The Lovebirds - VII
"One day, she’ll be dead, we’ll be back in Hell, and if she ends up there as well, I can’t imagine she’ll have all that much to laugh about, then."
“The neighbor woman stopped by while you were gone.”
“She did, did she?” Stolitz mumbled, his disinterest clear in his voice. “And what did she want?”
“I don't know,” replied Agratta. “I didn't answer the door.”
“Why not?”
“Stolitz - why in all the Layers of Hell would I want to talk to a human?”
“Uh… curiosity, perhaps?"
“Curiousity? Over a human?”
“Well, I just -” Stolitz paused and made a noise between clenched teeth, pulling on something in the kitchen sink's drain that did not want to come out. “Aren't you the least bit interested as to why she'd bother coming over? Don't you have any kind of desire to know what would motivate her to show up on our door step?”
Agratta scoffed. “No. What do you think she could possibly have to say that would be of any interest to me? Or you, for that matter.”
“Well, I don't know, Agratta, but that's kind of why I'd like to know what it was she wanted.”
Agratta made a sound in the back of her throat.
“She probably just wanted to come and make more rude little comments about our height, if I had to hazard a guess.” She sneered into her wine glass. “Come gawk at the newcomers, like we're some sort of deformed abominations or new zoo atrraction to be ogled.”
“You’re still upset about that?”
There was the sharp click of glass against granite. Stolitz looked up from the kitchen sink, expecting to find Agratta holding the stem of a broken wine glass. Fortunately, the wine glass clutched in her hands was not in pieces, but he suspected it might snap if she so much as flexed a finger.
“Yes, Stolitz,” she said sharply. “Yes, I am upset. She insulted us. Being upset tends to be the logical reaction most would have when one is insulted.”
“Oh, come off it, already. She was joking.”
“And that makes it better? Being the butt of a human’s joke?”
Stolitz paused and, with a groan, pushed back errant hair-feathers that had fallen over his face. “So what if she was? What is she was taking the piss? One day, she’ll be dead, we’ll be back in Hell, and if she ends up there as well, I can’t imagine she’ll have all that much to laugh about, then.”
He could practically hear Agratta roll her eyes. “If you had a spine with more resilience than an overcooked piece of vermicelli, you might have the good sense to find yourself offended, too.”
Stolitz sighed through his nostrils and turned his attention back to the sink. “I think you’re reading too much into it. She most likely didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Oh, she absolutely did. She meant to insinuate that we’re a pair of gangly freaks.”
Again, Stolitz looked up from the sink. “Well, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but -” He gestured to the top of his head, and then to his legs. “By human standards, we are.”
“Well, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but, actually - we aren’t. She’s just a spiteful, hateful little gnome,” Agratta bit.
“And since when did you start worrying about what humans think of us, Agratta?”
“When we started living with them, you dolt!”
Agratta blew a sharp exhale and picked her wineglass off the countertop, staring with disdain at the contents as she swirled them about the bowl. She grimaced before taking a sip, and finished it with a sound of disgust.
Stolitz had already asked why she bothered to drink it when she’d come to the definitive conclusion that she didn’t like it, so he didn’t ask again. Despite her distaste for it, she had cleared out four bottles of it over the past two days, and he was certain that, had they bought more of the generic red blend from Target, they would already be gone, too. Stolitz, on the other hand, hadn’t touched more than a glass since he arrived. Agratta called him a lush, but he also couldn’t bring himself to finish the swill that had come off the Target rack, regardless of how desperate he was.
The demon renewed his efforts to dislodge the clogged sink. With one final yank, his efforts bore fruit. From the drain, he pulled a twisted length of metal that had been a fork before Agratta had activated the garbage disposal while it had been stuck in the drain. It wasn’t entirely her fault - the light switch that turned on the lights over the sink was positioned right by an identical switch that turned on the garbage disposal, which was, Stolitz had to admit, a rather questionable place to put such a switch. He’d made the mistake himself, though, thankfully, nothing had been in the drain at the time when he had.
Stolitz held the ruined utensil up, which Agratta feigned disinterest in. “Going forward, please do make sure there’s nothing in the drain before you try to turn on the lights. The last thing we need waste money on is a replacement for the garbage disposal.”
“What does it matter?” Agratta asked. “It’s not like we’ll need it. What kind of barbarian stuffs garbage in a sink, anyways?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that question. He didn’t know, and the only reason he even knew it was called a garbage disposal was because he’s once overseen the torture of a sinner that had a fear of having their hand stuck in one; a job that was as messy as it had been stomach turning.
“Regardless of whether we’re putting garbage in it or not, it’s better that it remains intact and unbroken. Lucifer knows that it would break and cock up something else in the process, and the next thing we know we’ll be wading through the house in knee-deep sewer water, or something. We needn’t be throwing money away on senseless expenses like botched plumbing.”
Agratta’s eyes slowly performed a loop in their sockets. “Parsimonious,” she muttered in a taunting sing-song lilt.
Stolitz had never heard her say that word before they’d arrived, and now he’d heard it more in the past two days than he had in his entire life.
”I belive the word you're looking for is economical,” said Stolitz. “Which, speaking of…”
He began to unroll the sleeves of his shirt, which he had hiked up to keep clean while clearing the sink, and laid both of his hands on the edge of the countertop with a sigh. He'd been dreading the topic he was about to broach ever since it occurred to him that it was a subject that need broaching. It came to him as he rolled about the small space allotted by the new folding futon that they had purchased from a store that specialized in cheap, constructable furniture. It was barely worthy of even being called furniture, and offered precious little more comfort than comfort than sitting and sleeping on the bare floor, but it was all he could bring himself to buy before he started to feel ill from spending too much money in one place at one time.
He'd never been particularly thrifty back in Hell - he'd never needed to - but he did understand the basic concepts of financial prudence and wealth management, both of which were now of paramount importance due to his limited funds. It was simple; never spend more than you make. This was difficult to do now that his income was nothing. Every dime he spent was one that wasn't coming back, and one that he wasn't even sure how he was going to get back. He was keenly aware of how much - or how little - money he had available, and even thinking about the fact that his monetary means extended to no more than a stack of bills in his wallet sent his gizzard squirming with discomfort. He'd always assumed that financial difficulty was something unpleasant to grapple with, but, if the long, sleepless night he'd spent rolling around beneath the thin protection of the grinning cartoon puppy sheets on the tough and unwelcoming futon was any indication, facing the very real prospect of being actually, literally, and legitimately broke wasn't simply uncomfortable - it was maddening.
This epiphany, however, seemed to have passed over Agratta entirely.
“We need to talk about our expenditures.”
Agratta blinked. She glanced back over her shoulder as if she expected him to be talking to someone else. “We do?”
Stolitz nodded.
“Well,” said Agratta, turning away from him and holding her glass of wine close. “I’m not sure what exactly there is to talk about. It isn’t as if you’ve been particularly generous with our funds.” She was careful to place great emphasis on that word - our.
Stolitz sighed through his nose and began to massage the bridge of his beak between his fingers. She was still angry about… well, it wasn’t really a question of what made Agrata angry so much as what didn’t, but she’d been particularly stung by their outing to the furniture store and what they’d bought. Or, perhaps more appropriately, what they hadn’t bought.
“Are you still upset about the plants?”
“Well, I don’t know, Stolitz,” Agratta snapped - which might as well have been a yes. “You tell me, did the cheap barstools and folding… seat, or whatever, make the house feel any more…” Her head rolled about on her neck as she pretended to think. “Does it feel any less empty to you? Does it feel any less… soulless? And less… barren? Depressing, perhaps?”
“No, but - well, I need something to sleep on that isn’t the floor and we,” he said, gesturing to himself and Agratta both. “Need places to sit when we eat, and I don’t think potted plants make for very good seats to enjoy a meal on.”
“Oh, please, Stolitz. We've been eating fucking cold cut sandwiches since we got here, we’re not eating bloody haute cuisine or fine dining.”
“It doesn't matter if we're eating behe-minón or saltine crackers out of the bloody sleeve, we needed somewhere to sit.”
“You eat standing up!”
“Because there's been nowhere the sit!” Stolitz balked. “And, you know - one day. One day, when we eat actual home-cooked food here, and not just subsist on poverty food… you'll thank me, because we eating it with branches up our arses.”
“Oh, I highly doubt that,” Agratta agreed. “But - Stolitz, quit thinking with your stomach and forget the food for a moment. A plant or two would have gone a long way to help make this dreary, suburban cage feel less like a prison cell and more like some semblance of a place we might be able to live in for more than a month without necking ourselves!”
“They were plastic,” said Stolitz flatly.
“I fail to see how that makes a difference.” Agratta shrugged and took a sip from her glass, this time holding her expression even. “They would have helped tie the place together all the same.”
Stolitz wasn’t sure what exactly she meant by that. He wasn’t sure she meant anything by it at all, really. Stolitz suspected that she hadn’t truly desired to stick a plastic ficus in the corner of their new den. She wasn’t a plant person, nor was she much of a home decor person, and, even if she had been, knowing her as he did, Stolitz would assume that, had they still been in Hell, she would have abhorred the idea of sticking something as aggressively low class fake plant in their house. Something told him that, in truth, she just wanted to spend money for the sake of buying something, and after years of spending money - his money - as if it was some inexhaustible resource, she was now suffering withdrawals from not doing so.
He figured it was an argument that was better off not being had.
Stolitz held up a hand. “Okay. Perhaps they would have.”
“Oh, they would have.”
“But - Agratta. The night we arrived, there were ten thousand dollars in my wallet. Today, only two days later, just to buy what little we have… we’re down to a total of about seven thousand and five hundred.”
Agratta remained nonplussed. “Is… is that a lot? I’m not sure how many oboli that translates to.”
The conversion rate between oboli and dollars was less of a mathematical equation and more something of economic wizardry that, even at the best of times, was above Stolitz’s grasp. But, he still had a good idea of what an oboli could buy - not much - and what an American dollar could buy - which was even less. “Let’s just say that it’s significantly less than what you’re accustomed to.”
“So, you’re saying that we sp-” Agratta caught herself. She coughed into her hand, and then pointed at Stolitz. “You spent a lot? That’s what I’m getting out of this.”
Stolitz bit down on his own tongue1. Yes - he spent the money. Not Agratta. Him. He controlled the almighty wallet, and, thusly, every issue that followed was squarely on his shoulders, and she was not going to let him forget it.
Stolitz forced himself to nod. He winced at the sound of Agratta’s gasp.
“And this is all we have to show for it? You spent what little we have on… on two rickety stools and a… a, um…” She craned her neck to look over towards the den, where Stolitz’s bed-cum-sofa sat, the Puppy Dog Pals sheet neatly folded over his pillow. “Sweet sin. I can’t rightly bring myself to even call that a sofa.”
“You’re forgetting the lamps, the cookware, plates, cups, bowls, towels, and - oh. Right. I almost forgot. Forty dollars worth of nail products.”
Agratta shot him a nasty look from over the rim of her glass. “And is that also a significant amount? I’m getting mixed messages.”
“Well - no, but - I mean, it isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but it is quite a bit to spend on nail products alone. Especially when we don’t have any means of generating income at the moment.”
His wife hummed sagely as she drained the contents of her glass. Before she spoke, she promptly filled it again. “Yes, yes. That is troublesome, isn’t it?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as she brought the glass back to her beak. “You should probably get working on that.”
Of that, Stolitz was keenly aware. He knew that the odds of seven thousand some-odd dollars being able to sustain them for the remainder of their exile were exceedingly thin.
“It's on my to-do list,” Stolitz replied. “The top of it. But…” He shifted where he stood. His throat was tight - his very body was rebelling against him as he prepared what he wanted to say, knowing full well the response it was likely to receive. He lowered his head and stares into the sink. He rapped his talons against the side the claws clicking against the stainless steel. “But, ah… well. I don't think it should be on my list of priorities alone.”
The air pulled taut. Without raising his head, Stolitz looked up. Agratta was staring back at him, her glass still lifted as if she'd gone still while preparing to drink. Her expression was difficult to parse.
Stolitz offered a small, awkward smile.
Agratta wordlessly set her glass on the counter. She angled her body to face Stolitz.
“Stolitz.”
“Yes?”
“It sounds to me as if you are making a certain implication with that statement.” Agratta spoke clearly and deliberately, her voice bearing no particular strong emotion. “However,” she continued plainly. “On account of that implication being both patently absurd and also ridiculous… I'm going to choose to believe that you were not implying anything at all aside from making the general observation that I should be concerned with our finances, which, of course - I am.”
Stolitz inhaled deeply. He was treading a dangerous path, now. One not impossible to navigate, but perilous all the same, and one that required precision, delicacy, and care in order to come out the other side with as little trouble as possible.
“And… what exactly do you believe I was implying?”
“I just said I’m actively and consciously choosing to believe you didn’t imply anything.”
“Well, what if you actively and consciously chose to believe otherwise.”
Agratta shook her head. “I won’t even humor it.”
“Agratta.”
“No,” Agratta said. She shrugged. She took another sip of wine, shook her head, and shrugged again, trying and failing to mask her growing indignation. “No,” she said again, emphatically. “I won’t - I’m not going to debase myself by getting a j-” Agratta’s words were interrupted by a low, throaty sound that rose from deep in her chest, forcing her to lurch forward as she spit it out. She straightened up and recomposed herself. “I won’t - you can’t seriously believe that I would… I would actually get a juh -” She sputtered and screwed her eyes shut tight.
“A jo-”
She paused again and put a hand against her chest.
“A j-eurgh.”
This time, her tongue came out in a full-throated retch.
“Wh-what - what are you doing?”
Agratta, doubled over on the counter, gasped. “Gagging.”
“Over the insinuation that you m-”
“Don’t.” Agratta held up a single finger with one hand while bracing herself with the other. She shooked her head. "Sweet sin - don’t. This gutter wine is bad enough, I can’t stomach - oh, that word. I don’t want to hear it.”
“What?” Stolitz balked. “Job?”
Agratta slapped her hand over her mouth with a sick burbling noise.
On the other side of the countertop, Stolitz reeled back with a beleaguered sigh. “Oh, Lucifer Morningstar. Really? Really now, Agratta?”
Agratta pulled one of the chincy barstools they had purchased earlier and fell into it, hunched over herself, wilting like a dying plant. “I can’t,” Agratta whinged. “I can’t! I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. It just - it simply wouldn’t work out.”
“Oh, please, Agratta. Don’t be so bloody dramatic.” He wasn’t sure whether she was exaggerating or not, and, by proxy, he was unsure of whether or not he should feel pity or compassion for her. Given that she was his wife and he should, despite his better judgement, give her the benefit of the doubt, he forced himself to bend towards compassion.
“It’s - Agratta. Please. It’s really not that big of a deal.”
“Maybe to you,” Agratta snapped. “You’ve been employed for centuries. But I… I’ve never had a job before, you know this.”
“I… am well aware,” Stolitz replied, shaking his head. “But - well, you -"”
“You didn’t even want me to work!” Agratta whined.
“You’re right,” said Stolitz. “You’re absolutely right, I didn’t, but - yes. I wanted you to be at home to raise Astoria. But -” He splayed his hands, palms up, vaguely gesturing to the empty house around them. “Astoria is not here.”
Agratta hesitated. “Okay!” she admitted. “No. No, she isn’t, but -well - still! I - I’ve never worked a bloody day in my life. You can’t just… just…” She violently threw her hands out, nearly knocking over her glass in the process and giving Stolitz something else to clean up. “Throw me into something like that! I mean - I wouldn’t know what to do. What would I even do?”
Well, you certainly act as if you can do anything, Stolitz thought, but, heeding his better judgement, kept his tongue still. “Well… that would be something to consider, I suppose. It’s not as I expect you to get a job tomorrow, or anything b-”
“You shouldn’t expect me to work at all!”
Stolitz sighed. He took a recently washed glass that had been air crying on the counter and reached for the open bottle of wine. Agratta made a sound of protest, but did nothing to stop him from pouring himself a libation. He took an experimental sip. He din’t make a face, but he did find himself blinking furiously as his tongue was awash with a stringent, unpleasant taste of far too much black fruit that had been dreadfully over-oaked. It tasted like Kill-Aide mixed with drain cleaner.
Stolitz took another sip.
“Listen. Agratta,” he sighed. “You know, most people… demons, too… they have to work to survive. Especially in America. It’s expected that both individuals in a household t-”
“Well, I don’t really give a good god damn what this miserable joke of a country expects, did you ever think about that?” Agratta protested.
Stolitz drank more wine.
“I understand, but - it’s not just expected, it’s damn near necessary for a house to be supported by two incomes. I do-”
Agratta cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. She flapped them both in his direction, scowling as if she were wafting away an unpleasant smell. She shook her head, dislodging immaculately placed hair-feathers and giving her an uncharacteristically disheveled look. It seemed more appropriate for her outfit of high-waisted jeans and the same Wine Milf shirt she’d been wearing for three days straight, since, apparently - and unfortunately - were the only clothes in the closet that she’d begrudgingly deigned to wear.
“Enough,” she groused. “Enough of this. I can’t - it’s making me ill.”
Stolitz pulled his glass from his beak with a glower. “That might be the wine, actually.”
“Oh, no,” Agratta disagreed. “No. Please. I’ve had worse than this. It’s definitely the talk of wuh-” She gagged again. “Wor-”
“You can not seriously be this twisted up over the idea of w-”
“Shut up, damn you!”
Stolitz jumped where he stood at the pound of Agratta’s fist against the granite countertop. She drew heaving, labored breaths, her eyes fixed on some indistinct point on the wall behind Stolitz as she collected herself. She placed one hand on the countertop and raised the other. Her expression softened as much as he’d recently seen it - which wasn’t much. She looked only mildly irritated rather than outright pissed.
“Let’s…” She paused to clear her throat. “How about,” she continued in an unusually diplomatic tone of voice. She gestured to Stolitz with both hands. “You… get a job first. And, we’ll, ah… well, we’ll see how that goes.” A small, mirthless smile twitched onto her beak.
Stolitz stared at his wife.
“Maybe… maybe you’ll find a job that pays enough that you can support us both. It’s a possibility. It could happen.”
“So you can, what? Lounge around the house all day, drinking?” Stolitz asked. He expected Agratta to respond with hostility, but, to his surprise, rather than yell, she just shook her head.
“No. No - of course not. No. I’m not -” She gave an awkward laugh. “I’m not you.” As if to invalidate her point, she took another sip of wine. “No. I would, ah - I’d use the time to… to better myself. Learn new skills. You know? Do those things that I always wanted to do that I never really had the time for. I’d… I’d…” She gyrated a hand absently. “I’ll learn to knit. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“And that’s fine and good,” said Stolitz. “But you do know that knitting supplies - those cost money.”
Agratta rolled her eyes. “Oh, as if some fucking yarn and chopsticks cost all that much.”
“The fact you called knitting needles chopsticks tells me you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course I don’t!” Agratta snapped. “I don’t know the first thing about knitting!” She leaned across the countertop, leveling a finger at Stolitz. “Which I why I said that I want to… learn."
Stolitz opened his mouth to reply, only for Agratta to preempt him. “Why - who knows!?” she chirped. “Maybe we end up back to Hell before either of us need to worry about something as trivial as… as money.”
“You and I both know the odds of that are…” Stolitz paused and considered his words. “Exceedingly slim.”
“But…” Agratta waggled her finger in his direction. “Not impossible.”
Stolitz stared at Agratta. Agratta smiled back. She batted her eyelashes. Stolitz cocked his head at an angle.
“Maybe it’s as simple as saying the right words. Maybe - maybe all we need do is say the right thing, and your father will be pleased. Perhaps there’s something he really wants to hear from us, and the moment he does, this will all be behind us.” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself that there was some minute chance of that being the case.
“Like what?” Stolitz asked.
Agratta swallowed audibly. Her eyes met Stolitz’s. Her expression melted and, for a moment - for a brief, fleeting moment - Stolitz saw a glimpse of something he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was only artificial, but it was a convincing simulacra of the woman he married, many, many years ago. Kind. Amiable. Sympathetic. Beautiful, even.
“Stolitz?” Agratta said, her voice in an entirely different register than what he was accustomed to. She smiled, and, again - for a moment - Stolitz felt some part of him that had been dormant for decades twinge with life. Agratta leaned a bit closer.
“I love you.”
The words were clear. Concise. Not tainted by disdain or sarcasm. She didn’t even gag.
All Stolitz could do was remain standing. Anything more was too much. The words rang inside his head, dampening all other thoughts. He couldn’t remember the last time she’s spoke to him like that. He couldn’t recall when he’d last heard those words spoken by her at all.
Agratta’s mouth twitched.
“Say it back,” she muttered.
“Say what?”
Agratta blinked furiously before her careful constructed facade crumbled into a scowl. She threw her hands up with a full-throat growl of disappointment. “Well - it doesn’t fucking matter now! Good job, Stolitz. Excellent work. Simply amazing, as always.”
“What?”
“You were supposed to say, Why, Agratta, dearest - I love you, too, or - or something to that effect! I didn’t think you’d need to have it spelled out for you, but I suppose that might have been too much to hope for.”
Stolitz wiped a hand across his face. “And you really think that simply saying something like that would be enough to satiate my father? Do you really, sincerely think whatever conditions he set are as simple to meet as saying three little words?”
“I don’t know! It could be! But I guess we won’t find out today, since, apparently, saying I love you to your bloody wife is too much to ask of you! Not that it matters.” She sighed and stared into the contents of her glass. Then, in a quiet, almost inaudible voice - “You wouldn’t mean it if you did.”
Stolitz’s hands clenched into fists. Agratta - she didn’t sound particularly hurt. But she didn’t sound as if she was making just another passing swipe at his ego, either. Not the kind of which she usually did. He breathed in deep. And out from his mouth. He stared across the counter at his wife. She seemed to be making an attempt to drown her disappointment in that cheap, tasteless swill. Or perhaps drown herself.
“Agratta.”
She didn’t put down the glass when she shot him a caustic glare out of the corner of her eyes. Stolitz swallowed hard. His beak opened and moved without words. Agratta lowered her glass, brows furrowed with confusion.
“What - what are you doing?”
“Agratta,” he said again, his voice distant, his eyes unfocused and glassy. “You… you know - you know -”
“Do I know what?” Agratta asked sharply. “What’s wrong with you? Because I wish that I did. Though, I think you might be having a stroke at the moment.”
The words tumbled out out Stolitz mouth - “You know that I -”
And the rest of it was lost to a series of quick, rapid raps against the front door. Both of the demons whipped around to face the source of the noise. The frosted glass window in the door hid all but a vague, blurry outline of whoever was on the other side.
“Shit.”
She slid off the stool and onto her feet.
“It’s probably that nosy wretch from next door.”
Stolitz agreed that it probably was. She must have been adamant about making acquaintances with them, or exchanging some token of neighborly good-will, as was apparently customary in America. Stolitz wiped his hands on a dishrag and began to head for the door, when -
“Stolitz!” Agratta’s voice was little more than shrill whisper. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He gestured dumbly to the door, and began to say as much, only for another hiss from his wife to silence him.
“We! Are not home right now!” She made a cutting gesture for emphasis. Or perhaps to insinuate that Stolitz would lose his head if he dared open the door.
The demon sighed. “Let’s not be rude, now.”
“Rude? The only rude thing happening right now is that little bitch stomping up to our door and demanding our presence like she’s owed it!”
How exactly Agratta’s mind was able to twist even the most innocuous of friendly gestures into some sort of personal sleight was something Stolitz could not comprehend. But it did do a lot to explain why their relationship had taken the course that it did.
“Listen, Agratta,” said Stolitz. “If you don’t want to speak with her, that’s fine, but as the man of this house, I’m going to be polite, cordial, and civil with those who live by us. We’re not in a position to be making enemies.”
“So you think you’re going to make friends with them? With humans?”
Stolitz didn’t have a response.
Agratta didn’t wait for one. She downed the entirety of what remained in her glass and set it down on the counter. “You know what? If you want to rub elbows with a bunch of over-grown, idiot apes, by all means. Have fun. But I…” She stabbed at her chest as she began to make her way towards the hall in an awkward half-run. “Am not home right now!”
She disappeared around the corner and, a moment later, Stolitz heard the bedroom door shut. Not loudly. But not quietly, either. He looked back towards the door as another round of knocks filled the stillness of the den.
Stolitz stood in front of the door. He knew whoever was on the other side could see his outline, just as he could see them. He lingered there for a moment, his hand on the knob, before finding the courage to turn it. All at once, his senses were overwhelmed by a rush of warm, humid, and thick Florida air, the stabbing of unmitigated sunlight in his eyes, and an almost tangible wave of energy radiating from the person standing on the welcome mat.
“Oh, well hello-o-o there, Mister Lovebird!”
The grating sing-song of his neighbor’s crashed against him like a wave rolling over a sea-side stone. He rocked gently on his feet, blinking away the sting of his adjusting eyes and putting on a half-hearted smile.
Even as his eyes acclimated to the natural light, the sheer intensity of Ronnie’s turquoise sundress was difficult to adjust to. Up close, rather than at arm’s length, he noticed - she really was short. A bit podgy in her build, with the straps of her dress revealing doughy, undefined upper-arms and skin that seemed both too pale and suspiciously unblemished for someone who lived in a place as suffused with sun as Florida. For as bright as her dress was, her smile was nearly blinding.
“Ah. Yes, well - hello, um…” He coughed into a fist. “You must forgive me. I’m not the best with names. It’s… Ronnie, isn’t it?”
“Aw, ya must not be that bad. Ya got it right,” the short woman chirped. Her accent betrayed an upbringing somewhere other than Florida. Where, exactly, Stolitz couldn’t decide, but, to the best of his knowledge, it sounded as if she’d come from one of the north eastern states. “I came by a bit earlier, but I must’ve missed ya. I just wanted to stop by and give you a li-i-ittle somethin' somethin’. Y’know. As a welcome to the neighborhood.”
She held up a wide glass baking dish, covered with a sheet of tinfoil. Nails painted to match the color of her dress clicked against the side as her smile took a coy bend, as if she was tempting him with some scandalous contraband that he didn’t need, but certainly wanted. After eating nothing but cold sandwiches… whatever was in the tray, he wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t want. If only to break the monotony of his new, profoundly mundane diet.
“Oh!” He tried to act more surprised than he felt, and more excited than he really was. “Oh, my, my. That is - well, that’s awful kind of you.”
“Ah, it ain’t nothin’,” Ronnie said with a dismissive shrug. “Well. Actually, it is. Not to brag or anythin’, but…” She leaned forward and, in a conspiratorial whisper, added - “I a-a-am rather well known ‘round the neighborhood for my, er - magic touch when it comes to the art of baked goods. And believe you me - I made sure this one was extra special for my new neighbors.”
“Is that so?”
Ronnie nodded. “Oh, yeah. I tell ya what - I went above and beyond on this beauty. Tried out somethin’ new with this cake. I think you and the Misses are gonna l-o-v-e love it with a capital L. Which, uh…” She shifted on her feet with a nervous giggle. “Well. I don’t mean to, y’know, invite myself in or impose, or nothin’, but… um.” She planted her feet firmly on the mat. “I kinda wanna try it. I mean - if that’s okay with you.”
Stolitz gave it a brief moment of thought. It seemed like an odd request. Harmless, but odd. Perhaps not the most polite, either, but - harmless. If she’d really put as much effort into the cake as she claimed, he supposed that he couldn’t fault her for wanting to try it herself.
“Ah - sure. Yes. Yes, that’s perfectly fine.”
It probably wouldn’t be fine with Agratta, but she was holed up in the bedroom and, hopefully, Ronnie wouldn’t linger. He stepped aside and, with a small noise of excitement, Ronnie entered. The absurdity of it all hit Stolitz as he shut the door. Here he was - a demon of august blood - acting chummy with a human. Inviting her into the house. Breaking bread with her when, by all rights, he should be making her life a living Hell. He’d probably personally overseen the torture of some of her less morally upstanding antecedents, either. He smiled to himself.
If only she knew.
Ronnie set the tray on the kitchen counter and gestured to it as if she were displaying a prize on a game show. “I’ll let you do the honors, Mister Lovebird. Though, uh…” With a note of hesitation, she took the twisted remnant of the fork that Agratta had destroyed. “Wouldn’t recommend you use this.”
Stolitz gave a weak laugh. Again - more at the absurdity than Ronnie’s tepid joke.
Ronnie stepped aside, allowing Stolitz access to the tray. He looked down at it and began to pull back the tin foil covering it.
For as much as Ronnie had built up the cake, what Stolitz saw didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. It looked to be a rather unremarkable sheet cake, slathered with liberal amounts of equally applied chocolate frosting on one half, vanilla frosting on the other, and, from one end to the other, words written with neatly and meticulously piped red frosting in thin, loopy letters that took Stolitz a moment to realize spelled:
I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!
Behind him, Stolitz heard the unmistakable click of a handgun’s hammer being cocked into place.
I don’t know about you, but there’s no place on Earth that inspires the level of tranquility in me that the Ikea plant section. Absolutely transcendental.
This is the seventh installment (and also the longest, I think) of my ongoing series for Thorny Thursday, which is spearheaded by Kathrine Elaine and The Brothers Krynn. I encourage you to check out the other authors that are participating, a full list of which can be found on either of their pages.
As always, I sincerely hope you enjoyed, and I hope to see you in the next.
Yes, Stolitz has a beak. He also has teeth. He’s a demon. Don’t think too hard about it.
Well, what do you know? Seems Agratta was right to be paranoid.
I enjoy the way you flesh out scenes and characters, it’s always believable and natural. I did not see that twist coming!