by Lila Mina
Lana frowned and sat back on her seat. “What kind of problem? We’ve been on this at length over the past weeks with Castillo on my end, Hayashi san on yours. I spent the weekend at the office to set up everything. Tomorrow is a mere formality.”
“Ah well… I just received a call from Hayashi san. They… want to rescind their commitment to the five-year embargo on parallel imports.”
Lana blanched, her dismay quickly turning into downright fury. “What? Are they out of their mind? This is the most sensitive condition for the Spaniards! You know it, Hayashi san and above all, Goshima san know it! There will be no deal without this!”
“I know! I am so, so sorry Martin san,” Ikeda replied, desperate. “Hayashi san… exploded on the phone when I pointed it out and hung up on me…”
Lana pinched the bridge of her nose. Damn this sneaky COO. “Listen, Hayashi san was never happy with this distribution agreement. But we can’t just sit back and wait until the shit hits the fan in our boardroom tomorrow morning.”
“Let’s meet up at 7 am, discuss it with the rest of team…”
“It will be too late! We need to act now! Castillo and his people are on the plane, and if they are welcomed with this news, everything will go up in flames. Our collective asses will be whipped. It’s our job to make sure such things don’t happen.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll call Hayashi san.”
“Martin san, it’s too risky… if we lose this account...”
“Well, what’s the alternative, hm? If we keep our mouths shut, our reputation is toast, here and in Europe, too. Not to mention the penalties, which will make M&F go bankrupt before the end of the year. You can bet your last dirty sock the Spaniards will turn on us like rabid hyenas and strip us naked.”
“Please understand, this kind of global-level negotiations is new to them…”
“No. I’m sorry Ikeda san, I don’t want to be rude, but there are rules. Things like reasonable expectations and trust, and if they want to play with the big boys, they need to stop acting as if they were still an aracha producer in the countryside.”
“Okay… all right… I’ll let you call him,” Ikeda replied, defeated and uncertain.
Disgusted and exasperated, Lana terminated the call and stared at her phone on the table. What a pitiful way to end an otherwise nice evening. I need a working angle. That double-face asshole is shrewd and won’t listen to anything if his own interests aren’t threatened.
“Watching you handle a crisis at work is always fascinating and quite instructive,” Honda’s deep voice interrupted her thinking. She looked up, startled. Instructive? What does he mean? “But whatever you do next, get a grip on your temper first.”
She grimaced. “Oh, I will be a model of composure when I talk to this backstabbing traitor. I should have seen this coming. I didn’t expect him to pull this off the night before the meeting though. Too bad I’m not the one in charge of the Japanese side of this deal. I would have made sure he didn’t think he could try something so cute. Well, I better get this done.”
Hayashi picked up his phone after letting it ring for a long while. “Who is this?”
“Good evening, Hayashi sama,” she began with her most neutral voice. “This is Lana Martin from M&F. My deepest apologies for calling you at such a late hour, but there is an urgent issue to discuss, which cannot wait until tomorrow.”
“Martin? Ah yes, the sassy girl,” he snarled, and she had to bite her tongue not to lash out at his condescending tone. “What is it? I’ve already talked with Ikeda, and the matter is closed. We want no embargo clause. Make it work.”
“Indeed, it is crystal clear, Hayashi sama, but this will not be possible,” Lana replied, her voice turning icy cold.
Hayashi huffed, not bothering to hide his anger. “Who are you to dictate what your client wants or doesn’t want? This clause was a mistake from the beginning, but our President now understands it. Be careful, or I’ll guarantee your company will pay if you don’t support us… and that you’ll lose your job, insolent woman. Go back to making coffee.”
Lana made a fist; it took all her willpower not to hurl back a string of creative insults at the douchebag. “Hayashi sama, this has nothing to do with what my company prefers, and at this stage, it’s not even about what yours wants. Dos Santos will have all leeway to make you pay for it, and all your attempts to set foot in Europe and South America will crumble. They will not hide their furor or find a way for everybody to keep face. Think whatever you want of me, but there are certain rules when you do international business. And my job is to guarantee that they are respected for everyone involved.”
“Silence! How rude and arrogant of you! You’re supposed to defend our interests, but you have no problem making us lose huge amounts of money with a one-sided deal!”
“If you think your company will lose money with this five-year embargo, I look forward to your explanations to your shareholders about why the doors to the two biggest overseas markets of your sector are now locked down. Have a good night,” Lana said with a pleasant tone and ended the call.
“The phone will ring again, twenty or thirty minutes from now. It will be my boss.” Her hands shook, but not out of anxiety; rage made her see stars. Face unreadable, Honda scrutinized her as if she were an insect under a microscope. She flung a blank stare back at him and hid her hands under the table.
“You checked your temper, yet your words were rude,” Honda commented.
Lana’s eyes narrowed, and she pinched her lips. “I won’t apologize for telling him the naked truth. Our client is the company he works for, not him. He’s not protecting his company’s interests, only pushing his own agenda.”
“You want to hurt him, your body shakes with the need to punch him, to break something,” Honda continued with his observations.
She hissed and looked away. Are you done dissecting me? “And what if I do,” she spat. “It’s natural when confronted by an imbecile like him. What do you expect me to do? Roll over, smile and be grateful while he ruins my work and reputation?”
Swift as lightning, Honda was by her side. “I am not telling you to enjoy it. I am saying, you should not allow him to affect you so powerfully. You will make deadly mistakes if you let people like him get under your skin.”
Exasperated at his constant meddling in her professional life, Lana growled. She opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind when her phone rang again. The name “Richard M.” flashed on the screen.
“My boss. Ten minutes. He was quick,” Lana commented wryly. Honda grunted but remained so close, his body heat pressed against her skin. To her chagrin, it was distracting.
“Richard. Good evening,” she said with a cool voice.
“Lana, why do I have to handle an angry and unhinged Hayashi on a Sunday night? What did you do this time, for God’s sake? He wants you out of the deal and is this close to cutting us loose!”
“Are you aware of the situation? Do you know what he plans to do?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ikeda called me. It’s a mess–okay, it’s a real shitstorm, but why did you have to antagonize the man so much? He was rabid on the phone!”
“Well, do what you have to do, but you know what’s at stake and what will happen if we let him go ahead.”
“Of course I do, and I told him so. The good news is, what you said must have gone through his thick skull, as they won’t go back on the written agreement and the current clause. But you’re out of the picture. Once and for all. We’ll tell Castillo you’re sick and then come up with something else. I’m sorry, but maybe you should stop playing the goddamned school teacher and acting as if the senior management of our VIP clients need a good spanking. Understood?”
Lana gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she spat, before inhaling deeply instead of giving her boss a mouthful. “But Richard, please, keep Hayashi on a tight leash. Who knows what kind of other stupid stuff he can come up with before tomorrow.”
Richard sighed.
“Of course. Take a few days off, don’t show up until the Spaniards have gone home. We’ll do a proper debriefing at the end of the week. Good night!”
Lana rubbed her face to hide the tears of rage blurring her sight. Eighteen months of hard work, of countless hours, spent writing and checking every single detail of a 340-page agreement, of smoothing things out… Look at me, thrown out of the loop like a garbage bag.
She cleared her throat before grabbing a glass of water. “Well, I guess that’s what they call taking one for the team…” she muttered. “Looks like I’m off until Thursday. So much free time, what am I going to do with myself? This was a rhetorical question by the way.”
Honda put one hand next to hers on the table. “You knew the risks and still did what you thought was in the best interests of your team… and client. I disagree with how you did it, but you showed a remarkable sense of duty. Focus on this and don’t allow the rest to bother you. But you should reflect on what went wrong.”
Lana let out a shaky hiss and got on her feet. She needed space. To do something with her hands, she started cleaning up the dishes and pans.
“I did the right thing… but at the end, the bastard wins–he removed me from the game. I can guarantee that if I had been a man, he wouldn’t have acted like this, so… condescending and insulting. I confronted him with the consequences of his bad decision, and he couldn’t handle it because I’m a woman.” She slammed her hands on the sink and pivoted to face Honda.
“Even you call me rude when I am being direct. Oh yes, I know it’s cultural, but it’s more than that. Do you think I should make things more pleasant and easier for everybody else? If I had been kinder, he wouldn’t have listened. So, yes, I shouldn’t be fuming, wishing I could... throttle him and break his jaw. It’s a problem. But I won’t sweeten things because you all would rather have me smile and nod like a doll!”
Lana stopped, panting hard. She had managed not to shout, and he wasn’t barking back. Yet. He had moved closer to her again, not getting the hint she preferred him to stay away… or not caring about it. He wasn’t threatening, but it was hard to think straight with him so close.
“You… you can’t understand my perspective, goshujin sama,” she added, this time with less vehemence. “You are at the top of… the food chain. Your gender, your age, your social status… all your privileges make it so that you don’t have to fight against almost half the world to validate your position or even your existence.”
Honda closed in and caught her chin between two fingers. She wasn’t so small, and he wasn’t so tall, but still, he had a good head on her. “Not half the world, indeed not, but even I must bow sometimes. Including to some who have no sense of duty or honor. Duty requires accepting such things. I am glad to see you can go to great lengths to do what is right, even when it means self-sacrifice. This is the core, the essence of budo.”
He stepped even closer; this time his body pressed hers against the sink. “It is one thing to decide you cannot and will not change how you act. But if you have any ounce of self-preservation, you must work on how the consequences affect you.” His hand snatched her throat. “One last thing: I am not pleased at all that this deplorable man makes you react so. This dark urge... this desire to hit him, to draw his blood… it is only toward me you should feel it.”
Lana’s eyes widened in shock; she tried to recoil, but his grip of steel made it impossible. “What?... No, no… it’s… totally different! I… don’t want to do this to you! And… I don’t want this repulsive man! How can you think that?” she spat, disgusted.
“And this is what you still do not understand. Those are the two sides of the same coin. We have been playing along this thin line long enough now. All those drives of yours, when they overwhelm you and make you see red, make your body shake, when those images dance in front of you, I demand to be the one and only answer to them. Your mind should not get… cluttered by powerful urges toward others, even less other men.”
Lana was trembling again, but this time for other reasons. Licking her lips, she grabbed his shirt so hard her biceps bulged. She pulled herself up to be the one towering over him for once.
“But then… if I get to be… so aggressive with you… it means... you allow me to take the lead, now and then?” she growled, staring at him in the eye, her repressed alpha self sniffing an opportunity.
His thick thigh slid between her legs, and his free hand slipped inside her panties to cup her pussy. “No, absolutely not,” he retorted, crushing her attempt at rebellion. “You will fight me back, defend yourself, draw my blood, carve my flesh, but I am in command.”
To test her level of readiness, he pushed two fingers inside her. Lana shuddered and buried her head in his nape, biting him hard in frustrated retaliation. He brought down her pants and panties, seized her hips and made her sit on the sink. His hands grabbed her knees to push her legs wide open and keep her in place. They would leave fingerprints.
She was trapped, exposed.
“We will fight this destructive desire to hurt and maim with fire, but of another kind,” he finished while slipping inside her with an unforgiving thrust.
Honda began to pound her, showing no mercy. Her body shook like a leaf, she was helpless against his assault, but that was the whole point. He’s making me as powerless as I am against Hayashi! No way… no way I can escape his grip! I need to… to take the fight to him!
With a rageful shout, Lana wrapped her arms around his neck and slammed her upper body against his chest. Hands on each side of his face, she set off to devour his lips with a fierce and invasive kiss. Her sudden move and passion threw him off balance long enough for his grasp on her legs to ease. She managed to lock her ankles behind his back and grind her pelvis against his. Both moaned in each other’s mouth as he found himself balls-deep inside her.
He couldn’t fight inertia; he stumbled a couple of steps back. Before he could regain a footing solid enough to make him in effect unmovable, her feet dropped down, and with a hip twist, she brought them on the floor, making sure to protect his neck and head. The landing was rough and painful for both of them, but nobody cared.
He was still buried in her, and she clamped her inner muscles to keep him that way. Her fingers moved under his shirt and clawed at his flanks, just as she bit his shoulder. He roared, his rock-hard member twitching inside her. Blood oozed, and she licked his shoulder before giving him a vicious rough kiss.
Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t so good yet, not skilled enough and above all not strong enough for handling him like that for very long–even less when struck by a powerful orgasm. After a few more violent shakes, her body turned limp. One moment she was grinding his shaft and twisting his nipples, the next she was on her back, her wrists caught in an iron grip above her head.
Everything stopped. The sound of their heavy pants filled the kitchen. They were covered in perspiration, his body pinning hers against the floor.
“Yes, this… this is exactly what I meant… There is much room for progress, but you understand now, don’t you?”
“Y… yes, I do…” she replied in a throaty whisper, unable to free her wrists.
“Good.” He claimed her mouth and came hard inside her before disentangling himself. He stood up in one fluid motion, seizing her elbow to bring her up along. Her legs were shaky, but she kept her balance.
“Think about tonight’s events. Prepare yourself for more situations like this in the future. I will not be as helpful next time.”
Lana quirked an eyebrow. Helpful? He was pushing it. But she bit her tongue and nodded. “I will go to my room now, good night.”
She picked up her clothes and left the kitchen, lost in thought. To her surprise, she could think about all her work drama without reacting so violently anymore, as if looking at it on a screen, and not going through every discussion and clash herself.
Maybe there was something to say about Honda’s unorthodox therapeutic methods.
24
Fighting Ghosts
Three nights later, Lana and Yuki sat at the kitchen counter for dinner. It was a relaxed moment both women enjoyed, but also a welcome distraction for Lana who didn’t want to delve too much into her upcoming debriefing with Richard the next morning.
“Even after all this time in Japan, I still can’t convince my brain that rain doesn’t mean cooler weather…” Lana mused aloud, listening to the heavy downpour outside. It was hard to dismiss the drops of sweat sliding along her neck and drenching her back. “Also, figuring out how to dress for work is a nightmare. The only good shoes are plastic sandals, and I wish I could wear one-pieces all day long, but no! I swear, by the time I arrive at my office, I need to change blouses. Same when I get home.”
Yuki laughed in sympathy. “Yes, I hate this season, everything gets covered with mold if we don’t keep the A/C on, my hair keeps curling, and I have to spend extra time straightening it every morning. Even if actual summer is so much hotter, it is better than this constant humidity. Well, three more weeks to go! More of this incredible wine?”
Handing out her empty glass was Lana’s silent answer. Yuki refilled it with the delicious primitivo Lana had found at a nearby imported liquor shop. By far, red wine was her poison of choice, and she was more than happy to introduce Yuki to lesser known cultivars and labels from Southern Italy. To her secret satisfaction, even Honda had taken a liking to them.
“How do you like this lasagna alle verdure?”
“It’s exquisite! I wish you cooked more often,” Yuki replied with a wink.
Lana shook her head, a wide smile on her lips. “So do I… I tried the other day, I cajoled, pouted, but I can’t make him have a single bite of my cooking… and I know nothing of Japanese recipes, except for the instant stuff.”
“Goshujin sama swears only by washoku, I’m afraid. But fear not, one day his taste in food will become as cosmopolitan as his appreciation for fine wines… or women.” Both chuckled. “As for me, I love what you do, so let me toast to it. And for once, I almost wish he could go to nomikai more often!”
