Irwin smiled at “Karen,” as he read her name while she filled out the forms for a storage unit. Irwin figured he was one smart cookie, and reading the paperwork upside down was just one of his many smart moves. But he had other tricks up his sleeve. Karen had already fallen for the one about his charging extra to clean up the mess when he appeared to be helpful so he could drop a box. Irwin sneaked another look at her titties. It was all he could do to keep from giggling aloud. That damn Spook would be so jealous if he knew what Irwin was going to be able to do to Karen if Irwin played his cards right. After all, there were some things smart-ass spooks just couldn’t do because they just didn’t have real bodies.
And Irwin always played his cards right.
Like right now: this was a chance to touch them titties “accidentally” when he grabbed her arms, which he did, and con her out of more money besides. “Now hold on a minute, there.”
She jerked back from him. Frigid bitch. He muttered something about being sorry, but secretly noted that her reaction proved she deserved what he was going to do to her eventually. “I just wanted to point out,” he went on, “that you’ll need a much bigger unit for all this.”
Karen looked like she was going to bolt. Some did. Irwin had seen this. But Irwin had learned. He knew exactly what to do. “Again, sorry. I…I don’t like to mention this but…” He gave his best, well-practiced, sheepish, innocent smile. “…you see I have this disability. It explains my dropping your box and what I just did completely by accident when I grabbed your arms to keep you from filling out the forms all wrong and having to start over again.”
Suddenly, instead of watching him like a goddamned hawk, Karen seemed to be looking through him. “What got broken…” Irwin couldn’t figure out why she trailed off. She looked like she’d gotten some food caught in her throat. “What got broken was…really…already broken. Already…and forever…gone.”
There was a silence. A rat scurried along a floorboard till it found a hole it could slither through. Karen still seemed to be looking through Irwin. He tested it by letting his gaze drop to her titties again. No reaction.
Then, suddenly, she went back to watching poor Irwin like a goddamned hawk and asking all kinds of questions about if she’d ever have to come back into the storage space in person, except when she took her boxes out, and could she pay her monthly bill for her unit online and all kinds of other stupid shit.
