Following Orders
She was staring again.
He started noticing that she was staring sometime yesterday, but had spent the last twenty-four hours convincing himself that he was imagining it. Wishful thinking. Food poisoning. Something.
The sudden attention made Gumshoe feel awkward and nervous, and – for the first time since high school – oddly attractive. This wasn't a feeling he was used to getting, and he rationalized that he must have been imagining the sensation of eyes crawling up and down his body. He could feel the blood rushing up to his face just thinking about it. Why would Ms. Von Karma be staring at him, anyway? Was there something on his shirt? He had already taken off his tie for having a stain, though, for the life of him, he had no idea where it was. Maybe women really could see more details than men. Was there something on his pants? He hoped not; he wasn't sure he was ready to be bent over on his hands and knees searching for something underneath Ms. Von Karma's couch in just his underwear yet.
Er. . . that is, ever. He definitely meant 'ever.'
He glanced back over his shoulder to her desk, only to see his boss's head quickly turn away towards the bookcase, her chin resting in one gloved hand. Gumshoe frowned. He was imagining it. He must have been. Ms. Von Karma wouldn't be doing these kinds of things just to watch him get into compromising situations. . . right, pal?
Obviously, he just needed to eat more. He was getting all these weird fluttery feelings in his gut because he wasn't eating, and when he was, it was just more cheap ramen. Maybe he'd splurge and pick up something from the freezer section of the supermarket when he got off work. He was pretty sure that a lack of protein in a person's diet could lead to paranoia; hadn't he read that in a men's health magazine? It would certainly explain why he thought that his young, cool, collected boss was sexually harassing him. Ms. Von Karma was perfect. She didn't need to order around a scruffy slob like him to get her kicks, he reminded himself.
It would have been nice, though.
No! No, it would not have been nice! What was he thinking? His fingers closed around the brooch that had been dropped earlier and skidded under the couch. Gumshoe quickly got to his feet and crossed the office to stand in front of the desk triumphantly. Maybe, since he had found it so fast, she wouldn't whip him as hard today. That would have been a pleasant reward, he thought.
"Here it is, sir!" he said, and placed the brooch at the top of the page that Ms. Von Karma had been reading. She picked it up, holding it delicately between two fingers.
"Thank you, Scruffy. . . you may go now."
"R-really, sir? Th-that's it?" he felt his spirits deflate, confusion settling in. Had he done something wrong? Ms. Von Karma never sent him away so fast; he'd practically just gotten there! But there was no punishment, so he couldn't have done something wrong. She didn't even look at the whip coiled on her desk. She just seemed. . . very distracted at the moment. His boss did not make eye-contact, simply nodded and gestured vaguely towards the door. "Oh. . . uh, okay, sir. Just. . . give me a call if you need anything else."
"Mmn-hmn. I assure you, I will."