I almost responded, insisting it was more than a possibility, but the doctor returned with several assistants and a large syringe.
"What the—is that for me?" I pointed at the syringe. It looked like a drill bit. "That doesn't seem necessary."
The doctor had the audacity to laugh. Laugh. "You'll barely feel this thing and you'll appreciate the muscle relaxant when it's on board. There's an anti-nausea drug mixed in and that stuff stings but I promise the sting will be worth it."
Zelda pushed to her feet and closed her hand around mine. "We're not going to look. Let's talk about something else," she said. "Tell me what's going on at the office. What are your issues and priorities right now?"
I stared at Zelda while a medical assistant rubbed an alcohol swab over my bicep. For the first time, I noticed a constellation of studs and hoops dancing up her left earlobe. A thin bar extended across the upper shell.
"How long have you had all those earrings?" The doctor was right about not feeling the needle. He was also right about the sting. I snapped my eyes shut as the medicine burned into my blood. "How many do you have there? Six, seven?"
"Two lobe, two snug, one helix, one industrial," she answered. "So, six. I've been adding to my collection since I was nine, although to be fair, I went ten years between my first and second piercings. It's picked up a bit since then." She paused, glanced at the squad of healthcare providers on the other side of the room. I didn't look away from her ear. "I've been thinking about a daith, but I haven't gotten around to it."
"You've been very busy," I replied with a grave nod. I didn't know what half of those words meant. I wasn't going to ruin it by asking. "By virtue of the pocket eggs alone, I have to believe you don't have a free moment to enjoy breakfast."
"That's where you're wrong. I enjoy the shit out of breakfast," she said. "Give me blueberry pancakes and crispy bacon and a nice, cheesy omelet and I'm a happy girl. But since I don't have a household staff to flip those pancakes and fry that bacon, I'm left to my own devices. Sadly, I must confess my devices aren't great."
"I don't believe that." My gaze slipped from her ear to her lips. They were full and pale and bare. No tint or shine to be seen. "Your devices are amazing."
She laughed and I was certain I felt the sound in my vital organs. It was then I registered the warm looseness melting my muscles. I felt like a marshmallow.
"It's my one deficit," she said. "That's why I stick with the pocket eggs."
One of the medical assistants eased me down, onto my side. If I cared about being the right kind of masculine, I wouldn't have twined my good arm around Zelda's or laced her fingers with mine. I would've whipped my belt off and gnashed my teeth into the leather and promised her a demonstration of high pain thresholds. But I didn't care. As I stared into her dark eyes, our noses nearly touching, I couldn't imagine a reason why I'd want to be anything other than my true self with her.
"I can't deal with that," I said. "Eggs don't belong in your pocketbook."
"No one calls it that, sweetie," she replied. "It's been a good twenty or thirty years since anyone carried a pocketbook."
"My mother carries one," I said. "That's exactly what she calls it. She keeps a little calendar in there too. The kind with a plastic cover and three years' worth of dates."
"Your mother sounds like a busy woman." Zelda held my gaze while the doctor moved my arm and drove his fingers into my tissue. I gave her hand a squeeze. "She's gotta keep her affairs in order."
"She's always on the hunt," I said. Zelda laughed, big and bright and close enough for me to feel it. Really feel it. "This is a very unusual first day on the job."
She shrugged. "Are most days like this?"
The doctor said something about the next part being quick and advising me to take a deep breath and breathe through it, but I asked, "Is it wrong for me to want them all to be like this?"
6
Zelda
When I packed my things and left home this morning, I hadn't started with a detailed idea of how this day would shake out. I wasn't a detailed