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Bond waved a greeting to his secretary, Ms. Mary Goodnight as he entered the office. Contrary to popular belief, he really did have an office where he worked on briefs and kept up with the latest in international intelligence. He had a desk and a chair and everything, and if he wasn’t in the field, he generally kept regular hours.
His secretary looked up at him and smiled before quickly averting her eyes. Bond might have been a little jetlagged from his flight from Buenos Aires, but his Spidey senses started tingling. Something was up, because Ms. Goodnight was not the only one who had been unable to look at him with a straight face already this morning.
“Morning, James. Latest briefs are on your desk, with coffee. And M requested more detail about your last mission to Cairo—I flagged it for you,” she said, handing him the file and still not looking him quite in the eye.
“Thank you,” he said, a little warily.
The reason for everyone’s caginess became very clear the moment he saw his desk. On top of his latest intelligence briefs was a very large, very nice gift box, black and wrapped with a red velvet ribbon. There wasn’t a note—there never was. It was never needed.
He didn’t know how they always got to him: he’d received packages at home (even after moving when some disgruntled former Soviet set his flat on fire) and at his office. Packages came addressed to his real name, as well as the variety of cover names he’d assumed over the years. The whole thing was a massive security breach, but he’d been unable to persuade them to stop, and most of MI-6 found the whole situation hilarious. He suspected they provided aid to the enemy. Ms. Moneypenny looked particularly guilty, even as she protested her innocence. It was the sparkly eyes that gave her away.
Bond sat down at his desk, chugged half the coffee in one go for courage, and opened the box. On top of the tissue was an envelope of excellent paper quality, stamped with a lipstick kiss and a vaguely familiar scent of perfume, and it contained exactly what he feared it would: movie tickets.
Specifically, tickets for the premiere of the latest installment of the Dick Sterling: Super Spy film series. Hardly a summer would go by without a new film with a title on par with a bad porno, each plot more ridiculous than the one before. This one was apparently called Moonshaft. It would feature the hapless, idiotic franchise hero, a character with bad teeth, unruly hair, eye-watering fashion sense, enough body hair to make a bear rug look sparse, and a tendency to awkwardly seduce everything he came across for no commonsense reason.
Bond had unwillingly been the recipient of plenty of random packages over the years, since the first film. He’d been sent the tackiest, ugliest sartorial and kitschy merch that the corporate machines could think up, all the films on Blu-ray, collector’s editions, and novelizations—each one written under a pseudonym and autographed with their signature lipstick kiss in different shades, and a spritz of perfume. And of course, he had special VIP premiere tickets to every film.
Bond put his head in his hands.
“I see they got you again,” Q said. Bond glanced up and then put his head back in his hands, palms covering both of his eyes like he could erase the images of the tickets if he only pressed hard enough. Q leaned against Bond’s office doorframe, hands in his pockets and green eyes sparkling. “I thought they might. The trailer for the new film dropped yesterday. It’s already gone viral on YouTube.”
Bond heard Q come into the office and drop his messenger bag beside Bond’s filing cabinet. He felt Q come around to Bond’s side of the desk, and perch on the edge beside him.
“How bad is it going to be?” Bond asked, muffled.
“Oh, terrible,” Q informed him brightly. “There’s rocket ships that definitely resemble gigantic dildos, an Elon Musk-ish villain, and a lot of dirty jokes about ‘shafts.’ Also, there might be a space battle between fembots with weaponized boobs.”
“Of-fucking-course there’s going to be a space battle between fembots with weaponized boobs.” Bond said, miserably.
“Actually, it looks hilarious.”
Bond finally looked up at Q, who was grinning at him quite naughtily. Q’s innocent schoolboy routine was first rate enough to have most of the service fooled into thinking he was a lamb, a harmless geek with fluffy hair and grandpa jumpers, instead of the wolf he was. Bond knew better. The way that the Overlord of the Nerds was looking at him, twining the long velvet ribbon between his fingers was not the least bit innocent. No, he looked diabolical. Bond narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Maybe Q was in on it.
If Q was in on it, then there was nothing good and pure left in the world.
Which probably meant Q was absolutely involved.
“What else did they send?” Q asked, leaning over. Bond caught a whiff of earl grey tea and aftershave.
“I’m afraid to look,” Bond said. He closed his eyes. He needed a drink. And an aspirin. And then another drink.
“It can’t be that bad,” Q leaned over and plucked up a corner of tissue paper and then dropped it with an adorable snort of laughter that erupted into full-blown peels that had the man almost fall off the desk. As it was, he removed his glasses to mop at streaming eyes. “I stand corrected,” he wheezed.
Bond tugged the tissue paper off and saw the rest of his gift revealed in full glory.
Nestled in the obscene red tissue paper was the biggest dildo that Bond had ever seen. It looked like a gag gift for a bachelorette party. And it was very clearly a custom job because it was shaped like a 1960s sci-fi stereotype of a rocket ship. Moonshaft was lettered up the side in gold. And his benefactor had very kindly included a bottle of lube with it.
Q subsided to chortles, looked at the dildo again, and went for a second round of hysteria. He clutched his middle, taking little wheezy, pained breaths.
“Oh, that’s just…that’s…can’t breathe, ha…what did you do to these women, Bond?”
“I don’t think it matters anymore. This is my life now. Unless I hunt them down and kill each one of them. I already asked M if I could. Permission denied.”
Q sobered, and with what was clearly a herculean attempt to keep a straight face said, “Well. It would be churlish to let their gifts go to waste.”
Bond looked at the giant dildo in horror. “What on earth are you suggesting, Q? I don’t think that’s physically possible.”
“Certainly not with that attitude,” said Q, primly.
That was…more than Bond could take this early in the morning before a proper cup of coffee. He just stared at Q, not blinking, wondering where his life went so wrong. A small memory of the old M emerged from years of drink and adrenaline: “I think you’re a sexist, misogynistic dinosaur,” she’d snapped at him. Maybe that was it. Maybe he had this coming his entire life. His entire career.
Q made some sort of high-pitched giggling noise that only dogs, dolphins, and supremely dejected 00-agents contemplating a series of poor life choices could hear.
“I meant the tickets,” Q said. He reached into the box and fearlessly picked up the dildo to examine it with a critical eye before he waved it around to emphasize his next words. “Although, even I’m having difficulty figuring out the logistics for this thing,” Q said.
Bond wasn’t going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. He just held out the envelope with the tickets. “With my compliments.”
Q took the envelope with a gracious nod and fished out one of the two tickets. He tucked it into Bond’s suit lapel pocket and patted it. “Come with me. We’ll smuggle in a small candy shop and spend the entire film being obnoxious until we get thrown out. It will be fun.”
He checked Bond’s wristwatch and clucked his tongue at the time. “I should go. I’m about to be late for a meeting with M. Oh, and if you find time this week, I have a prototype that I’d like your opinion on. No rush.” He gave Bond’s shoulder a firm whack on the shoulder with the dildo and then put it back in the box. “Better hide this before Moneypenny sees it and all kinds of fun rumors get started.”
With a wolfish grin that did nothing to make Bond feel better, Q was gone.