I shrug and give him my most professionally polite smile. “It’s a very nice necklace. You should be happy you were genetically blessed with such excellent form.”
He gives me a disbelieving look, but it clears away quickly, and his fingers curl up and he drops his arm, shaking his head. “I can admit when my advances are rejected. When you’re ready to admit that you’ve made a mistake, you know where to find me.”
I laugh as I start walking back toward the next thing I should do on my never ending list. “I’m nothing if not capable of neveradmitting I was wrong,” I toss at him, winking to let him know I’m teasing.
It feels like a mistake to walk away, but that’s just my dick talking, and that guy isn’t known for his sound judgment, so I keep walking, forcing my feet to keep moving until I finally get to my office. I really don’t have much in the way of work, but I do some reorganizing until Mr. Simms' appointment with the groomer is done, then I meet them at the front of the house to pay the woman. She reports that Mr. Simms was perfectly well behaved, takes her payment, and I see her out.
“Come along, Mr. Simms. Spa day is over. Time for a snack and a nap.”
Mr. Simms, being the proper good doggo he is, follows me straight to the kitchen, waiting patiently for his good boy treat that he takes to his bed in the corner to snack on.
Jax eyes Mr. Simms as he takes his place in her kitchen. “I don’t know why you insist the dog bed has to be in here. It’s unsanitary,” she comments offhandedly.
“Don’t listen to her, Mr. Simms. She’s obligated by her proper schooling to object to your bed being in here. She likes having your company, I assure you.” Honestly, the reason the dog bed is in the kitchen is because there isn’t another room in the house that is as regularly occupied as the kitchen is. Jax is here all day, and in the evening after she goes home, Mr. Simms accompanies me to my rooms. I don’t know how things were before I arrived, but no one is complaining that they’ve lost their sleeping companion, so I assume it’s ok for him to sleep on my bed.
“I am not a pet lover,” Jax denies as she hands me a bowl of raw foods that she put together specifically for Mr. Simms, even though I told her I would buy him dog food. She was the one who said, “It’s my job to feed this household and he is part of the household.”
I put the bowl down where Mr. Simms can get it if he’s hungry and smile at the squishy-on-the-inside chef. “You don’t have to be a pet lover to love Mr. Simms. He’s such a good doggo, everyone loves—ah!” I yelp as a stone statuette of one of the roof grotesques appears out of nowhere on the counter. “What that fu—dge.”
Jax looks at me like I’ve lost a marble or two. “What was that?”
I cough to clear out the need to find the biggest expletive I can find, and gesture to the statuette. “This just appeared out of thin air.”
She looks right at the statuette, shaking her head in confusion. “No. It’s been there. Someone brought it in. I don’t know why they left it there. Isn’t it one of the gargoyles from the roof?” She shrugs like she doesn’t find it strange that someone left a statuette on her counter. Also, it was literally not there when I walked into the kitchen, so that’s weird.
“I swear to you it was not there when I walked in here just now. That thing appeared out of thin airrrr…” I trail off as it disappears and reappears in the doorway leading out.
Jax tilts her head, confused even more. “It’s been in the doorway this whole time. You had to step over it to get in the kitchen. I’m telling you, you need to find a furniture dolly and get it out of the way because it’s a fire hazard and a poorly thought through prank.”
What in theFinding NemoDory fish forgetful hell is this?
“Are you joking? Are you teasing me right now?” I ask, walking over to the statuette and pointing at it. “This was on the counter a second ago. I didn’t walk over it to enter the kitchen. I would never leave something in a doorway—aaaand it’s gone again.”
“What’s gone?” Jax asks, barely looking back from where she’s started pulling ingredients from the fridge.
I fish-mouth at her in complete disbelief. I don’t even know what to say. I feel like I need a meme right now with the sound clip “emotional damage” playing on repeat. What the fuck?
I glance around the doorway to find the little grotesque a few feet down the hall with a wing out, pointing to the left.
I don’t know what is happening here, but it looks like I’m being led by a moving statue. Maybe I’m the delusional one? Am I having a psychotic break right now? If I follow the moving statue, is it my own mind leading me away from the kitchen? If this is what a psychotic break feels like, then I’m a bit disappointed in the entire experience. Being aware that my mind is fucking with me takes something away from the whole ordeal.
Possibly I’m not having a psychotic break and there is something extra going on. I believe in aliens, no doubt, so maybe that’s what’s happening here?
Aliens or a psychotic break. I’m not liking my options here, and yet, I still find myself walking toward the little statue and following its lead.
It disappears and reappears and leads me on a direct route from the kitchen back to the elevators, but it stands in front of the one that I don’t have the access code for.
Which is apparently not a problem, because it disappears again, the elevator doors open, and then it reappears standing in the elevator.
“This is fun,” I tell myself as I enter the forbidden elevator.
The button is already lit for sub-basement three. Wow. I am going to get fired for sure.
“So, what’s your name? Where’re you from? Where are we going and what’s with the handbasket?”
The statue obviously doesn’t respond, but the elevator chimes so prettily that it makes up for the weirdness of it all. I kinda wish the other elevator chimed like that. It sounds like church bells.
The doors open, and I wait for the statue to appear ahead of me. The elevator opens into a well-lit, stainless steel and white room that looks like it was built straight out of a sci-fi movie. Except recently all the sci-fi labs have been dark except for spotlights over the lab tables, which seems inefficient because you literally can’t do anything except deal with what’s on the table.
