Vestigial Vestments

You have a look in my closet and ask, What’re these?

I step in one foot, peek, then go, Oh. Those are my vestments.

You ask what I mean.

I say from my work with the Ministry.

You say, I thought the Ministry wasn’t religious, and I say that vestments aren’t necessarily religious, just like ministry isn’t, that you’re showing your Merkin¹ again.

That might amuse you, it might annoy you. Maybe both.

I lay down on the bed and spread my legs. If you want to come over and make love to me, you can. If not, you can do something else, like maybe ask me to put the clothes on. In which case, I will roll my eyes, but agree.

You pull them out, but leave some of the elements behind—which makes sense, right? How would you know?

So I gather all the component parts—excluding the chemical harness. [Ed. There is another chapter about that article, specifically, which you may not recall or not have read yet.]

I drop my robe.

If you are the modest type, you might look away.

To which I say, “You can watch. If you want.”

If you want to, then you do, watch me go from being naked and in homebody house mode to a grim spectre of secrets.

If you do not want to watch, you feel however you feel when you turn around and see me.

“This is it,” I say. “This is the look.”

And you would work like this? you ask.

“Yep,” I say. “Every day.”

If you’re a wise or careful reader, you might ask me about the hissing blade, in which case, I say, “I don’t wear that anymore.”

You might ask me to put it on to complete the effect.

“No,” I say.

You may try to persuade me, but there is no doing so.

“No,” I say. “And that’s final.”

Then I take off the hat, throw it on the bed. “Let’s go dancing on something. I need to do something fun.”

Play procedures

• If you are playing a pregenerated character who is themselves a secretist, this scene might not make a lot of sense, so maybe rewrite it to be about a time this happened to me, and I’m telling you about it.

• If you are collecting secretist shit, like the vestments mentioned here, you may add them to your inventory. Likewise, if you are working on ghosting or masking, you can count this scene toward unlocking those secrets.

• If you chose the make love option, you find me particularly adventurous and enthusiastic today.

1. This is a play on words. It requires the reader to know both the meaning of the word merkin, as well as the slang term ‘Murican, which are homophones, or nearly so, depending upon the speaker. The joke lies in the intuitive comparison of the words and the fusion of the meaning, which results in something like, “21st Century American rubes are pussy wigs.” Something like that.