Free Scary Package by Mara Ismine

A Scary Package
    By Mara Ismine
    To all the wonderful people at the office of Letters and Light who organize the creative mayhem of NaNoWriMo.
    My phone rang, or rather my phone vibrated in my pocket. Fortunately there was no-one at the desk at the time. I slipped into the staff office to answer it.
    I had resisted getting a cell phone; it was bad enough being disturbed by landlines, students and door bells. Why would I want to carry a phone everywhere so that I could be annoyed even more often?
    Tan had other ideas. He’d gotten me a cell phone. I had accepted the stupid thing on the understanding that only he had the number, and he did not disclose it to anyone. In fact, he didn’t tell anyone that I even had the wretched thing. I did not want Mom to be able to ring me anytime she took the fancy. She would expect me to answer or something.
    Tan had set up the infernal device for me, according to my strict instructions. It would not ring. Ever. He had an evil smirk when he set it to vibrate and asked which side I dressed, as if he didn’t already know, before slipping it into my pants pocket. I realized why when he rang me a moment later.
    The next week had been sheer hell. Tan rang me every few minutes; the vibration produced an instant and visible reaction, no matter where I was or what I was doing. If I didn’t answer immediately the wretched thing just kept going, the vibration getting more pronounced the longer I tried to ignore it. It wasn’t only the vibration that got more pronounced, either.
    Tan claimed that my reaction was more intense than normal. It should feel pleasant, he said, but not quite that pleasant. I didn’t tell him that I suspected that the reaction didn’t have that much to do with the vibration, which, although pleasant, wasn’t that intense. I suspected that my reaction was more to do with knowing that it was Tan calling me. It was a reminder that he really was mine now, and all the ways we had been celebrating that fact.
    After an intense discussion about him ringing me from the other end of the couch when I was reading, we agreed that he wouldn’t ring me at work, except for important things, and I wouldn’t keep the phone in my pocket at home. I only had to threaten to castrate him twice before we came to the agreement.
    “What?” I snapped into the phone as I shut the office door. I could keep an eye on the desk through the top half of the door, as it was plain glass, and the bottom half preserved my modesty adequately as there was no one else in the office at the moment.
    “Sorry, Asa. I had to call.”
    Tan’s voice didn’t sound particularly sorry, but he did sound nervous. Not many things made Tan nervous. In fact, right then, I couldn’t think of anything that made him nervous.
    “Why?” I asked, reining in my impatience.
    “We’ve got a scary package.”
    “We?” Our relationship wasn’t secret, exactly. I just wasn’t comfortable announcing it to all and sundry. The same way I wasn’t comfortable giving people my address or phone number. To be honest I was more comfortable revealing our relationship than my address or phone number. People could irritate you at home with that sort of information.
    “Yes, it’s addressed to both of us here at your apartment.”
    “And it’s scary?” Who would send us a scary package at my apartment? Had one of my idiot fan club turned into a stalker?
    “It is pink.” Tan said slowly and distinctly. I could almost hear periods between the words.
    “Oh?” A pink scary package? Addressed to both of us? I had a sinking sensation in my gut.
    “It has hearts all over it.”
    “Oh.” Pink? Hearts? Us? The sinking sensation was rock hard certainty now.
    “It’s from your Mom.”
    “Oh.” I groaned in horror. Suspicion confirmed. The date suddenly became horribly significant.
    “It’s scary.”
    “Yes!” I agreed fervently. Anything from Mom was scary. A pink parcel with hearts on it addressed to both of us in February