A Miserable Pile of Secrets Ch. 09

"Hm?" Arthur switched to a different video. "He's pretty friendly. I don't think he'll mind."

The maid left her broom against a wall and went over to the counter. Her slender fingers stroked Benny from head to tail, and he loved it. He purred and relaxed in the touch. "His nose is so weird, but it's so cute," the woman said.

Arthur wasn't paying very much attention. There was an interesting speed build of a house in a Sims game playing before his eyes. He wished he was clever with house building. "Yeah, he has a round face. Super cute."

"And his eyes look like candies," the cleaner said.

"Yeah, but he's also a really good cat, except when he steals things."

And the maid actually sat down on a bar stool, right next to Arthur! "So, do you like living here?"

Assuming the woman was just tired from working all day, and also assuming he had no right to tell this woman how to do her job, Arthur shrugged and said, "Sure. I can pretty much do whatever I want here, and it's super safe. Nobody really bugs me." Except Vince, but that was a whole different variety of bugging.

"Soooooooo ... what happened to your nose?"

Arthur got bored of the videos and decided to turn off the tablet. "Some asshole punched me hard." He stood up with the tablet in his hand. "Well, nice talking to you." He turned his voice into a sweeter tone and looked at the cat. "Benny, you want to come with me?"

Benny slid away from the cleaner and leapt down to the kitchen floor. He went through the pet door quite obediently. Sometimes Arthur thought he was part dog.

In the early afternoon, Arthur played around in the game room, particularly with the skee-ball game. He was alone and concentrating, so he was surprised when he heard that maid from before speak. "Hey there, what are you doing?"

Still holding a ball, Arthur straightened his body and turned to smile at the woman. "Oh, I'm just playing around."

The woman put her hands behind her back and rocked on her feet. "That looks like fun."

"Are you on lunch break?" Arthur didn't mind asking her to play with him, but he didn't want to get her in trouble.

"Actually ... my break just ended." A shoulder of hers jerked up as she sucked some air in her teeth. "I'm about to do some dusting." She pointed down at a plastic basket full of cleaning supplies.

"Oh, sorry," Arthur said as he put the ball in its place. "I won't get in your way." He walked off. "Bye."

Some more time later, when Vince was free, they went to their favorite gym to work out. Arthur was practicing his punches when he happened to see that same cleaner from before in a corner of his eye. He didn't really think on it, except that he did wonder if it wouldn't be better for her to wait for them to finish using the gym.

When it was time for a shower, Arthur and Vince went to the same bathroom, and they found the maid there, wiping Windex on a mirror with a sheet of newspaper. Vince said, "Oh, never mind. Let's go to a different one." That was completely sensible, but Arthur thought he saw a peculiar frown on the cleaner's face, and it might have been pointed at Vince.

No, Arthur decided he must have misinterpreted that.

On the following morning, Arthur mostly stayed in his room. Benny curled up near him on his desk while he played Sanitarium. Someone knocked on the door and he called out, "Door's not locked, come on in!"

The person who walked in, carrying her basket of supplies, was in fact the woman from yesterday. "Hi there!" Her cheerfulness made Arthur accidentally click on something, but that was harmless.

"Oh, uhm, hi." Arthur turned his chair a bit and smiled at her. "Did you need something?"

"I'm here to clean your room, Silly!"

Did she just call him silly? Arthur noticed that Benny's messed up little nose was moving up in the air. Then the little beast sneezed and he stretched his front legs out. "You know, I usually try to keep my room and bathroom clean. You can skip on to other rooms if you want."

"With all this cat hair?" The woman said as she searched a closet. "No way, you need help." She pulled out a vacuum cleaner. "Is the cat scared of the vacuum?"

"Not really." Arthur picked Benny up and put him in his lap. Benny rolled over and let him pet his belly.

Benny honestly cared little about whatever the vacuum cleaner did. He just jumped to the floor and then to Arthur's bed, where one of his toys were waiting to be batted at. He liked the bed.

Arthur saved and turned off the game. Then he pretended to look at Reddit, even though he hated most of Reddit. He thought he needed to keep an eye on the cleaner just in case she turned out to be a thief. She didn't steal anything, though, and when she was done vacuuming she starting doing quieter work and tried to chat with him. Arthur didn't want to be rude, but he didn't really know much about her and frankly didn't want to know. He gave the most basic, thoughtless replies to her that he could think of. By the time she was finished and had left the room, Arthur realized she'd told him her name, but he couldn't even remember it.

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