes, I can see why you're not like yourself.”

  He rubs the top of his blob with a pseudopod. “It looks like you are infected with something that has soaked into your skin.”

  She looks at the blob with an eyebrow raised. “What could it be?”

  “If I had to guess, it would be the tentacle fellow,” he says, returning to his usual round state now marked with a singur blue spot.

  “What do I do about it?” she asked, concern creeping into her voice, her emails forgotten.

  “Well, you can go see the doctor; he can give you something for it,” the blob says, ending in a long, slowly descending, vibrating tone. Then speaks softer, “Other ways are more personal. And I really don't know you that well.”