"Detective Onan?" the woman said stepping into my office (missing the word PRIVATE spread at eye level on the opaque white glass of the door beside her).

"Jesus!" I said from my chair behind my desk. "Don't you knock?"

One of my hands was still wrapped around the plastic vacuum tube. I was pushing it further up my dick but now I had what is classically known as a situation.

"I did knock," she said over the low hum of my underdesk vac.

She took another step forward bringing her fully into the room. The blue hallway lumes cast a halo around her. She had on a long coat -- tall dame -- and some wierd ass kind of chef's hat with a feather poking out of one side. She closed the door behind her.

I sighed. I was tugging the tube off of me now. The situation unfortunately got me excited so the tube wasn't leaping to freedom. The tugging too had its positives... unintended and unfortunate.

I gave another sigh and looked over to the other door, open, out to the tiny front lobby.

She looked at it with me I eyecornered.

"You gonna break for it?" she said her voice low and melodic.

"No. I just wonder why you didn't use that door."

"Because you'd just break out the door I just came in, no?"

"You watch too many Feeds, babycakes."

She stood just inside the door looking around in the darkness. I finally removed the tube and let it drop to the floor. It ticked against the side of the plastic desk and then gave a louder thunk on the floor.

I had one hand on the desk and gave a tap at the pressure pad in front of me. The desktop display sprang to life. Ghostlight filled the office.

She squinted to get a better look at me. She saw the scar across my face, right eye, over nose, left cheek. I got a look at her. Black overcoat, glossy or wet or both. Heels underneath. Bare legs. Maybe naked underneath maybe not.

Her face was round to square like a eastern european child with big round eyes, big even squinted up. She looked young in the white light -- young and dead maybe. When her eyes moved to the lobby entrance I handled the last little problem. The Center of the Universe went unwillingly and only after a struggle was it pushed back beyond the zippered threshold.

"Are you lost?" I asked standing up.

"Aren't we all," she said looking down at my crotch. Without looking I made sure my untucked shirt covered my crotch. She was playing at being sassy. I hate that.

"Look lady, I know in the Feed we're supposed to have all sorts of cute short back and forth, but I just pulled a vacuum tube off my dick to talk to you. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to that."

"Please continue," she said and a wicked smile, toothless, spread across her face. "Your fly is still down anyway."

"He likes to see what's going on."

"Too bad he has to stand on his tip-toes to look out the window."

My fists balled. I'd never hit a lady. Maybe this was a man and I could give him a pop.

"Let me show you the door," I said and took a step towards her. She kept scanning the room.

"I have a job for you, Jack. You come highly recommended." One of her hands moved to the front of her coat and began undoing the buttons of her long black vinyl overcoat.

My juvenile mind, still juvenile at my age, began hoping that she would be naked underneath. The Center of the Universe applauded the notion and pointed at her in case I forgot where she was.

Reason chimed in hoping that she didn't have a dick.

"Could you turn on the lights?" she said looking up from her de-coating.

"No."

"Do you treat all potential customers this poorly?" Her hands moved one button and then another downward. The coat didn't roll open. All at once or nothing this show would be. "Hello? I don't have any tits to speak of, nothing dramatic anyway, so you may as well look at my face you asshole."

"Look," I said, my jaw clamped down hard and my hands clenched tight," I pointed to the door. I'm not the fucking welcome wagon. I'm a shitbag. People only come to see me when they're desperate and they need some sewer work done. With that in mind, I don't need to be nice to them. I can walk over and piss on their legs if it strikes my fancy. They'll stand there and take it. If they don't, then they proved to me and to themselves that they weren't all that desperate."

She was grinning at me, still no teeth, but her cheeks were balling up like sweet apples. I could cut glass right now with the Center of the Universe.

"You're charming," she said and finally pulled open her coat.

Dammit if she wasn't fully clothed underneath.