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Sometimes he wonders if this body was his once his. Really his. Before he was himself, The Lobby Boy.
He assumes so, he knows the typical mold for men, the ones who come in as guests, isn't like his. These piles of viscera don't have flat, sagging breasts, they have other equipment between their thighs than he does. Having a body like this is neutral, and that's why he claims it with some original quality, something that belongs to him. It doesn't disadvantage him, doesn't advance The Hotel, and he doubts the madam would create anything for him without reason. Sometimes the set dressing changes, like the cracker man, but these features, face and body, stay the same. Sometimes he wonders if there's something The Hotel wants him to remember.
His Manager understands him. She always does. Whatever she was before, they're of the same stock. She's a blond today, and the stacked bob frames the angles of her jaw, her slender neck and broad, proud shoulders. Her feelings on the matter are more complex. She's the one who has to interface with the public, the one who tells him in that low, sonorous tone she uses just for Her Lobby Boy that no, the guests aren't sometimes fearful or disgusted because they know what The Hotel is, but rather because they don't look as the guests think they should.
He hears her talk to The Hotel one night, after a particularly bad family of guests. The man had screamed in His Manager's face, called her a variety of terrible things while the woman had covered her children's eyes. They'd refused his help with the bags, too, and he'd looked presentable that day. Clean face (But not for long, knowing how he sweats), clean hair, uniform in pink and white and gold. How beautiful His Manager had been, how graceful as the guest's words had seemed to deflect off her glossy pink mouth, off the grey shine of her eyes, the white of her neatly bared teeth. He has no qualms about preparing the room that night, listens as The Manager talks to the building as she watches the screens in her room. "It could have been dangerous for all of us, we might have lost business." He hears The Hotel answer back as the AC units begin to hum in the evening heat, The Madam always talks through the vents when she wants to placate. "I knew I wouldn't be seamless wherever we turned up, didn't feel all together this morning, so I called out to a guest I knew would notice you two more than me! A tactical decision of course," A cold chemical breeze ruffles his thinning hair from above, filling his nose with the sweet smell of coolant and dust. "No hard feelings, I'm sure you understand." The breeze opens the door to the backroom and nudges him gently inside. The manager is sitting tensely. She is not upset with the man anymore, not as though there would be much of a man left to be upset with anyways, not after attempting to eat his wife and two sons whole, and succeeding at least somewhat. She's upset with The Hotel, they always are. "How about you two take the rest of the night off, hmm? There's still a few hours left until…" It trails off, The Hotel knows they understand what she means. But they do. They don't want to talk about any of it, so he sits at her feet, and her hand finds his head, carding her well-manicured fingers through his hair.
Her Lobby Boy understands, but it's not enough. She's suddenly gripped with that strangling impulse of closeness with one who understands, needs to feel the skin of one like her under her fingernails, between her teeth. Usually she's more patient, but tonight she cannot find it in her, tonight she feels strange and vulnerable, as though some feeble ghost of flesh and blood and fear still hums through her. Someone who that man truly could have hurt, somebody to whom fear and pain still meant something.
So she rakes his fingers across The Lobby Boy's scalp until he shivers and grabs a hank of hair hard enough for him to start whining, hard enough for the edges of his thin, dry mouth to curl into a smile. Usually they sneak off into a spare room, but not tonight. Tonight even a place with the capability to house a guest is untrustworthy, so she takes him right there in her backroom.
The Manager clutches him against her as he climbs atop her and sinks down with a reedy cry, surrounding her with his surprising warmth. He does the work for her until his legs give out, hips bucking sporadically as he rides her. What he lacks rhythm and skill, he makes up for in devotion; whimpering his loyalty against her neck, moaning it against her ear. How good she is to him, how beautiful and smart, how he's hers and hers alone, forever. In some far off part of The Lobby Boy's mind, he wonders if they knew each other before they became what they were, if "before" ever existed. He likes to picture them like this, newlyweds maybe, or lovers on a midnight tryst. They fit so well together, he wonders if he was made to have His Manager inside him. He hopes so.
His legs give out eventually, muscles twitching from exhaustion. So she shucks off what remains of their uniforms, and lays him out on the powder-pink carpet below. She takes him, looks into his wide, wet eyes below with fondness as she buries herself to the hilt inside him and sets an unforgiving rhythm. He needs this, she knows, they both do. The Manager watches his face as she places a hand between them, closing the niche between two fingers around the hot, stiff nub between his folds and starts to stroke him. He gives a low sob of pleasure, trembling hands wrapping about her waist and grabbing it desperately.
His mouth finds one of her breasts, his uneven teeth grazing her nipple, and she throws her head back. "My good boy," she murmurs from her chest, feeling him jump between her fingers and tighten around her like a vice. She grabs his face with her other hand and digs her nails in."Knows just what I need, knows just how to make me feel so good." It pushes him over the edge and she knows it. He clutches her hard enough to draw blood and spends himself with a keening cry, eyes rolling back as he whines, and drools from both sets of lips. It's his climax that sets hers off, that hot, tight warmth tensing around her. She feels smothered in the best ways, drunk off his body as she loses herself, as much as she can, in him. She collapses against him, hips stuttering as she pushes as much of herself as she can into those still twitching walls.
They go for hours, until the pain becomes noticeable though the murky haze of pleasure, until when she goes to pull Her Lobby Boy's hair, she takes a third of his scalp with it. When they stop, the stench of rot has already begun to mingle with the heady smell of musk and sweat, and they're both thankful for the dark. She doesn't let him retreat to his broom closet, just holds him against her, the rough mohair of the upholstery digging into what remains of their flesh.
There's comfort in knowing they'll rot together tonight.