"How are you going to do it?"
"Pardon?"
"How are you going to teach them the meaning of tragedy?" She blinked up at me from the pants she was folding. It had been two days.
"Great question." I waited for her to elaborate. She didn't.
"You have no idea, do you?"
"I'm in a more difficult position than previous instances. It will require some adjustments."
"Ah. And what did you learn?"
"That mercy is a sucker's game." Laughing might not have been the nicest response, the giggle it devolved into probably wasn't the most appealing either.
"Well, tell me I'm wrong!" She countered, only sounding mildly offended.
"You're not wrong."
"Well there then." She frowned down at the folded clothes stacked in front of her.
"Do you want to kill them?" I continued to prod.
"That wouldn't be a fair trade. I'm very good at giving as good as I get."
"Are you? Makes me curious what you'll give me for our little adventure two days ago." She didn't miss a beat,
"Something new, of course. What has still to be determined." That made me pause. I hadn't realized she was including me in her plotting.
"Should I be concerned?" Her smile was more a bare of teeth. But threatened wasn't the feeling it stirred up. I swallowed it down.
"To be determined." She answered as gleefully as the smile I gave her the first time I entered this room.
"I could always give you another dose if you came after me. Maybe something more potent."
"Don't threaten me with a good time."
"...you were a sobbing mess the last time. That was a low dose." The reminder finally took some of the wind out of her sales.
"Yeah, well, it felt better after. You know what could be fun though? You know that thrill you got as a kid, out in a graveyard? Alone in the woods? Walking through a haunted house? The subtle drip of anxious excitement, skating the line between pure fear and excited delight the first time you encountered a monster? I miss that pure stuff. Not filtered through trauma, just fear in it's truest incarnation. If you ever bottle that, I'd pay you good money. If I had a single cent to my name."
"You assume I haven't already." She set down her half folded shirt and tossed up a face that had sprung to life with rapt interest.
"Don't fuck with me on this."
"I assure you, I'm not. It's what I utilize for more subtle crowd control." I couldn't pin down her expression exactly. It wasn't one I was used to seeing. It wasn't disgust. Quite the opposite. Was she...impressed? For all the bragging I do about my expertise, now that I thought about it I couldn't recall a single woman looking at me like that. Only a selection of male students I can count on one hand. Respect. That's what it was. It felt different coming from a pretty face.
"Now you're actually teasing me." She sighed, the sound fueling the fluttering in my stomach. I impressed myself by speaking smoothly past the odd sensation.
"It's a small machine. I'll see if I can't get one of them in." I might have offered her a puppy the way her face lit up, before she quickly put herself in check.
"Well, if it's not too much trouble. That could be cool. I guess." The excitement melted off of her like candle wax under a blowtorch.
"You really should stop that."
"Stop what?" She shrugged.
"Limiting yourself like that. You specifically came to me to force you to feel something. And here you are still suppressing everything that threatens to show itself. Sometimes more belated than others, but it's still the exact same problem. You bottle things up." She shrugged again.
"Habit."
"A habit you need to break."
"A habit that keeps me from breaking everything around me."
"Sounds like you need stronger things around you then." She snorted, laughed, shook her head.
"Maybe so. Let me guess, stronger things like you?" I only had time to smile before the female guard at the door, a woman not on my pay-roll, came closer.
"You two are supposed to be working. What are you giggling about?" She answered first,
"The various insect choices for cleaning decaying flesh from animal bones for taxidermy. It's the all-natural and environmentally friendly way to-" the guard visibly shivered and held up a hand for Naomi to stop.
"Sorry I asked. Just...keep folding." She moved back to the doorway, eager to escape the conversation topic. Smoothly done, but I allowed the conversational segway instead of providing an external compliment.
"Taxidermy?" Naomi shrugged.
"It's a hobby."
"Why am I not surprised?" A mischievous grin answered,
"Because I literally volunteered to be one of your test subjects for fun?"
"For fun? And here I thought you were seeking my services for personal betterment," I feigned distress, "are you just using me for a good time?" She looked up at me with something I'd only seen in jest once, back in high school. When Sherry Squires had flirted with me to lure me into the trap waiting in that basement. I realized suddenly exactly how fake Sherry's interest in me had been, the playful caresses and bat of eyelashes had been a ghostly whisper. The eyes looking up to me now were equal parts invitation and challenge, solid and unmistakable reality.
"Do you want me to?"
My mouth was too dry to answer, uncertain hands fumbled the shirt I had been folding into a crumpled heap on the floor. Her eyes watched the item fall. Her fingertips delicately traced the smooth surface of the table as she moved around to my side. All grace. Confidence. She bent at the knees to scoop up the fabric, glanced up at me with a casual toss of hair over one shoulder, and stood up. Slow. Steady. Let me count each passing heartbeat thrum through my veins. Knowing exactly what she was doing.
"You dropped this." She purred, holding the fabric out for me to take. A grating shout from behind me made me jump,
"No fraternizing! Do I need to separate you two?" With grit teeth I snatched the shirt back.
"That's hardly necessary." I tossed back over my shoulder at the obnoxious troll of a woman. Naomi slid back to her side of the table.
"Maybe some other time." There was nothing sweet in her smile. I didn't want there to be. The thoughts that started playing in my head were things which hadn't plagued me since adolescence. Unfulfilled fantasies I had no experience to make any more tangible than a wisp of smoke. I instantly hated her for revitalizing the old memories and dead dreams. We worked the remaining hour in silence. Each time I glanced up at her to find her smugly ignoring me. I thought of speaking up to interrupt. To reclaim her focus. To ruin the moment entirely, crawl under her skin and stay there. But in the end my thoughts stayed in my head, my hands stayed busy instead of idle. Until it was time at last to return to our cells.
