Larry elevated his nose and sniffed twice, gently. “Man, I love the smell of oak in the fireplace.”
Larry was the new guy on the IT team, an experienced older Unix admin, looking every bit the hardened military veteran. He was a manly fellow, completely out of place in the IT department. Cindy was the receptionist in the office and Parsons was the networking guy. They were supposed to be showing him the local village amenities and they had stopped for hot drinks to answer the crisp fall climate.
Parsons had opened his mouth to agree with Larry, but Cindy jumped in before he had a chance. “Yeah, well I got my degree and Ecology and I can tell you that smell you love so much is killing us all!”
She wasn’t just pretty, Cindy was gorgeous. But her beauty was contorted in rage as she spewed forth a very standard tree-hugger rant, loaded with all sorts of shaming language. Eventually the rant trailed off as she realized Larry had not moved, during the entire sermon, still leaning back with his eyes closed and nose in the air. She huffed and took a long sip of her organic hot tea.
Larry still didn’t change his posture except to swivel his head slightly toward Parsons. Opening one eye, he could see Parsons genuinely abashed, though Larry couldn’t be sure if it was Cindy’s behavior or her sermon that caused the geeky nerd discomfort. Larry closed his eye and swiveled his back up, then brought his chin down slowly with a sigh.
Turning more naturally to face Parsons, he placed his hands around the coffee mug in front of him and took another whiff, this time of the rich Sumatran coffee Cindy had recommended. Addressing Parsons, he said with a faint smirk, “Bitch goddess two-point-O with the inflated sense of entitlement already activated I see.” He didn’t flinch in the slightest when she spluttered and splattered that expensive tea across the table.
Before she could regain her voice, he turned to her and added, “I wonder how much rain forest was uprooted and burned for growing this fine coffee and your organic tea.” He lifted his cup and took a sip.
His eyes did not follow her beautiful sashaying behind as she stomped away. Instead, he turned to Parsons, who clearly could not tear his eyes away from her. The younger man turned back to him with a look of pale shock. “Dude!”
Parsons looked genuinely pained. “Maybe you don’t know she was talking yesterday about maybe banging you!”
Larry snorted, “At what price? On her terms I would have to become a slave, as you obviously already are to her. That’s just about as enticing to me as a bar of soap and a hot shower. She’s not qualified to have sex with me, not until her entire insides are completely rewired. She’s gold-plated, diamond-encrusted poison.”
