Miss Renfield's Last Day

"Exactly! You call them when you need to complain about things and they can't retaliate! Retaliation is forbidden! It's even anonymous!" I said. Then, I told them how to call the ethics hotline and proudly listened to them report about the pants pockets that didn't open. Then, since we were both hungry, I told them how to order enough pizzas for the whole building, putting the charges on the Budget ID number that the people doing the re-org had given me.

While we waited for the pizzas, we called the Ethics Hotline again and complained about lots of things: people who fart in the elevator, people who say 'anyways' when it's not a real word, HR trainings that stop in the middle of everything and make you re-start them again and again, and all the people upstairs screaming about spiders being everywhere. It's amazing how quickly time can pass when you're telling someone your problems.

When the pizzas came, they were able to pry open the door enough to squeeze a box through to me. Then, they told me that the loudspeakers were saying that Eden Renfield needed to report to the Legal Department, as soon as possible. So, I took what I hoped were enough pizzas for the Legal Department, too, and continued down to the very bottom of the secret stair passage.

I looked over the stack of hot pizzas in my arms to see the words "qui tacet consentire videtur" written in black letters on the door. I didn't know what that meant. Balancing the boxes in one arm, I knocked on the door.

"Yes?" a voice answered.

"Um... hi! Is this the Legal Department?"

There was a long silence. I wondered why it would take so long to answer a simple yes-no question, but then again, I wasn't a lawyer. "Well, that depends..." the voice said, finally.

"Oh... okay," I said, feeling the heat of the boxes beginning to burn my bruised arm. "Well, I brought pizzas for the Legal Department, so could you tell me—"

"YES! YES! YEA VERILY! WE SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT WE ARE THE LEGAL DEPARTMENT!" the voice shouted, decisively opening the door with a surprising amount of speed. A man in a grey suit took the boxes out of my arms and disappeared into the room through a path lined with banker boxes stacked up to the ceiling.

I followed him on the winding path through the boxes filled with documents, sneezing at all the dust, until we reached a table where he put the boxes down. He opened the first one and let out a noise of lusty satisfaction, "Ohhhhh... pineapple... finally someone brings us proper pizzas..." he moaned, pulling out a slice and wiggling half of it into his mouth in one bite. All of a sudden, I realized that we were in a cluster of grey-suited people that had seemingly come out of nowhere, all of them with pizza in their hands.

"Nobody ever brings us food..." a woman murmured through a mouthful of warm cheesy goodness.

"They always just want to know stuff... but they don't know anything we need to know to tell them stuff... then we ask them for all the things we need to know... and then they start crying..." said a man with sauce on his glasses.

"You're the best thrall, ever..." the first man said, patting me on the back.

"Thanks," I said. "You guys really aren't so bad, are you? So, I'm Eden Renfield... they said I was paged to come here. What did you need me for?" I asked.

The room suddenly went quiet. I looked around to see the smiles melting off the lawyer's faces and several exchanging surreptitious looks with each other. Soon, they all took more pizza and melted back into the paths through the banker boxes, leaving me alone with the first man.

"You're Eden Renfield?" he asked, looking as if he hoped I would say I was just kidding.

"Yes. I'm the Assistant Thrall to—"

"Assistant Thrall to Adrian Durant, yes," he said, his eyes flickering from my face down to my collar several times. He swallowed his pizza and didn't take another bite. "You... you were a suicide?" he asked.

"Yes," I confirmed. "They say Mr. Durant rescued me, brought me here, and then I was trained to be his Assistant Thrall, but now I'm trying to get trained on sex because he wants me to be his Companion," I explained.

"Oh..." he said, looking around uncomfortably, as if he hoped another lawyer was around to help. "Um... that's... probably not going to work out. Not in the long term, anyway," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding my eyes.

"Why not?" I asked, putting down my pizza, suddenly not hungry.

"It's... it's just that... your collar. As a suicide, you were fitted with that collar. It only lasts a year, prolonging your life for one year past your fated time of death. One year of servitude... that's the payment for an immortal's rescue. At the end of that year, the collar comes off and... well, you die. This is your last day, Eden. Normally, we'd have you clean out your desk and provide shipping information for your next of kin, but everything is just a shitshow today. Not to mention that from the looks of it, your collar could go at any moment. So, um... we're going to need you to go ahead and, um... go take a walk."

"A walk?" I repeated, faintly. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. All day, through my trials and adventures, I'd been driven by hope, but as it turned out there was really nothing at the end of it but a slice of pineapple pizza to hope for.

"Um, yeah... when the collar comes off, you're going to disintegrate and it gets to be a mess if people just do it here. So, um, if you could go take a walk, that would be great. Most people head for the bridge. It's... tidier. The wind blows the mess into the water and... oh..." he trailed off uncomfortably, seeing the tears falling down my cheeks.

"Oh..." I said, turning to walk down the path he indicated to where a lit sign said "EXIT." That was my door. That was my destiny. No sex training, no waking up in Mr. Durant's arms again, no more anything... just some pineapple pizza and a walk to the bridge.

"Thanks for the pizzas," I heard a lawyer call out as I passed by, followed by other grateful murmurings. I nodded, numbly, continuing on my walk toward a sanitary death. I guess lawyers weren't so bad... you just had to feed them, first.

*** *** ***

The door opened into an underground garage ramp, and I followed it up to where the golden light of the setting sun warmed my face for the last time. Everything I did now was for the last time, and some of the best things I would already never get to do again.

I would never again try not to laugh as Miss Rigby excitedly ate a piece of lint off the carpet, only to discover it wasn't what she'd hoped. I would never again feel the Hive awaken me and prepare me for the day. I would never again feel Mr. Durant's eyes on me as I straightened his tie, or his fingers brushing my hair away from my face. Each 'never again' embossing my memories in a golden haze, every one of them made precious by their imminent mortality.

The pedestrian path across the bridge deck was windy and I shivered a little, the gusts whipping my thin blouse around my bruised body. The sun had set even lower, its rays sparkling on the waves that would soon carry the dusty remains of me to a place I would never remember going. Seagulls swooped around, snatching at trash left by the cars that passed by, their cries sounding almost like a man desperately calling out my name.

Oh, wait...

"EDEN! NO!" Mr. Durant screamed, sprinting toward me on the bridge, holding a pizza box over his head, shielding himself from the sun's deadly rays.

I bit my lips and turned away from him. So many of my golden-hued memories were filled with him that it hurt to see him and know that they would soon be gone. He caught me against him with one arm, as if holding me tightly would somehow keep me together when my time to dispel came. "Eden... Eden... my sweet love..." he said hoarsely.

"You shouldn't be here, Mr. Durant. I'm a suicide. You knew that, though, and I think that's what made you so sad last night. I'm going to disintegrate soon... and you shouldn't see that. Please go," I said, turning to face him, but not daring to look into his face and see the despair I heard in his voice.

"You don't have to die. You can be like me... take some of my blood. Don't leave me," he pleaded, biting down into his wrist and lifting the wound to my lips.

I looked down at the dark blood trickling down his arm. It looked like my friend's blood trickling into the grate in the floor. Precious life trickling away. "I... I can't do that," I whispered, shaking my head. "So many things are wrong in the world, sir. Too many. I saw people going through life barely living... just getting by. Others just taking and taking without even enjoying what they got... their hunger being more important to them than others' lives. If I drink your blood so I can live more, that's what I'll be. I'll make having more than I deserve more important to me than others having enough. I don't want that. Not now, and certainly not forever. I've had my fair share of life, now, Mr. Durant. It wasn't long, but at least it was mine and not someone else's. I can let go. I think I'm strong enough. I would love to live more, to be with you forever... but not if it means taking away life that belongs to others," I said, pressing my cheek against his shirt, my salty tears disappearing into the exquisite silk of his tie.

"You do this every time, Eden," he choked into the top of my head, "Every goddamn time..." I didn't understand that, so I looked up to ask him what he meant, and then his lips covered mine... and it was enough. It was more than I could ever hope for. It was everything.

*** *** ***

Pizza... I smelled pizza. I smelled pizza and someone who hadn't been eating pizza was kissing me. Was I drunk? No, I was too hungry to be drunk. I needed to do something about this kissing situation and then go get some pizza. I hoped it wouldn't be awkward. Fixing the kissing situation, that is. I mean, I love kissing. Love it. I could kiss all day. Problem is, as good as it feels, kissing usually means there's something between you and the person you're kissing. It's intimate, you know? The problem was, I didn't remember anything about how I got into this whole kissing situation, so getting out of it could be awkward. Especially if I just up and told them that I wanted to stop kissing them so I could go get some pizza. It's a little harsh to let someone know that kissing them fell short of eating pizza on your priority list. Okay, suck it up, Eden.

I opened my eyes to see the gorgeous face of the man kissing me lifting his lips away from mine. Oh... fuck. I was kissing Adrian Durant. Of course, I was kissing Adrian Fucking Durant. Eden Renfield, you're a professional union organizer! Get it together! You can't be whoring around town sucking on the face of the man whose closely-held corporation you're trying to infiltrate! Damn, but he's a good kisser, though. It's always the stuffy-looking ones that can just kiss your clothes off, somehow. Wow. It's like his mouth is some kind of naughty amusement park. Oh god, he's coming back for more... I can't let him... okay, just a little. Pizza can wait. No. No Eden! Think of the workers! The poor, cheated, workers scraping by in life for just a pitiful... mmmmm.... lips... tongue... more...

I was barely aware of the rest of my body anymore, when I felt something fall off my neck and land at my feet. I didn't care. One less thing to take off. Problem was, Durant seemed to care about it, because he pulled away from me and stared down at it like it was a bomb or something. Then, he looked up and stared at me, looking dumbfounded. Then, his eyes moved back and forth between me and the thing and he started laughing hysterically. Then, he grabbed me and started kissing me again, which I didn't mind so much, except that he was still laughing while he kissed me. He also was holding an empty pizza box over his head for some reason. It was weird. I mean, I've dated weirder guys... not that we're dating, because we're not. I'm not dating Adrian Fucking Durant. I just spent the day watching my boss haggle with him while I daydreamed about him fucking me in a bubble bath, but that's what people do! Meetings get boring! Okay, I had to put a stop to this.

I separated myself from him slowly, but insistently. After we were at arm's length, I felt safe enough to look up at that model-like face of his again without feeling like I'd climb him like a tree the moment I lost focus. Focus was key when it came to not-kissing-anymore. Durant was focused... he was looking at me very closely, like he was reading me. I put on my poker face and lifted my chin. Time to talk tough. "Look, Durant, maybe this whole seduction thing works for your other negotiations, but you need to account for the way your workers are treated. If you have something you want, put it in an email and send it to my boss. I'm just trying to get home, here," I said, crossing my arms.

He blinked and frowned, as if remembering something in a really sexy way. "You... weren't just trying to get home..." he said, shaking his head. "You were on the rail... I saw you. You—"

The rail... weird. I remembered something about getting up on the rail... jeez, how drunk am I? Then, I looked up at the metalwork supports nearby. "Where'd it go?" I asked.

"Where'd what go?" Durant said quietly, winding his arms around me again, smiling down at me like a kid at Christmas. The pizza box was gone, as was the much-needed not-kissing-anymore buffer zone. I had no buffer now. I just had a well-dressed, insanely hot man holding me against him in the dimming twilight. Not good.

"The cat. There was a cat stuck up there just a second ago... yowling its head off... I was climbing up to help it," I said faintly, watching him lean down and look at each part of my face like it was his favorite part and he was going to name it.

"A year ago. So, you weren't trying to kill yourself... you weren't a suicide," he said, his voice shaking.

"What?" I snorted. "You think I'd kill myself over the nonsense you pulled in negotiations today? That's nothing. You were getting ready to cave in, and you know it. Probably why you're desperate to get an edge by feeling up the Union guy's secretary. Puh-leeze. Amateur hour," I said, putting myself back at arm's length away from him again. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to head home."

"You... might find that difficult," he said, looking down and scratching his nose, then looking up again with a smirk.

"Oh... let me guess. You'll offer to walk me home and then *somehow* we just end up tangled in the sheets at my apartment..." I said, crossing my arms again because it was getting really cold. Why didn't I have a coat anymore? And why was I covered with bruises?

"Well, either that, or you don't have an apartment anymore..." he said cryptically, taking off his coat and wrapping it around my shoulders in one smooth move of his long, lean body. Then, he reached up a long-fingered hand and brushed a piece of hair out of my face. Damn, this guy was good. "When can I see you again?" he asked, his hand straightening the collar of the coat, gently brushing the skin of my neck with his fingertips. I shivered, hating myself for falling for that whole finger-brushing thing.

He was so close to me that, even though I wanted to, I knew I couldn't look up at him. That was just what he wanted. He wanted me to look at him because he was *right there* and then lip gravity would take me the rest of the way and then we'd be tangled in my cheap poly-cotton sheets. Ugh. I needed better sheets.

Giving myself a mental shake, I rolled my eyes at him. "Probably when you decide to let me salt your weird, mysterious company for a year and make them all go union on your ass," I said, glancing up to him without lifting my face.

Then, he smiled at me... and it was dirtier than anything I'd been daydreaming about in the bubble bath. Damn. "Well... since I'm a 'soulless, blood-sucking corporate stooge,'" he said, quoting my boss' parting words to him, "that doesn't seem very likely, does it?" he said, laughing to himself. "Very well. Off you go. My card is in the left-hand breast pocket. Make sure to call me when you get home... I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you," he said. Then, he leaned down and his lips brushed my cheek, making my brain go all fuzzy. "Good night, Eden," he whispered, his strangely cool breath curling into my ear.

"Goodnight, Mr. Durant..." I breathed, reaching up and smoothing the lapels of his suit. Then, we just stood there, staring at each other. This wasn't normal, I thought. People don't just do this. What's going on, here? All I can think about is going to the first dark place I can find and getting this guy's tailored suit off, but I barely know him. There's something wrong with this, and there's something wrong with me. The weird thing was, it seemed like Adrian Durant knew there was something wrong with me... and he wouldn't have it any other way. I liked that. Then, I turned and walked away from him into the fading twilight.

*

Thanks for reading my 2022 On The Job event entry! Please remember to vote - and comment on what category this should have been. Extra points for passion and creativity in categorization!