Liar, Liar, Loins on Fire

With Rae chipping in a bit to get my work done, that leaves me with a tiny bit of extra free time. That should be enough to swing by and pick up Luck, assuming I can actually find her. I struggled to actually locate her the last time she left my side in the office, but hopefully this time I'll be able to manage. I start looking around, poking my head into various rooms such as conference spaces and supply closets, but it isn't long before my search is interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Kyle? What the hell are you doing? You should be at your desk working."

I spin around to see Carmen standing behind me, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Oh, Ms. Montalvo. Good morning," I greet awkwardly. "You wouldn't happen to have seen Luck anywhere, would you? We kind of got... uh... separated."

"You mean that woman you brought with you yesterday because you're not competent enough to do your own work? No. I haven't," Carmen replies. Okay, but she didn't have to be so rude about it... "Are you telling me that she's been your assistant for less than two days and you've already lost her?"

Shit. It does sound pretty bad when she phrases it that way. I probably shouldn't have said anything in the first place. Carmen is already on my case all the time. She didn't need more reasons to hate my guts.

"I didn't lose her," I try to explain. Just then, an idea comes to me. "She's actually with Audrey right now. She wanted to get to know her better so she could figure out the best way to help me."

Technically, everything I just said was the truth. I just left out a few important details. Generally speaking, it's not a good idea to try and deceive a woman who's entire life centers around deceiving others, so hopefully this way, she won't get too suspicious.

"Uh huh..." Carmen hums as she scans my face. "Kyle, why don't we step into my office for a second?"

Uh oh. Nothing good comes from being asked to "step inside the boss's office." Especially when that boss is Carmen Montalvo. Was she really able to see through me that easily? I thought I did a good job keeping it together just then.

Before I have a chance to respond, Carmen turns around and begins walking towards her office. She doesn't even look back, fully expecting me to follow behind her. Which is basically my only option. As I stay a few paces behind her, I can't help but wonder something: yesterday, Luck made it pretty clear that in addition to "fixing" Rae (which you could debate if she really did or not), she was also going to make alterations to Carmen and my mother Melinda. Unlike with Luck's previous two subjects, being Alana and Rae, I can't tell any visible difference in Carmen's appearance. I guess that means Luck didn't see anything wrong with the Latina's body. But that just begs the question: what did she do?

Since the building is so small, I don't have much time to think before I'm sitting across from Carmen at her desk. I try my best to remain calm, reminding myself that if anything goes south, I could probably just call Luck and have her tag in. But I'd rather not do that if I don't have to, so for now, let's see if I can get through this on my own.

"So... any idea why I might have asked you to come in here?" Carmen poses.

Why do people always ask those kind of questions? Are they hoping that asking something like that will make a person admit to something? How should I know what you're mad about? I kind of sounds like you don't know...

Actually, this is really not the time for that discussion. Things kind of got away from me for a second there, I'll admit. I should probably stop ranting and stay focused...

"Not really," I admit.

"We really need to discuss the quality of your work around here. You haven't exactly been living up to the standards I expect from my employees," Carmen explains.

"What? But I completely reorganized the storage room yesterday. It's in better shape now than it's ever been in since I started working here," I argue.

"But before that, it was in the worst shape it had ever been in. And do you know who's fault that is?"

"Rae's." That's what I want to say. But I know better than to do that, so I just keep my mouth shut. So is that what this is? Carmen wants to make me squirm a bit? Every now and then, she likes to try to scare me with something like this. I assume it's her way of trying to squeeze more productivity out of me by reminding me how easily I can be disposed of. I'm not sure if she does this kind of thing to her other employees (I doubt people like Audrey and Rae have to deal with this), but she loves to do it to me.

"That's not the only issue though," Carmen continues. "You've also been slacking on your data reports. If you don't start working harder, I'm not sure if we can justify keeping you around. For example, the other day, I was reviewing the numbers on our account for that bakery on 14th, and the numbers you logged didn't line up at all with what Audrey had told me."

That is the such BS! I always triple check my math when doing any sort of data entry, and it's precisely so I don't end up in these types of situations. In fact, I think I actually remember the report she's talking about. There was an issue with the information I had, so I ended up going to accounting to get it sorted out. There's no way I would have gotten anything wrong on that file. God, why can't Carmen go one conversation without making shit up? I'm so tired of hearing her-

Huh? As I'm processing my boss's accusation, I notice something odd happen. Right as she's about to open her mouth the speak again, likely to throw out another false claim, she suddenly freezes. I stare at her in confusion for a moment, when out of nowhere, she slumps forward slightly, and her eyes cross.

"When I'm alone in my office and no one's around, I like to touch myself to see if I can cum without getting caught," Carmen states in a dull monotone.

I just sit there quietly, my brain trying to grasp what I just heard. The words replay in my head over and over again, but still don't seem to make any sense. Surely I didn't hear what I think I just heard. After another second passes, Carmen's eyes refocus, she sits back up, and makes a motion that appears as if she's shaking herself awake. There are so questions running through my head, but there's only one word I can actually manage to get out.

"Um... what?"

Hearing that causes Carmen to look at me and raise an eyebrow.

"Excuse me? Is something wrong, Mr. Evans?" She asks me, as if everything is totally normal.

"What did you say just now?" I eventually elaborate.

"What are you talking about? I didn't say anything," Carmen replies, the bewilderment on her face growing more pronounced. "I was waiting to hear what you had to say for yourself."

Wait... so she doesn't know what she just said? This doesn't seem like one of her normal attempts to trick me. She genuinely doesn't seem like she knows what I'm talking about. But I can't have imagined that. Carmen definitely just admitted to me that she masturbates in her office. And what was that weird face she was making when she did it? Hmm... well, if I've learned anything over these past few days, it's that if something weird like this happens, Luck is the one behind it.

This must be the thing Luck did to Carmen. The only problem is, I'm still not sure what exactly happened. It was like she just blurted out some weird perverted secret out of nowhere. I mean, that does sound like the kind of thing Luck would make someone do... But that doesn't make any sense. Carmen can't really try to play with herself when no one's looking, can she? I mean, the agency is pretty small. I feel like if she really did try to do that, someone would have caught on by now. At the very least, I probably would have notice something. But I can't think of any evidence that she's ever done something like that while she was here at work.

"Ahem!" Carmen clears her throat. "Well? Are you going to say something?"

Whoops. Guess I've just been sitting here thinking instead of responding to her. As weird as that occurrence was, I don't really know what it was or what caused it, so there's not much I can do about it. Not that knowing a secret like that would really help me in this situation, even if I did know that it was true. If anything, bringing it up would probably just get me in more trouble. So for now, I think my best bet is just to try and make it out of here alive so I can talk to Luck about this.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Montalvo. I'll try to do better," I say, hoping it's what she wants to here.

"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep, Kyle." Like I said, it's never a good idea to try to deceive Carmen. Still, it was the only real option I had. "I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you to make sure you're not causing any more problems."

"I understand," I say with a halfhearted nod.

"Now get out of my office. I have an important meeting in ten minutes that I need to prepare for," Carmen says. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she once again falls into the same cross-eyed trance she was in before. "I can't cum while wearing clothes. The only way I can reach an orgasm is by being completely naked."

There it is again. Another random sexual secret. Although, that one makes even less sense. Who can't have an orgasm when they have clothes on? Also, those seem like two pretty problematic quirks to have simultaneously. I mean, wouldn't that imply that she has to strip down in her office whenever she tries to get herself off? I definitely feel like someone would have noticed that...

But anyway, what caused it? There has to be some common factor to both triggers. Let's see... she was talking right before each one. Perhaps it was something she said. I don't remember her using any specific words that overlapped. Come on... I feel like it's on the tip of my tongue...

...

Lying.

She lied both times. That's gotta be it! Carmen makes up meetings all the time to get out of situations. It's absolutely possible that she fabricated it just now to get me to leave. And the first time it happened was right after she said there were a bunch of errors in one of my reports. Yeah. I think I might be onto something. Two occurrences isn't enough to know for sure, but it's enough for me to form a potential theory. I'll have to go to Luck to confirm it, though.

"Kyle! Hello?!" Carmen shouts, grabbing my attention again. "I told you to get out! You have work to do! What is wrong with you today?"

Right. I got lost in thought again. I quickly apologize before hopping up and heading for the door. As I step outside, I reconsider my hypothesis. Did Luck really implant some kind of trigger into Carmen that activates when she lies? That could get out of hand really quickly. Carmen lies a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And what was up with those things she was saying? I know Luck likes to make more... lewd changes when she messes with people, but surely those aren't actually true, right?

After dealing with both Rae and Carmen, Luck and I have quite a bit we need to talk about. She told me that if I was able to piece together enough of what she did to someone, she would fill in the rest of the details. Well, I think it's about time I learned some specifics.