Growing into the Job, Post 543: Retail Therapy, Interlude

I leaned back in the too-small, stiff, kinda uncomfortable chair in the consult room, the sterile white walls cold and not pretty at all, and fished my phone from my bag - I’d heard it buzzing alerts earlier. It had been a long day - like, five hours so far of them testing me, poking me, prodding me, running all their little numbers through all their little computers. I was used to it, I guess, having to deal with this really since I was a girl. They’d been tracking my progress for so long now that it almost felt like a routine. The technicians, Marcia and the nice blonde one who left me this chocolate protein shake - YUM - were in the other room, prolly whispering about how fast I’d been changing, and what I could now do. I’d spoken to Dr. Chou about it earlier this morning during my session with her, the way I’d learned to manifest new superp-...uh, developments (they preferred me to call them that), and I think her alarm bells had gone off. So here I was, back at Evolution Pharmaceuticals after less than a week, for more testing. 

I mean - booooo, boring - but whatever....

They thought, for a while there, that they understood how I really worked - how I became better when I was challenged by something…what’s the word? External. Like, school and work (I got bigger boobs and bigger, well, everything for my pervy male teachers and male bosses). Since I’d started at Far Horizons with Jay, though, I’d been changing in all these cool new ways - he needed me in ways that my body had never been challenged with before. But now, recently, I was learning to make myself better just by pushing myself, “manifesting” new abilities that I wanted. Just for fun. Just to be better. Just to be so much more than everyone else.

That, I think, had everyone here a little freaked out.

So, anyway, yeah - my phone had been buzzing. More texts from Lakshmi, letting me know how things were going. A voicemail from Aubrey, gushing over how cute he was and thanking me for letting her be part of taking care of him today - she’s so sweet. I’d already heard from them earlier, asking permission to take him out to the new Vendare Center. They’d taken him shopping, had smoothies, watched Sheryl and some other ladies do some real estate talk thing, and saw Shanette walk the runway and perform a song (yay Shanette!!) at the fashion show her mom’s store had put together. That’s where they were now, doing some more shopping before grabbing some dinner there.

I snorted when I saw the Insta post that Josie had tagged me in… 

I giggled. It made me think of him (he would fit in there with me in one of those no problem haha). It made me miss him. But I was also proud of him for letting my girls take care of him today. It was cute - they had this little dynamic going that I was starting to see more and more of lately, maybe as the girls were all getting to be a little more, well, like me. I never worried much about him being with them; I knew they were looking out for him - they’d “looked out” for him like five times today already haha. And I knew Jay could be so stubborn sometimes, especially when it came to things he thought would fix him, like the doctors he tried to see today. I loved how he let Josie and the others take charge of him, though, when he couldn’t make it. I couldn’t help but feel a little proud. Even if I was a little mad at him for saying ‘yes’ to Lucia about the deal with her company all by himself. Hmmph. Without consulting me. I mean, yeah, it’s great, I wanted him to do it. But he should have checked with me first. I’ll have a talk about that with him later, maybe tomorrow, in person. He should see me mad, sometimes.

My head drifted back to his ‘appointment’, the one he missed today. Yes, I’d given him permission to go, mostly because I knew the…the entocriminologists (did I get that right?) were never really going to get to the reason of his, haha, problem. They could run all the tests they wanted, but none of them would be able to trace what was happening to him, not really. The truth was, it was me. I was the reason his body was shrinking. I mean - I wasn’t doing it on purpose! But I diiiiid love it love it love it, how little I was making him. My pheramoans (right?), my powers - I was the one changing him. And as he got weaker, I was kinda meanwhile getting stronger.

Good thing I’m the one who knows how to take care of him, I thought to myself, a smile tugging at my lips. Good thing he has me to love him. 

I’d never let anyone outside of me or my girls get close enough to mess with him. The clinic’s doctors? They’d never be able to trace his shrinking back to me, even if they were able to try. But I’d made it (again - not on purpose! I’m not that mean!) so that he felt sick if he started really doing something to figure this all out. Or wandered too far away from us. I wasn’t ready for him to know all this yet. No one would understand him the way I do. I wanted to be in control of all of it. My pow-…my developments were keeping him tethered to me. I was the one who made him safe, who kept him functioning. Without me, or my girls, he'd be, well….haha. A mess. 

I couldn’t let him get fixed by anyone else. No one would ever understand him like I do. No one would ever care for him the way I do.

My thoughts lingered for a moment, and I let myself feel a little smug about it. In a way, he was lucky. I gave him more than anyone else could. I mean, look at me. I was becoming more than anyone else ever was, and it could all be for him. 

Before I could get too lost in the feelings, I heard the lock of the door beep, and Marcia and the blond tech came back in, murmuring quietly (though of course I could hear everything they were saying. I hadn’t told them about my super hearing just yet haha). They’d gone out to find a bigger needle, cuz the ones they’d tried before couldn’t pierce my skin. I glanced up, catching the way they hesitated for just a second, like they were unsure how to approach me.

Poor girls. I gave them a big, big smile. 

“Hi again!” I chirped. 

Marcia shifted her gaze between the tablet she was carrying and me. I could sense the tension in the room - the questions they still had, the unease. They couldn’t quite wrap their heads around how I’d been evolving, and how I was doing it so quickly. How tall I was getting. How my strength had skyrocketed. How my body was becoming something...new. I think they thought I was getting dangerous.

Well of course. 

I think they really had no idea how to deal with me, and they’d probably talked to my mother. I don’t know if she really knew how to deal with me, either. Again, I let myself feel a little smug. Good. 

So, as they started to try to get a blood sample from me with the new needle - they’d started having trouble last week, and this week they’d broken four on me - Marcia had some questions. They asked a little more about the feelings I got when the girl gang was making him scared, earlier. Or how I felt - even being here, miles away - during Shanette’s performance. 

“Ow!” I laughed. That needle made it. They said it was designed for livestock. 

I described how I felt my girls were more and more getting to be like, I dunno, extensions of me. And how tuned in to him I was, even over all this distance. Not like I could see through any of their eyes or hear what they were all hearing. But I was kinda getting to the point where I could feel what they were experiencing.  I don’t know if Marcia believed me, really, on all this, but the blond cute tech looked at me all wide-eyed. I should probably ask her to come down to Far Horizons sometime. People like her are starting to get together in the mornings. 

Marcia also asked me about my social media stuff, and the stuff I felt when I posted, or if someone posted something about me. Or the TV interviews, how I felt when they were broadcasted.

“The attention gives me tingles,” I told her, “not as much as when people get together, like in person, like a crowd of them for me…”

Like the grand opening ceremony? Marcia asked. 

“Yeah. But sure even an Instagram post, when it goes up, starts making me tingle. It’s even more when there’s, like, interaction. Like, in a Story or something…”

She asked me if I could do one now, and if they could watch my brain waves and draw more blood as I did it. 

“Sure.”

So, after they hooked me up with those wires to my head again I spent about ten minutes talking with my followers And putting up some older pics I had on my phone:

“Haha yeah - tingles!” I laughed, feeling a spike in the mild, pleasant buzz that lived in my bones. Back a long time ago it used to come, I used to notice it, when something was growing on me. Now, really, it was kinda sorta with me all the time. But surges of attention like this - even if it was from people I didn’t even know - gave the buzz a little extra oomph haha. 

Marcia looked at the brain waves on her tablet and knitted her serious little brow. The blonde was biting her lip. 

In the meantime, I was getting texts from Lakshmi and Josie and Aubrey and Shanette and Randi. They were going to meet up at a restaurant at the Vendare Center and take him to drinks and dinner. Amelia was busy on her cam, and Marisela was being Marisela, but the girls wanted me to join them and when I asked Marcia when I could leave she said they wanted me to stay the night, here at the lab, in my old ’apartment’.

Randi called it a cage but it was actually really nice. 

At first I thought about saying ‘no’, that I’d go to dinner with anyone I wanted, at any time I wanted. I mean, what could they do to stop me? But - I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. And mother would be mad. I know they all think I love him too much already and that I make bad decisions because of him sometimes. 

“Fine,” I answered, in a little huff that made some glassware across the room rattle and Marcia and the blond tech shoot each other a nervous look. I’d need to text the girls one last time, telling them to take good care of him tonight and don’t let him do anything too strenuous. I know how he can be. They could help with his new bedtime routine and get him ready in the morning, and I’d see him soon. I did really really miss him. Even though I know he’s with the girls, I still can’t stop thinking about him...and how he makes me feel important. Needed. I’m the only one who really gets him. We’d be together again, but it would have to wait.

💋

I let out a soft sigh, and tossed my phone back into my bag. Not yet, tho, I decided, I’ll tell them in a little while. 

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