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RX, not for resale.
“They couldn’t even make it vanilla?” groused the spotted bull to Rourke’s right. “They have us creaming into milk bottles; at least stick with the theme!”
“I am so upset to be sitting next to you right now.”
“C’mon!” his neighbor laughed. “I mean, Wintermint makes it sound like it should have come from a reindeer serv.”
“Do any of us look like we should be jacking off at the North Pole?” demanded another as hoots and laughter rang through the hall. “Wintemint, pfft.”
“You mark my words; they’re going to make the connection and come out with ‘vanilla sweet cream’ pretty soon.”
Groans from all around, one of the elders clicking his tongue as the phone made it around the group.
“Hard candy,” Rourke repeated, shaking his head. “This is what we’ve been reduced to.”
Madoc shrugged, pocketing his cell phone once more. “Well, it’s still a controlled pharmaceutical. They’re just making it more palatable for these man-babies, I guess.”
“Which is fine by me,” interjected a spotted minotaur with a braided nose ring. “The more humans they can convince to suck on a mint or pop piece of gum, whatever, I don’t care. As long as they’re compensating us more.”
“I seeyou’resporting a new look.” The words came from the grey-muzzled elder who had chastised him months earlier. It took Rourke several weeks before he realized he was the one being addressed. He swallowed hard, feeling more than a dozen eyes swing in his direction.
At the end of the day, it had been easy and relatively painless. He’d grumbled on his way out of the troll’s studio that if he’d known it was that easy, he could’ve done the job himself with a bolt cutter from his garage, possibly requiring Khash’s help. Two clips in the circlet, the cut piece clanging to the floor as the remainder was twisted until it threaded free of his nostrils. He was in and out of the troll’s studio in fifteen minutes with a minor nosebleed and half a month’s paycheck worth of solid gold in a baggie. He’d dropped the clipped ring in a dresser drawer, not wanting to look at it nor think through what he might do with the remains. Since the appointment with the troll was shorter than he expected, Rourke decided to stop at the barber on Main Street for a trim since everyone and their neighbor’s boyfriend had something to say about his hair lately.
He thought he looked younger, peering into the mirror later that day. He barely recognized himself with the wide pink of his nose exposed, hair clipped just short enough so that it no longer fell into his eyes. He tried to discern the expression in the eyes belonging to the bull staring back at him. It was not the weariness he’d been looking at the last three years. Rourke thought there was a touch of hope there, perhaps a tiny glimmer of his long-absent optimism. He wondered if she was the one who had restored it to him or if it had found its way back to him like a lost pet, only heard mewling outside the back door when he’d decided to start leaving the house without prodding.
“It was overdue,” he responded, slightly buoyed by the encouraging nods from the two or three peers who were in similar possession of a broken ring. “A long time coming, and no time like the present.”
As he lay in bed that night, Rourke wondered if Violet even knew what was being done with the collections she facilitated.They use an old-fashioned milk bottle as a receptacle and an industrialized piece of farm equipment to collect it. Do they even tell the techs what they’re doing? How much money they’re making in the process?He wondered what she would think of his altered appearance if she understood the significance of the clipped ring and his bare nose.
He would soon get his chance to find out. His appointment was in two days, the appointment where he would take the plunge. Ask her out, shucking the propriety of their client/technician relationship.If she says yes, you’re on your way to finding out if you even have anything in common. And if she says no, you’re no worse off than you were just last week when you thought this was going nowhere.
Violet, it seemed, hadn’t received the memo that Friday was instrumental in his planning and execution for their future. He walked down the hall with a bounce in his step on his way to the milking room, empty head, full heart, stiff dicked. He was just stepping out of his pants when the lower-level door opened, and she stepped through.
It was not Violet. The technician glancing up at him was a stranger.No, not a stranger. Even worse. It’s the girl from last week, the trainee.
He waited expectantly, craning his head to see around the girl as if Violet might be crouched behind her, waiting to pop out like an Imp-in-the-Box, but the door did not open again, and the object of his affection was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s the technician?” He demanded, forcing his voice to remain mild.
The girl shrugged. “I am the technician?”
“I thought you were a trainee?”
Her eyes lifted, and she squinted, trying to tell how he knew such things. She shrugged again, casting him a dubious look. “I’m out of training.” She was just as sullen-seeming as she’d been the previous week, her attitude not improving in spite of her evident promotion.
“Well, there must be some mistake. I specifically request my technician every week. You’re, uh . . . not her. There must be a mistake with your file.”
“I guess your request wasn’t honored this week.” Another shrug. “Maybe that tech is gone.” The girl stepped forward with her clipboard, pulling a tank from the rack, and he shook his head.
No. No, no, no, no. This would not do; this would not do at all. Where was Violet?He nearly stumbled as he hastily stepped back into his pants, hurriedly hitching them up his hips and stuffing his cock back into place. “I’ll – I’ll be right back.”
He felt dizzy, careening out of the milking room, noticing for the first time how labyrinth-like the interior hallways of the facility were. Identical doorways stretched before him, and he wondered if this was how the first bull had felt when he realized his home was a prison.
The receptionist’s eyes widened when he appeared before her window, breathing hard, belt unbuckled, slapping both hands on the shallow countertop.
“I – there’s been some mistake. A mix-up. I put in a request for my technician, and . . . there’s been a terrible mistake.”
The receptionist pulled a comically sympathetic face, humming mournfully, and he steeled himself for her customer service voice, knowing it was incoming.
