Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 04

It took weeks for Tom to catch up on his schoolwork, even with Greg and Harvey's combined help and tutelage. During that time, his ribs healed slowly and he managed to get rid of his cast and brace, though two doctors told him that he should avoid strenuous activity for two more weeks. Amazingly, Tom felt fine after such a short time, even though he had literally been at death's doorstep. Silently, he thanked whatever powers watching over him and picked up his backpack as the bell rang for lunch.

He sat outside at one of the tables and ate his lunch quietly, thinking about work and if he'd get a call or not today. The Director had told him that he would be one of the last people on the list to get a case for the next few weeks, but that didn't guarantee that he wouldn't get a case. As he ate, he tried not to think too hard on Ceria's bet with him or how stupid it was for him to have agreed to it.

What was it with her that made her so eager to screw with him? Did he look especially vulnerable, emotionally unstable, what? He tried to make sense of her, and caught himself trying to rationalize a demon. All she cared about was getting her jollies by implanting herself in his thoughts and driving him out of his mind in confusion. Tom kicked himself mentally at wasting his time and finished his lunch.

He threw his trash away and the bell rang. He checked his work phone, grabbed his backpack, and then headed off to gym. He changed, went to the weight room, and worked out with the rest of his gym class. He still never fully understood why the classes were segregated by gender, even though he could guess from the way everyone stared at the girls doing laps outside when they got near the windows.

About half way through, the fire alarm rang for a fire drill and everyone went down the crowded hallway filling up with students to get out of the building. Outside, they saw two firetrucks pull up and had to wait to find out that nothing was wrong and someone had pulled the fire alarm somewhere. After about half an hour, everyone was allowed to go back into the building and gym resumed as normal.

Class ended a little while later and Tom changed back into his regular clothes, reaching into the front pocket of his backpack to check his work phone. Usually, when they needed him, the call came at the one hour of the day where he didn't have his phone. His brow knitted when he couldn't feel his phone. He stretched the pocket wide open and peered into it.

No phone.

He searched the other pockets of his backpack and still couldn't find it. He looked for his normal phone, and found that it too was gone. He looked around and found two other guys looking through their bags too.

"Phones gone?" he asked.

"What the fuck?"

"Yours gone too, Tom?" Jeremy asked, rubbing his shaved head in resignation to his situation.

"Somebody jacked all our stuff. My wallet's empty too," Tom said, looking inside to find all his money gone and only his driver's license looking back at him. "Fuck, they took my work ID too."

"Ho shit thank God, my stuff's still here," Devan said with a sigh in relief. Half the locker room looked at him with contempt and envy.

"Hey," Tom said. "Let me see your phone for a minute. I need to make a call."

Devan blinked. "What?"

"I need to make a call to work. I need my stuff." After a few moments' hesitation, Devan tossed Tom his phone. Meanwhile, someone left to get Coach Ward to help. Tom punched in Greg's number and had to call back twice before his coworker actually picked up.

"Look, I don't know how you got this-"

Tom cut him off. "Greg, shut up. It's Tom."

Greg paused. "Tom? Who's phone are you calling from?"

"My friend Devan's. Are you...uh, at the office," trying to word it so that it didn't look like he worked somewhere out of the ordinary to everyone listening to him.

"The office? The holding center, yeah, why?"

"Can you do me a huge favor?" Tom asked.

"What?" Greg replied, suspicious. "If you think for one second that I'll take a hard case, then you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not as young as you think I am."

"Hell no. Alright, so here's the deal, I lost my phone, and my work ID, so I can't go into work until I get both of those back, or new ones. Can you get the Director to turn on the GPS thing so we can find it?"

"Call him from your phone; they've got both your numbers here. Why didn't you call me from it?"

Tom scratched the back of his neck as a red flush came to his face and neck. "Yeah, see, the thing is that whoever stole my ID took both my phones and all my money. I can't really get in touch with the Director, or even get into work."

"Stolen?!" Greg exclaimed incredulously. "Are you serious? Do you know what kind of shit that could stir up if whoever has your phone can break the lock?"

"I know. If you can find it, I can get it. I just need you to tell the Director to get the GPS thing running." Tom heard Greg sigh frustratedly over the phone.

"You're already in deep shit. I'll go see him about it. Tell whoever's phone this is that you need it for half an hour. I'll call you back."

Greg hung up and Tom managed to convince Devan that he would return his phone after his coworker called him back. After Coach Ward came in and everyone explained to him what happened and what was missing, everyone but Tom left. He waited almost an hour before Greg called back and told Tom that the Director was going to have his ass for getting his stuff stolen.

After a bit of chewing out from Greg, mostly just because the Director was still close by, Tom was given the GPS coordinates, the address, and the directions on how to get there from school. He wrote everything down on his arm and told Greg he could get his phone back on his own and didn't need another agent to help him.

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After an unpleasant encounter with the phone thief, he went home and took a long, relaxing shower. He knew he was in big trouble, bigger trouble than he had ever been in before. The Director was probably close to firing him, and although that wasn't really an option for the old man at this point, it was still a great indicator at how mad he was. He'd heard the Director over the phone, how many times he'd said that he could fire him at the drop of a hat.

The agent threw all his worries aside for a while and sat in the warm stream of water for the better part of an hour before he got out, changed into his house clothes, which was essentially whatever he found first in his dresser, and went downstairs to get something to eat.

On the kitchen table, his work phone was ringing and he rushed over to pick it up.

"Yeah? Hey, it's Tom, what's the problem?"

"You've got a case. I want you here ten minutes ago, you little shit." The phone call ended abruptly, but already Tom was pale and still. A man had gone to the hospital the last time that snarling tone had been used.

The Director was absolutely livid.

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"Sit," the Director commanded as Tom walked in and quietly sat across from the Director in the debriefing room. Another agent handed the Director two manilla folders and then stepped back, giving Tom a look of pity.

The Director opened the folders and slapped two papers on the table, one from each folder. He then took a pen and scratched out the names on the papers with hard, angry marks. He then rewrote over the crossed out names and put the papers back into their respective folders. He tossed one at Tom.

"You get the nutcase now. Dismissed."

"Yes sir," om replied mechanically. He stood up and left without another word or glance at his boss and closed the door behind his exit. Outside, Greg was talking to two other agents and left his conversation when he saw Tom.

"I know," Tom said, heading his friend off. "I don't want to hear it. I saw how many times he called me. Just...fuck man, just leave me alone today. I don't need it."

Greg nodded. "Alright, well, If things get out of hand, call me and I'll give you a freebee. You won't owe me anything."

"Thanks." Tom went back to his car and drove home to meet whoever it was that was going to ruin his evening further.

He waited at home for almost an hour before his doorbell rang and he let in an odd pair of women.

The first wore a pair of bright green welding goggles and had a short, sort of pixie haircut that was as black as coal and looked about as dirty too. The rest of her was covered in stitched, soiled overalls and a pair of thick workman's gloves. She stared blankly at Tom while her counterpart gave him a smile.

She wore a simple cotton sundress and carried a small notebook and pencil on her left hand. The other was extended toward Tom.

"You must be Alexander," she said, shaking Tom's hand.

"Well, actually I'm Tom. There was a last-minute sort of reassigning. I hope it's no trouble...Aeril?"

She nodded. "Yes. And this is Tyrin. Can you say hello Tyrin?"

"Of course I can," replied the dirty, unkempt woman. "Hello Alexander, I'm very pleased to meet you." She smiled widely to reveal two sharp, long fangs protruding from the rest of her teeth.

"I'm sorry, she's not used to having to introduce herself. Let's move somewhere where we can sit down and talk for a little while. Do you want to sit down, Tyrin?"

"Yes."

"Follow me and we'll sit down," Aeril said, tugging gently at Tyrin's arm. The strange demon followed her handler and the three of them went to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Aeril flipped through the folder and filled out the necessary sheets, skimming over the information on the ones Tom had read before their arrival.

"So...does she even know where she is?" asked Tom after Aeril closed the folder.

Aeril shrugged. "I'm not sure what she knows exactly. She surprises me still with the things she says, almost as if she can remember things for a while."

"Was she always this disconnected?"

"From reality? No. Before she developed Korsakoff's psychosis, she was a brilliant architect. She was contracted to build some of the grandest and most elaborate palaces and cathedrals and chambers Hell has ever seen."

Tom nodded. "So what does she do now, follow you around, make appearances, what?"

Aeril tapped Tyrin on the shoulder and the architect turned slowly, narrowing her eyes. "Who summons me?"

"Aeril," the handler said kindly. "I was only wondering if you'd like to show Tom some of your work. He'd love to see some of your architecture designs."

Tyrin smiled broadly. "Sure thing!" she chirped, pulling a large art pad and a pen from her overalls. She began to sweep the pen across the page and soon lost herself in a flurry of small strokes of black ink and imagination.

"Most of what she creates now is impossible to construct. They're the most beautiful designs she has thought of, however. I paint some of them in my spare time and Tyrin always compliments my work, every time she sees them. She can't remember that she drew them in the first place."

"So you two live together?"

"Well, we live in the same home. But she prefers her quarters, and the tunnels she has dug out between them. She lives in almost total darkness, save for a little lamp she usually hangs between her horns, you know, like this?" Aeril pantomimed a swinging lamp above her head.

"I...no, it's all wrong!" Tyrin growled, tearing the half-finished design out of the pad and ripping it into pieces. She tossed her pen across the room and dug around inside her overalls for a few seconds before retrieving a new pen, this one green. She smiled at Aeril and Tom and then pursed her lips in thought, looking around her person.

"What is it Tyrin?" Aeril asked sweetly.

"Where did my paper go?"

"What paper?" Aeril asked.

"Nevermind, I have my pen now." Tyrin began to draw again on a new page without a second thought and was soon once again engrossed in her delicate and intricate work.

"Why'd she rip the other one up?" Tom asked in confusion.

"She has an...affection. Well, no, it would be closer to an unrequited love for the color green. You see, there is no star in the entire universe that is green, and she therefore has a passion for that color. She also has stated on many occasions that her favorite eyes are green."

"What do stars not being green have anything to do with her?"

"Well, her psychosis has led her to believe that her eyes are tiny, fledgling stars. She wears goggles to ward off the sun, because she says it is trying to steal its children from her head, and she could not work without her eyes. She claims her recent designs have perfected the method of confusing the sun's rays from entering a building."

"Aeril, do you remember when we constructed the Tempio di San Benedetto del Lupo?" Tyrin asked, eying her work on the page before her.

"Of course I do. Why do you ask?"

"I can't remember what we built after that. Wait...was it the Telluril homestead? Or the Caeca Invidia? Do you remember the Caeca Invidia? How high it was when we were finished? It almost raked its nails across the sky!" Tyrin mulled the memory around in her mind for a few moments. "Or was that the Casus Beli?" She quickly returned to her work.

"That was the Caeca Invidia, Tyrin."

"What?" the architect asked, swinging her head up from the page she was staring at intently.

"I was speaking to Tom, don't worry. Finish up so you can show Tom how to keep the sun out." At her suggestion, Tyrin did exactly that and paid no more attention to her companion.

"High enough to rake its nails across the sky?" Tom asked with genuine curiosity.

"That is one of her confabulations. We never built the Caeca Invidia. We planned it, but her initial drawings were lost and she developed Korsakoff's before she could redraw them. Since then, the project has been a distant, fading memory." She gave a sad sigh and glanced at Tyrin with a look of intermingled affection and pity.

"What was she like? Before Korsakoff's." Tom regretted putting it so bluntly immediately.

"Tyrin the Stargazer? What was she like?" Aeril gave a sad smile. "She was a hundred fold the person she is now. She would stare at the sky and trace stars, draw the entire night sky from horizon to horizon, a canvas of color and emotion and wonder. She used to take those drawings and stare at them for hours, sometimes for days, and then draw plans for amazing architectural wonders. Impossibly precise, built to such exactness that one is even used to create all the map legends in Hell. Many have fought to the death and paid fortunes for the privilege of having her plan a home or monument for them. But she created not for wealth or fame, but for her own enjoyment, monuments and palaces and estates that bring mortals to tears at the mere sight of their splendor. That was Tyrin the Stargazer."

Tom's eyes moved to the scribbling woman that sat before him at the table. A genius, a stargazer, an architect that was famed throughout Hell as possibly the best. She was sitting across from him working on something that some would have died to even glimpse at in Hell. What was she now? She could hardly remember what she was doing. She was filthy, afraid of the sun, and had an incurable disease that made her completely dependent on others.

"I feel like fate is unfair. Seriously," Tom said with a sigh.

"Seriuh...see?" Tyrin repeated slowly. "Seriuh? The seriuh? I designed and built her estate! I remember! I remember it!" she suddenly exclaimed excitedly.

"What?" Aeril asked, her eyes alight with intrigue. "You remember?"

"Yes," Tyrin said in a faraway voice, tearing her unfinished work out of the art pad and sliding it carelessly off the table. "I remember her. Green eyes. Beautiful green. She had a room to trap the sun. Cunning. Futile, but cunning."

"Ceria?" Tom paled at just the thought of her now. Their bet was still fresh in his fears.

"Yes," Tyrin replied, marking a new page with frantic, precise strokes of her pen. "I remember this estate. Here is the garden, the fountains, the plaza..., no, yes the courtyard, pillared. Second storey balcony, flowing pool flanked by ergonomic benches. Ceria's quarters, and the guardian of the Sanctus Sanctum. Here, look."

She turned her art pad so that it faced him, where he found an unreadable map of some kind with a small caricature of a man with large, crystalline eyes.

"What about this?"

"This," she explained, circling the man with crystal eyes. "This is the guardian of the Sanctus Sanctum, one of several hundred in the Second Circle. I built them all differently so that it would be hard to unlock them all. This one, one must turn the eyes toward each other and then depress them until the mechanism unlocks. Then, the door opens and you are allowed access to the deepest parts of the estate."

"I don't recall a guardian or a secret chamber. Are you sure they were in this estate?" Aeril asked, pointing to the map so keep Tyrin focused.

"It was my duty to plan the estate and oversee its construction. I remember the slaves that we had to recruit, strong, tough mortals that were gathered from all across your world. Demons too, but most of them oversaw construction under my supervision." Tyrin was already too far gone to return to the same subject, and began to draw something else absentmindedly while she spoke. Aeril let it go and turned her attention back to Tom.

"I don't believe that last part was true. I don't recall a guardian in the plans, and I have looked everything over more than once. She does love to plan and build secret passages and tunnels still, though. Her home is riddled with them."

Tom looked at the clock on the microwave and thought that they had better get started on what they came her to do.

"So, on the subject of you two being here in the first place, what should I know about her before we try to relieve her frustration?" As Tom said this, Tyrin got out of her chair and went to stand on her head, looking into the front foyer.

"She hasn't had sex since she developed this condition. Do what you think will please her most," replied the demon as they both stood to get Tyrin ready. She swung her legs back and forth and stared, cross-eyed at the wrought iron banister that ran up the curved stairs to the second floor.

"This house is so unsafe. Not nearly enough false passages, even when flipped upon its top and multiplied by a factor of two," she commented, getting back to her feet in one smooth motion. Aeril stepped behind her and slid one hand into her overalls. She put her lips to Tyrin's ear and whispered to her.

"I've got a surprise for you, Tyrin. Tom here is willing to help you with your little problem down here, remember? This one?"

Tyrin shuddered. "It feels..." Her face flushed red and she squeezed her golden eyes shut inside her goggles.

"I needed to get her in the right mood first. I leave the rest to you." Aeril disappeared upstairs and left Tyrin looking very flustered and aroused. Tom moved behind her and slipped the overalls off her shoulders, kissing her neck softly as he pushed the denim down her thick, curvy hips. He hadn't realized it before, but she had amazing hips, bigger than even the case subject seventeen seventeen two, known by her moniker 'the goddess' because of her figure.

Tyrin shuddered as his fingers brushed up her side and wrapped around her waist. She was like a virgin almost, so tender and sensitive to even the slightest touch. Tom put his lips to her ear and pulled her against his front gently.

"Could step out of those dirty clothes for me now?" he asked. Tyrin bit her lip and she stepped out of her overalls, completely engulfed in the feeling of someone pressed against her body. Tom's free hand worked slowly at her core now that he could easily get to it, and he gently stroked her wet folds.

"I feel good," Tyrin said, trying to arch her back as Tom wiggled his fingers back and forth inside of her.