Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
The thing about golems was...they were reliable. You could always depend on a golem. There wasn't any...game-playing, or word-twisting, or pointless little social niceties that made it impossible to get through a conversation without feeling as if you'd just navigated some sort of minefield.
In other words, golems weren't at all like men.
Adora Belle sat at her desk in the Golem Trust office, fuming. Quite literally - there were plumes of smoke issuing from her mouth, and from the cigarette she held between the middle and forefinger of her right hand. Her left, meanwhile, cupped the elbow of the right arm, and her eyes stared accusingly at the boarded-up door.
Any minute now, he'd walk in. Walk in, wearing that shiny gold suit of his, and make an excuse. The thing about his excuses, though, was that they were usually really good. It was impossible to find a hole in one of them. He was so very, very good at turning a situation to his advantage.
And the worst thing? She actually cared.
But she wasn't going to be seen sitting there, staring expectantly at the door like some dog fawning over its master, oh no. Anxiously, Adora Belle took another drag off her cigarette and let it out almost as quickly, smoke engulfing her head. That was it. She wasn't going to pander to his...his...maleness any longer. (Never mind the fact that she thought this almost every week, of course.)
Decisively, she stood up, and just as decisively, fell over.
This was not because Adora Belle was a clumsy woman. On the contrary, she moved with great deliberation, and if not grace, at least a determination not to be seen as foolish. No, this time she had fallen over because she was suddenly standing in sand.
She got up and brushed it off her very severe, very plain grey dress, and looked around. She definitely wasn't in Ankh-Morpork anymore - she was on a beach, and there was a slight curve to the horizon she didn't much like. She had dropped her cigarette, too. She bent to retrieve it, dusted it off, and lit it again with a match conjured from somewhere in the dress and struck on the sole of her boot.
"Well," she said, after several intense puffs. "Isn't this a turn-up for the books."
In other words, golems weren't at all like men.
Adora Belle sat at her desk in the Golem Trust office, fuming. Quite literally - there were plumes of smoke issuing from her mouth, and from the cigarette she held between the middle and forefinger of her right hand. Her left, meanwhile, cupped the elbow of the right arm, and her eyes stared accusingly at the boarded-up door.
Any minute now, he'd walk in. Walk in, wearing that shiny gold suit of his, and make an excuse. The thing about his excuses, though, was that they were usually really good. It was impossible to find a hole in one of them. He was so very, very good at turning a situation to his advantage.
And the worst thing? She actually cared.
But she wasn't going to be seen sitting there, staring expectantly at the door like some dog fawning over its master, oh no. Anxiously, Adora Belle took another drag off her cigarette and let it out almost as quickly, smoke engulfing her head. That was it. She wasn't going to pander to his...his...maleness any longer. (Never mind the fact that she thought this almost every week, of course.)
Decisively, she stood up, and just as decisively, fell over.
This was not because Adora Belle was a clumsy woman. On the contrary, she moved with great deliberation, and if not grace, at least a determination not to be seen as foolish. No, this time she had fallen over because she was suddenly standing in sand.
She got up and brushed it off her very severe, very plain grey dress, and looked around. She definitely wasn't in Ankh-Morpork anymore - she was on a beach, and there was a slight curve to the horizon she didn't much like. She had dropped her cigarette, too. She bent to retrieve it, dusted it off, and lit it again with a match conjured from somewhere in the dress and struck on the sole of her boot.
"Well," she said, after several intense puffs. "Isn't this a turn-up for the books."