The first thing he thought of as he swung the door shut behind him was, It's damn cold out.
He'd never liked being cold. It was (one of) the reasons he wore a sweater of some kind everywhere he went. In New York, though, it wasn't too hard to get by with. It was usually cool enough outside to make a sweater plausible at any time of the year.
"Hi, there," he responded to a guest as they passed him – on their way to their room, he guessed.
The spa itself wasn't exactly large. There were five buildings, with two dedicated to housing, one for the various services, and two more for the staff's usage. As the night watchman, Desmond was usually in the main house. Recently, however (according to the other employees), there would be more for him to do besides what he was already doing.
He shivered and pulled his sweater in a little tighter around him as he reached the front door. He was pretty sure it was colder inside. Immediately to his right were the stairs leading down into the basement. It struck him as odd, because the doors that were touted as the main entrance lead to a pretty neat sitting room, and a person would have to see a lot more of the spa to get to the front desk. It was quite a nice place, Desmond thought, as he greeted the lady he was relieving and set his things down at one of the desks in the front room.
In the main building, there were two lounges, each with a fireplace and one with a TV. The dining room was painted a very light white color, with some red and golden seasonal decorations around it. Each table was set by the number of seats available and there were two windows to give them a view of the pond and the services building, respectively. Just outside that were two tables set with coffee, snacks, and tea. A large bowel of popcorn was out every night Desmond had worked there so far, and that was for the movie viewers in the lounge with the TV. Even the front office was very appealing. A high desk with some cool odds and ends set on it was the foreground for an extremely organized office that the staff frequently conducted themselves from.
The second building was just an extension of extra rooms, but Desmond couldn't help thinking it was one of the spa's more interesting features, and that the rooms in it were a bit homier. There were only five, which would help out quite a bit to create a more ideal getaway... At least, in his mind. His only duties out there were to go and lock the doors up at some point after midnight, once he was certain all the guests out there were turned in for the night. He'd been in there a few times, such as when he took a class in that building offered there by the two friends that had introduced him to the resort. It was a nice place, as well, with a big kitchen and two bathrooms, one on each floor. He always felt extra relaxed out there, and was quite glad he didn't have too much on his list of responsibilities to do there because he was certain it would make him tired.
The final building meant for guests held the salon, exercise rooms, Energy work, massage, pool, and lockers for the in-between times. These buildings were usually the busiest during the day, for obvious reasons, but at night, Desmond was thankful for how quiet and peaceful they tended to be. He didn't have a whole lot on his list for out here so much as he had things that took a bit of time, but something about them felt nice for him. It might be because this was where he associated his friends with, or because it was just generally the brightest and cheeriest part of the spa, he found. It also held yet another of the more interesting features of the place, and that was the tunnel. Connecting this building and the main house was an underground tunnel, made of concrete in case there was ever a fire in one building or the other. Once during a storm, Desmond and the other guests had all run for the tunnel to wait it out. Fortunately, no one was hurt and nothing in, on, around, or at the spa was damaged, but at the time, his parents had been staying there. For some silly reason, being watched at work by his parents felt a bit embarrassing...
The other two buildings were much smaller, but that was probably a good thing, in the end – they were for staff use, primarily the night watch shift. The first one was pretty much just a large garage, and it was from this building that the maintenance team operated most of the time. Desmond had been out there a grand total of twice, and he really couldn't comment on it.
It's for the workers, he thought, with a shrug, as he settled down behind the front desk to look over the list of guests – see who's in what room and where...
The last building was similar to the maintenance garage, but it was the smallest, and housed the place's generator. It was also used as a garbage/recycling storage center (with the recycling containers kept outside in full view of everyone, of course) and an unofficial break room. The regular night watchman smoked out there, but Desmond had limited physical tolerance for smoking... especially since the debacles with the Animus and all the physical things he did, now. It had actually been one of the factors that had convinced him not to go back to the bar. That, and having to explain exactly where he went to would've been... well, awkward...
If there was one perk about this, it was easy work for a bit of extra money, and Desmond was a night person, so he didn't have to worry a whole lot about falling asleep or anything. A couple of nights, he felt lethargic and worn out, but adaptability was something else he'd personally improved on since the Animus. Lucy's time schedules had been almost completely random, or so it had seemed at the time. Most of them required him to get up early, which was a big downside, because at the bar, too, he had worked nights frequently.
He shook his head as he remembered those days. He missed them so much sometimes. He wondered what he'd been thinking when he'd started to feel tired and bitter with the work. Things seemed so much simpler back then...
But probably anybody would think so, he thought as he looked to the clock for the first of what would ultimately become a billion times before the night was out... Beautiful boss, fantastic coworkers, fairly easy to get laid... (his mind flashed to Lucy) ...easy-enough work, and a discount for going out there off the job just to hang out with friends or girls...
He shook his head again and checked the clock once more – 8:12p.m., only two minutes more than what it had said... well... two minutes ago.
Desmond liked his work there, he really did, but thinking of Lucy at home and how upset she had looked about him going made it harder to enjoy than usual. It wasn't helping him accomplish either of his goals – giving her reasons to have sex or stay with him. At least he could text her, he was pretty sure she'd like that... But he was so spaced out tonight, though, that it wasn't till he got his phone out to send her a message that he looked through his contacts and realized she either didn't have a phone or he didn't have her number. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen any phones – cell or otherwise – in her hand since she'd arrived...
11:59p.m. In just one minute, it would officially be time to go out on his rounds. Soon, he would be passing a couple of hours or slightly less till he could get back to Lucy...
The beginning was collecting the trash in the main house: the office, the front desk, the secretary's office, the staff bathroom, the guest bathroom, the lounges, the kitchen, the official main entrance, and the dining room. Depending on the kind of night it was, this took Desmond anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour. It was definitely going to be a half hour that night...
Next, he would go into each lounge and sweep up any popcorn dropped, as well as straighten up the furniture. Then it was off to the dining room to clear any tables that weren't done and sweep up the popcorn there. A conveniently-set door would always remind him how much harder it could be if he'd had to go around the corner and trudge down the hall to get into the kitchen. That door was pretty helpful for the next task, however – clearing the coffee and snack tables away. Desmond always munched on a few of them – usually the dates left sitting out – whenever he walked by that way... And, of course, if there were any other small messes that needed cleaning up, he'd do it.
But finally, there came the most fun of all: checking the water bottles... and changing the water bottles, if needed. Although the regular night man had made it sound like a dull drudgery, Desmond had found it to be one of those small details in life that one can learn to enjoy, or to just take some comfort from being a part of the schedules. And the schedules usually went that at least the one in the dining room would need changed. Lucy had called that tendency of his "obsessive". He'd always rolled his eyes in response, albeit half-playfully...
The final thing to do was to collect the dirty laundry from outside the guests' rooms and exchange it with clean laundry for them to use the next day. It was a simple and enjoyably-quiet process after such things as climbing on buildings and stabbing people, but it was hard because it required him to be quiet. Stealth was nothing new to him, even before the Animus, but in these halls, it was so creaky, being quiet was a miracle. He was certain it would be easier to climb, but there were no footholds, and one of the owner's cameras was set at the end of the hallway, where it would be able to see everything he did.
And that would not be an easy or fun conversation... he lamented in his mind as he set the last of the replacement outfits down outside the last door.
Next, he'd have to run the laundry down in the basement of the main building, and the difficulty of this task was always determined by how much laundry there was to run. The washing machine was extremely old in this room, and if it wasn't packed as tight as it could be, the frame would get banged and dented by the rotating drum inside it. So, if there was not enough to put in it but just enough to justify a load, it meant bringing the laundry out to the services building or the secondary house. It wasn't much fun doing either, because it would require dragging a large bag of laundry around. But, it was the only challenge Desmond ever had on the job, and it almost never occurred. At least, not so far...
And that was pretty much it for the main house. Over in the services building, it was a bit more extensive, in a certain way. The first thing people would be greeted with when they first entered there was the salon door right in front of them, but that was always the second thing on Desmond's list of to-dos when he got out to the barn. First, he would turn up to the right and go up the stairs to the studios – tech and barn. There was trash to be collected here, as well, and a water bottle in each one. Desmond also liked these rooms, because they were fantastically-designed.
The tech studio held the exercise equipment, like treadmills and bikes. One of his favorite coworkers managed the fitness department from here, and she left her cheery, upbeat Energy behind her when she left. He couldn't help thinking it was too bad she was married when he first met her... The barn studio was on the third and last level, and it was where the more physically-challenging exercise was usually conducted. Large yoga balls and dumbbells lined the rooms. Sometimes, Desmond liked to go up there and stare out the huge window at the parking lot. If he was particularly cold, he'd just take the tunnel from the main building to the services building and look out at the parking lot from there.
Once, he'd even begun to sing out loud there, which he sometimes did to make himself feel better about being so lonely... a habit he'd discovered, picked up, and kept from when Lucy and Gary had started going out together...
The salon was the most colorful area of the building, and it was there Desmond would head next. There was a water bottle here and garbage to take out. Although the night man himself had told Desmond he didn't have to take out the garbage, Desmond still did – the director of the resort had shown him around the place and given him a quick description of what to do for the time being the night he'd first gotten the job, and she'd collected the trash... so he assumed that that meant the rules might be different for him than they were for the man who'd been working this gig there for six years...
From the salon's back door (or the one that was attached to the interior, anyway), Desmond could go into either the pool area or the men's locker room. He usually went into the pool first. It was a heated pool and the room around it was made mostly out of glass. Fundamentally, he supposed some people would call it a weak point in security, because glass could easily be broken, and there was no alarm system in place... or rather, there wasn't an alarm system in place yet, anyway... But, Desmond also liked it in here because it was beautiful to look out of, and if he hadn't been singing already, he'd be singing now. All he had to do in this area as a general rule was cover the pool once all the guests were done with it. Recently, a few of the others involved in the maintenance and upkeep of the spa had added a few things to his list, and that meant wash and fold the laundry. Of the two washers and dryers, one was in here, found in a room off to the side as one went from the pool to the lockers.
Attached here was also a jacuzzi. There was pretty much nothing Desmond had done in here. He vaguely remembered the night man telling him something about breakers in case of a power outage, but since the instructions were written down in the maintenance checkpoint room that was holding the laundry equipment for this building, he didn't remember what it was at the moment.
In the men's locker room, there was a steam room and a sauna to check, a valve that had to be run for a minute or two in the closet, and sometimes a container of towels to empty out and wash. Not a whole lot.
Most of the guests were women, though, so it took a bit more to accomplish the same tasks in their locker room. Once, he'd accidentally walked into the room to find of the women showering there... even after he'd knocked and yelled into it. Far from being upset, however, she had been staying for a week and told him she'd been watching him. She'd given him head and then let him go without telling anyone – or so he assumed, as he'd never heard a word about it from anybody else working or staying there, and he certainly hadn't lost his job over it. It brought a grin to his face every time he thought of it. He needed things like that every once in a while, simply because the number of times they'd happened at the bar made regular sex feel sometimes boring. Or rather, as boring as sexual encounters can be...
Now I know where my charms came from, anyway... he thought as he grinned to himself and remembered Ezio, switching the light off on his way out of the women's locker room...
In the Energy room next door, there was just a waste can to empty. This was where his friends worked. He'd become friends with them shortly after moving into his apartment on an afternoon he'd gone to a doctor of alternative, Eastern-type medicine to see what he could learn about it – something the Indian heritage he had gotten from Connor had inspired for him. And although the work his friends did originated in Japan, he still enjoyed it, and so had taken the class to learn how to do it.
Wonder what Lucy would think of it, he thought as he tied a new garbage bag back into the can.
Next, it was all to be taken out to the generator room, and he'd be back in an hour to check the laundry in the pool area. Simple stuff.
The tunnel was cool, because even it was decorated with a few pictures and things of that nature, though it echoed so much that Desmond had to move more carefully along it in case there was a guest staying in the room right at the end of it, in the main house.
But, he didn't have a reason to use it now, because the garbage had to be taken out to the generator building and the main house was right up the path from there. As he dumped the trash into the big, green cans, he looked up at the clock that hung over the door. 2:00p.m... He was thinking of rearranging some of the things on his schedule so that he could have more of it done earlier... just because it would be nice to have the time off of his feet towards the end of the night. It would also help him to get more laundry done...
4:45a.m. brought with it the sound of footsteps to the front desk, where Desmond had just returned after changing the very last load of laundry. The footsteps belonged to the maintenance manager, and he always greeted Desmond with a polite "good morning" that Desmond returned sincerely, if mechanically.
If that makes any sense, he thought as he began to collect his things. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be off shift until 6a.m., but the director had told him that it would be alright to go home as soon as he had touched base with the maintenance manager. And it's not my fault if he touches base with me more than an hour earlier than six. Nobody had ever complained about it before...
So, with that in mind, Desmond headed out the front door and down the path toward his car. Or rather, the car his father had given him – without implying ownership, Desmond cynically, if probably unnecessarily, assumed. It hadn't been a bad night, but there really hadn't been such a thing out there. His car started and the heat rolling, Desmond was off down the road in just a few minutes' time... back towards Lucy. The thought of her brought the memory of the woman in the shower of the locker rooms... Unconsciously, the memory kept repeating itself in his mind, but each time she looked up at him, he saw Lucy's face, instead...