Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

Giant turned toward me and said “Were going to go to Taco Bell after this, care to join us?”

“Asshole” I chuckled. It was purely a reflex response. When I’m in character I can control any mental or habitual reflex. I’m not in character here, just using a fake name. Yeah, everybody in this room knew about the cod fish and the fact a meal at a chain Mexican restaurant would most definitely be my last. Like I said, we get along great.

Slim heard the exchange and turned to smirk at us and utter with his gay lisp “The ass isn’t his only hole, but it’s a good one!”

“We have a strict policy against sexual harassment which you have all violated in front of me!” barked HR.

The Acrobats lost it. The English language cannot describe the sound of Stretch’s belly laugh. Calling it a belly laugh is really painting too feeble a picture. Some who laugh do so from the back of their mouth or throat. It almost sounds fake. Some laugh from a place within their torso. The deeper and louder of these laughs people call a belly laugh. Stretch’s laugh, when he really lets loose, two floors down and three hallways behind you and built volume as it got closer. Honestly, I looked at the windows to see if they were visibly moving.

Personally I’m glad Stretch has such a well developed sense of humor and no shame in showing it. He’s the deadliest one of the three. The global population would be in free fall if he was a cranky old man. I’ve seen him snap a person’s neck with one hand. Not one of those come up behind them and whip the chin all the way around past their spine kind of things you see on television. He was standing beside them and slowly, calmly moved his hand to the back of their neck like a lover about to pull someone in for a kiss and with a thumb on one side and two fingers on the other, he severed that skull-spine connection without even a change of tone in his conversation. I told you, those aren’t hands at the ends of his wrists. He can crush a full can of Bush’s baked beans in each hand at the same time.

Slim spoke in a voice I had heard only once before. It was seconds before he killed seven men who weren’t on the target list just because they pissed him off. Don’t get the wrong impression. It takes a lot to piss Slim off, but when you do, it’s like flicking a light switch. There’s no saying sorry because you are already dead.

“You know what we all do HR. We decide what is and is not harassment, not you.”

Room got really quiet after that. Everyone except HR knew what that voice meant. She was resorting to her staring contest protocol again. Didn’t learn last time.

<Previous-Part Next-Part>