After meeting the new security guards, the three of us ended up in another sit-down - Marisela, Lakshmi, and me. Not official or anything. Just…necessary. I mean: yikes. Kathy had ordered us up some big ones - Marisela thought she recognized at least two of these seven-footers from a newsfeed last week, one of the giant mercenary soldiers sent from somewhere in Europe to help in the uprisings in Central America. And now they were ours? We’d had to talk it over - how to adjust, how to use them, how to scale it. Especially if we could get more of them.
Anyway, that had been about twenty minutes earlier, but none of us had actually left. You start a conversation about parking lot security logistics and suddenly you’re standing around afterward realizing that something much weirder is happening underneath it all.
That happens a lot lately. Things are getting deep. This is my life. Why am I always here? Giving this place my days and my weekends like some kind of worker bee? Is that what I am?
I guess fucking so lol.
We’d found ourselves back in the old breakroom, in geriatrics. The place seemed so out of date, now that I was getting used to the new offices in the new wing. Lakshmi was leaning against the counter with a mug of tea she’d reheated twice already. She was looking at the news, which was playing some story about what was going on in Viremonta, some emergency election. Marisela had taken a chair by the window, one boot up on the radiator, scrolling through something on her phone with the kind of bored focus that meant she was actually paying attention to everything in the room.
At the risk of finding out more than I wanted to know, I decided to pry a little. “So, Harpy,” I questioned Marisela, “dare I ask - what did you do last night? Saturday night and all.”
She looked up at me with casual daggers in those huge, ice-blue peepers. Even now, they sometimes freak me out.
“You didn’t check the police feed this morning?” she asked.
I nodded. Of course I’d seen it. It was something I checked every morning, now that I’m a fucking responsible person. “So the city has you to thank for that carnage?” I said, not without another nod - this time of appreciation. “A crime den, they said?”
“Vietnamese sex traffickers,” she replied, so fucking nonchalant and flat as ever, “Stephanie and Amelia came along.”
“That would explain the ‘demolished load-bearing walls’...” I offered. Stephanie.
“...and the ‘bodies shredded beyond recognition’?” added Lakshmi, sounding somewhere approaching concerned. Amelia.
Without really realizing it, I flexed my jaw. Subtle, I thought, but Marisela noticed.
“You two should come along next time,” Marisela drawled, having taken to unlacing her boots, likely only to lace them back up again. Some beam of sunlight caught one of her steel piercings and it flashed.
I scoffed; Kiki just sort of politely smiled. “Thanks but no thanks,” I answered for the both of us. I admit I felt a little pang of jealousy, some FOMO, but found it in me to decline. Mass murder wasn’t (yet, at least) in my wheelhouse, and I know Lakshmi wouldn’t want to disappoint her mom, who had wanted her daughter to grow up to be a podiatrist, not a serial killer.
“Why not?” Marisela asked, arching one of those perfect fucking brows.
“Ah I’m more of a homebody these days, thank you,” I replied - actually being honest, “I did cam a little yesterday morning - crazy.”
“Really?” Lakshmi said, nodding. That had gotten her attention away from the TV. Camming had become an easy way for pretty girls everywhere to make money these days. Even just casual feeds could bring in cash as guys had become more…whatever the word is. Fixated. Obsessed with women.
With us, though, it wasn’t just about the money.
“Yeah - Amelia set me up with the stuff last week, got my account started,” I said, “I mean, I’m new to this but the Squirt was up from the first time, way up, when they just liked to watch me open up wide and eat things. Well, that…and the tits.”
Marisela scoffed, but I saw she was holding back a smile.
I paused. “So, like, yeah. The Squirt really started coming - no pun intended - when I started talking about Melissa.”
Both Marisela and Lakshmi were watching me now.
“I mean I warmed everybody up by showing them how I’m growing out of some old gray shirt,” I continued, “But I stayed on my cam for like…an hour? Maybe a little more. Just talking to people. Answering questions about the clinic, the news stuff. Normal chat.” I considered my next words pretty carefully, because they stirred something in me. “But all they really wanted to hear about was one thing.”
Her.
“So what did you say?” Lakshmi asked.
“I mean, nothing personal,” I answered, “but they wanted to hear about how powerful she’s becoming.” I paused again. “So I told them. And the Squirt started coming.”
Marisela’s brows were knitted, but I could tell she already knew where this was going. “And afterward?” she prompted.
I spread my hands. “I felt incredible. Like…charged,” I said, “I wasn't tired at all. Actually the opposite.”
Marisela nodded. Lakshmi smiled faintly.
I pointed at them both. “Exactly,” I accused, laughing, “You both felt it too.”
Lakshmi took a slow sip of tea. Marisela had started re-lacing her boots.
“The attention fucking carries something,” I said, thoughtfully now, “When they’re focused on us - on her - it moves through the connection.”
Marisela raised an eyebrow. “You realize this sounds insane.”
“I’m telling you,” I said, tapping the edge of the table, “there’s a pattern. And we can figure it out. Let’s get you two some webcams...”
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