If you don't practice, you might as well give the clarinet to a kid who will.
Cindy strode through one of her father's offices with a purposeful expression. A few of the young desk jockeys recognized it, and wondered whose day was going to get moderately lucrative and very surreal.
It'd started when she was 13 and first struggling to understand her abilities. She'd printed up a waiver and handed it and two weeks' allowance to an office boy whose hourly wage made it look nice. Once he'd signed it, politely asked him to hop on one foot, repeating it every time he'd stopped during the ensuing five minutes.
It'd been a periodic Thing ever since. The boss's underage daughter getting boys and men five to ten years older to go off to one of the empty conferences rooms with her for an hour certainly didn't look right, but people tended to know it was because of The Metagene Thing and not something skeezy --well, skeezier than this particular family's metagene was by nature by nature -- and kept it quiet.
She'd gotten more creative, these past three years. She'd signed NDAs herself to guarantee she'd never speak of embarrassing information she Nicely Asked out of them. By the time she was fifteen, she'd gotten a bit nasty. Spencer in Quality Assurance, who wasn't allergic to cilantro but hated it with a firey passion, had ordered the pico de gallo at her polite request and eaten every bite. Then she'd taken a turn for the actually helpful as she pressed her Asking Nicely to new extremes: Everyone at the office had, eventually, quit smoking.
And so today, as the waiver and cash came out as he finished loading packages on the shelf in the mailroom, Duncan Campbell wondered what he was in for. "Okay. I'll take you up on it."
"Great. We're going to the basement." At the raised eyebrow, she adds. "Do I need to say out loud that everyone who's ever going to know gets that nothing inappropriate is happening?" she asks, incapable of looking less lecherous. "Do I need to mention that I have a girlfriend now, and she's prettier than you, Mr. Campbell?"
"All right, Miss Lord, let's go."
And as soon as they're done there, "Please hit me."
"WHAT?"
"Okay, this one's clearly going to be hard. Because let me assure you, Mr. Campbell. It's not like you have a strong mind. Now, I need to work on my pain tolerance and avoidance and so many things, and it's multiple birds with one stone. If you would be so kind as to slap me?"
This time, his hand automatically rises, but he stops short of actually striking her. "Miss Lord, you're a 5'2" sixteen-year-old girl...."
"And you're a 6'1" twenty-year-old mailboy whom my girlfriend could beat up with only the toes of her left foot. Let's see if being mad helps, but don't do it consciously. Mr. Duncan Connor Campbell, I'd be much obliged if you would slap me, please."
And all the working out Cindy's been doing pays off as she catches his wrist.
She smiles. "Thank you so much, Mr. Campbell," she says sweetly.
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