Starlight Stories Rich and Love: Burns Song

Chapter 1: Personnel Best

Waylon Smithers sipped from his cup of coffee as he reviewed personnel files. Specifically, his own. He loved to read over Monty Burns' evaluations of him, even though there were many critical comments. He valued those the most, as they provided him insight into how to better please his boss. He took a framed 9x13 photo of Mr. Burns from his desk and drew it close to his face, stroking the glass over his boss' face, tracing well-worn smudge marks and absentmindedly voicing a pleased moan.

He checked that his door was locked, then furtively went back to his desk and from a lower cabinet, he removed a false bottom to access a cache of letters on various types of paper in various stages of yellowing and crumpling, everything from the most ornate and pristine stationery marked with painstaking calligraphy to scribblings on twenty-year-old coffee-stained complimentary hotel note paper. One of the latter was the first time he had committed his feelings for Burns to writing: I've never felt anything like this before, he had scrawled into the sheet of paper. I'm inexorably drawn to him. Life will never be the same for me again.

Some notes were fleeting comments scrawled on paper scraps:

Hotel mistakenly roomed us together, and he didn't demand a separate room!

He hugged me!

He fell asleep against me on the plane. I held his hands and nuzzled his head. He even drooled on me! I didn't want that plane to ever land.

Others were elaborate declarations of love, such as this one on orange stationery:

My Dearest Darling Monty Burns:

In our fifteen years working together, I have developed a strong affinity for you. Most people don't see you how you really are. They don't deserve to know the real you; they've earned your scorn. I, too, am misunderstood. But you understand me, except for one thing: you don't understand the depth of my devotion to you.

And why shouldn't I be completely devoted to you? You are the perfect male specimen: powerful, outspoken, ruthless, refined, with a carefully-controlled gentle spirit, and you cut a handsome figure. When I'm around you, your mere proximity exhilarates me. Your touch elates me. I gaze into your eyes and am overtaken by an uncontrollable urge to please you in any way imaginable. You're my eternal companion, and there is nothing I wouldn't do if it meant we could be together on a deeper level.

I know a sexual relationship is most likely out of the question, but I still desire greater intimacy - to be able to freely express how I feel. I would give anything to kiss you. I want to kiss you long, hard, and often, but I would enthusiastically settle for occasionally kissing you on the cheek. Tell me what it takes to fulfill you. And if you have the slightest curiosity: let me take you, Monty, let me indulge myself for once.

I love you more than life itself, Monty. I want you in my arms so I can keep you safe in your vulnerable moments. I want your lips on mine to ease the pains of this life. I want you to take me in your arms. You are strong-willed, and you can overpower me despite your frail body, of which I love every inch. Cuddle against me in bed or just on long flights. But most of all, I want you. I want to be near you, to laugh and glower and plot and unravel and unwind with you. I want us to be together, and for you to know as long as I am with you, you are loved.

-Your Loving Companion and Assistant, Waylon Smithers

He studied this one, as it was the closest he got to actually confiding in Burns. "Oh, if only I could muster the courage to give this letter to him."