“I didn’t flee!” I say, indignant. “I was leaving anyway. Your melting was incidental.”
“Ah,” he smiles. “So you weren’t running from a monster. You were running from your own actions.”
“If you want to put it like that, I can’t stop you. We shouldn’t have done what we did. It was unprofessional, and I will be putting in my notice… again.” That statement was so strong until I had to go back and amend it.
“They won’t accept it.”
“Then I’ll tell them what happened between us.”
He smirks as he folds his arms over his chest and leans against a filing cabinet. “They won’t care.”
“Why not?” The question comes out in a strangled kind of confusion. “They should care!”
“They have been asking me to take on a documenting writer for well over a year. I have refused everybody they tried to send me. I told Veronica that I liked you, and I was going to keep you on. So, at this point, there is really nothing you can do to get fired.”
I can’t get fired?
Challenge accepted.
I get up from my desk, leaving my things behind, though I take my phone and my purse with me. I’m going to go out for a very long lunch break. It’s going to start at 9.23 a.m., and go all the way until 5.02 p.m., I think.
I am aware that this is petulant nonsense, and the job pays incredibly well, all things considered, and that getting myself fired on purpose is very off brand for me. But sometimes a girl has to take a stand against the guy she had sex with because she was following her impulses and not using her brain.
I spend the day shopping and getting coffee with some girlfriends. They think I have the day off, because that’s what I told them. They talk about their boyfriends. I don’t talk about my boss and the fact I slept with him. I know they wouldn’t judge me, but I’d judge me.
I get back to the lab at 5.15 p.m. I guess I was a little later than I imagined.
“Where have you been?” Simon frowns at me. I wonder if he’s been waiting for me. Probably not. Nothing about this guy says clocking out at five is his MO.
“A lot of places,” I say, picking up my bag. “Great day at work, boss. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow. Briefly.”
He glowers at me. “I expect you to be at your desk and working during the workday,” he says with the tone of someone who really thought I wouldn’t take immediate advantage of the fact that I was told I could not and would not be fired.
“Expectations are recipes for disaster,” I tell him. “See you tomorrow.”
I leave, feeling immensely smug. It’s about time men like him learned that just because they want something doesn’t mean they can take it and keep taking it.
* * *
Simon
She really thinks she is going to get away with that. It’s quite cute, actually, how unaware of how deep she’s already in.
Little minx. She played the cards she was dealt, and I cannot blame her for that. Malicious compliance is always amusing. But two can play at that game. And I have all manner of tricks up my sleeve that she cannot imagine.
In the middle of the night, I enter her apartment. There will be no signs of forced entry, because I do not need to open the door. I slide under it in the guise of a creature so small it can flatten its skull to slide through the crevice under the door.
Once I am inside, I allow myself to take my human form again. This time I do not have to suffer the melting phase. I spent the day ensuring that unfortunate side effect was isolated and removed. I work swiftly when I have a vested interest in an embarrassing mistake not happening twice.
I have learned that I can control the duration of shifts, especially of new creatures, by changing the dose. The bigger the dose, the longer I stay in the animal form. I only took two drops before I entered her apartment. My clothes and belongings are lumped outside her door and I had to crawl through my own jacket arm to escape them, but that is a minor inconvenience really.
I walk naked into Lydia’s bedroom where she is sleeping. It is a comfortable room, a little plain. I thought she might have some secret wild personality hidden away at home, but it seems shelikes to lie to herself as well as the rest of the world. I sense the animal inside her. As traditional as she might like to appear, I know there’s more to her than that.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I murmur into her ear.
Her eyelashes flutter as she wakes from what I guess was a deep sleep. As she starts to move, I grip her wrists and I lift them over her head, making her vulnerable. When her eyes open fully, she sees me over her, entirely naked.
“What are you doing?” Her tone is shocked and a little excited, if I am not very much mistaken. I knew she might panic when she found herself in this position, but she isn’t giving me the reaction I want. I’ve noticed that contrariness before, and I am enjoying breaking it. If she isn’t concerned about what I intend do to with her yet, she soon will be.