Waiting for the punchline

'Are those bruises on your arm?'
'Oh, yes. Look, they form the constellation of Orion!'
I stared at her in mild consternation. 'Jill, they're bruises,' I said. 'They're not supposed to form star maps. How on earth did you get them?'
'Ducking and weaving,' she said. Her eyes met mine daring me to ask more. I'm a coward though, and so I fell silent.
'See, I've got the belt and everything,' she said, grinning brightly at me.
'I suppose it's a bit like a tattoo, when you put it like that,' I said. 'Only not so permanent.'
'Quite a lot like a tattoo!' said Jill. 'What do you think I should get on the other arm?'
'The Queen's head?' I suggested. 'You know, like a postage stamp?'
'Cool!'
We split off at that point and went our separate ways; Jill walking over to the applied physical sciences building, and me heading downhill to the aquatic studies blocks. It was a standing joke that if the water table rose or we had heavy rain that the aquatic sciences building would be underwater in less time that it took to say 'Jiminy Cricket' (who says such things anyway?). It was slightly less funny when you learned that the building actually had sets of scuba gear in each of the labs....

I caught up with Jill again that afternoon. An email had gone round announcing that the campus coffee-shop was having a three-for-one sale on quad-espressos. I was going to be working until early into the morning studying phospholuminence in undergraduates and felt that the caffeine boost would probably be useful. Jill loves a bargain -- she only buys food at the supermarket that's been reduced, all of her dresses have come from either a warehouse sale or a charity shop; even her husband was a jilted groom who 'looked sort of lost, all stood at the altar like that, so I took him.' I still wonder about that.

She had a set of bruises on her other arm now, that were fresh, but were still recognisably in the shape of the Queen's Head. I stared at it in shock.
'That was a really good idea!' she said happily. 'We think that it should look like a second class stamp for the first couple of days and then lighten into a first class stamp after that! Everyone will want one soon!'
'I don't think people will want to collect bruises quite like that--' I said, but Jill cut me off.
'Not everyone, silly, but the bodymod people will. After all, this is much less permanent than a tattoo or a piercing, and so much easier to do as well.'
'How are you doing this?' I said. 'How did you get it done in such a short time?'
'Oh, it's the latest application of the physical sciences,' she said, 'We've got in a case-load of wife-beaters and we've trained them to lash out on certain keywords. They're all quite predictable, so all you do is go and have a carefully scripted conversation with a room full of them, and you come out with the design you want!'
I was shocked into silence. Jill picked up her three quad-espressos and looked back at me. 'You're very quiet,' she said, 'are you that surprised?'
'No,' I said, finding it hard to speak. 'I think I'm just waiting for the punch-line still.'