Okay, fine, I’m cuddly, but not sexy. But, sex is no big deal. I’m with Shego and I’m good. Yeah, I’m good. I’ve got plenty of other things to do rather than think about having sex. I mean, way more things. So, I’m good. I’m with Shego, so I’m good.
The vacation was over, back home and back to work. Maybe that was for the best. They could just work up a routine and become completely comfortable around each other again. It seemed like a very brilliant idea.
“Couch!” Kim grinned and she dived right on the sofa. She sighed; it was a content sound because she was happy to be resting back on the comfy piece of furniture.
“Hey!” Shego barked. “Don’t flop on the couch like that and don’t even think about taking a nap.”
“Why not?” the redhead asked while making herself very comfortable on her sofa. Yes, she looked at it as her sofa and she was fully intending to take a nap on it now that she was lying on it.
“Because you need to put your crap away. I’m not unpacking it for you,” the pale woman declared.
“Why not?” the slim hero whined. What was the point in being a pet if her mistress was not going to unpack her luggage? Well, of course there were plenty of other benefits, but in the short term, she would like to just go to sleep and her master put her things away for her. A pet was not supposed to work.
“Because I’m not.”
“Why not?” Kim wailed.
“Fine, if you shut up, I’ll unpack for you,” the green-skinned woman conceded. She was the mistress, anyway. She was supposed to do stuff for her pet because the redhead was just a pet.
Kim grinned and settled into her favorite place in the whole apartment, not counting Shego’s bed of course. She decided to have her nap while Shego went to unpack her pet’s things along with her things. They might as well get back to their normal routine, they both figured; Kim did not have much of a choice in the matter if she wanted to stay with her owner.
(New Day)
“So, how was your vacation?” Betty asked Shego. She was standing in front of the cranky officer’s desk. She had noted that her friend did not return from her vacation looking neither better nor worst; it was an odd thing for her to come back from a beach the same as she left.
“Educational,” Shego answered as honestly as possible without letting her friend on what the vacation was all about.
“Unbelievable. I didn’t think you learned things,” the one-eyed woman remarked with an amused smile. Ah, she loved zinging Shego.
“Yeah, I learned plenty of things,” the pale woman replied.
“Any you care to share?” the chief inquired curiously.
“Not here, no.”
“Fine, I’m buying you lunch in exchange for information,” Doctor Director stated as if the point was not to be argued.
“This information costs more than lunch,” the raven-haired employee commented. She liked bartering with her friend whenever she could over work-related things.
“Shit, what do I have beyond lunch? I can’t offer you anymore days or you won’t have to come in at all for the rest of your life. I’ll give you dibs on the all of the good cases for the week,” the boss proposed.
“Sounds like a good deal.”
“I’ll bet it does.”
“But, lunch is still included,” Shego stated.
Doctor Director sighed, but she did agree to lunch. She was curious as to what her friend was into now that she was single again. She wanted to make sure that the brat was doing her job and she wondered if now that little pest was all her pale friend really needed. She just wanted to make sure that Shego was all right mentally and they would not have any problems in the future. The last thing she wanted to deal with was the emerald-eyed woman being frustrated about something.
So, at lunchtime, the two friends trotted up to their usual café, ordered their usual foods, and stared at each other for the usual couple of moments. It was a habit of theirs, trying to gauge each other. They were looking for weak points to hit each other with; it was because they were so used to picking on each other. That was how they got along and that was why they liked being with each other.
“So, what happened on your vacation that was so educational?” Betty inquired once she decided that she did not notice anything to bust Shego’s chops with.
“I figured out that my pet is just that,” Shego answered.
“Why, what the hell did you think she was?” the older woman asked in a slightly puzzled voice. She thought that they were of like mind that the brat was just a brat. With the way that Shego treated the little punk, she would have sworn that her green-skinned friend thought that Kim really was just a little lapdog.
“I had been trying to sleep with her,” the super-powered female replied with a shrug, trying to make it seem like no big deal. She figured that if she trivialized the matter, she would be able to forget about it and she could continue to have a normal relationship with her pet. Normal by their standards, of course.
“Don’t you always sleep with her?” the one-eyed woman commented. She was exaggerating as far as she knew. She was aware that sometimes Kim crawled into Shego’s bed, but she did not know how often it happened. She would have been surprised to learn how accurate her question was.
“No, I was trying to sleep with her,” Shego repeated.
“Wait, as in…” Betty trailed off because she could not even believe her ears on that one. After all, not only was the brat a little punk, but she was also a girl. Her friend could not have actually been trying to jump into bed with that kid.
“Yeah,” the emerald-eyed officer confirmed.
“But, you’re not a lesbian,” the chief pointed out.
“No shit,” Shego commented sarcastically. “Your powers of observation still amaze me.”
“Don’t get bitchy with me because you’re not getting laid by either sex,” Betty riposted.
“Oh, yeah, and there are guys just plowing your field every night like crazy, eh?” Shego countered.
“Shut up,” the brunette muttered. “What the hell were you thinking trying to bone that brat, anyway? Although, it’s about time you got a fucking use out of her.”
“Yeah, well, there’s no secret that the kid’s attracted to me,” Shego said.
It was Betty’s turn to be sarcastic. “No, really? I had no idea,” she commented. “You provide the kid with food and warmth, so she’d probably follow you to Hell as it is. She might as well be attracted to you with the way things work.”
“Well, yeah. See, I thought I’d maybe…” Shego trailed off because she did not know what she wanted to say. She was not sure why she had been trying to do what she was going to do, just like she was not sure why she could not do it. It was all so puzzling to her and she really just wanted to forget about it since she could not figure it out.
“What, you’d thought you’d make her dreams come true?” Doctor Director inquired.
“I actually think I just messed with her mind with this shit,” Shego admitted. She did her best not to sigh because she did not want her friend to know how bothered she was by things.
The pale woman was aware that her starting and stopping the event was not good for her pet. Her imp wanted it badly and part of her did want to give Kim just what she desired, but it was harder than she would have ever imagined. It seemed like if she took that step, then she would be ruining everything that they had and it was not something that she would be able to take back. One false move and she could wreck something that she had only recently realized was so important to her; it seemed like it was something that she needed in her life. So, she really did not want to screw it up.
“What did you do?” Betty asked.
“It had to seem like I teased her,” Shego answered.
“You teased her?” the older woman echoed and then she realized what her friend meant. She was not sure what to say to her old companion, but she knew that she had to say something reassuring because, believe it or not, Shego would do that for her. “Don’t worry about it. You always tease her. She’ll whine for a bit as usual and then she’ll forget all about it if you bake her a cake or something like that,” Betty argued.
The pale woman nodded slightly; her little monster was easy to please most of the time. She probably could make a few cakes and pies for her elf and the redheaded imp would probably not even remember their misadventures between the sheets. She could probably make a few pasta dishes and the girl would more than likely be all right.
The plan sounded plausible to Shego, but she was not so sure if it would work. She could not imagine how her pet had to feel thinking that sex was coming, only to be told to go to bed. She did not mean to be so harsh at the time, but she was frustrated with the situation and that was why she was callous at the time, but she did not mean it the way that it sounded. She did not want to hurt her pet, of course. Kim was her precious monster, after all.
“I can’t believe you tried to fuck that brat,” Betty commented, which threw off her friend’s thoughts.
“I thought it might be the right thing to do,” the raven-haired employee replied in a nonchalant tone along with a shrug.
“Just because you like her as pet doesn’t mean you like her as a partner. Come on, she’s too much of a baby to be any kind of real lover for you. She’s too immature for you,” the older woman argued. The kid was a brat, after all.
“Yeah,” Shego concurred just to get off of the subject. Maybe Betty had a point, though. Her munchkin was pretty much a child and she needed an adult, probably and preferably a man.
Kim tried not to dwell on the fact that she was probably never going to have sex again. She supposed that the answer to her problem would be to just sleep with someone else, but that did not work for her in her head. She did not desire to just sleep with anyone; she only wanted to be with Shego. So, she was going to have to welcome her new forced chastity and just forget all about pleasures of the flesh.
Sex was not all that it was cracked up to be, the redhead reminded herself. She would just have to drown herself in her work to avoid that itching feeling that kept coming up. She had to keep moving to ignore that frustrating sensation in her body. And that was what she was doing at the moment.
The young scientist was gathering some of her favorite specimens from the lab that she worked at; the lab was located at her school. She handled everything carefully and checked the time from the clock on the wall to make sure that she was running on time. She collected up all of her items and charged out of the lab.
“Kim, where are you going?” a professor asked when the slim adventurer dashed by her.
“An appointment!” Kim answered in hurry.
“Be careful with those reptiles! And the lab car!” the professor called to the retreating redhead.
“I will!” the slender hero promised.
The people around the lab always swore that she was going to kill the specimens or wreck the laboratory car. Everyone seemed to look at her as a crazy kid because she was the youngest person in the lab and she was always up to something, as they often put it. She knew how to handle reptiles and amphibians and she knew how to drive a car. She even had a license that said she knew how to handle an automobile; sure, she did not know where that license was at the moment, but that was beside the point. Little things seemed to escape her at times, but she came through most of the time on most things, so she figured that it was all right for trivial matters to go past her on occasion.
Kim rushed to her appointment; she could not be late. No, not for the particular appointment that she had; she just could not be late. It was her favorite time of the week actually. She generally could figure out the time on her own internal clock, which was how she typically ran and she hardly ever thought about being late. She had to go on her internal clock most of the time because she switched time zones as often as people switched outfits. A watch would not do her much good unless it listed almost every major city on the globe.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m late,” Kim commented to herself. She checked the clock in the car just to make certain that she was running on time. It was unprofessional to be late, after all, she silently scolded herself; although she was never late.
The redhead made a sharp left turn into a parking lot, nearly mowing down a hotdog vendor. She skidded into the spot while hearing the vendor shouting at her for driving like a maniac. Kim apologized to the man with a sheepish grin as she got out of the car. She then collected all of her stuff and hustled away with all kinds of containers in her hands.
Kim charged over a grass hill and through a baseball diamond while a game was going on. The players looked at her as if she was a lunatic and as she was passing by the center fielder, she instructed him to get under the ball that was coming his way. He listened and caught the ball while she disappeared over another hill. She continued on until she came to a sandbox where she finally stopped.
“Hey, guys, sorry I’m almost late,” the petite hero apologized with an embarrassed look on her face.
“Kim!” almost every child in the sandbox cheered when they saw her. Leave it to Kim to have an appointment with little kids and then to apologize for almost being late.
“Are you guys ready for a show?” the redhead adventurer asked the group.
“Yeah!” they cheered.
Kim smiled as she set down her boxes while the children gathered around her. They all sat down in front of her, eager for the educational experience that Kim was prepared to provide. There were seven little kids at first, but she expected more to show up once she started opening boxes; she was right, but she did not even have to open some of the cases. Children on the playground noticed Kim and a couple of them knew what was going on and pulled their friends to come see. They all promised their friends that something cool was going on and their friends decided to check things out.
The redheaded hero began her “class” with opening how she had just gone to India yesterday. She asked her “students” what kind of reptiles that they could name from India. Hands went up and they acted as if they were in a real class; most of them would proclaim that it was better than school. They were very enthusiastic about everything, which was one of the reasons that Kim liked talking with them. It was the reason that she made sure to see them at least once a week.
“Kim, did you bring Bill?” one of the little girls asked after a few minutes. The others began murmuring questions about Bill too.
“No, I couldn’t bring Bill today,” Kim answered.
The kids named any animals that she showed them and Bill was a huge bullfrog that they had taken a liking to. She had been very happy when she saw even the girls wanted to touch and hold Bill after a little while. She considered that she might be influencing a few more future biologists, maybe even herpetologists. She really just wanted to feed young, excited minds.
“What about Jake? Did you bring Big Jake?” a boy asked.
“Oh, yeah, Big Jake is right here,” Kim answered as she picked up one of her plastic boxes.
“Open it!” all of the children implored her with their little hands clasp together.
“Okay, okay. Back up. Big Jake gets car sick when I drive,” Kim remarked and she was about to open up the container to show off Jake, but a voice halted her.
“Hey, what are you doing with those kids?” a large woman with an obnoxious voice demanded to know.
Kim and the children all turned to see who or what was asking such a question. They were all confronted by a middle-aged, ugly woman with a mole. She was dressed in a purple vest with a checkered shirt of green and brown. Kim was confused as to whom the woman was, but she assumed that she might be one of her audience members’ parents; when she had first begun her show-and-tell bit, she had worried a lot of guardians, but most people knew now that she was only trying to teach the kids. She was not sure what the woman’s problem was and why she was barking.
“Hello, Miss…?” Kim said, hoping that the woman would introduce herself and some child would claim her, so that the learning could continue.
“Hatchet. Miss Winifred Hatchet,” the woman stated as if her name was a weapon. She wondered what the young redhead was doing in the park when she was obviously a grown woman. She did not think that Kim had any business in a children’s park and the fact that she had children gathered around her seemed suspicious; at least it seemed suspicious to Winifred Hatchet.
“Well, I’m Kim,” the hero offered in exchange.
“What do you think you’re doing with these kids?” Miss Hatchet demanded to know.
“I’m just trying to show them Jake,” Kim answered while taking a step back from the woman with wing-like glasses. Miss Hatchet was in her face for some reason that the slim scientist could not figure out.
“Who or what is Jake?” the heavy-set woman continued on in a harsh tone.
“Um…excuse me, but who are you?” Kim asked in a puzzled tone. Was there some sort of park security that she missed on past days? She could understand that to make sure no one wandered off with the children or something, but she could not comprehend why the woman was jumping down her throat for no reason at all. She had not done anything wrong.
“Never mind that. Who’s Jake?” the middle-aged woman demanded to know, thinking that Jake could be some kind of code for who-knew-what nefarious things.
Kim shrugged and decided to just fish out Jake. It would probably get the woman off of her back and she could go back to her “class.” The kids all turned their attention back to the box because they were very antsy about seeing Jake. Kim went into the container and grabbed Jake very carefully. She began pulling Jake out and Miss Hatchet’s face began to fall when she saw just who Jake was, namely a ten-foot long snake. The children all cheered loudly as soon as Jake was out in the open.
“What do you think you’re doing? Bringing such a dangerous creature around these innocent children!” Miss Hatchet hollered at Kim. She knew that there was something suspicious about a grown woman being around those children and it turned out that the redhead was going to end up harming those children with that snake, she bet.
“Dangerous?” Kim echoed in a very perplexed tone. She did not know what dangerous creature the woman was going on about.
“Hey, lady, Big Jake isn’t dangerous,” a little boy corrected the middle-aged woman in a know-it-all tone.
“Right, Big Jake is a rat snake,” a little girl said as if she was reciting the sentence from a book.
“Rat snakes are often mistaken for cobras,” another child added in.
“But they are not poisonous,” another finished the short speech off.
“Right. Good work, guys,” Kim praised all of her little students with a smile.
Apparently, Kim’s little talks were really getting to the children. Maybe she really had inspired some future biologists. She hoped that she did because they certainly inspired her. Ever since she had started speaking with them, she found herself doing more and more talks to younger children, whether the speeches were organized or not. She was indeed a busy woman now and the funny thing was that she did not have a real job. In other words, she did not pick up a steady paycheck from anything that she did.
“Is there a problem over here?” an Asian woman inquired as she stepped over. She had noticed the angered expression on Miss Hatchet’s face.
“I don’t think so, Doctor Wong,” Kim answered as she turned to face the newcomer.
“Well, I noticed that you’re not giving your usual vibrant talks. My nephew was about to kill me for being late for the whole thing, swearing that he was going to miss all of the animals,” the Asian woman, Doctor Wong, replied.
Doctor Wong motioned down to her little nephew, who was already gone from her side. He had gone over to greet his friends and to find out what he missed. Kim glanced at him and then turned back to his aunt.
“It’s okay. I haven’t done much. The kids were just telling Miss Hatchet about Jake,” the redhead explained.
“Ah, Big Jake, always the crowd pleaser,” Doctor Wong commented and she looked at the aforementioned critter, which the handler was holding with care and security. While Jake might not be a venomous snake, he did try to bite if given the opportunity. But, the redhead had the serpent well under control.
“Yeah, I suppose after Big Jake, I should bring out Derek. That’s probably the only way to follow a ten-foot long snake. I have wondered why they only give the reptiles’ boy names,” Kim pondered aloud.
“So, Miss Hatchet, is it? Did you come to enjoy a very education lecture by the soon-to-be Doctor Possible?” Doctor Wong asked the middle-aged woman, turning to Miss Hatchet to size her up.
“Excuse me?” Miss Hatchet inquired in a bemused tone.
“Yes, about once a week, Kim comes out here and talks to the kids about her travels and the cold-blooded animals that she handles. She brings out the harmless ones, hoping to make the children comfortable with the animals. They seem to like her style of teaching. My nephew has already told everyone that he’s definitely going to be a herpetologist when he gets older. A herpetologist in a family of engineers. Sounds familiar,” Doctor Wong commented in an amused tone while glancing at Kim, who laughed a bit.
“The harmless ones?” Miss Hatchet echoed as if she did not understand.
“Well, of course, the harmless ones. She’d never bring dangerous animals around children. She’s much more responsible than that. Perhaps you should sit down and listen. It’s quite enjoyable,” Doctor Wong replied.
Kim was very thankful that Doctor Wong showed up. Miss Hatchet left her alone after the few more words from an older adult with a child in her company. The heavy-set woman left the area and though Kim was confused, she pressed on and got through her usual act with the children, who thoroughly enjoyed everything.
When Kim had first started her talks with the children in the park, it was actually because she had run into Doctor Wong. The good doctor had family in Go City and she visited them very often. The enthusiastic explorer started off telling the older woman what she had been up since Doctor Wong remembered who she was; it was hard to forget a person that saved her life, Doctor Wong always pointed out. Well, when Kim was done, the doctor’s nephew, who was in her company, wanted to keep hearing about how she worked with snakes and lizards and he called over some of his friends to hear her go on. After that, he had requested to see some of her snakes and the next thing she knew she was known as “the snake lady” in the park.
Once Kim was done with her lecture and show, she went to pack up the animals to get them back to the lab before someone had an aneurysm about the missing animals and the fact that she still had the car. She spoke with Doctor Wong while putting her things away because the woman seemed to like to check up on her. Kim bet it was because her father wanted information about what she was doing in Go City.
“So, what are you doing now, aside for working on your doctorate?” Doctor Wong asked the petite redhead.
“I’m going to finish working on my math masters, I’m taking chem. classes now and some other stuff. Not to mention, there’s my photography,” Kim answered.
“You’re going to be in school for the rest of your life,” the Asian woman commented with a laugh.
“Well, I do love math, so I just couldn’t give it up and a lot of things come up when studying reptiles that make me wish I had a deeper knowledge beyond biology. Besides, biology sort of leaks into chemistry. I mean, they are linked,” the younger woman replied. She actually just enjoyed science and she figured that she would just learn as much about it as she could.
“I suppose. Your father is still hoping that you join him at the space center one day,” the older woman pointed out.
“Well, unless you have a reptile wing, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” the redhead remarked. Yeah, she liked science, but she had picked her career and she was going to stick with it because she was loving it.
“You should do what makes you happy. I’m sure he’ll like to know you’re happy and okay since those are usually the first two things that he asks me after I get back to Middleton,” Doctor Wong informed the hero with a warm smile.
“Sorry that he bugs you. I don’t know why he asks so much,” Kim apologized with a sheepish look on her face.
“You’re his daughter. He worries,” Doctor Wong pointed out. She thought that it was adorable that Kim always apologized and always had a very ashamed expression to go along with it. She knew that the redhead was sincere every time that she did it, but it was still a fascinating and cute thing.
“Well, I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m doing the school thing, got a place to live, and I haven’t lost a limb yet,” Kim stated with a small smile.
“You don’t have children, Kim. You wouldn’t understand,” Doctor Wong countered.
Kim could only shrug because she did not have children and she did not know. She did not know why her father worried so much that he pestered Doctor Wong for information about her. She did not understand why her parents worried about her point blank. She was all right and her parents should know that; she could do anything, after all. So, she was all right.
Next time: Kim and Shego are introduced to a new annoyance that just won’t go away.