Random story thing I made up just now.

Milo nervously stepped into my kitchen, leather brown shoes squeaking on the tile floor. I looked up appreciatively. He was my best customer for tea and gossip. As soon as you got him talking, anyway. I pulled out a chair for him and poured him a cup of tea. He sat down carefully, sweeping the tails of his coat to the side so he didn't sit on them. I smiled at him and leaned my elbow on the rickety old table, cupping my face into my hand.

"Aaaah... Milo... How are you? No no. Don't say anything just yet. Save your voice, because I am going to grill you like a hamburger." I said, slightly flirtatiously. Although I'm not sure how romantic hamburgers are, Milo blushed anyway and took a shaky sip of tea. I patted him on the arm while simultaneously popping a few sugar cubes into his bitter tea. The poor boy was much too thin. He needed to put some meat on those bones and develop some muscle before he could be noticed.

But the point of Milo's existence was not to be noticed. His pale complexion, stick thinness, and silent behavior made him the perfect spy. And I have to know everything that's going on. He opened his mouth hesitantly and I nodded to him. He jumped, and his teacup began to teeter on the edge of the table. Quick as w whip, I grabbed it and set it on a coaster.

"Watch it, Milo. Last time you spilled on my nice new carpet I scrubbed for weeks." I said severely. My nice, new, clean, white carpet could never have any stains on it. He blushed deeper, and his chin began to quiver. I waved a hand at him dismissively. "Never mind, dear, never mind. Now, tell me, has Mr. Anderson's wife found out about his affair yet?"

He brightened, then shook his head. "Nope. Although she's suspicious. She listens to all his phone calls, but he just calls his lover at night when she's asleep. And since he works for the government, she can't just storm his office and find the intern on his desk like usual." The words tumbled out of his mouth, sweet and raspy like... cinnamon. It was lovely to listen to him talk. I nodded at him to keep going. He began to run down the list of daily gossip while shaking his long stringy hair out of his eyes. I closed my eyes and let his cinnamon words drip into my ears.

"Ms. Callahan was just proposed to by her longtime boyfriend, she said yes, but they have money problems, so there's no set wedding date, but they want it to be soon. Ria finally came out that she hates kids and would like to kill them all someday. The Harlans fired her as a babysitter. Miss Poochie has lost her dog, she's been out all day calling for him, she told her husband that if he doesn't find it, she's getting a divorce. He told her to go ahead. Their garbage can smells like a dead thing. Mr. Wiler filed for bankruptcy, but all his accountants know it's just another ploy to evade his taxes, which he's rich enought ot pay, anyways." He rattled off quickly, all in the same breath. He took a deep breath and a long drink of tea before continuing with the rest of the gossip, slightly more subdued after the first two or three waves. We had a system. He started with the most juicy and recent gossip, then ordered the telling by most recent to least, and then reported on several revealing stories that had been going on over the past few months. He was quite a nice guy, I thought.

When he finally left, I got up and cleaned up the tea things quickly. I looked at my reflection in the mirrored tiles in the backwash of the sink. The tiles showed a broken image of squares, but I could still make out my long blonde hair, with much too long bangs that needed a trim, my sharp nose, large blue eyes, and small and pouty lips. I turned away from my haphazard reflection and looked out the window at Milo's skinny figure just before the horizon. Milo thought he came to me just for gossip, but he came to me for another reason. I loved him.