As in, back to posting on this blog. Look, we can’t take anything that happened this year seriously. It was a shambles from Day One, and we’ve all been playing catch up ever since, right? Right?

Blogging is a strange activity and I cannot be convinced otherwise. somewhere between confessional and peer-reviewed research, a shout into the void except sometimes the void talks back. As far as the data suggests, WordPress is moribund as a platform. I have the exact same number of subscribers that I’ve had for the past three years, and granted I haven’t posted much but that’s largely because I wonder what the point is.

Do I struggle onward? Start a Substack and mirror the content? Quit the entire internet forever and become a spinach farmer? (Not goats: I grew up on a goat farm and I’ve never known anything so cute to be so dangerous to be around.) What’s a languishing content creator (though I shudder at that moniker) to do?

No seriously I’m asking: do I need to start a Substack? (DMs are open, all advice welcome as long as you aren’t trying to sell me on AI slop or imaginary book clubs.)

While you wrestle with that conundrum, please enjoy for no reason at all the first chapter of my next release, a superhero (well really it’s supervillain) story about a stabby lil guy with outsized ambitions and the evil billionaire who loves him against his own best judgement. Look, if you ride with me you ride with the devil, but in the fun way. We’re all mad here, darling.

THE WORST BOSS IN THE WORLD

CHAPTER 1 – THE AGENCY

The Russian writer Tolstoy once said that unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. Leo hoped that was true, as he wouldn’t have wished his family on his worst enemy. Well, maybe.

As villainous families went, it could have been worse. He still had all the fingers, toes, and other body parts he’d been born with, and the parts that he’d been born without meant that his parents had never harbored any unrealistic expectations. Or any expectations really, but he had given up craving those degenerates’ approval as soon as he was old enough to realize he was made for so much more.

Too bad the law-abiding were so prejudiced behind their smiles and awkward handshakes, and those hiring managers leaving him on read or ‘losing his file’ so they didn’t have to admit that they were passing on him because of a birth defect. An illegal act, to discriminate against disabled people in hiring, which just showed how little the law meant if so many people could break it without being labeled criminals.

“So you had to go back to the Agency, so what?” his cousin Monroe said through the speakerphone as Leo was getting dressed that morning. “It’s not like anyone expects you to succeed.”

“Wow, thanks. Have you considered a career in motivational speaking?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s not exactly encouraging,” Leo replied, pushing up his shirt sleeve to attach today’s prosthesis to his left forearm.

“Sure it is,” Monroe drawled from the corner of his mouth, no doubt in the middle of lighting a fresh cigarette. “If you fuck up, no one is going to be upset.”

“But if I do well, is anyone even going to notice?”

Monroe exhaled in a way that wasn’t a sigh but also was. “I thought you didn’t care what your folks think of you.”

“I don’t mean my parents, I mean everyone. I’m tired of living like this. Paying rent, eating instant ramen.”

“Welcome to real life, kiddo. Fucking sucks out here.”

“You should sell that to Hallmark, they can put it on a mug. Look, I gotta go.”

“Let me know what happens. And for God’s sake, keep it in your pants this time.”

“Hey, that was one time.”

“And I’m sure a good time was had by all. Later.”

Monroe hung up, and Leo pocketed his phone. Then groaned and set it back on his dresser. Where he was going, outside devices were prohibited. His new employer should provide one, and he hoped it wouldn’t be coming out of his paycheck. It wasn’t his fault his bosses—no, the people he was assigned to were the clients, the Agency was his employer—were in a business that required such tight security.

He paused at the door for a final inspection: belt, zipper, shoe, shoe, wallet, house keys, Agency keycard. He checked again, feeling lopsided without his phone in his inside left pocket. That was going to bug him all day, that sense of hollowness over his chest, so he fetched the little book he liked to carry in its place, an old leather-bound volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets that matched a phone’s weight comfortably. He didn’t have the luxury of being off his game today.

His mother had always told him he’d been born under a bad sign. This was his rebirth, and he couldn’t let anything get in his way. The culmination of months of effort, keeping his ears open to Agency gossip and seeding some of his own, taking only the shortest contracts and even turning down work so he’d be available for this exact client, a dilettante new to the villainy industry who’d stumbled into more money than he had the brains to use. Someone who needed Leo’s experience,  who wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Even his alias ‘Desmond Desolate’ was cringe, like he’d lifted it from a bad spy movie. According to Agency gossip he’d run through the whole roster of temps without settling on anyone. Leo had no intention of being temporary. If he played it right, Desolate would be his for life.

Gritting his teeth past the paranoia that he was forgetting everything, he grasped his travel mug with his left hand. The hyper-realistic model, right down to the knuckle creases and fingernails, to keep the client from asking about what was none of his business. Leo needed him to be comfortable. Malleable. Oblivious.

As he clicked the polarized lenses over his glasses, his left wrist buzzed with the staccato pattern that announced a text message from an Agency number. Suppressing the very normal urge to smash the shit out of his phone with his coffee cup, he flicked the screen to life.

URGENT: delay contact with client and proceed to HQ for additional briefing. Leo replied with a stabbing finger and the fewest letters possible: ok.

Fuck Humber, that bureaucrat, wasting not just Leo’s time today but all that work he’d put into figuring out the optimal route to the client’s requested meet-point, just to be told to come into the office to be talked down to by his department heads. People so devoid of talent that the best they could do was exist as leeches, monopolizing hiring throughout the villainy industry and skimming the employees’ wages, in other words his wages. Once Leo took control, things were going to change.

One benefit of a stagnant economy, at least for their industry, was the availability of vacant office buildings downtown. From the street, Agency HQ looked abandoned, with peeling vinyl wrap on the windows and plywood nailed over the doors. Once you passed through the underground maze that protected the hidden entrance, the interior was like any other office, right down to the scent of deodorized despair wafting through the fluorescent-lit corridors.

As the Bearer of the Cloak of Infinite Darkness, it was unusual for the head of staffing Lady Ultima to want to see anyone. She and the client relations manager Ingolby Humber were waiting for Leo in Ultima’s corner office on the 14^th floor.

“It’s okay, they’re expecting me,” Leo said with a smile as he breezed past her dozing secretary in the beige waiting room. Before he reached the door it opened and Doctor Inevitable emerged, dressed in several thousand dollars’ worth of hand-tailoring. Leo’s nemesis, and the reason he was still temping at twenty-nine. He’d sunk everything into that prototype, only to discover Inevitable had stolen key aspects of his design. He’d gone into debt trying to prove it, but Inevitable and his legal team were too well connected.

“Don’t worry yourselves,” the thieving son of a bitch was saying over his shoulder. “He shan’t hear it from me.” His smile froze as he spotted Leo. “Ah, Blofeld. Your timing is once again impeccable.”

“Inevitable, you old dog. Learned any new tricks lately?”

“How droll,” Inevitable said dryly, red lights blinking around the rim of his ocular implant, like Leo was a threat he was scanning. “By the way, good luck on your new assignment.”

“Were you talking about me? About my confidential file?”

“My, you’re suspicious.”

“I wonder why.”

“Don’t worry, young Blofeld, your secrets are safe with me.”

Young Blofeld: like he was a child, and a sour heat ignited in Leo’s guts at the thought of this man knowing any more of his secrets. There was a sudden metallic pop and they both looked down at the stainless steel coffee cup in his left hand, which he was gripping so hard the sides had caved in.

“As I said, best of luck,” Inevitable murmured, glancing at the cup. He gave Leo a last false smile then sidled past him.

 “Leo!” Humber cried, springing to his feet and hurrying to meet him as he entered the office. “Glad you could make it. Please, sit down.” Humber was squarish, pinkish, and prone to terrible taste in neckties and blinking too much under stress. Ultima had her Cloak on and was little more than a column of infinitely dark smoke wavering over one of the high-backed executive chairs on the far side of the desk.

“How can I help you?” Leo asked as Humber slid into the chair beside her.

“Yes, help,” Humber said almost to himself. Then he cleared his throat, clasping his puffy hands atop the thick stack of pages on the desk before him. “The thing is, Leo, we’ve been working with this client for a long time—”

“And spent a lot of his money,” Ultima said, her dry voice coming from somewhere near the center of the cloud.

“Yes, on selecting a suitable candidate,” Humber went on, his eyelids twitching. “So it’s particularly important to us, to all of us at the Agency really, that you treat this assignment seriously.”

“You say that as though you don’t expect me to,” Leo said in a hurt voice. Ever since the Agency hired him, the two had climbed all over each other to accommodate him. A convenient position to be in, and one of the cornerstones of his strategy. Nothing kept them on their toes like making them think they were failing him. Humber and Ultima exchanged a look (as much as a cloud could look, but it did.)

“That’s not it at all,” Humber said soothingly. “It’s simply that there are a few amendments to our standard contract, and we wanted to be sure that you understand what’s expected of you.”

“Haven’t I always done my best? I know I’m not perfect, but you have to understand—”

“Of course we understand. No one is questioning your abilities, Leo. In fact we have nothing but faith in you.”

“Thank you. That means a lot coming from you, sir. And you, Your Ladyship. Believe me when I say I am fully committed to serving this client to his utmost satisfaction.” He needed this pointless meeting to end immediately, before he drove his dented coffee cup through Humber’s flustered face. He leaned across the desk and plucked the documents from under Humber’s limp hands.

“I’ll read it on the way.”

He stopped by the HR staff room to dump the dregs of his coffee and throw out his badly dented mug. Waiting for the elevator, he flipped through the first pages of the lengthy onboarding package, but it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. At least the meet-point had been changed to HQ and he didn’t have to waste more time crossing town. He shoved the pages back in their envelope as the elevator doors slid open, revealing the next test of his sanity in the form of Doctor Inevitable.

He’d changed from the three-piece suit into his black flight-suit, an overdesigned nightmare bulging with tubes and knobs and some very obvious padding around the chest and thighs. To avoid him was to hand him a minor victory in their ongoing détente, so Leo swallowed his bile and stepped aboard the elevator.

“I must say, I almost feel sorry for you,” Inevitable said, his ocular implant whirring as it focused on the envelope clutched against Leo’s chest.

“What does that mean?”

“Desolate’s said to be the worst boss in the world,” Inevitable drawled. “Pushy, demanding, intolerant. A complete narcissist.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Inevitable rolled his natural eye. “Count Corelli’s always looking for more crew for his aqua-world.”

“That coke-head? No thanks. Plus salt water is bad for my mechanics. If the joints seize up I won’t be able to do this.” He flashed Inevitable the middle finger of his left hand with a quick jolt of his servos.

The man’s fake smile stiffened. “Suit yourself,” he said through his teeth. “But don’t say you weren’t warned.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Leo said as the elevator halted and Inevitable got off. He waited until the doors were closing to throw his last barb: “By the way, nice Dune cosplay.”

The elevator let him out at the end of the narrow, zigzagging passage that lead to an obscure corner of the bottom floor of a derelict underground parking garage in downtown Metropole. He stopped at the final door to pat himself down again, making sure he still had his shoes, his house keys, his keycard, his book. Lastly he checked the fit of his hand, but his prosthesis was as firmly attached as when he put it on this morning. He’d have to check the joints tonight after crushing his cup. Hopefully Inevitable took a lesson from it. With any luck, the next time they met Leo would be doing that to the fucker’s throat. Biting down on the urge to check himself one more time, he swiped the keycard over the reader then waited for the hiss of the lock.

 A low-slung electric vehicle with no brand badge and very tinted windows waited in a nearby parking bay. As he approached the car, the driver rolled down his window. Leo caught a glimpse of dark cheeks and looming black brows beneath the gray chauffeur’s cap as he swiped his keycard over the man’s phone, which binged with the approval. The rear door sprung open automatically and Leo got in. This was much better than having to make small talk with Desolate’s driver, who was little more than blurry blob visible through the smoked glass partition between the front and back seats.

Numbed by the whispering purr of the tires, he was half-asleep by the time the vehicle glided to a halt some two hours later. As Leo reached for the handle, the door swung open by itself. Getting out, he found himself alone in a vast, dimly lit space. Metal gantries crisscrossed the modular walls, which were punctuated at regular intervals by huge retractable doors, each large enough to drive a tank through.

As he stared about, the car’s door slammed shut on its own. At the same time, a smaller hatch opened between two of the big doors. The passage beyond was illuminated by a strip of red lights set into the floor at the base of the walls. The light strips began to pulse like the lights on a runway, leading him forward. All of which had been in the manual, but he still flinched as the sliding door snapped shut behind him. No choice but to go on, but instead of leading him into a metal labyrinth, the doors at the other end opened onto a broad corporate foyer with beige tile flooring, and a glass cupola overhead which flooded the space with natural light. A sweeping reception desk of pale wood stood against the far wall, covered in a haze of dust. Unopened boxes of computer equipment were piled beside it, equally dusty. Low on the wall nearby, an exposed electrical junction box hung loose, colored cables sprouting from its cavity.

Leo felt a familiar tingling and looked down. His right hand was unconsciously picking at the skin of his left arm where it met his prosthesis. A humiliating habit, which sometimes persisted until he drew blood. He would have trimmed his fingernails this morning but they were already down to the quick. As he tugged his sleeves back down over the join, the hatchway from the garage opened to admit the man who had driven him here.

He’d swapped the chauffeur’s uniform for a battered leather trench coat that hung open over ripped black jeans and a black t-shirt whose print was so faded it could have been advertising anything from heavy metal to M&Ms. His deep brown eyes crackled with topaz fire as he looked Leo up and down.

“You were my driver, weren’t you?”

“So what if I was?” the man replied in the clipped professional tones of an Indian national who’d learned his English at a foreign boarding school.

 “Wait, you’re Desmond Desolate. Why did you come yourself? Don’t you have any, I don’t know, minions?”

“Does it look like I have minions?” Desolate gestured around them at the echoing emptiness.

“I’m sorry.”

Desolate frowned. “Please tell me you’re not one of those people who feels the need to apologize for everything.”

“No, sir.” Whatever it took to make this man trust him. So far, everything lined up with what he’d heard: that Desolate had a top-tier facility and money to burn and no idea how to use either.

At last Desolate smiled, his gaze softening, his coppery skin glowing in the sunlight falling through the cupola. “So. Leo Blofeld. Any relation?”

Leo hated this question. “My grandfather.”

“Goldfinger himself. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

“No, they sure don’t.”

“Your parents are still in the game, yes?”

Leo nodded, wishing that he didn’t have to go through this every time. Everyone knew the Blofelds. Knew them as dependable, successful villains (his grandfather’s death at the hands of a certain British spy notwithstanding.) Not as the vindictive, insecure authoritarians they were behind closed doors, ready to turn on each other at the slightest provocation. Leo’s very existence was a provocation, having been born small, sensitive, and visibly disabled. A fault of being a surprise late pregnancy, but it was nothing he could change.

“That must have been interesting, growing up in that household,” Desolate said, glancing at Leo’s prosthesis.

“Interesting’s a word for it. But I’m not like my parents. Or any of them really.”

“I can tell. I’ve never known a Blofeld to say sorry before. But let’s keep the sniveling to a minimum, yes?”

“Yes, sir.” Though he hated to admit it, Inevitable was right: Desolate was the worst sort of boss. Corelli’s aqua-world was looking better and better.

THE WORST BOSS IN THE WORLD is available Jan 2026 as part of the Neurodivergence in Queer Romance event (organized by Mat Mansfield.) Follow for more information.