by SR Jones
Claudette is the tea lady at my main building. An old-fashioned job, but one she does brilliantly. She works in the canteen, and every afternoon she takes a tea trolley around the two top floors of the building, which are where my staff are housed; the bottom four floors, I rent out to various organizations. She also serves cakes and tiny sandwiches to anyone who has missed lunch.
She’s a treasure, as the Brits say. I love the saying, but it doesn’t apply to many people in this world; Claudette is one of them. She’s worth her salary and more because she helps give my staff an afternoon lift. Their productivity has shot up since Claudette started her afternoon rounds. I don’t do these things out of the goodness of my heart; I do them because they pay off.
“Do we know what Claudette likes?” I ask.
“I did some digging,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
“And?”
“Well, she’s always wanted something from a certain jewelers, comes in a duck-egg blue box. But she also loves my Louis Vuitton bag. She’s commented on it many times.”
“You like shopping, don’t you?” I ask.
Margaret laughs. “K, you know I love it. It’s better than sex.”
“You’ve not been fucked right, if you can say that, Margaret.”
She sighs. “You’re probably correct, but so far, my life experience has shown me sex is often disappointing whereas shopping never is.”
“Definitely haven’t been fucked right.” I chuckle, and she laughs.
“You want me to go to Tiffany’s or Vuitton?”
“Fuck it, go to both. She’s worth it, get her a bag and something shiny as well.”
“Oooh, really?” She breathes and it’s all excited, as if I’m going down on her.
Jesus, Margaret really needs to get laid good and proper. For her birthday I might buy her a gigolo for the night.
“Yes, really. Go spend big. Use the company credit card.”
“Limit?”
“Try to keep it to a grand in Tiffany’s, and up to two in Vuitton. Will two-grand buy her a decent bag?”
Last time I bought anything from there was a year ago for an actress I was dating, and that was a scarf.
“Yes, of course. Do you want anything while I’m there?”
“What, like a new purse?”
She laughs. “They sell some great men’s stuff.”
“I don’t like logos,” I say pointedly.
She bought me a Montblanc organizer, like she does every year, for Christmas, but unlike the previous ones, which were discreet, this one had Montblanc sprayed all over it in graffiti-style writing. She thought it was very funny. I bought her a Mulberry bag and matching purse, and gave her a ten-grand bonus, so she definitely came off better than me.
“Logos are in,” she says right back. “Big time, the nineties are back, baby.”
“I should fucking hope not, seeing as I spent them as a spotty, broke, youth who couldn’t get laid if he paid for it. Not that I could pay for it.”
“Well, you can now.” She laughs.
I’ll have to tell her about Liza at some point, but I don’t need to hear the I told you so.
Margaret has been on at me to date more intelligent women for years. She says I need to date someone of caliber, who can be a serious partner. She introduced me to a ballerina, but that didn’t work out. Then an artist. Not my thing. She was far too up her own ass. The stupid cow painted a toilet seat red and called it Woman’s Woes, and she thought she was a genius. I fucking hate modern art.
The one woman I did meet in those circles who I could have maybe had a serious relationship with was the wife of the Foreign Secretary, and she wasn’t about to leave her politician husband to run off with an up and coming businessman with a shady background and tattoos. Although she did love my ink, and the few times I fucked her, she spent hours tracing the patterns it makes with her index finger.
Ah, I wonder what her husband would do if he knew I’d fucked her up the ass, while she stared at a photo of them at a government brunch?
Probably fuck all. He’s a total pussy, and he’s in my pocket. Dick.
“I can hear you brooding over the phone.” Margaret breaks into my thoughts.
“Just thinking how much I dislike most people,” I say.
“You’re a misanthrope, Konstantin. You need to fall in love, see the world anew. I mean it. You need to do something to stop being so down on the whole damn world. Stop dating those airhead Instagram models, and give yourself a chance to meet someone you can make a life with. Don’t think I don’t know why you deny yourself the chance at happiness.”
“Oh, why, great mind reader?”
“Because you think you failed Yulia, and you think you deserve to live in purgatory for it. Because you’re terrified that deep down, you’re like your father, when you’re nothing but, and because you find it almost impossible to trust anyone.”
Her words cut me to the bone. I do find trusting people almost impossible. Vasily, my second in Moscow, Margaret, my second in my legit business here, Derek, my sort-of-butler, are exceptions to the rule. Andrius, my brother in arms, of course. Probably, I would say I trust Bohdan and Denis who work for me in Moscow too … to a degree. That’s it, in the whole fucking world. There’s Michael, of course, but it’s more that I love him whether I trust him or not. But anyone else? I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.
I hang up on Margaret without saying goodbye. Fuck her, she works for me, if she thinks she can spout shit like that at me, she’s wrong.
I call her back after a few moments of deep breathing. “Don’t say a fucking word,” I growl. She doesn’t. Margaret knows me well, and she knows when I mean it. “You overstepped just now. I get it’s probably coming from a good place because you care, but don’t you ever bring up Yulia or my piece of shit father again. Now, we’re good because luckily for you, I don’t hold grudges, and you’re an excellent right-hand woman, but in the future apply the brain to mouth filter before you speak. Now, go shop.”
I head back to work, and go straight to my office, avoiding eye contact as I don’t want to have to make idle chit chat.
Three hours later, I leave my office for ten minutes to stretch my legs. When I get back, there’s an orange box on my desk. It’s a Louis Vuitton box. It has a card on top, so I open that first.
Konstantin,
I’m sorry. Truly. I just worry. I care. You’re not only the big boss, but I truly see you as a good friend. I’m as hard as they come, but even I need people on my side. I just worry you’re so cut off from everyone. I won’t overstep again, though. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
Margaret.
Ps I bought this with my own money, not the company card.
I snort. She didn’t hurt me; she merely pissed me off.
I open the box and smile when I see a gray cashmere scar. It’s nice and must have cost a fortune. I press the button on my desk phone that puts me through to her.
“Yes?” she says.
“Apology accepted, and I like the scarf.”
“You’re welcome, Konstantin. I love you,” she says.
I freeze. She’s never said anything like that to me before. I know she doesn’t mean she loves me romantically, but it’s still a huge thing for her to say.
“You’re one of the people I respect most in this world.”
“Okay, Margaret, you can stop now: you’re forgiven.”
“Kon, I mean it.”
“Got to go, got a call coming through.”
I hang up. Then I frown at the phone. Why would Margaret love me? I don’t treat her that well. I’m bad tempered at times. Most of the time, I’m seriously demanding. I can’t imagine I’m easy to work for.
I think the bigger question is why are you so scared of Margaret, or anyone else, loving you? Dead Yulia says in my head.
“Fuck off,” I mutter at the ghost talking to me. Christ, I’m talking to the dead wife in my head as if she’s real. I must
be losing it.
I need to get drunk, and I need to get laid. The idea that I can be celibate is crazy. I have appetites, a healthy libido, and I’ll drive myself nuts trying to go without. Liza is a no. I couldn’t fuck her if she paid me to. Cassie is right out because … well, complicated doesn’t begin to describe the dynamics if I screw her.
Screw this.
I grab my jacket, swing it over my shoulder, palm my wallet and shove it in my pocket, and head out the door.
I go straight to a local bar. It’s not the sort of place I normally frequent. It isn’t full of moneyed types; quite the opposite. I take a seat in a dingy corner and go to the bar to order.
“Old fashioned,” I say to the barman, then as he begins to prepare it, I add, “Better make that two.”
Once I have my two cocktails, both presented in thick, heavy tumblers, I take my drinks and go back to my corner.
When I’m done with those two, I go back and order two more. I sit in my corner, and I sip and brood, and sip and brood.
At some point during my pity party, I glance up and see a woman watching me from her corner of the room. She’s sitting alone, on a bench with a back that’s covered in dull red velvet, and she’s sipping at a fancy cocktail in a frosted glass. The cocktail is incongruous with her general appearance. She’s wearing dark, ripped, skin-tight jeans, and a black t-shirt with a woman’s face on it. The woman’s face has mascara tracking smudged tears down her cheeks, and below the picture it says ruthless pity, which makes no sense to me. It’s almost as stupid as that artist’s toilet seat, but it looks cool.
On her fingers, the woman is wearing a variety of silver rings, and she’s got chunky silver bangles halfway up each slender forearm. They partially cover her tattoos, so I can’t see clearly what they are.
Her hair is black, and her eyes are light, a pale blue, an odd combination which only serves to make her more striking. She’s not my type, but then neither is Cassie, and I can’t get her out of my head.
I go for well put-together women. The kind who turn heads wherever they go with their high heels and their swinging hips. This woman, she’s not subtle, not at all, but she’s not screaming sex. Yet when she gets up and stalks to the bar, I watch her go.
Her figure is fantastic, lean. Not as hot as Cassie’s curves, but she’s clearly fit. She’s wearing chunky, biker style boots, and her hair hangs in a dark curtain just past her shoulders. It’s iron straight, and she leans one foot on the rail running along the bottom of the bar, casual, confident.
The bar is empty, and it means I can hear her order clearly.
“Cosmo,” she says in a surprisingly sweet, girly voice. Her voice and the drink don’t match her outfit at all. She’s a bit of a puzzle. I like puzzles.
She sits down with her drink and watches me once more. Every now and then, between sips of her drink, she raises those light blue wolfish eyes of hers and looks at me.
I want her. Not in the way I want Cassie, but I can’t have Cassie. Cassie is too fragile and vulnerable for me to fuck and run, and that’s what it would have to be with Liza back at the house, waiting like the spider she is, spinning her web around me.
I sigh, shift in my seat, and take a sip of my drink, glancing at the woman as I swallow. She smiles, I smile. We’re flirting now, without words, using our bodies to convey a message as old as time.
I’m contemplating whether to go over, when she stands. I think she must be leaving and am about to chalk it up to one of those things, a could-have-been, when she walks over to me and indicates the spare patch of velvet by my side.
“May I?”
“Yes, of course,” I reply.
“Listen,” she says.
Oh, I’m listening alright.
“I don’t normally do this,” she continues. “I don’t pick up random strangers in bars, but I’ve had the worst week of my life, and the alcohol alone isn’t cutting it. Do you want to come back to my place and fuck?”
Her words take me aback. So direct. I try not to be a sexist pig, but sometimes the views of my home nation and my upbringing prove hard to shake. No Russian woman in my village would say such a thing. She’d be branded a slut by all and sundry. Those are double standards, though, because women like sex, often just as much as men do, and why shouldn’t they sometimes be the ones to do the asking?
Then I wonder if Cassie made the first move when she fucked Ted, but that makes me ragey. I don’t like the idea of Cassie getting fucked by anyone but me.
“I’d like nothing more,” I reply, putting Cassie out of my head. This is what I need, random, sweaty sex with a stranger.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. Then I follow her out the door, leaving my drink half finished.
It’s a short walk to her place, before she lets us into a decidedly dingy hallway, where she walks to the end and turns right, before going to the last door. She takes out her key, opens the door, and leads me into a small, depressing space. No wonder she’s had a shitty week. Her place is a dump.
If I had to live here, I’d be permanently depressed.
She’s on me before I can look around further. Alcohol and sugar explode on my lips as she presses her mouth to mine. I get with the program quickly and wrap my arms around her. My hands find their way down past her hips to grab the flesh of her ass. It’s skinnier than my tastes normally like, and her tits are small pressed against my chest, but I don’t care. She’s a warm body, she’s willing, and she’s here.
I take my jacket off and place it over a chair, loosening my tie undoing the top button on my shirt before I grab her again.
We’re kissing and stumbling around her depressingly small front room, when I realize I need to take a leak before we get down to business.
Gently, I push her away from me and smile at the lipstick all over the lower half of her face. “Where’s the bathroom?” I ask.
“Down the hall,” she says, breathing heavily.
I leave her wanting more and head down the small dark hallway. I flick the bathroom light switch and stop in my tracks. On the hallway walls, lit by the light streaming out of the bathroom, are some of the most incredible drawings I’ve ever seen. They are the sort of things you see in graphic novels, and they are brilliant. Unique. There’s a sense of threat in all of them despite their undeniable beauty. This isn’t my world, it’s not something I’m into, but I recognize raw talent when I see it.
The company, Bridge Tech, that I’m currently trying to turn around, have been happy to keep using the same graphics team for the longest time. They don’t use in-house illustrators anymore, they’re too big for that now, but that’s why their games don’t have the same ground-breaking look they used to.
These illustrations are moving, threatening, bold.
I turn on my heel and head back to the woman whose name I don’t even know.
“Where did you get those illustrations in the hallway?” I ask.
“I did them,” she says. “It’s what I do. I’m a graphic novelist.”
I look around her hovel. “It doesn’t pay well,” I observe.
She sighs. “No, it doesn’t, but I’m not prepared to go get some corporate job. We don’t all sell out like you have.”
“How do you know anything about me?” I demand.
She comes to me, traces the ink showing at my collarbone. “You’ve got ink, you’ve got an accent, you’re rough around the edges, but your watch cost more than I imagine six months of rent does for me. You’re a corporate suit, but underneath you’re something else.”
“Whatever you might think you know about me, let me tell you this. I’m a very wealthy man, and I got that way by recognizing and utilizing talent. And you, sweetheart, have talent. The sort of talent that means you shouldn’t be living in a shithole like this.”
She stares at me then bursts out laughing. “Oh, are you going to offer the little lady some money for her drawings after you screw her brains out? Save it, I’m not selling my ri
ghts; one day I’ll be famous.”
I step back from her and lean against the tatty Formica table in the corner. I cross my arms over my chest and cock my head to one side. “We’re not fucking, sweetheart. Not going to happen because I don’t mix business with pleasure. I don’t want to buy the rights for the illustrations you’ve already done. I want you to come and work for me and do new work. And yes, I’m going to offer you money. How does a ninety thousand a year salary sound? The only thing I own is the artwork you produce directly for me. Five weeks paid holiday, sick pay, private medical, and a company pension.”
Her mouth is slack, and she’s dropped the hard-faced act. “Are you serious?”
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
“Zoey, with a Y,” she says.
“Well, Zoey with a Y. Have a think about it; take my card.” I reach into my pocket and take out a business card, handing it to her. “If you decide you want to talk, call me, and we can meet for coffee. Or you can come into the offices, and we can talk there? You can take a look around.”
“So you own a game design company?”
“Among other things.”
“We’re not having sex?” she asks. “Cause you’re really kind of hot.”
“I don’t fuck employees,” I say. “And I hope you will become an employee, Zoey. Call me. You won’t have to live in this damp apartment any longer, and you won’t have to sell the rights to the work you’ve already done.”
“Is this for real?” she asks, and there are tears in her light blue eyes.
“It’s for real, Zoey. You might just be the answer I need to turn some of this shit around.”
“My God, things like this don’t happen to me, ever,” she says with a laugh.
“It’s serendipity,” I say. Fate is fucking with me so much these days. Perhaps the wily bitch is trying to teach me something.
“I’ll call you.” She puts the card carefully on the Formica table and places a mug on the corner of it to keep it in place.
“Good, I look forward to talking to you more.”
She lets me out of her flat, and I walk along the embankment of the canal. I didn’t get the sex I was after, but I got something else—a way to turn around part of this business I’ve bought and make it the best game design company on the market once again.
