Annie CXIX: Leditor

(Chronological index: After Ray's graduation, before meeting Denise)

"Master?”

Ray turned his head but didn't look away from the steaks on the grill. “Yes, Annie?”

“Is love blind?”

“Yes, Annie, the widely accepted wisdom is that love is blind. It’s self evident. I love you and hardly notice your-“

“But what I’m asking,” she said quickly, “is why lingerie is so popular?"

“I think that would be self-evident." He flipped the meat and nodded happily. "Men see-“

“Yeah. Men see. Love is blind, but men see a teddy or a garter and their heart swells in loving pitter pat.” She paused in her rant to note that her master was staring off into the distance. “Ray?”

“Oh, I was just thinking of Braille lingerie,” he said dreamily. She barked a laugh.

“Master? I was in the room with you and Deliah, you and the Bebeast, you and Tracey... You approach all lingerie as if it sported Braille messages.”

“I suppose I do,” he said. “Darn. I thought we were going to get rich.”

“YOU would get rich. I’d still have my chocolate rationed.”

“Speaking of which,” he said. Her eyes widened. “Do you want part of one steak or chocolate?"

"I have to choose?"

"Well, you don't HAVE to," he said. "You can let me decide."

“Bastard.”

--------------

"Ray, does power corrupt?"

Ray turned down the car radio. "Yes, Annie, that's the accepted claim."

"So absolute power corrupts absolutely?"

"Yes. That would follow."

"Then... absolute impotence would make you absolutely pure."

Ray slowed down a bit and glanced over at his sylph. "Are you saying... What are you saying?"

"Oh, nothing about your potency, puissant master," she said airly. "Your masculinity is fine. It's just... Sylphs have no power, so we're pretty pure. I think sylphs should be used as advisors in major political offices, because we're so powerless."

"That would give you a degree of power, though," he pointed out.

"Oh." She thought for a moment. "Then... Then that would make us equals to humans! I'd settle for that!"

"Uh huh," he muttered, speeding up and changing lanes.

--------------

"Master?"

Something in the tone alerted Ray that his pet was about to ask an 'imponderable' question. He didn't look up from the wizard's adventures with the LED fairy.

"Yes?"

"Where does the white go when snow melts?"

"I'm from Florida, Annie, I have no experience with snow."

"Oh. Well, it's just that white clouds drop white snow and when it melts it's clear water. Where'd the white go?"

"Back to the cloud, probably." He turned the page, concentrating on little Ellidee's attempts to communicate by flashing her red glow on and off.

"But how? How is it bound to the snow in the first place?"

"White clouds also drop clear raindrops," he said. "And grey clouds drop white hail."

"Oh. Ooooooh." He glanced up to see her staring into space thoughtfully.

No good can come from that, he thought. He marked his place in the book and scooped up the sylph. She squealed and kicked in surprise,

"No! No! I nearly had it! I had it!" Her protests slowed as he uncovered her belly and kissed it with a wet smack. "Noooo," she moaned.

He rolled her face down on his palm and began to apply a back rub, gently pulling her shorts down and her shirt up. "Philosophy or attention?" he asked.

"You missed a spot," she sighed.

He took that as both an answer and a challenge and applied himself to both.

-------

"Ray? Is there another word for 'synonym?' Do you know?"

"You could write 'antonym' and indicate a NOT function, I suppose."

"Oh, why do I even talk to you?" she snorted.

He placed her down on the soap tray and made a big deal about searching. "Because there's no one else in the shower?"

"You just have all the answers, don't you?"

"Jealousy ill becomes you, Annie."

"Oh, bite me," she said. He opened his mouth and reached for her. She screamed.

---------

Ray's coworker, Nancy, refused to date anyone at the company because it could lead to emotional tangles.

He considered that fact as he sat across the table from Suzanne, the sixth woman Nancy had set him up with, her third relative.

He started to wonder if the no-dating policy was to protect Nancy's heart, or to not interfere with her matchmaking.

Suzanne was fun, if a little intense. She spent a lot of time talking about her cat, showing wallet photos to Ray and Annie.

Annie had looked up at him, stricken, but he'd silently assured her they'd avoid taking the sylph to a kitty-cat's lair. No matter how well the date went...

The dinner at the Italian restaurant was winding to a close and they discussed getting a dessert.

"Oh, no," Suzanne said. "I'm all full up in my little tummy."

"Me, too," Annie agreed. "And isn't that odd?"

"Why?"

"We both had pasta." Annie had wrestled noodles off of Ray's plate and snagged one of his shrimp. It was a sign of his love for his sylph that he let her have it.

"Yeah....?" Suzanne agreed.

"And we both had antipasta," Annie explained. Ray groaned. "You'd think the pasta and the antipasta would annihilate each other in the stomach!"

"Check!" Ray called to their waiter.

"That's right...." Suzanne said slowly. "Ray, why doesn't pasta and antipasta cancel each other out?"

"Because they're two separate dishes," Ray said. They have to be. If they were served on the same dish, then the table would melt."

She nodded, apparently satisfied with his answer. He wondered if she was playing along with him and his sylph... Or if she was naturally blonde.

------

Ray didn’t know what he was keying off of. But right after they got home he poured each of them a glass of Coke and carried Annie to the table. There he sat back and asked, "What?"

"How do they make something idiot-proof?" she asked. "Is there testing?" She started pacing along the placemat. "They'd need a lot of idiots. Outwitting one or two idiots wouldn't be enough, would it? You'd need to establish some level of idiocy that has to be defeated before we can say, yes. Yes, this is idiot-proof."

"Would you," he asked, "measure that in units of Schlaflies?"

"Falwells," she said with a hand wave, still pacing. "Although," she said, pausing, "it might be better to have male and female idiocy ratings. For the differences?"

"Not blondes and brunettes?"

She paused to glare at him, then went on walking. "Men are idiots in different ways from women. Blondes idiots are idiots in the same way, but to different degrees."

"Anyway, idiot-proofing?" he asked.

"Well, there's just so many different ways to idiot."

"It's not a verb."

"Everything's a verb," she said. "You stomach problems, like being elbowed in the gut. Foot the bill for the podiatrist. You eye the pretty optometrist."

"Hey, SHE flirted with me first!"

"Please, she complimented your eyes because they're free of astigmatism, not because she wanted to gaze into them over a bottle of wine."

"You... don't know that," he said. Then smiled and finished, "He said weakly."

"Anyway," she said. "I thought we could look into the idiot-proofing testing. You could get work."

"I believe," he said slowly, "that questioning my intellectual prowess is against the Agreement." He reached for her.

"I meant as a control!" she said quickly. "For the control group! Double blind studies! You'd be the not idiot! PLEASE DON'T DROP ME IN THE COKE!"

----------

And then, suddenly, after weeks of philosophical questions based largely on misconstruing words and phrases, she stopped asking.

"It was weird," Ray told Chipper. "But now she just talks about that cartoon show."

"I don't watch Saturday Morning TV."

"No, no, the Simpsons."

"Oh, that. I don't bother. Cartoons don't do well in prime time."

"Maybe. Anyway, she talks about TV and cadges backrubs and stays home."

"That's right," Chipper said. "Haven't see Queen Anne in a while. You leave her home?"

"She asks to stay home."

"So, you're saying she's downloading porn?"

"No," Ray chuckled. "She doesn't know my internet password." Chipper laughed, Ray looked at him in confusion.

Chipper stopped. "Oh. You were serious?" Then he laughed harder.

"What's so funny?" Ray asked.

"Annie?. The other half of your personality? Doesn't know your password?"

Ray rubbed his chin. "Maybe I should check my Compuserve history..."

-------

"Ha!" Annie snarled from his shoulder. "I know as much about computers as you do, o Master. Remember? Every class you had your personal analog assistant in your pocket."

"So, you're saying you're smart enough to figure out my password."

"And smart enough to remove all signs of my surfing, if that was what I was doing."

"But not smart enough to clean the keyboard and erase footprints in the dust," he drawled.

"Nice try," she said without looking. "But you clean your keyboard more often than you do the dishes."

"Okay," he said. He spun around and turned on the TV.

She curled up against his collar. "Simpsons are on," she said quietly.

-----------

He was at work again when it all clicked. He passed Joe's desk and the man was laughing while reading the paper.

"Hey, Ray, you read the letters to the editor?"

"Not usually," he replied.

"Well, get this guy. Writes in about once a week. I love his stuff."

"Who?"

"Oh, he has various names, but one great style. Today?" Joe tapped thepaper. "He's going on about special sylph advisors. Says power corrupts, but sylphs are so powerless they're impotent." He laughed again. "Powerless sylphs? Guess this guy never met Annie, huh?"

"Oh, God," Ray muttered.

Two weeks after that, they were at the folks' place for dinner. Mom served her lasagna and Annie was in Eighth Heaven.

"So," Dad asked, "why did the editors stop printing your letters, Annie?"

"Because internet access at Ray's place involves turning a switch that outweighs me," she replied instantly.

"Aw," Mom said. "I really liked those. Especially once I figured out they were yours."

"And no one mentioned my sylph was running my phone bill up and my internet hours down?" Ray asked.

"Well," Dad said, "we figured you thought they were funny, too."

"Obviously," Mom said. "Half of each letter sounds like something you'd say."

Ray glared at his sylph for a moment. She chewed, swallowed and sipped at her wine, all while maintaining eye contact with her Master.

"Really?" she asked. "You're going to get me to feel guilt while eating Lasagna?"

"Four-cheese, two meat, seven layer depth-charge lasagna," Dad pointed out. "That's like, sacred."

"Thank you!" Mom said.

"No, thank you!" Annie corrected. Ray fumed, but silently and completely without effect.

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