Defective - A Psychopath's Tale

Chapter 3 - Ulterior Motives

Though it was Sheila's clothes she was going through, she kept me busy in asking my advice and opinion of whether or not she should bring various outfits along. This made doing any research on up coming possible jobs and finishing up what I needed to for my last one rather impossible.

It was nice to see how excited she was and how happy my surprise made her. I found out she hadn't been on a vacation since college, with her parents. My birth parents never took vacations. There simply wasn't enough money to afford one. The only time I traveled was with my dad to some city where he would use me as part of his grift. My uncle never took a vacation while I was with the family. My aunt took myself and the few remaining kids places once in a while. But I wasn't as privileged as her own kids. There were 'family only' trips, usually around holidays, where the others traveled with their mother while I stayed at the boarding school. Her own kids went to private schools too, but only I went to a boarding school.

"Ham and potatoes?" Sheila asked when she finally slowed from her whirlwind attack on her wardrobe and started thinking about dinner and had taken to lurking in the kitchen.

I wriggled my nose at the thought. I wasn't a big fan of ham to begin with, and I'd just had it at the little diner at the even smaller air terminal before boarding my linking flight to New Shire. It was either that or the seafood casserole. Always avoid seafood casserole, even if it's homemade!

"Got any steaks? A steak, baked spud and some of that green miniature tree stuff sounds good." I countered.

Sheila stopped her kitchen activity and slowly poked her head around from the entry into the kitchen.

"Green miniature tree stuff... could you possibly mean broccoli? Or would you like a salad made with hazelnut bush leaves?" She gave a cocky smile when she asked this. She knew what I meant.

"No!" I ejected, I'd play along. "I mean poison ivy with dandelion greens and grub worms."

"Poison ivy and dandelion greens, got it." Sheila retorted then pulled her head back and went to work again in the kitchen.

"Medium rare or rare this time?" She called out from the depths of the kitchen.

Now I had a decision to make. It wasn't so much what I wanted in a steak so much as Sheila's ability to cook the steak to the proper level of cooked-ness. Her rare usually turned out medium rare, and her medium rare was, well, just plain overcooked in my book. Unless of course she undercooked the meat, then no matter how I requested it, the steak was seared on both sides and raw the rest of the way, not quite cooked to normal rare.

My pondering this conundrum must have taken longer than I'd realized. Sheila had appeared in the doorway and was staring at me with her hands on her hips and elbows faired out with her 'what's taking so long it was a simple damn question' look on her face.

"Rare Snuggle Bunny." I answered with a smile.

"Rare." She snipped as she raised her hands with her palms up near her ears. "Now was that so hard?" She clicked at me then dropped her arms, turned fast and disappeared back into the kitchen.

It was feeling like we were an old married couple around here; we both sure had been acting that way. Like a well adjusted married couple that had been together some thirty years that got along great and played off each others personality. We were very similar in many ways, with the same attitudes and mannerisms. At times though, with her flashing razor edged eyes and the way she'd look at me when a touch vexed, she reminded me of the boss. She had that same 'look right through you' look that he had at times. I commented on that once and Sheila said that it was the German in her. I nodded in agreement. The German girls I'd been with, most seemed to have that same look ability too.