author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

The writing prompt words this time were "demesne" and "glaze." The first words I heard my character say were, "My bakery is my castle."

It was a conscious struggle not to fall into the distinctive voice of Rae Seddon, the titular character from Robin McKinley's Sunshine. I reread that book often, with the result that her voice lives in my head loud and clear. As a preemptive defense, I swapped her cafe for my own memories of working in a university dorm cafeteria.

Most of the original freewriting session was her describing what she loved about the bakery and why she never bothered going home to her apartment. Actually, she didn't have an apartment. She lived in the bakery and she was happy there. She had peace and absolute sovereignty there.

Naturally I had to disrupt that peace with an importunate visitor. Authors are jerks that way. We have to be.

Don't think I don't see you standing there, you in your crisp navy blue suit and your slick haircut. Don't think that because I choose not to acknowledge you, I don't see you. And don't make the mistake of thinking me rude. Would you think a Queen rude, for holding her supplicants to certain standards of courtly etiquette? My bakery is my castle, and there are protocols to be followed.

Besides, I have three hundred cheese danishes to bake before the morning rush descends. You want my attention? You can stand there in the heat and sweat a little first.

All right, let's get this over with. What do you want?

...From all this what? And to where? Do you suppose me some poor Cinderella waiting for her prince? Hardly. Look: I rule this place. As far as the student workers are concerned, my word here is law. And I know every inch of it, from the front line to the dish room. I know the proper use of each implement, and I know what to do if improper use thereof draws blood or breaks bones. I know the cooling tick of each grill and the temperature range of every walk-in cooler. I have a door out back that locks securely at night, and a shutter out front that is bullet-proof. For six hours every night, mine are the only lungs that breathe this air. I have a warm bed on the oven racks from midnight until four in the morning. I have a reliable alarm clock in the oven timer. The perks of my employment mean I want for neither food nor clothing.

Here I have privacy, security, and mastery of my craft; why would I abdicate my little kingdom?

Wait.

What do you mean, "accustomed to"? You can't have the faintest idea of what I was once accustomed to.

...True. Guilty as charged. But how can you know? Not even my employer knows the first thing about what I am and where I'm from. And you're no less human than she is. How can you--

That's impossible....

This has been an excerpt from the Friday Fictionette for May 1, 2015. Subscribers can download the full-length fictionette (779 words) from Patreon in PDF or MP3 format depending on their pledge tier.

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