The other man stood before Roger in the exact center of the room and waited impatiently for a response from the supervisor turned sanitation worker. Arlo and Gillian joined Roger, standing just behind him in a triangle formation with Roger on pointe. How a washed-up, inept waste of office equipment (Phil’s words) like Roger Goodspeed had managed to secure a spot as the troublesome troupe’s troubadour was anyone’s guess.
“Phil, I presume?” Arlo said, holding out a hand in greeting.
Phil ignored him.
“This is what happens when the system becomes unstable,” Phil said. “I tried to warn you, Roger. The data department is running at only eighty-five percent efficiency, and declining. Frost and Black must return to their positions immediately and get back to filing. And Roger…” He glared at Roger over his glasses. “You will get back to sanitation or end up with an even more severe punishment.”
“Why does he get a severe punishment?” Arlo asked.
“What?”
“Why does he get punished? And we don’t?”
“Are you asking for a punishment?” Phil said.
“No.” Arlo held both hands up and shook his head quickly. “Nope. Definitely not.” The burble of nervous laughter chose that particularly unfortunate moment to escape his throat. He clamped his lips shut in near record time but not before Phil’s hands clenched in anger at the nerve-wracking sound.
“Roger is a supervisor,” Phil said. “True, he’s only supervising a mop and bucket at the moment, but no matter. That is his lot.”
“But that still doesn’t answer my question,” Arlo said. “Why is that his lot?”
“You may as well ask why is the sky gray? Why is the gravel gray? It is what it is. You are a drone. He is a super. End of story. Now run along like a good little cog and climb back in your wheel.”
“No,” Gillian said defiantly.
“No?” Phil said. “Just who do you think you are talking to, Miss Frost?”
She shrugged. “I don’t care. Whoever you are… whatever you are… we demand answers.”
“You are in no position to demand anything,” he said. “Now get back to work or suffer the consequences.”
“You can’t just make us do what you want.”
“Oh, really?” Phil said.
Gillian blinked.
She was standing in line at Java Joe’s. Arlo stood beside her.
“Garblargargh!” she yelled unintelligibly. “This is ridiculous!”
“A prison of the mind,” Arlo said mysteriously, nodding his head.
“What?”
“It’s like the great philosophical debate- what is life? How do we even know that we’re not just dreaming all of this- OWWW!”
He yanked back his arm, rubbing the spot where Gillian had just pinched him.
“What was that for?”
“You’re not dreaming,” Gillian said matter-of-factly.
Yanking her handbag off her shoulder, she dumped it out on the order counter. Loose change, cough drops, receipts and makeup tumbled out over the edges and onto the floor. A small waterfall of junk pooled at her feet.
“What are you doing?” Arlo asked.
“Have you ever seen the gameshow ‘Let’s Make a Deal’?”
Grabbing the tattered paperback novel and the purple paw attached to her keys, she dropped the now empty handbag to join its discarded contents on the counter, clutching the book and keys tightly in her fists. Free of all attachments save the pulp fiction and lucky charm, Gillian marched out of the coffee haus, Arlo hard on her heels.
Let’s Make A Deal
Phil stood in the exact center of the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, calmly waiting for the two truant employees to exit.
“Now then…” he said as Arlo and Gillian skidded to a stop before him. “As you can see, you are not the ones in control here. So why don’t you… What are you doing with that book?”
Gillian’s eyes narrowed. She clutched the tattered paperback novel in her hand, the scantily clad aliens on the cover a bright pop of color in the otherwise dull surroundings.
“Give me that,” Phil said, holding out his hand.
“Why do you want it?” she said.
“Because it’s mine.”
Gillian’s eyebrows lifted in surprise as she glanced from the well-read romance with the dogeared pages to the uptight accountant standing before them.
“If you want it, we want something in return,” Arlo said, grabbing the book from Gillian.
Phil frowned, a deep line forming between his eyebrows as he glared at the impertinent drone and his recalcitrant companion. “Are you trying to extort me?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Arlo said. “I just know that you’re not getting it back unless you help us.”
“Why would I ever help you?”
“Because I think you can,” Arlo said. “And because this place is a nightmare. Shit jobs. Horrible clothes. No color.”
Gillian rolled her eyes. “None of that is important. Idiot. We need to leave because we don’t belong here.”
“Well…” Phil said. “That’s not actually true.”
“We don’t belong here,” Gillian continued, her voice rising as her indignation gathered steam. “And what’s more, neither does Roger.”
“Why do you care what happens to Roger?”
Gillian shrugged. “He’s a person, isn’t he?”
“More or less,” Phil agreed.
“So,” Gillian continued, “He has just as much right to life, liberty and happiness as the rest of us.”
Phil grunted noncommittally.
“In fact,” Gillian practically shouted, one finger held aloft in a well-recognizable sign of righteous ire, “We have all three been categorically denied our rights. We deserve to be compensated for our troubles.”
Phil squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Why must the two of you always be a problem? Why can’t you damn data drones ever just do your job? No. It’s always, ‘We want better living conditions, Phil.’ ‘Why can’t we do a different job, Phil?’ ‘Why are you always in such a bad mood, Phil?’ Grrr.”
“What do you mean ‘always’?” asked Arlo.
Phil continued like he hadn’t spoken. “Miss Frost,” he said icily, “You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The fact that you think you can extort or otherwise force me to impose some sort of regional rules on your internment is laughable.”
“Don’t mansplain to me!” Gillian barked.
“That would be impossible,” Phil said matter-of-factly.
Gillian opened her mouth to respond, but Phil cut her off.
“Let’s try this,” Phil said, “I could… perhaps… agree to some small concession about your employment. How does that sound?”
“What about us leaving the firm?”
“Out of the question,” Phil shook his head. “The best I can do is upgrade your housing situation and perhaps a new employment position.”
“No deal.”
Phil lifted his hands in a sign of pseudo-defeat, indicating that there would apparently be no further discussion.
“Wait. We’ll give you the book,” Arlo said. Shoving the novel into Phil’s hands, he took a step back to stand side by side with Gillian in a united front. “And we’ll owe you for helping us. All we want is to be free of this rut. Both of us,” Arlo said. He grabbed Gillian’s hand and, shockingly, she didn’t stop him.
Phil stared at their held hands for a long time, eyes squinted in thought. His hands caressed the cover of the tattered paperback. The silence stretched for a full minute before he said, “Let’s say for a moment that I do help you… There are exactly fourteen positions at the firm. Every one of them needs a warm body. Currently two of those roles are going unfulfilled, throwing the whole system off balance. In case you are too dimwitted to figure it out, those positions belong to the two of you.”
“What about Roger’s job?”
/> “What?” Phil said.
“Who’s doing Roger’s job?” Arlo asked. “Why can’t one of us do that?”
The Accountant just stared at him; his head cocked slightly in thought.
“Interesting,” Phil said finally. Removing his glasses, he pulled a linen handkerchief from one pocket and polished the round lenses absently. “I suppose I could arrange something. In exchange for…”
“What?” Gillian asked, eyes squinting in concern.
“Help on a project I’m working on.”
“Project?”
“Yes,” Phil said. “But if… and mind you if… you were to agree to my terms, I might be willing to… well not exactly cancel your contracts with the firm, but perhaps I could bend them a little.”
Glancing at Arlo, Gillian said, “What guarantee would we have that you wouldn’t break your end of the bargain just as soon as we finish helping you with this project?”
Phil shrugged. “I’m afraid you’d have to take my word for it.”
“Not good enough.”
“Well, then…” Phil said. “I guess that’s it then.”
“Wait,” Arlo said. “Will you shake on it?”
Phil’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Shake on it. Hmmmm. Yes, I suppose that would be alright.”
Phil grabbed Arlo’s outstretched hand, and gave it one quick shake up and down before letting go and pointedly wiping his hand off on his slacks.
“Very well. Sealed and done. Now, what I need you to do is this.” He paused for a long moment, so long in fact, that Gillian opened her mouth to hurry him along but he spoke again before she could get a word out. “I want you to model for me.”
Gillian’s mouth closed with a snap.
“Beg pardon?” Arlo said politely.
“It’s for my new novel. I need to observe a dichotomous couple in a natural looking setting. The two of you are perfect for the roles.”
“A dico-whatamus?” Arlo said, scratching his head in confusion.
“It means polar opposites,” Phil said. “Like oil and water. Or fire and ice. You’re an extrovert. She’s an introvert. She’s a neat freak and you’re… not. But you don’t hate each other-”
Gillian harumphed.
“Not exactly…” Phil clarified. “But you certainly are extremely different. If, as they say, opposites attract, the two of you should be oozing with magnetism, so to speak.”
“Let me get this straight,” Gillian said. “You want us to… model for a romance cover?”
“Well, not just for the cover,” Phil said. “What I need is real inspiration.”
“Inspiration,” Gillian said, snarkily. “For your trashy novel.”
Phil squared his shoulders and straightened his back, standing aggressively at his full 5’ 3”.
“One reader’s trash, is another’s treasure, Miss Frost. Do you want my help or not?”
Exit Strategy
Phil perched precariously on the arm of the chair, looking for all the world like a gargoyle in a dark blue polyester suit.
“The Venutian vixen arched her back, her long neck bowing in anticipation of the way his tetra-toxin laden lips would tingle against her glistening silver skin.” Phil paused to write the words in his notebook after speaking, nodding in approval as he re-read the perfect prose on the lined page.
“That’s kind of killing the mood, bud,” Arlo said.
“I’m not your bud,” Phil said, jotting down another line and grinning happily at whatever trash he’d quietly composed this time. “Carry on. Don’t mind me. Just pretend that I’m not here.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold this pose,” Arlo said. His arms were starting to shake slightly from holding himself carefully above Gillian. He didn’t dare actually touch her. She might just knee him in the crotch if he so much as brushed against her stomach by exhaling too deeply.
“The Galwayn Knight slid two of his tentacles up her sides, the soft puck puck of suckers sliding and popping over her flesh echoed in the air lock. ‘Kiss me!’ she shouted, grabbing the perfect orb of his head and pulling the round O in its center toward her lips, lining up their mouth holes so that the toxin could ooze through her pores, arcing wildly through her circulatory system and straight to her rapidly beating heart.”
“Gross,” Arlo said softly.
Phil paused in his writing to cock his head critically at the uncomfortable and unnatural pose that poor Arlo and Gillian were holding for his “inspiration.”
“Black, describe Frost to me. What would you say are her best features? What attracts you the most to her?”
“Ummm…” Arlo stuttered. He felt suddenly very hot. This whole thing was a lot easier if he didn’t think about how the gorgeous woman lying prone beneath him on the bed looked.
“You promised to cooperate,” Phil reminded him. “I need inspiration. Quid pro quo, Black.”
“Okay,” Arlo said.
Arlo glanced down at Gillian’s snarling face. Even curled up in annoyance like that, her lips were still so kissable. Her face still perfect like a carving from alabaster even with the angry red color high on her cheeks, or maybe because of it.
“I guess… the way her skin catches the light,” he said. “It’s like it glows.”
The snarl melted off Gillian’s face to be replaced by a suspicious look. Slightly less hostile, still not approachable.
“And the way the little lines at the corners of her eyes only show up when she smiles, which she doesn’t do very often. But when she does, it makes her look more alive somehow. More real. Like most of the time she’s this unreal porcelain goddess…”
Gillian snorted a laugh.
“No really,” Arlo said, looking into her eyes. The dark brown had golden flecks he noticed for the first time, now that he was close enough to them to really see the depth of color. “It’s like no way that’s a real girl. That’s like some artist’s fantastical ideal of the perfect female form, you know? Like one of those old Greek sculptors made a real woman from cold, hard marble…” he was speaking directly to her now. “But when you smile… Wow… you come alive.”
Arlo stopped talking. He just stared into her eyes. The not brown eyes. The dark roast coffee with bands of ochre and flecks of pure gold eyes.
“Ahem…” Phil said, clearing his throat.
Arlo’s concentration broke and he chuckled nervously, his chest shaking slightly with the sound. Gillian rolled her eyes and let out a huff.
“That’s very helpful,” Phil said, scribbling away on his notepad. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Arlo mumbled.
“What about you, Frost?” Phil pointed his pencil at Gillian. “Gun to your head. What attributes does young master Black possess that one might label as positive?”
Arlo laughed nervously.
“Well not that, obviously,” Gillian said.
Arlo made a concerted effort to bite off the laugh, the silence left behind sounding nearly as awkward.
“I suppose…” Gillian said, squinting slightly as she looked at Arlo’s face, eyes running quickly over his features and hair. “He’s handsome in a Joe America kind of way.”
“Expound,” Phil said.
“Well, his nose is exactly what you’d think of as the perfect shape of a nose.”
“Ah, hold it right there,” Phil said excitedly. He scribbled on his pad. “The vixen curled the length of her prehensile tongue around the sharp protrusion of the knight’s nasal appendage. The jagged edge cutting cruelly against the underside of her tongue aroused her further. In her excitement she quivered, her royal jelly gathering on her pores casting prismatic rainbows across every surface of the tiny space steaming with their lovemaking.”
“I think I might puke,” Gillian said.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Phil grumbled as he wrote. “Any other positive traits readily apparent?”
“Not if you’re going to turn them into urp-worthy gagfests,” she said.
Arlo laughed at her choice of idioms. The sound was surprisingly pleasant, not like his usual forced nervous chuckle. The natural sound made Gillian smile in response and Arlo’s heart beat faster as the tiny lines appeared at the corners of her eyes.
“I’m sure someone would say he was charming, in a still moldable kind of way, like clay that you could shape into an ideal man,” Gillian said, “Not that he’s there yet by any means, but that he seems open to self-improvement.”
Arlo nodded enthusiastically. Yes, he was that. Definitely.
“And he…” she paused, and Arlo was shocked to see her flush slightly as though she was… embarrassed? Was it even possible?
“Yes, Frost?” Phil said. “Continue.”
“He smells nice,” she said quickly. Yes, she was definitely blushing now, Arlo could see. “Like a campfire or a sunset or something. Warm. Relaxing.”
“Hmmm…” Phil chewed on the end of his pencil for a second before writing as he said, “His musk aroused her basest, most animalistic desires…”
“I did not say musk,” Gillian objected.
“Riding his steed in the hot Venutian rains all day left an odor of the great outdoors on his moist skin,” Phil said, pen scratching against the lined pages of his notepad. “The vixen purred ‘My Knight, you make me want to lick the toxin off every square particle of your being. I want to bathe in your sultry sweet sweat and bottle your essence so that I can pour it in my every orifice for days and evenings to come-”
“Okay, that’s it,” Gillian said, shoving Arlo off of her. He wasn’t prepared for the movement and his exhausted arms wobbled, wholly failing to prevent him from falling right off the side of the bed and crashing to the floorboards beside her. “I’m done.” Gillian stepped over Arlo as she walked out of the bedroom.
“You’re not done until I say you’re done,” Phil said from behind her. He stood beside the arm chair, glaring angrily at her. “We had a deal.”
“Screw your deal,” Gillian said. “It was a bad deal anyway. Humiliate ourselves to get a better job? A nicer apartment?”
“I wouldn’t say humiliate…” Arlo said.
Hell Is Other People Page 12