Chapter Twenty-Two - Close Physical Affection of the Third Kind

Pam wished she had a map.

Maps were kind of neat, especially the big foldy ones. They were like pamphlets that told people where to go and stuff, which was very neat.

Also, they were spelled M-A-P, which was just Pam backwards.

Not all maps were pamphlet-like, or course, and not everything was edible either, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t some overlap.

Pam shook her head, she had to refocus and remember the directions the nice inquisitor had given her. A right here, cross a road there, move past the place with all the shops at the end of this road... and then she was there.

The district she was in had a lot of nice houses with porches on the front. Long cloth banners hung from one side of the street to the other, and there were lights all along the street with red glass panels around the magical bulbs. The doors on all the houses were also red.

She paused on the sidewalk and glanced around. There weren’t many carts moving through the area, and even fewer people were standing around than usual. It was a little strange. The porches leading into some of the homes were occupied though, often by women that were wearing very flowy sorts of dresses.

They were nice, but a little too loose for Pam’s taste. Pam had a lot to say about her progenitor, but Dreamer definitely had great tastes in pretty dresses.

“Hey, sweetie,” someone said.

Pam turned and found a young woman, just a bit older than Abigail, approaching her. She bent down to be at the same height as Pam. That was nice of her.

“Hey, are you looking for someone?” the lady asked.

Pam nodded. “I am. I’m looking for someone that’s good at hugging.”

“Ah,” the lady said. She stared Pam up and down. “Aren’t you... very young for that?”

“For hugs?” Pam asked. She was confused.

“Are you here on your own, sweetie?” the lady asked.

Pam nodded. “Yeah.”

“Where are your parents?”

Pam considered it. Did she have parents? Dreamer was... not a parent. Her progenitor, certainly, but she hadn’t given birth to Pam, and she didn’t parent her. She made Pam, but that was the extent of it. “I have no parents, I was created whole cloth from the void with a singular purpose which I one day hope to transcend so that I can better understand myself and the world around me. Right now, the next step in that transcendence is a better understanding of hugs.”

“Uh. Okay, you’re an orphan then. Poor thing, you don’t even have any shoes on. Come on, we’ll go see Madam Graham.”

“Does she know a lot about hugs?” Pam asked.

“She knows a lot about everything,” the lady said. She extended a hand for Pam to take, and she did, the lady leading her over to one of the nicer homes along the street.

They stepped in just as a man walked out, he was tugging his shirt on straight, his hair a mess under his hat, though he seemed to be in a good mood despite the state of his clothes. The house had a lounge in the entrance, with sofas here and there, a few little tables with nice plants on them, and lots of curtains on the walls and over the windows. There was a lot of red around, for reasons that Pamphlet couldn’t figure out.

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Maybe it was to hide the blood? She could vaguely recall hearing something like that when she was still Dreamer.

“Madam Graham,” the lady leading Pam said.

A big woman turned. She was the oldest miss in the room, a lot of makeup on and keen eyes that took Pam in at a glance. “Who’s this little lady?” she asked.

“Hi,” Pam said. “I’m Pam.”

“Hello Pam,” the lady said.

“Madam Graham, Pam here, ah, was asking about... things on the street. I thought it best that she not stay out there on her own,” the lady still holding onto Pam’s hand said.

“That’s likely for the best,” Madam Graham said. The other women in the room were looking at Pam, and she overhead some saying that she was very cute, which made her feel nice.

“I’m here because I had questions,” Pam said.

“Ah, so you’re not here looking for a wayward father then,” Madam Graham said.

Some of the women giggled at that. Pam shook her head. “That’s not why I’m here, miss Madam. I’m looking for someone that can tell me about hugs. I’m making a pamphlet about hugs.”

“Ah,” the lady said. She looked up to the girl holding onto Pam’s hand. “Let’s go talk in my office, shall we? Cindy, keep an eye on things while I’m busy. That man in the pumpernickel room looks like the sort who gets rowdy once he has a drink or two in his blood.”

“Yes ma’am,” one of the women said.

Pam followed Madam into an opulent office, with a big desk and a lot of dressers against the walls. There were more mirrors in this room, and even more curtains. “Sit down, dear,” the lady said with a gesture to a plush seat in front of the desk.

Pam let go of the hand she was still holding onto and plopped herself down. “Are you going to teach me about hugging?” Pam asked.

Madam Graham sat on the front edge of her desk. “When you say hugging, what do you mean?” she asked.

Pam was already familiar with such existential questions.

“I mean when someone hugs you and it feels good.”

“Just hugging?” she asked.

Pam nodded, then hesitated. “Sometimes they pat-pat your head and that’s nice too.”

“I see,” Madam Graham said. She looked relieved. “Well, in that case, I think... do you know about the different kinds of love? No, you’re too young. There are many sorts of love. There’s the physical, the love you feel for a comrade, and the love that comes from being safe in the presence of another. There are more, of course, but hugging gives you all three of those.”

“Oh,” Pam said. That was a more complicated answer than she expected. Then again, there was a lot of things that were more complicated than she thought at first. “What else is there?”

She was determined to learn though. Soon, she’d be able to make pamphlets that would teach anyone that read them to be the very greatest huggers!

***