By Joshua Ryan
Chapter 12: Employment Benefits
I think I mentioned that Mr. Patrick didn’t spend as much time at his job as the Colonel spent at his. Nothing close. In the afternoon he was usually to be found lying on the nine-foot couch, watching videos or having an early cocktail. 9555, the pretty young airhead, fetched him his drinks, and while that was happening I wasn’t given any chores in that part of the quarters.
But one day it was me that he summoned, and when I’d set his drink on the end table—or more precisely, on the little marble coaster that needed to be placed precisely at arm’s reach on the end table—he told me to “wait at the wall,” which meant standing at attention in my usual arms-behind-my-back posture. Half an hour passed before he finished with whatever he was doing on his phone. I was happy, just looking at the walls that enclosed me and the comfortable furniture that I was permitted to clean but never to sit on. Then his voice said, “Here.” His glass was on the coaster, with his phone beside it. “Suck me,” he said.
He opened his slacks and dropped them over his knees. He was being careful; he didn’t want to get a stain. I dropped in front of him, automatically loosening the collar of my uniform for the job ahead of me. “Stay in uniform,” he ordered. “And watch the teeth.”
