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Stalkers and Retarded Penguins

Stalkers and Retarded Penguins

Xoxo Nyx

While the man in 1800s cosplay complete with a floor length leather duster and vampire slaying weapons paces in front of the main entrance of the building, I shrill with my cheeks flushing, and puffing like a chipmunk who belongs in the natural greenery.

“What part of him showing up at my apartment is not ringing warning bells in your pea brain?!”In my fuming fit state, I know Nicky’s going to take it with a grain of salt.

There are things that even I can’t laugh at, but as long as I or a body part don’t end up in a trophy case, I’m sure at the end of the freak-out tangent I’m on, this might seem as funny to me as it has to Lucy and Shannon.

“This is not funny, and I am not joking!” Thankfully or unfortunately, whichever works, ‘Jonathan’ chooses that moment to launch himself on a squirrel thinking it’s a bat.

“DIE DEMON,” his sharp accented declaration is likely heard by the people in the lobby, it’s so loud. Not to mention every other person doing their best to avoid the lunatic as they walk through the twelve-foot tall doors.

I all but pounce out of the hedge, using a rather portly man as a human shield in case the vampire hunter dares look back.

Once inside the pristine lobby, I do not ‘run’ to the elevators.

It is, after all, one of five or six major conglomerates that have the ability to blacklist me from ever working in this city again. So I skitter towards the closing doors and would baseball slide into the safety of the tiny tin coffin if it wouldn’t rip my pencil skirt.

Once inside the box inside the garishly pressed tin box, I press the floor to the notary, and let out a shrill, not giving one hoot stick who hears me.

“How in the h e double hockey sticks does me getting laid equate to breaking the curse of the bad luck cat that YOU! Yes, YOU, Nikolai, stuck me with?!” Over having to control my volume, not that Autistics can without heavy concentration.

Regardless, I’m no longer in a place my stalker can hear me, and screaming is definitely called for.

“I’m in a frizzing TOD,” I roar and hear Nicky’s sharp oh schnitzel hiss.

The imp immediately registers the new volume and tone I’m taking with him. No longer in the vicinity for his page of wands to hear me. Dr. Cross the civilian is more than aware that I side with Alex if not all special forces soldiers as a whole on elevators being death traps.

Even if the Allied Forces are made up of men and women from all allied territories to our mother nation, Lumeria, it is no different from every militant organization around the world loving its acronyms.

Hence, the Tiny Tin Box of Doom, T.O.B.D., pronounced Todd or sometimes Toddy. Elevators can also be called TTCs, Tiny Tin Coffins, pronounced tocks, not to be confused with Terrified Civilians, T.C.s pronounced ticks.

“Even if we skip the porno flash mob and me hanging by my knickers like a Wonderlight ornament over a motel pool. Your oh so fantastic selection process has landed me at a steakhouse with a vegan stripper trying to recruit me, a married priest with turrets trying to seduce me in a confessional, and who can forget the clown with an X-rated non con honking habit chasing me through a pride parade!”

“And that was just last week! I am still getting daily messages from Ginger, the moonlighting contortionist with a foot fetish, you sent me to my first ever professional pedicure with, requesting I try her polish suggestions, and send photos for her to rub one out to!”

Twenty floors to go.

“All of which I could forgive if you didn’t set me up with an anorexic Mexican who believes he is a fictional character, ruining one of my favorite romance novels with the experience!

Now you won’t have to worry about the big city swallowing my midget body whole, since the proper schizophrenic you gave my personal information is stalking me!” I stamp my foot with a sharp intake of breath.

“He’s a stalker, Nicky! You know how I feel about stalkers! They are up there with being late, daisies and Hitler! ” I heave in a shaky breath, battling down the panic.

“We are well past the point of comedy of errors! Because of you and that stupid dating profile, I’m not only being stalked, but am going to be late on my first day wearing a naughty secretary outfit from a stripper’s closet! That’s if I don’t end up in a trophy case before I check in!” I don’t even register his attempt to speak. I’m so miffed.

“How..........?” He croaks out, likely focusing on how I am wearing stripper’s clothing. Well because it was the only thing remotely stretchy.

“Oh, why, you ask?!” I correct him anyway. “Because ‘Jonathan’ oh so diligently slept in front of my apartment door all bloody weekend to trap Dracula while I stayed at LUCY’S!

“Lucy?” He sputters.

“Ryan’s room-mate! You know, the only bloody people in this city you haven’t catfished with your hair-brain, half-baked attempts at turning rom-com meet-cutes turned into real-life meet-horrors!

So not only could I not get in my apartment for proper clothes. Your newest selection has evaded the authorities and is out front of one of the most prestigious firms in the whole city, for me to have to dive in a bush, spill the best coffee I’ve ever tasted down the borrowed naughty secretary librarian outfit, until ‘Jonathan’ launched himself on a frizzing squirrel thinking it was a bat, and I had enough time to shuttle my booty across marble floors like a retarded penguin in a skirt three sizes too small and six-inch hooker heels that by some miracle fit!”

There are times I feel like Autism should be referred to as Association Disorder, because of the involuntary and never-ending comparisons we have to make before we can process anything.

At the moment, all I can see behind my eyes are the women I watch in courtroom dramadies scuttling like giant mentally impaired birds, in clothes too tight to properly move in when their boss yells at them to do something, while I pant into the phone with snarling waves as the AI elevator lady chimes, “fortieth floor.”

“So do me a favor and stick whatever nonsense you have left in Mary’s Mossy Cobbler because I will be celibate for the rest of my days before I ever let you set me up on a non-con blind date again!” As the doors ding, I’m all but crouching in a racer’s pose to bolt out of there as quickly as possible.

Looking at the floor rather than either man tucked to the back corners, I pray this building and this city is way too large to run into again, the square tips of heeled boots come into my vision with an all but howled, “Mina, my love!”

“Jonathan...........”

My shocked gasp may sound as dramatic and excitable as the man’s greeting to me, but I assure you, I am not in any way shape or form happy to see the young Hispanic twenty-something year old with perfect caramel skin, who cannot grow a proper mustache.

Proven by the fact the one he’s currently sporting is penciled on to his face.

‘Jonathan’ seemed normal at first. All psychopaths do, according to my psych rotation. Anyway, I felt bad for the tiny man, and fell into a pity conversation with a thousand apologies for Nicky doing this when I’m not ready to date.

I’d been through enough rounds with the Witch that I instantly picked up on the fact that the name switch at the corner bistro was an intentional request. Poor guy was nervous, and by the way that he was sneezing at the green tea we both ordered, I’m fairly certain he was allergic to it.

The pity conversation turned into our love of the supernatural, and how Bram Stoker’s Dracula was one of my favorite Romances. Not that I can claim it now, but my birth name was Ilona Lee, and maybe that hope of some love fated by time or soul mates being the only chance a disaster like me would ever have at real love sparked something.

I mean, he was carrying the book, and Jonathan did have very good old world type manners.

After about an hour, our scintillating debate and recant of the book versus movie fantasy, gets entirely too real. Where Jonathan is actually Jonathan Harker, and has been hunting the fictional vampire Dracula to spare me. Miss Mina Murray, his long-time fiancé’.

Not to mention that a balding teacher grading term papers at the table next to us happened to be Renfield. Who was eating flies rather than M&Ms. Of course, Jonathan and I just had to leave before ‘Renfield’ reported back to Dracula on where to find me.

With quick thinking, and that kick in the gut I don’t want to die today feeling, I told Jonathan I’d stay with Lucy in a secret Estate. When I made it back to the apartment I’d just managed to get finally able to find an affordable place rather than stay at Alex’s, banging on my door was none other than the tiny man nailing large crucifixes to each entry in the five-story walk-up while slinging wreaths of garlic cloves over the door frames.

Odd as Jonathan was being, it all seemed like it was from a good place. He was going to really extreme lengths to protect me, and it was clear he’d fallen into some fantastical place in his head. Still, with my past I was not taking any chances, and relented to something I hate.

Favors.

The whole point of moving to the city, was to prove that I was capable of standing on my own two feet, and not a grown infant that needed to be bottle-fed and burped before bed, like Nicky tried to make it seem.

Either way, I called Ryan, the woman who’d offered me a room to rent after meeting her at an incident at the corner store, which had Nicky arranging my first meet-cute in the city, with the corner apocalypse man!

Once Ryan and her room-mates had a hoot and a half in me explaining the situation, I called Dr. Harting. One of the few people I don’t have an issue with in the hospital Nicky is now in charge of, in Crest.

Not a proper city, but a very small town, only having a proper hospital because it is a country mandate that every city, town, and or province have a full medical facility regardless of the number of residents given the war that’s lasted almost five decades.

Anyway, he agreed that bombarding the poor man with cops would likely confuse ‘Jonathan’, and only prove to worsen his mental break.

So with the plan of him reaching out to a few colleagues in the area, I crossed my fingers praying that there was not a Dr. Abraham Van Helsing anywhere in our version of the yellow pages, and tried to sleep, hoping that Jonathan would be gone by morning.

Nope! Apparently not!

I’ve been wrong more than once about people’s intentions and true natures. Way more than once, actually. Or rather, I ignored the instincts that went against what I wanted to believe so many times that I can’t tell which is which anymore.

So while I truly don’t believe Jonathan means to harm me, I can’t help but lurch back into the small metal box away from his thin hand reaching out to me. Making the lithe blonde man in the far corner all but howl his laughter. Pointing at the person he’d been eavesdropping about right in front of him.

In that moment of embarrassment, fear, dread, and what Alex refers to as my big feelings that are simply too large to express, I do the unthinkable……..

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