“Do you require a shirt to make coffee or do you have a vendetta against your torso?” Which was a perfectly reasonable question so far as Sterling was concerned, since he considered clothes in general an optional extra. Day six and nobody had so much as seen him shirtless except perhaps the pervs behind the cameras. How boring.
Turning a slightly disconcerted frown on shirt cuffs that lacked cufflinks (he had hidden them), he began to turn them up to his elbows. Neatly, because he wasn’t very good at appearing any other way unless engaged in any number of activities many may consider debauched. “Creepy is a word for it,” Sterling conceded with an expression that screamed of the sheer volume of books you could fill with words to described that particular piece of artwork. “Wheelie Francis.” If he looked like the name disturbed him, it did. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but what was his Francis-dilemma in a nutshell. “I can’t get downstairs without going past the bloody thing. I should really stop telling it to go fuck itself. I’ll wake up tomorrow with it outside my door.” Sterling wished that idea hadn’t been put in his head. Ever. Emptying his glass, he dismissed the thought. “But it does demand attention. Sometimes literally.” It occurred to Sterling that he would need narcotics before he was under enough of an influence to truly deal with that thing.