Daphne was seated in her elegant balcony box watching the opera.  She didn’t know I had snuck up behind her.

“That dress looks good on you, Daphne,” I whispered in a sinister voice.  “It looks good on your body.”

She turned in her seat to gaze at me, not frightened, lowering her theater binoculars into her lap.  “Ah, there you are, Mia.  I thought you’d gotten lost.  You have the vial, I take it?”   

“That depends.  Do you have the microchip?”

Daphne reached into her cleavage and pulled out a computer ship in a tiny plastic case.  I opened a secret container hidden within my boot and pulled out a vial.  

The vial was filled with genuine Jesus blood, cloned from the Shroud of Turin.  It’s miraculous powers had been extensively documented, and it was one of the most sought-after substances in the metaphysical world.    

The computer chip contained a copy of my prized collection of gay porn, backed-up before my computer was destroyed during we had had come to term “the poltergeist incident.”

A fair trade indeed.  

But I was never one to play fair.  

Now that we had both shown our hands, I whipped out a gun and pointed it at her temple.  “This weapon is equipped with a silencer.  The opera is loud.  No one will hear if I shoot you.”

Daphne looked angered for a moment, then her face relaxed into a placid expression.  She shrugged philosophically.  “Sometimes you drink the blood of Jesus, sometimes the blood of Jesus drinks you.”

I snatched greedily at the computer chip, and while my attention was diverted, her left foot whipped up and knocked the vial out of my hands.  It went flying up in a terrifying arc, and at the last minute Daphne lunged out and grabbed it.  She vaulted up onto the railing and used her momentum to fly over the heads of the audience, grabbing onto the curtain that was furled at the top of the stage.  The curtain dropped, breaking her fall as she sailed down and landed on her feet in front of the foot lights.  She was in plain view of the audience now, where she knew I wouldn’t dare shoot her.  

I swore under my breath. “I’ll get you next time, Daphne Manners!  Next time!”   

But that was yesterday.  Today we’re eating Doritos and playing video games.  

I think so long as you never go to bed angry, your relationship is doing okay.