Erf. In a heavy cyberpunk mood now. Watching tons of films and sketching up Keif. May change his name to something more cyber…ish. :p
The penthouse windows peered out over the smog of the city. It sat nestled above the clouds like Olympus, distant and detached from the filth and squalor of the streets below. Even if the yellow-orange miasma had not blotted out the blighted metropolis blow, the suite sat so high above it all that it was only visible as little spots of twinkling light in the shadow of the great towers.
Keif’s chin rested on his sharp knees, thighs pressed against his chest as he leaned against the reflective glass of the apartment’s great windows, his breath against the surface fogging over the cityscape beneath him. It was quite a view and the youth felt a twinge of vertigo. His skin prickled as he felt the rush of air from the suite’s vents, the air purifiers filling the room with the sweet scent of perfume and incense.
The flat was exquisitely furnished with antique furniture made of real wood. It felt so strange and foreign beneath Keif’s fingers. Something about knowing it was not synthetic altered the boy’s perception of it, made him feel a strange awe to sit upon something so foreign.
There has been an outcry for details of my weekend. I am not one to kiss and tell, especially with regard to this individual and how i feel. My life is not pornography. :p
Suffice to say, there was a posh dinner, opera, and I’m a little twitterpated.
There was no real way to explain things to Mom. It made him blush to think about it, let alone say it. The tall, suited man eyeing him like a piece of meat. The abrupt way in which he told Fenton to undress, to bare all to a perfect stranger.
Fenton didn’t even get down to more than his boxers and an undershirt for gym at school. His mom hadn’t seen him naked since the days in which he tied a blanket around his neck and marched around the neighborhood as the 5-year-old king of everything. It wasn’t that he was unpleasant to look at. It just made him turn red from his ears to his shoulders with shame.
So Fenton quietly climbed the stairs after making some half-assed story about the office really being interested in a girl for the position. That got Mom fuming a lot more than he wanted. The interview would come up again, he knew it.
In his room he shed all of his interview attire, trying to take off the dirty feeling with it. The fact that he was now naked was not lost on him. But he felt a little better and the youth settled down in front of his computer to while away the evening, trying to void his mind the best way he knew how.
Porn.
His legs were still quaking when he closed the door to his house a bus-ride later. Fenton leaned against his, breathing heavily. Sweat had soaked through his shirt and vest, his lower lips quivered nervously.
“Fent? Is that you?” Mom called from somewhere deeper in the house. “How did the interview go? Dad wanted me to call as soon as you got back.”
Was this serious? What the hell went on in that office? Did he mistakenly apply for a meetup or something equally unseemly? Artists were weird, he knew that much, but Fenton expected some propriety.
He had is dignity after all. There would be other jobs. He could do better.
Fenton tried to convince himself of those words, pressed against the door. He tried to ignore the fact that this was the first interview he’d received in almost four months of searching since graduation. Desperation was not a word he wanted to contemplate.
“I… I don’t think I was a good fit for the job.” He shouted back to Mom finally. Sluggishly he worked at the knot of his bow tie and started to undo his shirt, pulling the fabric from his sweat slicked skin.
There would be other jobs, he said to his bare stomach.
I just completed an amazing week of kink, romance, and dorkiness. And now I’m going to run it in your collective faces. Sorry, internet folk, you took second place to something very magical. Like a fairy tail or something equally impossible. My days of posting and writing kink are numbered…
I can’t believe how happy these last few days has left me.
/mush
This did not seem like a usual delivery. To Devlin this almost felt like a strip-o-gram, far outside any of the weird he’d done before. Granted he didn't really mind showing off his body a little: soccer kept him lean. Since his Valentines Day deliveries were always to middle-aged, sex-starved women he knew a little skin would ensure a big tip.
Devlin worked for a local confectionery shop as a delivery boy. It was not a full-time position but it was something he could do most days after school. The shop was a mom-and-pop affair called Sweet Salvation, originally run by a nice older couple who had since given up control of the day-to-day affairs to their son Bowen two months ago.
Devlin’s ass squeaked in the red pvc shorts as he accelerated from a dead stop at a stop sign. Really they weren't shorts, more an amalgamation of straps and buckles with a well placed cod piece. His top was similarly revealing, equating to a bolero that left his midriff completely exposed. And then there were the stockings and full length gloves - lacy and white. Makeup and a bow.
What the hell.
Obviously Fenton did not hear what he thought he’d just heard. Though, try as he might, he could not come up with any other phrase that he might have misheard.
“I… beg your pardon?” He gulped. Unconsciously he cupped his hands in front of his crotch as though to cover himself.
“Your clothes. Take them off.” The words were slow and deliberately spoken. The man’s face betrayed no emotion. He spoke matter-of-factually, as though talking to a young child.
Fenton took a step away, edging towards the door. “I think there has been some kind of mistake. I was looking … er … applying for the front desk position.”
“Indeed. And a front desk needs to meet certain physical standards.”
“I don’t understand.” Another step towards the door.
“Obviously. You are the desk. Furniture. In return, $60,000 a year, benefits, insurance, vacation, and other perks. Our offices are private and I have … certain proclivities that I enjoy.”
A knot formed in Fenton’s throat. This was nonsense! Who’d ever heard of a person as furniture? Was this really a design office or some kind of sick sex parlor?
The man smiled as Fenton’s obvious confusion played out across his face.
“I … there … this is not what I thought I was interviewing for. I’m so sorry. Please excuse me.”
The youth turned and fled the building, his legs shaking and barely able to carry him home.
This man was stiff and impersonal, it kept Fenton’s nerves at an all time high. He had not even been asked any difficult questions yet and this was already proving to be the toughest interview.
Was he in good shape? Fenton squirmed at the question, his hands visibly playing with the hem of his vest. What did that have to do with anything? It was a desk job, not lifting freight, right?
“I … don’t really do sports or anything like that.” The boy started. Shit. Wrong answer. Have to come up with something better. “But… I try to stay active..”
It wasn’t necessarily true. Fenton took the stairs when he could, but that was the extent of his workout. He was lean with youth but still possessed a little tummy pudge from hours of Reddit, TV, and xBox.
The man paced around him like a stalking predator, his eyes making Fenton flush with embarrassment and nerves. When did the real interview questions start? Why was he feeling like a slab of meat right now?
“Strip down.”
A good start? Well, if he said so. Fenton was confused, but pleased to have received such a positive response already. Maybe the man thought he was joking?
The man was lean and clean cut, his hair neatly gelled to his head. His face was youthful but masculine. He was in his mid thirties at least. The clothes he wore and the demeanor he put on made Fenton wonder if the man was really the office manager or actually one of the partners of the studio.
“Your full name?”
“Fenton Brenton.”
There was a pause and the youth was sure he caught the slight origins of a smile tease at the corner of the man’s mouth. It wasn't uncommon Fenton’s parents thought themselves clever giving him a rhyming name, in reality all they had given him was a persistent source of mirth for others at his own expense.
“You have worked in an office before?”
“N-no. I’m still looking for the perfect starting place for my career after high school.” They were memorized words that he’d repeated before. Nobody wanted to hear that he had no experience and Fenton didn’t want to sound desperate.
The economy was bad. No question there. Jobs were a scarcity. He’d interviewed at over thirty different places over the last two months. Money was getting tight at home. His parents couldn’t help him through college and with Dad out of work, the family finances were getting grim.
“Stand in the center of the room.”
Fenton took a few nervous steps onto the large patterned rug. He despised being the center of attention. The teen was far more comfortable in the background. Let him file paperwork, he didn’t have glamorous intentions of being a CEO.
“Do you workout? Keep yourself fit?”
Terrified of being late, Fenton arrived 10 minutes early. His buffer had been spent timidly checking his tie and his hair over and over again through the camera of his phone. Mom was right, he should have pulled his hair back. Or had it cut. Or something.
The turning of the door knob made him jump from his reverie. Fenton expected to see the secretary who’d brought him into this small waiting room. Instead his eyes were greeted by a tall man in a very expensive suit.
Greeted was not the word Fenton would use personally. The man eyed him over dispassionately, like a butcher or a diamond vendor. When he spoke it was with the authority of a man accustomed to having his way.
“Stand up.”
Fenton practically jumped from the cushioned chair. Standing upright and fighting to keep his knees from knocking. This was not off to a good start. He knew he was going to blow it. The first question and he’d respond by fainting.
“Are you flexible?”
“I did gymnastics for two years in junior high.” Came the response.
Yea. He blew it. What the hell kind of response was that? Obviously the man was asking about hours and pay. Would he work around their scheduling? Would he accept less pay.
Fenton’s face flushed red and he looked down at his shoes, wishing he could creep down inside them like a turtle and hide from the burning on his cheeks.
“Really?” Came the surprised response. “That’s a good start.”
Fenton adjusted his tie again, easily the fourth such fiddling in as many minutes. Only a half-windsor knot, the best he could muster. It hung loosely at an odd angle and he knew everyone was staring at it. It wasn’t his fault the YouTube video for full-windsor knots was so damn hard to follow.
Sweat beaded under his white dress shirt, making visible stains around his collar and under arms. He didn’t interview well. The youth knew everyone said that, but he also knew he had to be a special exception. The words never came to him: he’d answer wrong, he’d stare blankly at the interviewers, once he even got up and excused him self for being so humiliated by the process.
He was uncertain why he’d even applied and then arrived at this interview. Didn’t most secretarial positions go to pretty young women? With a narrow, effeminate face, large lips, and a lithe frame he was pretty, but the young woman part was a stretch. Fenton’s thick, black rimmed glasses only furthered the image of a spinster librarian - shy but still worth a look.
What did he have to lose? He needed a job - any job - and the listing had not listed any requirements he did not have. In fact, it didn’t really list any requirements at all:
Opening for front desk at busy interior design firm. Apply in person for permanent position.
So here he sat in the design offices of Appearances by X, waiting nervously for the door to swing open and the interview to begin. A part of him said just to leave, that he would not get this job either. Another vainly optimistic part said this was it, this would be the job.
Job opening for front desk in busy office environment. Contact me if you are interested in a full-time position. ;)
Westminster Dog Show on the tellie next week. Which is good, because It is time for some fresh puppy show inspiration to get me drawing.
There shall be a party at my house. Bring your own water dish ;)