Sated ✔

4 TO THE HEEL

I wish I could say it's heaven living with my idol, but it's anything but. Random people come and go at a constant rate. Gara isn't home often, and when she is, body-guarding—the joke of a job—involves waking people up and ushering them out.

Gara is fun, though she only comes near me when she throws a party, which is almost every night. And I, anxious to keep close to all things pill-related, take to my new job with gusto. Nobody ever said body guarding would involve so much puke and pulling people out of their own puke.

It may not be so bad if it's Gara I get to help but that's a laughable notion. Gara never needs anyone. Almost all guests seek out her attention because nobody dislikes her. Well...almost nobody.

With Gara gone when I awaken, I decide to stay out of view. This isn't the first time she's given me the slip and I don't need the reminder from her 'handler' that my job depends on her safety. One week turns to two.

Today, I feel sick; I risk foraging through the kitchen for any type of pill to help put these shakes at bay. I find two, and even though I'm not sure what they do, I take them, anyway.

My muscles relax as I press my back against the wall. This is my first time having to depend on anyone for something other than food.

It's humiliating and worrisome, so I decide to find some extra just in case.

I tear open the pantry door and freeze.

At first, I'm not sure what I'm looking at. The thing's covered in black from head to toe, an imp saddle on its back.

Everybody from the Lower-Levels knows what an imp looks like. This one doesn't seem to share the mutation. No claws, no hissing, and if it has sharp teeth, it would bite through that bit in its mouth, too. A man-eating imp is a myth to most but as I live in the Lower-Levels, I know how mobsters get rid of anyone who owes too much and I know what imps are capable of. Anyone who crosses into the imp territory would have two seconds to get out. Five if he's lucky.

I've never seen one up close, so I poke at it and I recoil to be sure. It doesn't appear aggressive. All the same, I use two fingers when I try to take the black bag off its face. I have to wiggle it around the bit in its mouth but it loosens in the back and slips off without trouble.

It wears a mask, nearly all of its face covered below the nose.

This is no imp. It's a woman. The eyes I know but I pray I'm wrong. Using my full hands, now, I struggle to take the mask off.

Gara tosses her head back and says, "Give us a hand, love. Will ya?"

Body burning with shame, I crouch down to try and look under her. She's kneeling, her hands bound behind her back in a type of jacket for the mad, and it's hard to find the buckles.

It takes twenty minutes to get her out of that contraption. It takes even longer for her to stand.

Bending over naked, she reaches back and tugs at some sort of tail. When she tosses the object down, I lose all speech. It looks like a dick.

"You act like it's your first time seeing one of these," Gara drawls, bracing herself forward on the segmented counter. Maybe she needs a minute to calm, to readjust to using her legs, to...to talk to me.

She doesn't seem interested in talking, though. To her credit, she doesn't seem to care about the situation one bit, either.

The false dick rests beside the saddle and I could only stare.

Finally, Gara says, "You're a shy one, huh? You act like this place is the pits of hell and you just happened to stumble in. I bet you think I'm supposed to feel ashamed or something."