Paul woke up without a hangover, which was weird because he had been drinking last night.
Even weirder was that when he looked at his phone for the time, he saw that it was just five minutes before seven am, when he had set his alarm.
The peak part of this strange morning was that he was awake, alert, and interested in getting out of bed.
"Something is definitely wrong with me." The thought ran through his head as he lay there.
An attempt at sitting up ended in a definite twinge in his lower back. Eye twitching, Paul rolled to his side and swung his feet off the edge. He was then able to use his arms to push himself up to sitting. A few deep preparatory breaths later, he got his legs underneath him and was able to stand up. This was a manageable amount of pain.
Rubbing his lower back as it protested being used, he shuffled to the kitchen and put on the coffee. While that was percolating, the shuffle continued all the way to the bathroom where certain necessary biological functions took place.
Now feeling refreshed and lighter, the coffee was ready. A cup was poured into his second favourite, and clean, mug. It was topped off with milk to give it a distinctly brown instead of black colour. The steam wafting up out of the cup gave the entire studio apartment the delightful scent of roasted beans.
Paul sipped at his beverage with a contented smile. This was one of the best mornings he had ever experienced yet. He hadn't needed his alarm. The coffee tasted amazing. He was going to be on time for work.
Work, that word twisted in his gut. A fresh wave of apprehension rolling over him as he recalled why he didn't particularly want to go to work today. There would be a few awkward moments, and the dreaded 'words' that Angela had promised.
Paul knew that he'd fucked up yesterday. Sure they'd been in the 'throes of passion' so to speak, but that doesn't excuse things. He really should have discussed things first with her, should have spared a moment to get condoms, anything really.
But what's done is done. He sighed as he sipped his coffee. It would soon be time to face the music, own up to it, and generally get ready to have his butt handed to him. Come whatever may, at least he wasn't dead.
Well, not physically dead. Being metaphorically dead was not out of the question. A dozen different scenarios flitted through his mind about what could happen. Paternity tests, child support, shot gun marriage, maybe even it's never mentioned again and he gets to go on with life as if it never happened.
That last daydream got immediately rejected for ones that were slightly more grounded in reality. Paul's coffee was finished and it was time to finally get ready for the work day. Clothes would be a good start.
Work demanded close toe shoes, a lab coat, and the required minimal safety equipment of gloves and goggles, but the remaining pants and shirt were up to him. So to make things easy on himself, and to allow for easy freedom of movement if he needed to run, he decided on some loose jeans and a long sleeve shirt.
Properly dressed, Paul gave himself the once over. He looked presentable, well put together, and fully in charge of his faculties. The exact right balance between responsible and forgivable for his mistakes.
With nothing else left to procrastinate with, and not enough time left before work to do any more procrastinating with, He squared his shoulders and stepped out into the hall to greet the day.
Then immediately rushed back in to grab his lunch from the fridge.
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The lab, in its unassuming building, seemed to take on a sinister shade in Paul's eyes. It loomed over head like some kind of villains lair. He walked up to the front door with minutes to spare before eight. A few steps up to the door, Hand reaching out to push...
"Hey."
A woman as large as Angela had no right being as invisible as she was.
"Gah!" Paul's heart shot up into his throat as he startled in place. Clutching at his chest, he spun in place to look at where she had been hiding. In plain sight. Leaned up against the building.
"Walking on autopilot huh?" She pushed off from against the wall and joined him on the step.
"I was just... focused is all." He rested his hand on the door but hesitated to push it open. "Should we... talk out here?"
"Pffffft no." Angela used her shoulder and bulk to shove the glass door open and stepped into the vestibule.
"Maybe this was a good thing?" Paul thought as he followed her in. She didn't want privacy. Or maybe she didn't need privacy? Could be planning on using coded language such that anyone listening in doesn't know what we're talking about.
He followed her, still a bundle of nerves, through the reception area. Tapped his badge to clock in to work. Then they stepped into the changing room.
As they both were grabbing goggles and gloves, Paul made another attempt. "So about yesterday..."
He was pointedly ignored. Angela simply moved to the peg board and read a piece of paper. "We're in lab three today."
"Aha! She wants to keep things professional." Another hopeful thought. Paul just nodded in response to her statement, not having any particular opinion on lab three.
"Looks like an easy job today." She tapped the paper. "A bunch of cleaning and prep work."
"Cleaning test tubes?" He couldn't help himself. "Cleaning MY..."
"NO!" Angela shouted as she spun. Her words a bit louder than perhaps she intended. "None of that. You shut up." She had levelled a finger pointed directly towards Paul's nose.
Paul could see that she looked furious. So maybe all his hopeful thoughts from before were basically worthless. The threat of workplace violence was probably not likely. But if violence was going to happen, there wouldn't be anyone to save him.
So, to save his own skin, he only nodded once again. Mutely he followed after the hulking form of Angela as she made her way down the hall towards lab number three. She badged herself in and they both made their way inside.
The lab itself was one of the more generic setups. A couple of fume hoods, gas supply for the Bunsen burners, the standard harsh overhead lighting, and plenty of cupboards for glassware. Any specialized equipment and materials would need to be brought in from either storage or another lab.
The door closed behind them and Angela let out a sigh of relief. "Uggghhhhh, this sucks." She started rubbing her temples as she moved over to one of the stools to sit.
"I'm sorry." Paul grabbed his own stool, a respectable distance away and also out of arms reach. "For everything."
"What?" She looked up. "Oh, right, sorry, different thing. Side effects." She waved her hand.
"They're bad?"
"Headache, nausea, just general suckage, but ya know what?" Angela leaned an elbow on the table.
"What?"
"Beats having a kid in university." Her free hand snapped and pointed at Paul.
"Ah ha ha ha! Yes!" Paul's laugh was forced.
"OK, so we got a lot of work to do today." She sat up straighter.
"Yes, lots of glassware to wash."
"What? No. Fuck the glassware." She looked at him as if he were an idiot. "That's just busy work for safety certs. The glass in here is so clean we could eat off it. What we're going to do is talk about what happened..."
Paul cringed. This was it, this was 'the talk' and all of its consequences.
"...and why it happened."
This was a new angle for things to take.
"So we need to think up our hypothesis, do some of the prior reading, design a few experiments, and go from there." She pulled out a notebook, very similar to the ones she used for schoolwork, and opened it to a blank page.
Paul wasn't sure what to say to all of this. He had been expecting some tongue lashing of the non fun variety. Not... whatever this is.
"OK, so, let's start at the beginning. What exactly happened with the first odd event?" Angela clicked her pen, ready to write.
"The first odd event?"
"I'm presuming that something similar to what happened to me, happened to that business lady you mentioned." She was already making some notes. "So recap it for me. Spare no details."
Paul took a deep breath. "Right, OK. So you were there for the accident. I went home drank some tea."
"What tea?"
He'd just started and was already getting interrupted. "Orange Pekoe. Regular grocery store stuff, not expensive."
"Noted, continue."
"After drinking the tea, I got cleaned up. Regular shower, hot water, bar soap, shampoo, conditioner." He paused.
"You're attention to detail is appreciated." Angela didn't look up from her notebook. "And the fact that you don't have the shampoo and conditioner as an 'all in one' is a credit to our profession."
"Well yeah, they're two separate chemicals with different purposes. If they were mixed..."
"Taaaaanngents." She sang. "Get on with it."
"Ah, yes. So after getting cleaned up I made my way to Hanrahan's. Sat at the bar, talked with Bill, ordered the shepherds pie, ordered a lager. Then that woman, Dana, walked in. We talked for a bit, didn't really hit it off, things then took a turn."
"What were you talking about when things, as you say, took a turn." This was what Angela broke her concentration on the notes for.
"Well I suggested a midnight rendezvous because she was celebrating." Paul re-enacted the movements of that night, shoulder shimmy and everything. "She insinuated that I might have better luck with some poultry. I had a retort. Then we went to the bathroom together."
"The bathroom activity?" Angela had her head cocked to the side.
With as much embarrassment as was possible for Paul. "Blowjob."
"So your retort was so witty, so charming, that this woman was enthralled into performing oral sex on you?" She placed her pen down and crossed her arms.
"Hey now, it was a good one!" He was affronted.
"I doubt it."
"She said I would only get with chickens, and I responded with suck my cock a doodle do."
The arms that Angela had crossed were already a perfect compliment to the scowl that her face was forming into. "The same thing you said to me, yesterday, at lunch, in the lunch room." It for sure wasn't a question.
"Uhhhhhh." Paul froze. "Miniature experiment?"
She decided it wasn't worth it and instead took a calming breath before picking up the pen once more. "Right so we got a number of things we could investigate here." Her pen pointed at a few places on the page. "Setting, both were places where people were eating. The food, you both had something. Something you said, both times you were talking."
"I don't think a pub and the lunch room share much similarities."
