Liesmith

by Alis Franklin

  I give a huff of laughter but, well, my office is my office. What am I supposed to say about it? Of course it’s impressive. The point of it is to impress people. Why else would it have an enormous picture window looking out over the city and, if that weren’t enough, a fucking fireplace?

  My desk is at the far end of the room, in front of the window. I walk over to it, getting there first mostly to ensure that I did, in fact, put Sigmund’s file away the night before. (The answer turns out to be yes.)

  “Holy shit.”

  Behind me, Sigmund has discovered Boots.

  “There’s a snake!”

  A large area in the wall to the right of the desk is taken up by a herpetarium. It’s full of plants and branches and UV lamps, and is inhabited by exactly one enormous, aging snake, the aforementioned Boots.

  “I’m sure she won’t bite you,” I say. This is true. I found Boots curled up miserably in the same place from where I hauled the LB “statue.” The name is indicative of my initial plans for her, but, well, things change. And now she guards my office from anyone stupid enough to be here without permission. Three deaths-by-snakebite later, and LB hasn’t had a problem with corporate espionage since.

  I hear a crash from the far side of the room. Sigmund, colliding first with the desk and then with the floor.

  “Holy shit, it can get out!”

  Boots’s tank has no glass. Yeah. I’ve had this reaction before.

  “Uh, are you okay?”

  Sigmund is on the floor, surrounded by a stapler, an upturned cup of pens, and a scattered pile of P&L reports.

  “What is going on in here?”

  Sigmund leaps upright at Nic’s voice, looking from her to the tank to me to the floor. Then he drops, grabbing papers and desperately sorting them into a pile to repopulate the desk.

  “Um! Oh, um. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I—”

  I wander over to help clean up, replacing the stapler and saying, “You should maybe warn people about the snake.”

  “Lain!” Sigmund hisses. Everything about him screams, You’re going to get us fired, you asshole!, especially his thoughts.

  Nic just sighs. “Boots has been Mr. Hale’s…companion for many years. She will not harm you.”

  I take the papers from Sigmund, reordering them and letting him worry about the pens. While he’s busy, I give Nic a grin and a gormless shrug, earning another scowl as she storms out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

  I don’t take it personally. Nic’s job is to look after the company, to stop me wrecking it with shitty fucking decisions. Hence her not approving of my current actions.

  When she’s gone, Sigmund says, “Oh god, we’re both so dead.”

  “It’ll be fine, man.” I take the cup of pens Sigmund is waving around and put them back on the desk. “See? Good as new!”

  “So. Dead,” he repeats. “Fired. Axed. Gone.”

  “I wouldn’t worry.”

  “Utterly unemployable.” Sigmund scrambles upright. “That happens, you know. People get blacklisted for things like this.”

  I laugh. “Not for things like this,” I say. Not that I’ve never ruined someone’s life over an office fuckup before, but it wasn’t exactly spilled pens and ophidiophobia. I thump Sigmund playfully on the arm and add, “I mean, maybe if we don’t manage to fix Hale’s printer…”

  He groans, hiding his face behind his hands, and I laugh.

  The fix does actually take him longer than I expected, and he resorts to Google more than once. But he gets there in the end.

  And, in the meantime, I stand back, eyes closed, and watch him work.

  FIVE

  “You’re a filthy traitor and I hate you forever.” Then, because lies always burnt on his tongue, “Or at least until lunchtime.”

  “Sorry, man.” Em, apparently, had no such issues with untruths. “But the shrink moved my appointment to Friday. I can’t miss it, so…gotta pike on camping. Sorry.”

  Sigmund groaned, slumping down across the table. Nine forty-six a.m. and they were at the café across the road from the office, having coffees and skipping work. Sigmund’s favorite pastime.

  Em’s favorite, meanwhile, was ruining people’s days.

  “God, I don’t wanna gooooo! ’Specially not by myself. Em!” The table muffled Sigmund’s pleas. When he looked up, Em was taking another bite of muffin, thick, dark eyebrows raised above thick, dark-rimmed glasses.

  “Then don’t go,” she said, “if you hate the idea that much.”

  “Dad will kill me.” Sigmund drew out the relevant verb. “You know how he loves all this corporate team-building stuff.”

  Next weekend, LB’s IT department was holding its annual camping trip. Sigmund could probably think of things he’d less rather be spending a long weekend doing, but it would be a short list. Which is why, three months ago, Em had taken pity on his suffering and agreed to join him. That was before she’d decided to be a dirty piking traitor.

  “Dude, you’re a grown-ass man,” Em said. “Daddy doesn’t have to make your decisions for you anymore.”

  “Piss off,” said Sigmund, without much enthusiasm. “I live in his house.”

  “So move out.” This, at least, was an old argument.

  “I can’t, man. Housing is expensive—”

  “Come move in with us. We’ve got a spare room.”

  “—and it’s not like Dad’s got anyone else. I don’t want him to be all alone.” Because that’s how it was, how it’d always been, in Sigmund’s memory. Just him and his dad. And maybe if Dad had found someone in the last twenty years, started dating or whatever, then Sigmund would’ve been long gone. But he hadn’t. So neither had Sigmund.

  Net result: Sigmund was going camping. Alone. Goddamnit.

  Em sighed, picked at her muffin, and said, “Well…why don’t you ask your new ranga mate?”

  Sigmund blinked. “You mean Lain?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you’re off to the forest, right? So it’ll basically be like coming home for him.”

  “Har, har,” said Sigmund. He tried to imagine Lain cavorting, orangutan-style, through the trees. “I don’t think he’s really the camping type.” He seemed more the lattes-and-fixies type. The Noguchi-coffee-table-and-skinny-jeans type.

  Em shrugged. “Just puttin’ it out there. You say he’s not an asshole, right? So ask him. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Sigmund stared down into his half-empty cup like it held the answer to Em’s question, not just the dregs of an entirely mediocre cappuccino. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Maybe.”

  What’s the worst that could happen?

  —

  When Sigmund got back to the cubicle, Lain was staring at something on his monitor, drumming his fingers on the desk. He looked up at Sigmund’s approach, and gave a sharp-toothed smile.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “Do you know anything about this?” He pointed at the screen.

  “About what?” Sigmund stepped around until he could see. A page from the company intranet. Advertising—

  Oh.

  “This ‘adventure weekend’ thing. Camping. You going?”

  Well. Sigmund supposed that solved that problem.

  “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I, uh…Dad’s kinda into that sort of thing. Company man. He’ll be cut if I don’t, so…”

  “You don’t sound thrilled about it.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m not really a camper, y’know? Outdoors…” Sigmund demonstrated his distaste with a shudder.

  “I was thinking of going,” Lain said. “Outdoors stuff…I mean, it’s been a while, but all those treks with my brother and his mate when we were younger, y’know? They usually ended badly.” And here he gave a dark-edged laugh. “But I kinda miss it.”

  That wasn’t a lie, but only just. Sigmund wondered what it was that Lain was really longing for: camping, or his apparently dead, possibly criminal brother.

  “Well,” Sigmund said, “you should come, the
n. I’ve got a tent. It’s small, but…I don’t snore. Too much.” Not after a decade of sleepovers with Emily “You-Snore-I-Kick” Ivanovich.

  For a moment, Lain just stared. Sigmund thought he was going to say no. Sigmund thought he was going to make some excuse because, ew, spending a weekend with Sigmund? No thanks. Except Lain was too smooth to be that cruel straight-up, so he’d have some slick cover story. One Sigmund would know was a lie, and then he’d have to go crawl under his desk and die of—

  “Really? Cool. Thanks, man. Yeah, that’d be awesome.” Lain smiled. Not his usual razor grin, but an actual honest-to-god smile. Like sharing Sigmund’s (dad’s) shitty two-man tent from circa 1970 was the nicest thing anyone had ever offered him and the coolest way he could imagine spending a weekend.

  Sigmund smiled back. It was hard not to, the way Lain’s odd-bright eyes seemed to almost glow.

  “Cool,” said Sigmund, ever the dork.

  “Camping,” Lain said. He turned back to his screen, still smiling. “It’s sure been a while. Let’s go sign this bad boy up.” He glanced up at Sigmund one last time. “Thanks again, man,” he said. “This weekend’s gonna be sweet. I can just feel it.”

  —

  After that, camping didn’t seem like such a death sentence. Sure, they’d have to do shitty games and outdoors stuff of the kind that Sigmund hated, but Lain sounded like maybe he was more the type. So maybe he’d be able to give instructions, and Sigmund could do his best to follow, and maybe the weekend wouldn’t be a total clusterfuck. Maybe.

  Lain was looking forward to it, even if Sigmund was still fence sitting, and Lain’s enthusiasm was infectious. All his moods were. He was handsome and charming and loved life. Meaning, when he was happy, it was hard not to be the same.

  Sigmund didn’t think about it much, just sort of rolled with it. At least until the following Tuesday, when Katia from Gateway cornered him in the tearoom.

  “So I hear Lain asked you out camping.”

  Sigmund looked up from where he was washing his coffee mug. The one in grave danger of gaining sentience.

  “Huh?” Sentience not shared by Sigmund, apparently.

  “Lain,” Katia said. “Asking you out. Everyone is sooooo jealous.”

  Sometimes, when he was younger, Sigmund had imagined himself to be an alien. Maybe his mum, too, fleeing on one last trip to escape a dying planet. Or maybe Sigmund had been abandoned on Earth as a baby, and his parents had adopted him, tried their best to raise him as a human. Except, being an alien, there would always be some things Sigmund just didn’t get about humanity.

  Like this one.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh. My. God.” Katia looked like Sigmund had just confessed to stabbing puppies. “It’s true. You have no idea.”

  Sigmund felt his fingers tightening around the handle of his mug. “No idea about what?”

  Katia rolled her eyes. “You,” she said. “And Lain. And the camping. And him liking you. Like, like liking you.”

  It took Sigmund a moment, but he got it.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. No way. It’s not like that. Lain isn’t…He’s not—”

  “Gay?” Katia said. She was leaning forward across the kitchen island, mischief sparking in her expression. “I hate to break it to you, but that guy makes Stephen Fry look straight.”

  “Wait. Stephen Fry is gay?”

  “Ohmigod, how are you alive?”

  “I thought he was just British!”

  Katia rolled her eyes again. Sigmund tried not to break the handle off his cup. “Stephen Fry is gay,” she said, voice pitched at schoolchildren. “Lain is even gayer. And he totally has a crush on you.”

  Sigmund blinked. “No,” he said. “No way.”

  “Look.” Katia was scowling now, all teasing gone. “He likes you, okay? Just trust me. People have been trying to ask him out since he got here, but the only person he’s ever shown any kind of interest in is you. The rest of us may as well not exist. You make him laugh. He smiles at you. Whenever anyone else tries to talk to him it’s always, ‘Oh, Sigmund this…,’ or, ‘Well, Sig says that…’ ”

  “No. Way.”

  “Way,” said Katia, who’d apparently watched the same films as a kid. “If you’re not into that sort of thing, that’s your business. But let him down gently, okay? Otherwise things are gonna get pretty rough for you ’round here.”

  There was a chip in the side of Sigmund’s mug. His favorite mug. The Aperture Science one. Funny how he’d never noticed that before.

  Katia was wrong. She had to be wrong. People didn’t get crushes on Sigmund. Sigmund was a loser, he knew that. He was fat and nerdy and had bad hair. All his jokes referenced video games or comic books or shitty cartoons from the ’90s. And it was okay. It was. He’d gotten used to it after twenty-odd years.

  High school had sucked. But high school was over. And the people like Lain…after high school, things had evened out a bit. It wasn’t like the Cool Kids blew spitballs at him in class or tried to trip him in the corridor anymore. Because Cool Kids grew up, too. And some of them got MBAs and some of them worked at McDonald’s, but it was different, being an adult. There were workplace harassment lawsuits, for one thing.

  Still. People like Lain didn’t get crushes on people like Sigmund.

  “Look,” said Katia, and, when Sigmund did, she was giving him a tight and awkward smile. “He likes you. Just…be kind, okay?”

  Sigmund nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

  SIX

  Friday saw Sigmund stepping out of Dad’s car onto the grass outside LB, carrying his tent and sleeping bag and flashlight and Swiss Army knife and towel and compass and mosquito repellant and sunscreen and, Jesus, Dad. I’ll be okay. It’s only for the weekend.

  Except Dad had been so excited about it all. More excited than Sigmund, even. So Sigmund hadn’t had the heart to say anything.

  Which was why here he was, standing on the lawn, weighted down with ten million packs like a huge nerd while everyone else was standing around clutching small gym bags.

  (FML)

  “Sig! Hey, you’re here. Whoa. You brought some stuff.”

  And, suddenly, there was Lain. All freckles and long copper hair, gleaming under the January sun. Cool shirt and skinny jeans and one too-hip duffel

  “Uh,” said Sigmund, feeling like the world’s most influential loser. “Yeah.”

  But Lain just smiled his bright smile and said, “Here. Let me take some of that.” And began helping himself to Sigmund’s burdens. Sigmund decided not to stop him and so, when the bus rolled up, the both of them were more or less equal in the shouldering-of-bags stakes.

  Sigmund hated bus trips. They threw the luggage in underneath, then found a free seat somewhere near the back. Lain slid in next to Sigmund, grinning and unperturbed, trendy-ugly sunglasses obscuring half his face.

  “Free day off work,” he said. “Cool, huh?” His thigh was warm where it brushed against Sigmund’s.

  Sigmund—whose stomach felt like a writhing pit of snakes—still managed part of a smile. “Yeah,” he said, trying not to think of kitchens or Katia. “Cool.” Did straight guys think about the warmth of each other’s thighs?

  Lain’s grin split open into rows of shark-white teeth. “Still not convinced?”

  “No computer, no Internet, no showers,” Sigmund said. “For three days.” He grimaced, pushing all non-camping-related thoughts away for later. Or never.

  “Aw, c’mon,” Lain said. “You’ve got your phone, right? There’ll still be reception.”

  “Yeah, maybe. For the, like, ten minutes until the batteries die.”

  They weren’t going very far. Just out to Woolridge Reserve, about an hour’s drive. There was a campground there. A river, some rocks, some bush. Nothing too threatening. Except emus, maybe. Sigmund hated emus. And mosquitoes. And flies. Probably redback spiders too. Maybe funnel-webs. Did they get funnel-we
bs out this way? Sigmund didn’t know. Then there were the snakes. Browns, taipans, red-bellied blacks…he didn’t know if all those were local, either. He was sort of hoping to keep it that way.

  Fuck. They were all gonna die.

  The bus lurched to life. Between Lain’s warmth and his smile and thoughts of the poisoned fangs of death incarnate, Sigmund already felt like throwing up.

  A fist connected with his shoulder. Playful, not violent. “Hey, man,” Lain said. “Relax. It’ll be fun.”

  Sigmund exhaled, looking down to where his hands were busy fumbling in his lap. “Sorry. I’m just…kinda a buzzkill.”

  Lain shrugged. “Nah,” he said. “You’re doing this for your dad. That’s cool. Making the old man proud and all.”

  “Yeah,” said Sigmund. “I guess.” Then he remembered Lain was, like, an orphan or a runaway or whatever, and the only family member he ever talked about was dead. So maybe Sigmund should try and be less of a spoiled moping brat. Appreciate what he had and all. “I, uh. Dad took it pretty hard when Mum died,” he said, surprising himself. “So it’s just the two of us, you know?” The two of them, and the company. Dad’s only other love.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Lain said, and meant it. “Did you, ah…?” He trailed off, as if suddenly unsure of the topic of conversation.

  Sigmund got the question a lot, though. He knew what it was. Awkward, but better than warping himself into a panic over Lain’s romantic intentions, or lack thereof.

  “I was pretty young,” he said. “And most of that time Mum was in and out of hospital, meaning I don’t really remember her.” He tried something like a smile, but didn’t get one in return. “That makes me sound like such a dick, doesn’t it? Like I don’t care my mum is dead. But, I mean…I never knew her, you know? It was always just Dad. Mum was…she was like this sword hanging over Dad’s head the whole time. This thing he couldn’t get rid of, even after she died, and…” Sigmund stopped himself, teeth clicking shut, too loud, even against the rumble of the bus. “Sorry. You didn’t need to hear that. I’m…I’m just a douche. Ignore me.”

  Lain was silent for a moment. “My brother was an asshole,” he said finally. “Manipulative, selfish motherfucker. And I loved him. More than…Enough to give up everything, just because he asked. And he did. All the time. And I adored him for it. But I’m glad he’s gone. And I wouldn’t want him back.”