Bring me file 38XI301.
Rikkard Ambrose
All right. So, at a guess I’d say he wasn’t pining with passionate love for me.
So he didn’t want me.
Ergo: the kiss never happened.
Well, so much the better. I wasn’t even a tiny bit disappointed. No, I wasn’t. After all, the fact that last night’s more… intimate occurrences had just been a dream had been what I had been trying to convince myself all the time. Now that I knew it was true, I ought to feel nothing but deep satisfaction.
Ought to, yes, but…
Hurriedly, I stood up and marched to the shelves of files. In no time at all, I had discovered the required document and transported it to the door. I reached for the doorknob, turned it - and almost ran headlong into a closed door. A very unladylike word escaped my lips as I stumbled back, the file clutched to my chest.
What the…!
I tried the door again. I hadn’t been mistaken. It was firmly and utterly locked.
‘Hey!’ With my free hand, I pounded against the heavy wood. ‘What’s the matter? Why is the door locked?’
Silence.
‘Didn’t you hear me? I said why is the door lock-’
A soft plink interrupted me. Turning my head, I saw that another metal cylinder had arrived on my desk. Mystified and annoyed, I stomped over to the desk and grabbed it. Now what would he have to say?
Because I locked it.
Rikkard Ambrose
I took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to calm my stormy temper. It didn’t work.
Crossing out the original with maybe a little bit more force than strictly necessary, I wrote under his message:
Dear Mr Ambrose,
And why did you do that?
Yours faithfully
Lilly Linton
Ha! I wondered what he was going to say now. Was he going to claim you could work more efficiently with all the doors locked? I wouldn’t put it past him, the stingy, stony old…!
Plink.
Ah!
Mr Linton,
It is a measure to further your abstinence and thereby the efficiency of your work. There is a liquor store only two streets away and a sweetshop selling solid chocolate right beside it. From your behaviour at the tavern, I deduced that keeping you locked up is the only way to prevent you from succumbing to irresistible urges.
Rikkard Ambrose
How on earth did he know I liked chocolate? Wait… irresistible urges? My eyes sparked!
I’ll give him irresistible urges!