Jay discovers a underground business

You close the window with a sigh. It's surely an impossible fantasy. The locked door already shows that they don't trust you, and they were able to track you down even in your ghostly state. You are well and truly stuck.

There is no TV and no stereo and no radio, and no one to talk to. Or is there? There is Denise. You concentrate and slip out of the girl, as gently as you'd entered her. To your relief, you find that you are still in the pajamas as you materialize. It hadn't occurred to you before that your clothes might fade if you remained a ghost too long, and you're pleased that you're not naked.

You turn to find Denise looking at you with the same cold, melancholy expression. Then she turns and sits on the side of the bed. You stand awkwardly where you are.

"I'm sorry to crash in on you like this," you finally say. "I'd leave you alone, but the door's locked."

"I could've told you that," she says tonelessly. "I also could have told you there'd be no use jumping out the window." She pauses. "I'm glad you didn't. I'd hate to have a broken leg."

You sit on the chair. "I ... uh ... I'm new here."

"I know."

"The boss ... this van Ark guy ... hasn't told me anything, really. I guess he's waiting for tomorrow."

"I can give it to you in broad strokes," she says. "They'll ask you to possess certain women. Married women, supermodels, actresses, society ladies ... Women who are 'unavailable' or 'off the market' or just uninterested in the men who pay van Ark and his partners for the chance to bed them." She falls silent for a moment, and then a savage shudder ripples through her. "Men are such beasts."

You wince: she almost certainly means to include you in the classification. "How did you get ... uh ... How did you get trapped into working for this guy? I mean, I can't imagine you're doing this willingly. Letting guys ..." You feel your face turning very red and stammer into silence.

She looks up at you with a hard stare. "We have to work together. We even have to spend tonight together. That doesn't mean we're going to be friends. So don't try to get all sympathetic and stuff with me."

"There's no one else to be sympathetic to."

She looks away. "You'll make friends."

"Look, I can't just go fuck off. As I pointed out, the door's locked." She doesn't say anything. "I wish it weren't. I don't want to spend the night here."

"Am I so unattractive?" she asks sarcastically.

"When you're like this you're not. Look, I promise I won't touch you."

"Hard to sleep in the same bed without touching each other."

"I can sleep on the floor."

"No you won't. You might start on the floor, but soon enough you'll crawl into the bed or into me. I'm much more comfortable than the floor," she says.

You rub your hands through your hair. The way this conversation is going, you just might possess her again just to shut her up. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't ask to be here. And I didn't ... Well, if I'd known how things were going to turn out, I'd never have, you know, gotten mixed up in all this."

Her gaze doesn't melt. "I told you, you want sympathy, go talk to Brian, or wait for George or Luis or Frederick or one of the others to get back from their current assignations. All of you—you just wanted to be inside a girl, and you didn't care how you did it. And you all enjoyed it. But if you thought you were getting your happiest fantasies for five bucks or seven euros or whatever ridiculous price they sold you that pill for, well—" She snorts and puts her face in her hands. "You are all so fucking stupid."

You flop down glumly into a corner and lean your head against the wall, ignoring her. She soon grows tired even of your presence and goes off into the bathroom.

The door may be locked, but you're still a ghost and can fly through it. Denise clearly wants you to exit. Does she think this will get you in major trouble? It's odd that your new employees should have overlooked this rather gaping security hole. Either they are testing you to see whether you can follow orders, or they don't care if you wander off and explore, and are using the locked door so that you don't make off with a bit of their property.

You find it galls you to think of Denise as "property."