Jacob looks around the motel room, yers of neglect scattered around. Dirty towels, clothes, socks, and bedding. The empty takeout containers. Empty drink containers.

  Jacob is exaggerating; however, it is still in need of a good clean.

  He looked for a garbage bag but found none. With a sigh, he rings the reception office.

  “Hey, I need to clean my motel room. Can you tell me where to get garbage bags?” he asks

  The gamer girl receptionist answers on her headset, “You have reached the Ranch Motel; we have rooms avaible. My name is Sue. How can I help you today?”

  “I need to clean my motel room; where can I get supplies? I don’t mean to be a bother,” he asks again. But the sounds of the gunshots in her game meant she heard, “I need a cleaner for my motel room, or where can I get supplies? I need to deal with the body.”

  “I need the authorization code,” she responds with her heart racing. She stops pying her game, her character looking up at the sky as explosions happen around her.

  “The what for garbage bags?” But the sounds from the game made it sound like “the hot foraged bags.” She nods her head. It’s an older code but still valid.

  “Sir, how long ago did it happen?” Sue says she feels sweat forming on her forehead.

  “It’s been getting progressively worse over the st 3 weeks,” he says, confused about the question.

  “Oh, oh, oh, that's going to be rough to clean,” she says and looks at the lobby clock, “and it's close to game show time.”

  “I just need garbage bags,” he says, running his hand through his hair. He feels like he has been pulled into a game show.

  “If it's been 3 weeks, it must be awful. I can send the cleaner in, no problem. Are you ready for him?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Jacob says, looking around for a reason to say no, and spots the diaper bag sitting in the corner of the room. He rushes and hides it in a dresser drawer.

  She pulls up a window on her screen and marks the caller's room for urgent cleaning. “He is dispatched,” she says and hangs up the phone. She sits there quietly and then says, “3 weeks.”

  The door opens; it's Izzy. “I found the undry,” she says and quickly gathers up the dirty clothes, then leaves again.

  A moment ter, there is a knock at the door. Jacob begins opening the door and says, “Hey, did you forget something, Izzy?” Instead of Izzy, it's an insectoid creature. A few inches taller than Jacob, it stood there rubbing its forearms together. Jacob quickly shuts the door. Then there is a knock on the door, and Jacob opens the door again. “Hello, we are the cleaners,” it buzzes and modutes the tone to speak.

  “Okay. And you clean?” Jacob says, and the insect that looks like a cross between a grasshopper and a nightmare stands and looks at him unblinking.

  “Yes, stand aside; we wish to be done; we wish to watch Family Feud,” it buzzes. Looking at him unblinkingly, it occurs to Jacob that he may not blink ever.

  Jacob stands aside obediently, and the insectoid gets to work, its 4 upper limbs moving in a blur, spraying, rubbing, and running a handheld vacuum as well as one filling a garbage bag. It moves around the room with smooth and practiced precision. It lifts and cleans under everything.

  “There is no body,” it buzzes, and Jacob looks at it, eyebrows scrunched together.

  “What?” He says and looks around confused.

  “That is good for us; we wish to watch all of Family Feud.” It buzzes and moves into the bathroom, and Jacob hears, “What in the hell?” It cleans its way through the bathroom; once finished, it stands in the doorway, giving Jacob a dirty look.

  “You frequently miss when you pee. We suggest sitting,” it buzzes as it begins cleaning inside the dresser drawers.

  “Not that…,“ Jacob starts to say, but the drawer with diapers is already open. “...One,” he finishes.

  “Survey says you’re not yet potty trained. Yes, we recommend you try harder,” it finishes the st drawer.

  Jacob has sat on the bed waiting for the ridiculous insectoid to finish what it's doing. He is blushing. ‘Why does it feel like this pce is designed to humiliate me?’ He asks, ‘But on the bright side, it’s been less than 5 minutes, and everything is already looking amazing.’

  The cleaner finishes cleaning everything in the room except for the bed Jacob is sitting on. It moves in front of Jacob and stares at him .

  “You need to move your ass,” it says and puts two hands on its hips, the other two filing around, and when Jacob doesn’t react fast enough, it pushes him with two of its appendages. The chitinous skeleton feels strange and offensive to the touch. “Get up before we vacuum you up.” He turns on the handheld vacuum threateningly.

  Jacob scurries off the bed, and the insectoid removes the sheets and bnket and rolls them into a tight ball. Jacob can't help but think it looks a little like a dung beetle rolling poop into a ball. “That is all the time we have; 4 minutes till our show goodbye.” It scurries out the door, never looking back; it tosses the undry into the cleaning cart and scurries down the concrete, leaving the door open in its haste.

  Jacob shuts the door and looks over the room. “Well, that was easy,” he says before sitting on the freshly undered bed.

  He looks around the room. 26 more weeks of living here, and it feels soulless and empty.

  “Why don't we finally move in?” He says to the empty room. He eventually gets up and goes out to his car. He starts it and lets it run for a few minutes, the battery having run down from sitting, and starts bringing in the random belongings from his car.

  The first thing he brings in is his computer and one of his monitors, then he sets them up on the small desk. Then he goes back and gets his game console.

  He thinks about the fight that started all this and how this console is near the heart of the thing. He boots it up and connects it to the internet and starts pying music as he keeps unpacking. Several games start updating, but the internet here is bzing fast.

  He goes back out and grabs his guitar, which he has had for most of his life. It's beat up and ugly, and at the moment it's missing a string, but he loves it nonetheless. He picks it up and attempts to py something, and as usual, it sounds terrible.

  He brings in the rest of his close possessions: a battered copy of The Colour of Magic, a gift from a childhood friend. An olive green goblin stuffed animal that he can't ever seem to part with. He sets it on the nightstand along with the book.

  Jacob looks around the room, and it still doesn't feel like home. He walks out to Izzy's car and starts carrying in her things. Her car is loaded down in the back, visibly sagging. He brings it all in and sets it on the bed. Looking at the task ahead, he starts by carefully hanging up all her clothing. His fingers run through the various fabrics. “So soft,” he comments, thinking about how scratchy and boring his clothes are.

  The next bag is full of socks, bras, and underwear. He makes and organizes a drawer. He has the image of Izzy getting pounded by Cane stuck in his head while wearing various pieces of underwear, and it turns him on. A particur pair of red boyshorts catches his eye. He feels the fabric.

  His erection bulging in his pants, he wants to rub them on himself, but there is no time; he has to unpack. He briefly considers just wearing them, feeling the silkiness against his manhood. “Ok, that’s just weird,” he says out loud and shakes the thought away.

  Buried under the intimate clothing is a framed photo of him and her on a date at the tiny Korean BBQ pce back home. It was fun not knowing the nguage and trying to figure out what stuff was. No one else there spoke English either.

  The food was fantastic.

  But more importantly, the photo was tucked away in her suitcase. “She must have thought she would miss me after all.” He smiled and put it on her bedside table. He looked around the room, and it started to feel more like home.

  trooper1881