Molting
I swear if Brittany has me carry all of those suitcases back down, I will ask for a transfer. I do not care how busy Freddy is.
The apartment Brittany has in New York is impressive. For a room she rents out to others, she definitely shows her wealth, if nothing else. A lot of paintings that consist of nothing but color; surrealist paintings that I get what it is depicting, but I still have to wonder, why? Some odd clock that is telling the time, but looks like a carjack bolted to a wall.
I had to stand up to actually get a proper look at the time while I was laying down. Ms. DeBoin explained to me the meaning of the piece.
That’s by design! It is supposed to look like that! It symbolizes time being a difficult thing to keep track of, yet for all the time zones we find a way to keep track of it.
I’m starting to think she just bought a confusing looking clock and has to make up a justification for why she bought it.
Her TV looks like it is the most recent and high resolution version of the flat-screen. Aside from the bottom bar with the TV logo, the TV has no frame. I have not watched anything yet, but I’m curious if it will have an odd aspect ratio.
Looking at the media shelf she has on the sides of the TV, it is surprisingly small for someone who tries to claim she is as media influenced as she is. I cannot see the full spines as the frame covers a third of it, but I see from some of the spines.
Eyes Without A Face which made sense given the poster she has, Phantom of the Pa, Kino’s Journey, Visions of Escafl, Revolutionary Girl Ut, Bound and finally Hedwig and the Angry. This only took up about half of the shelf space for her film collection.
Her music collection is the polar opposite. Her shelves are full nearly to the brim aside from the bottom two shelves. I have not even heard of a lot of the bands on here and it would take hours to go through them all. I know she is going to make me listen to something later.
“Lenny! I need your help!”
I bolt up from the couch. The limited ways she could be hurt is low, but still, I have to make sure she is okay. Plus, it sounds like she is whining over something.
Upon opening the door, I see Brittany in a towel, but more importantly something is around her eye. Her eye looks almost swollen, a layer of clear skin clasping on her eyeball. It seems impossible for her to see out of. It looks almost merged to her eye. I have never seen anything like this. If this blinds her I will be in deep trouble. “We need to get to a hospital!” I grab her arm but she breaks my grip.
“No! We don’t have to go! This is just a bad molt. I just need you to do me a favor.” Reaching over to her bathroom sink, cosmetics spilled into, she hands me a pair of flat headed tweezers. “I just need you to pull off the skin using these tweezers.”
Skin?! That’s what this is? Her eyes molt? Is this due to that surgery that her father did to her? “Hold on! Why can’t you do it?!”
“Every time I get the tweezers near my eyeball I get shaky and nervous. Now, please pull the center of my eye with the tweezers!”
Oh she gets nervous? What about me? Brittany is trusting me with her eye. If I screw up I could blind her. I cannot feel her pain, nor do I have any empath magic that could help.
Tenderly, I move the tweezers towards the slit in the molting skin. I figured it would be best to start from the corner so it would come cleanly off. Hopefully. My hand is stable due to my bio organic enhancements, but my heart is beating out of my chest. Going for the eyes is something I myself get nervous over. The mere idea of something piercing and cutting an eye shakes me to my core. I have never done this before. The most I have ever done was when I tried to remove my own contacts when I was 11.
Wait. Like contacts! I place the tweezers back on the counter. Brittany fidgets nervously, hearing what I did. “Len. What are you doing?”
“Just trust me on this.” I turn on the sink and wash my hands. From the mirror I can see Brittany opening her available eye to see what I am doing. She’s shaking, likely nervous as she does not know what to do. After barely drying my hands, I grab the good side of her face from her chin, so I can guide her head. The one good eye is dilating, meaning I need to keep this quick. With my other hand, I lightly scrape my middle finger against her eyeball.
I feel the wet clump of skin attach to my finger, slimy though it may be. I tenderly continued until the skin clasped around my finger. I look at her eyes and it looks like there is no damage. A bit red, watery and swollen, but it seems like she can see. My relief gave way to disgust once I realized I still had the skin. It feels slimy, but there was clearly texture. It felt like I was holding wet snake skin boots. Instinctively I flick it off into the toilet. Brittany gives me a horrified look.
“Were you raised in a barn!? Dammit, I cannot sell it now?”
Sell? She sells her skin sheds? I know that was a practice that dragons could do to make some quick money. But would anyone take some skin molts from a human? Wait, Brittany looks human again. I know her father performed extensive surgery on her to look human, so why did she still molt?
“I thought your father got all of your skin replaced. I just thought the scales under your eyes were just makeup.” Figured any time is as good as any to escort her back to the living room, but she struts past me doing that damned walk that makes her look like a model.
The pop star just shakes her head at me and laughs. “My father is a skin and muscle surgeon. He is not comfortable doing any work on eyes, teeth or ears.” She lifts her hair to reveal something I had never noticed with her. Instead of human, or even animal ears like you would find on a cambion, there were little holes on the side of her head. From what I can see, they were also molting, with whitish skin. “It is also why I keep my hair in this style at all times, so no one can see my ears. It’s…not something I like showing. The fact you assumed the scales under my eyes were make-up makes me feel better.”
For the first time since I took this job, Brittany is showing some vulnerability with me. Not a lot, but this is something. For all of her confidence over her new body she still has points of insecurity for her, which at least was something I should keep in mind. I hide one of my ears in my hands, gentle rubbing them.
“In fact, let me show you something,” Brittany went back to the bathroom. I hear something unzip, then I hear her footsteps again. I see a bag of skin? The contents of the bag looked like plastic inside another plastic bag. Except once I get one more good look at it, it’s scaly skin!
“To sell them to a select group of people. I thought we were on the same page with that.” Brittany is using that sing-song tone from when we were driving up. “I sell them to people within my network. Connections with my production team, my dad. People suspect I shed to varying degrees since I went public with both my transition and my reversion into a human. I myself just do not like looking at them.”
“I know you aim to sell it. Just nasty is all,” something about what she said stood out. Having a network of someone with her status. "Is one of those people in New York?”
Brittany nods. “Agnes Utgar-Hagen is my main doctor. I give her clumps of my skin for study and depending on how much skin clumps I give her, I can get 40 dollars for every 6 inches.”
40 dollars? That still mattered to a millionaire? I just shrug. Whatever she wants to do with her skin is up to her. “You know what. I don’t even want to hear more than that. This topic is getting too gross for me.” If she kept going, I can only imagine what she will mention. What if she sells other excrement to some weirdo who needs it for 'magical studies'?
“True true~! By the way,” Brittany approaches me meekly, reaching her hand out to try and grab my hand, only to stop herself. “May I see your hands please?” My hands? I’m grateful for the topic change, but why my hands? A better description of them is closer to claws, so says Freddy.
“Your hands just feel nice. I assumed under your energy claws they would be gnarled and gross, but you take good care of your hands. I just want to look at them again.”
Oh my god! Why is she doing this? She’s probably lying about finding my hands feeling soft. This is just her trying to mess with me again. My guess, she wants to get a look at as many things with my body she can mock. If she thinks that I don’t know her reputation as a shit stirrer, she will be in for a rude awakening.
“N-no Ms. DeBoin! I believe that is not necessary. I believe I have helped you so I will leave you to get…dressed.” Oh. Right. Brittany is in a towel. Needing to get out of there, I shut her door as fast as I could without slamming it. I really hope she does not report this to Freddy.
Brittany is laughing as she goes back to the bathroom. I just walk back to the couch and slump down. I’m already exhausted with having to deal with her antics. It’s not even a week yet. This is going to be a long job.