"I used to be a runway model," Lyca said. "But I couldn't stand them telling me what to do and what to eat. I love eating anything. I live on cheese fries and ramen noodles." "Ramen's a good meal if you chop up some vegetables and stuff in there," I said. "Oh, I never do that. In fact, sometimes I strain out the little green things that come in the flavor packet. I hate those." She stuck out her tongue in disgust, revealing a shiny metal bar skewered through it. Of course I'd seen pierced tongues before, but I instinctively winced at the sight, which made Lyca laugh. She made a great show of opening her mouth and sliding the bar back and forth through the hole. "Is that what's making you lisp?" "Yeah," she giggled, "the guy who did it said I'd only lisp for a few days. But I don't know, one of my friends lisped for six months afterward." "Did you do it for the thrill of the moment, the feeling when they made the hole, or to make a statement?" I asked. "I liked the way they look," she said matter-of-factly. "And my boyfriend likes what I can do for him with it, if you know what I mean." "Show me again." I looked at it coolly, contemplating the amount of flesh that had been displaced. "You'd drill holes in yourself to increase another person's pleasure?" She sat for a moment, holding her mouth open and clicking the metal against her teeth; then she sprang to her feet. "Look!" The film was really shooting now -- the two stars, in full drag, met in the middle of the street, kissed each other on the cheek, performed an elaborate greeting full of flair and finger-snapping, strutted into Webster Hall (the dance club across from my apartment) and that was that, or at least all we were going to see.
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