Episode 7

The Oozing - Part 4

Having discovered the source of disturbances in The Outlook to be caused by his employer's agent, Lisa Raymond, Sweaty is trying to let the love struck lady down without causing offence or getting fired...

Perhaps it had not been a good idea to make his extra special shatter-latte, a combination of perfectly steamed milk mixed with silky smooth, strong espresso coffee. As Sweaty sat in the kitchen with Miss Raymond, the caffeine making him feel extremely alert, he realised the effect such a strong drink can have on someone who is not used to it. Miss Raymond's scrawny physique was matched with an equally miserable tolerance for a caffeine blast. So, rather than removing the tension from the situation, Sweaty had managed to make Miss Raymond seem even more aggressive in her attitude towards him.

As he watched her quivering, Sweaty racked his brain for something he might be able to use as an excuse to get rid of her. She was telling a long, uninteresting, and complicated story about sexual harassment at work by someone she only referred to as Stumpy, on account of his having lost his left arm in a road accident. Sweaty was not listening to the details, but got the impression that Miss Raymond had been greatly upset and had never dealt with the matter, either through the authorities or within herself. As much has he was a compassionate ball of pus, Sweaty couldn't feel sympathy for Miss Raymond; she was clearly giving herself so much sympathy that he felt that nothing he could say would help. It was hard for Sweaty to believe how he could feel so hard about someone. As his state of awareness heightened, from the caffeine, he tried to understand what it was that made Lisa Raymond so hard to empathise with.

The realisation that Miss Raymond was using her past miseries as some sort of cover-all excuse for any future behaviour, coupled with her obvious manipulation of the tales to make herself seem like a more pitiable victim, came to Sweaty a few moments before she changed the subject back to the bedroom.

"I need to inspect your bedroom, young man." she cackled.

"I beg your pardon.", said Sweaty as he snapped out of his ponderings about her mental state.

"I said, I need to see your quarters. I am supposed to report back about how you are treating the place. And, I might have some inspections of my own to perform. Who knows what you get up to in there?"

"Do we have to?", Sweaty asked, trying to sound as reasonable as he could, a sense of foreboding descending upon him.

"We do. It's here on this checklist." She waved a piece of pink paper at him from her handbag.

"Fine, it's this way." Sweaty opened the servants' door from the kitchen and led the way up the narrow spiral staircase to his quarters.

His room was one of the six rooms that were used by the regular hotel staff during the hotel's opening months. The rooms were not pleasant and now seemed even less acceptable to Sweaty, after he had seen the full extent of luxury around the rest of the hotel. He could imagine that a number of hotel staff members would not last long, being faced with the contrast of their living conditions and the accommodations for, and undoubtedly unpleasant attitudes of the hotel's clientele. The room's woodpaneled door had a large crack in it, which let light in from the hall. Sweaty felt like he was being spied upon in this room even when alone in the hotel.

"This room... it's really cosy." said Miss Raymond, as she entered the room behind him.

Sweaty thought that perhaps the coffee had gone to her head. Cosy was not an adjective he had even considered for the room. Damp, musty, dim, poorly maintained, the room always made him feel dirty. Sweaty was accustomed to feeling dirty - regular episodes of sweating and oozing pus gave one a working knowledge of feeling dirty. However, this room made Sweaty feel worse than usual. Normally, Sweaty could cope with it, but he was feeling out of sorts, owing to the combination of Miss Raymond's intimidating presence, the stresses of his decorating, and the coffee rush which seemed more intense than usual. Perhaps he was also dehydrated from his efforts up the ladder, because he was finding it hard to keep his current shape, the shape Miss Raymond expected him to have.

Shape changing is a skill that fat sweaty balls of pus can develop, partly through mystical means we do not understand, and partly through the fact that fat and pus are easier to reform than the flesh of the thin and pus-less. Dehydration is a great enemy to shape-changing. Sweaty realised that he needed to get rid of Miss Raymond, have a shower and drink a couple of litres of mineral water - sparkling if possible (the gas helped with other things). As he turned round to suggest to Miss Raymond that she might be best leaving him to get one with it, she grabbed him by the cheeks and pushed her head forward, in an attempt to kiss him.

Pulling backwards, trying to free himself from the clutches of the excited agent, things started to blur for Sweaty. He caught glimpses of a pair of enlarged lips, equipped with unsightly lip ring (Sweaty thought hers a particularly unsightly example of an already unsavoury body decoration). He saw the bed, and bedside table from the corner of his eye, and then he was falling backwards, onto the badly-laundered sheets. Miss Raymond was pulling at his shirt, and he didn't think she was doing it to give him air. Panic filled Sweaty's entire body. A cloud came over his mind and he couldn't even see anything for a few seconds. He had not felt this way for a long time, since long before his shape-changing abilities developed, when he was being bullied by an entire gang in the school playground. The feelings of helplessness and rage were overwhelming then and now. It was made worse by the fact that he had the form of a muscular adult now and should have been able to pick Miss Raymond up and throw her away from him like a piece of rubbish.

A scream.

Sweaty opened his eyes, a feeling of relief was coming over him - like a high pressure valve being released. As he looked over himself, to see if she had injured him in the struggle, he understood why Lisa had screamed. In his panic, his body had erupted in spots, these spots had spewed pus until he had returned to his natural form. Miss Raymond, who thought she was getting frisky with a hunky pin-up, had seen Sweaty for what he really was, and she did not like it one bit. In addition, Sweaty did not think Miss Raymond would be feeling too forgiving about the mess his boils had made of her clothes.

"You lied to me.", she accused.

"In what way?" asked Sweaty.

"You pretended to be a real man, when all along you were... this THING."

"I came along for a job, nothing else. I don't see your problem." said Sweaty.

"My problem? My problem is that you made me fall for you. You probably don't know what it's like to be led on like that."

"Don't I?", Sweaty demanded, angrily. "Have you ever thought about what it might be like to have this for a body. You're not the only one who has been unlucky in love. Anyway, I didn't lead you on - you jumped me!"

"Okay. I'm sorry." Miss Raymond seemed genuinely apologetic. "Why don't you relax there and tell me a bit about your sorry past. Perhaps it will help me get over my shock."

Sweaty thought this sounded reasonable. Having ascertained that it would be acceptable to Miss Raymond if he lay on his bed to tell the tale, he began the story of Dianne, the girl at school who became the love of his life and then his arch enemy. To save his embarrassment, and to help him recall the story and relax into the telling, Sweaty closed his eyes.

"Dianne was really pretty. She was tall and curvaceous, with long light-brown hair that she wore down most of the time. I had the most amazing crush on her at school, but dared tell nobody. I did not think any girl would take a fat sweaty ball of pus like me seriously, let along think of me romantically."

"However, I had been sent away in the summer holiday to a camp for kids with eating disorders - my guardians at the time incorrectly thought that my physique was down to eating problems. Fat camp, as we quickly called it, was no fun at all. People were there because they ate too much, too little or worried about what they ate too much. Dianne fell into this latter category. She had a lovely figure, but was increasingly worried about maintaining it, to the point that she was getting emotional at every meal time. Her parents thought that the summer camp might help."

"I am not sure whether the camp helped either of us with eating, but it helped me get to know Dianne. We both recognised each other as allies - coming from the same school and there out of no choice of our own, we spent a lot of our recreational time together, just talking. Mealtimes were the only times of the day we were apart; the camp specialised in controlling meal times to such a degree that they could not be enjoyed as social occasions. So, we queued for our food separately and met up when the force-feeding or force-starving sessions were over."

"You must remember that I've been this ugly for most of my life. I had needed to learn how to entertain myself from a young age, and found myself able to use some of these talents in company too. Dianne and I used to sit at the piano, one of my greatest friends, and I would play while we would both sing. We would take it in turns to make up alternative lyrics to well-known songs, often lyrics about the camp... it wasn't long before our songs turned to love songs and our sessions at the piano became sessions of something else, under the piano."

"We were kids. It was innocent - a kiss and a cuddle, that sort of thing. However, it felt amazing and I could not wait until we were back at school, where we could be together in a more conventional environment, where the gates were not locked in case you wanted to nip out for some crisps."

"When I got back to school after the holidays, I bounded over to Dianne, who was standing talking to her friends. I got as far as 'Hi Dianne' before she turned round to me, fixing me with an icy stare, and told me to 'Drop dead'. I had the dignity to turn right back round and walk away, head held high, until I found somewhere private to spill my tears. I think I might have gone to the newsagent to buy a computer magazine, and then found a quiet place somewhere on the way back."

"So, it's not just you who has been unlucky in love, Lisa. The secret is to keep hoping. Do you see?"

As he reached the end of his tale, he opened his eyes to see Miss Raymond standing over him, with the bedside lamp held high above his head.

"What...", he began before he was silenced when Miss Raymond sent him off for an early night with the aid of a blow to his head with the lamp.

That is going to be some serious headache in the morning. What will Miss Raymond have in store for Sweaty next? Will he have to complete his summer job? Will he be able to do so? Find out next time...

06 November 2001
Ashley Frieze