I was groggy when I woke up.  I pulled the sheets off and stumbled into my bathroom, yawning the whole way.  Doloise was looking at some books I kept for artistic reference, dealing with anatomy and the way it interacted.  They were too artsy to be smut, and nice enough you could keep them on the coffee table, if you had one.  I didn’t, so they joined the sprawl on the top of where the bookshelves segregated sprawling space in front of the TV and the computer area.

I looked out the blinds to see that, yes, indeed, it was overcast.  That sense of oppression I’d felt in my dream continued unabated by waking.  I was unsurprised; what factors of reality cast their spell into the dreamlands was an argument for those who studied such things.  I know better than to eat artichokes at dinner, but that isn’t because I have any illusions about how they interact with my psyche – the only thing guaranteed to give me nightmares was hauntings, and those could be bound away, their doors to my vulnerabilities closed and locked.  I have too many keys to my psyche floating around to not be concerned.

On second thought, I did occasionally get a strange dream or two from Beau Jo’s pizza, but I consider that a perk, not a drawback.

I went into the kitchen and drew myself a cold glass of water.  I thought about offering one to Doloise, but the irony would be lost.  I wondered if irony was proof against fairy-ies.  You know, really fey fey.  Nevermind.  Maybe I hadn’t woken up as much as I had thought.

Doloise pushed aside the book. “Your pleasures are well-defined, but your indulgence is carefully measured. Why?”

I sighed, finishing the glass of water.  “Let me get dressed before we talk about my porn collection, OK?”

She looked confused. “You already wear clothing.”  She was wearing another of her own designs from my wardrobe.  I looked closer at it.  Ah, it was from one of my holiday ties.  I have a small collection of them I’ve picked up for various festive functions during the long winter season.  This one had a subtle stag print on it.  How apropos.

“There are distinctions in dressing that consider appropriate wear, having put clothes on, and a level of vulnerability,” I lectured from a door half-closed between us.  “I was in the having put clothes on stage, but if we’re going to dissect the wrinkles of my personality I want more clothing.”  If you have to ask, boxer-briefs, mostly.  I also like undershirts.  It’s funny, one of my favourite bits in The Fellowship of the Ring is the bit where Frodo incidentally reveals the mithril shirt Bilbo insisted he take.  Maybe because it’s a light of hope in the darkness of Moria.  Anyway, I do think of that passage when I am busy buttoning my workshirts over them.

Saturday means I call in for a new assignment and wear a T-shirt and jeans.   If I’m alone, that’s all I’d wear, but I need my armour against the Dragon Princess Doloise, as I mentally dubbed her.  My shirt was traditionally geeky, white letters on black.  Something about keeping my shiny, happy, fuzzy reality.  I did the phone call and then wandered back out to sprawl on the futon that doubled as a couch.

“I like my little luxuries,” I said.

Doloise is a stacker.  You know, someone who puts things into carefully measured stacks when they return them.  It ruined the feel of casual chaos.  I wondered about that a little – she seemed fairly constrained.  Rules, remember, power a great deal of, well, power.

“As long as they do not control you,” she said, not looking up from the pictures.  That one was an actual art book – something I picked up at a library sale.

I grunted an affirmation.  “Does it mean anything in guarding me, oh guide?”

“Curiosity has its stigma.  I seek to solve it rationally. You are not what we expected.  I only seek to bind comfort into the geasa under which I work.”

“You are free to go at any time.  I mean it.”

“It is too late for that.”  She looked at me and did not smile.

“It’s too late for Saturday morning cartoons, too, but I live in hope.”  I found the remote and turned on the TV.  Later this afternoon I’d have to do some open-heart surgery, of sorts.  I hoped the morning would be more pleasant.