Scissor Link by Georgette Kaplan (good books to read for adults .TXT) 📕

Trek. Not Farscape. Not Stargate. Star Wars. If she’s not into that, what’s she into? What’s that leave? The Fast & the Furious?”

Well, Wendy had wanted to pay her dues. She just didn’t think dues had included making coffee runs because her boss insisted on Starbucks, even though she’d worked there in high school and honestly, the stuff in the Savin Aerospace break room was exactly the same. She could even do the little leaf in the foam if he wanted. No, that would be too much brownnosing.

She walked through the lobby on autopilot, appropriately enough, flashed her identification to the security guard and then swiped her pass for good measure, then headed to the elevator bank where she would swipe her pass again because if someone wanted to steal industrial secrets, by God, they would use the stairs to do it.

And it was there, waiting for her elevator, that Wendy saw the most beautiful woman in the world.

The most beautiful woman in the world was standing there, at the elevator beside Wendy’s, waiting for her car to arrive. And just by standing there,she appeared to Wendy more vibrant than her immediate surroundings; a whole different species from everyone else embroiled in the drab rat race. Her clothes seemed more fitted on her, a second skin: gray on white, a midi skirt bridged to black high heels by a length of stockinged calf that seemed shockingly naked—unarmored, really, especially in comparison to the black leather gloves that shrouded her hands.

But it was her face that nearly overwhelmed Wendy. The rest of her was all tight control, humming power in deliberate muscle, all sorts of things projecting and drawing in. And then her face was stone. Square, symmetrical, with a neat point of a chin, light pink lips, a pert nose and smooth cheekbones cutting into that white-gold tan of hers. And reigning over it, a pair of Wayfarer eyeglasses, black and sturdy and somehow timeless. More than anything, Wendy wanted to see what that cool, composed face would look like with the iota of remove that the glasses provided gone.

Wendy stared. How could she not, it being so important to her to find out how a person could look like that? People weren’t supposed to look like that,right? Maybe Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Angelina Jolie in Gia, but not just a person at Wendy’s job, where she worked, like, how was that fair?

The woman noticed she was being stared at. She looked at Wendy and Wendy looked away. Because staring at people was creepy and rude and wrong, even if you thought they might possibly be a Greek goddess seeking out the Chosen One. She felt the woman’s eyes on her; a quick, appraising scan. She really wanted to look back. She really wanted to make crazy-mad eye contact, even if it might cause spontaneous human combustion. She took deep breaths and wondered if the woman was still looking and hoped she wasn’t looking and hoped she was. Could she still feel herself being stared at? Was it just wishful thinking? Maybe she should flash the most beautiful woman in the world and see if she reacted. No Brain, bad idea, get it together or I’m punishing you with shots.

Her elevator arrived. Wendy stepped inside the glass capsule, pressed the button for her floor, and reminded herself that no one has a heart attack in their twenties. It was passé. The elevator car rose, climbing steadily up the building’s atrium, and Wendy casually looked around as if that hanging scale-model F-14 that she passed every day could take her mind off possibly seeing a Terminator (indeed, a Terminatrix) built to be able to both seduce and destroy any human resistance.

And Wendy saw the most beautiful woman in the world again, in the elevator beside her, and if seeing the most beautiful woman in the world once was shocking, twice in one day was getting into Die Hard sequel territory. How many times could one man run afoul of independent gangs of terrorists? How many times could Wendy abruptly want to volunteer for sex slave duty?

Wendy was not an unintelligent woman. She wasn’t MacGyver or Machiavelli, either. While a quick-thinker, she was more likely to come up with the proper tip in a few seconds than any sort of master plan. So Wendy was a little proud of herself for coming up with this scheme: she would get out her phone and call someone as she looked at the most beautiful woman in the world.

She called Tina Thuy, whose number was labeled BFF in her phone.

“I am so gay,” she said, right off the bat. “Holy shit, am I gay. I am just… I’m even gayer than previously expected. I didn’t know my gay could go that high, but it can, and it has.”

“Good for you.” Tina punctuated her reply with a yawn. Working from home meant she didn’t have to know if time had letters other than P.M. “Are you coming out again? Do people do that? Like a second wedding?”

“No, I’m just really fucking gay.”

“Because if you can come out again, don’t throw anything at the clown this time, he meant well—”

“I’m not coming out again! But I feel like I should, because if I was at a hundred percent gay before, now I’m at two hundred percent!”

“What, did Donald Trump make a pass at you?”

Safely on her phone, Wendy looked over into the other elevator. It was still rising with hers, and the most beautiful woman in the world was still the most beautiful woman in the world. The way she stood, God,all power and control and just a little slinky, not at all like a man but maybe kind of macho? It was the way Xena would stand. Or the way a female director of the FBI would stand as she gave orders to Agent Scully—that was a happy thought.

“I’m looking at a woman who is, like, unfairly sexy. She’s overloading my gay circuitry.