His attention dips down from whatever sign he was reading to me, and a wrinkle cracks his stony brow.
I make a self-aggrandizing sweep towards the rest of myself, fully leaning into his arm because he just does not budge. “This is me at my comfiest.”
“Oh, that,” he shrugs. He looks a little lost for words for a moment. “I... am also at my comfiest.”
I blink, once, twice. I look him over again, to make sure his suit isn’t just some really interesting footie pajamas I mistook for formal wear. It’s not.
I’m sure that at this hour of sleep deprivation, I only barely conceal the sheer amount of “No, really?” that crosses my face. “I’m not judging.”
“Just the smallest amount,” he says, because I’m not fooling him.
“I mean, for a suit, it looks comfy,” I try, and he rolls his eyes. There is a hint of a smile there. “If nothing else, it makes you memorable.”
That gets him, and he looks away to hide the wider smile.
Just as I finish getting on my slippers, the bin full of my open suitcase and all the things that used to be neatly folded in it rolls down the ramp, along with the blue-latex gloved hands of the TSA agent probing through my belongings.
“Ma’am,” the skeleton TSA agent calls, snatching my and the gargoyle gentleman’s attentions to—oh for fuck’s sake.
Is it regulation to hold it up so everyone can see exactly what I pleasure myself with? Was the luggage scan no doubt seen by a few more agents not enough? Because that one happens to be a silicone vibrator molded in the image of a chimera's cock—veins and webbing included.
Memorable is suddenly not such a great thing to be.
The TSA agent glances between me and my vibrator, gesturing me over.
I let go of the gargoyle's arm quickly, and step back. His eyes meet mine again for a fraction of a second before I’m ducking my head and sliding over to my bag, stuffing everything back inside.
“Believe it or not, there’s actually more embarrassing things in my bag,” I say, because ok, caught red-handed with a sex toy, but I’m not about to toss it out with my over-five-liquid-ounces of conditioner now. Then again, TSA doesn’t harass vampires over their personal items when it’s a suitcase full of blood pouches, do they?
Mr. Overdressed gives me a look, and at this point, I don’t care. I can’t. I’m beyond. I give him a deep stare of pure, unbothered apathy.
“You can’t fly with these batteries,” the TSA agent starts to explain to me, and I nod, watching her practiced hand open the end and pop them out. They land heavily in the trash.
Could have done all that with a little more subtlety, I think, trying not to grind my teeth.
When I get everything stowed away and my bag zipped up again, the gargoyle’s gone. Not that I expected him to stick around or anything.
It’s fine. I don’t care. In a couple hours, I’ll have forgotten he exists, and he’ll have done the same for me.
I make it through the rest of the airport and waiting to board my flight without any more mishaps or making a fool of myself.
When I’m finally seated, I start pulling out everything in my bag that I need for my preflight ritual of Do Not Disturb. It’s the main reason I started booking red-eyes I knew no one from work would be on. I would rather sit next to a two-headed baby where one head keeps waking up the other, than next to someone who is going to make me think about work for a four-hour flight. Two-headed baby doesn’t care that I’m wrapped up in a lap blanket, an eye mask, a neck pillow, and noise canceling earbuds, creating my own sensory-deprivation experience with a true crime podcast to keep me company.
The last thing I want is to have to repeatedly unravel my cocoon for a coworker poking me awake with, “Gwen, what do you think about...” I’m not thinking about anything. If the plane crashes, it can do so without my awareness.
I play on my phone for a few minutes, before shooting an email to [email protected], the address Soven gave me to forward Ted and Kathy’s combined incidents records and get the new manager up to speed. On a whim, I search for Vladyr Grotesce online and of course a number of articles about some hotshot startup company came up first. Every few words I read into it I roll my eyes, and give up two paragraphs in before I give myself motion sickness. I know the type of guy he's going to be.
Hovering over my email, my company profile pops up: my name, a chart describing who I report to in the company, and a picture of me when I first started working there. It's such a stark contrast to see the younger, peppier, full of energy, smiling me with a face full of makeup and my hair curled. I try not to catch the reflection in my phone’s screen—greasy blonde hair, my face sullen without blush to liven it up.
This Vladyr guy doesn't have a picture when I tap his company profile from the email address. His profile is significantly less filled in; he probably hasn't gotten around to it yet.
Then I put my phone into airplane mode, slip on my eye mask, and slip away from the world of the conscious, save for the occasional jostling of someone getting up from the middle seat next to me. I chose the window seat specifically so I don’t have to get up for anything or anyone. I’m getting as much of the sleep I’m missing out on as I can.
My ears popping wakes me up when the plane finally lands. I’m slowly returning to the land of the living and undead, unwrapping myself from my sensory cocoon one item at a time, folding them carefully away into my once-meticulously packed carry-on.
I glance at my neighbor in the middle seat, and nearly break my neck on the double take.
Him. Again.
