Sweet Oblivion

by Rhiana Ramsey

  Louise had also written a number of articles in her first couple of years but most of her time had been spent editing, signing off initial layout proposals and ensuring deadlines were met. Her firm but fair attitude had earned the reluctant respect of her colleagues. Although this of course also bred jealousy - especially from a certain sub-editor who had been passed over.

  Louise entered the tube station and groaned as she noticed the crowded platform. Why the hell was it called rush hour when you could barely move for people? The tube arrived and commuters moved forward as one, each determined that they would make it onto the train even if it meant standing crushed against the person in front of them or with their nose in the armpit of some other poor sod desperately trying to hold onto the overhead handrail. Louise decided to wait for the next train, as did a few other people.

  She looked down the platform and yawned, suddenly overcome with weariness. Why the hell was she so tired? She made a mental note to put in an application for some time off as soon as she got into the office.

  She looked to her left to read the tube arrival board to see when the next train was due - one minute. Also to her left, stood a man. He was wearing a somber suit and was carrying a slim black briefcase and a red and green golf umbrella. He was holding a novel in his right hand. Quite handsome, probably worked in the City, guessed Louise. As she was examining him, the man looked up and caught her inquisitive gaze. Embarrassed Louise averted her eyes and faced front. She could see in her peripheral vision that the man was smiling at her.

  She slowly turned back to look at him and smiled back, a small, flicker of a smile. There was something about this man; he looked familiar somehow but she couldn’t tell if that was because she had met him before or if it was because he simply possessed features that reminded her of someone she couldn’t immediately bring to mind. The man turned back to his book. Louise felt the wind that preceded the imminent arrival of a tube train tugging at her suit jacket, lifting her hair with its warm gust.

  The train pulled in and book man stopped reading as he moved towards the platform edge. As the tube doors slid open and the inevitable crush began, he turned to Louise and whispered conspiratorially: ‘It’s ok. You don’t need to worry. Your secret is safe.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ asked Louise, confused.

  She stood staring at him like an idiot as he got onto the tube, crushing himself in, unsure he had actually been addressing her. The man stood in the train doorway and smiled at her again, a smile that suggested he knew something Louise didn’t or knew something she should, leaving her no doubt that the mysterious comment was indeed for her benefit. Beeping, the doors closed and book man was swifted away in an instant. Louise stood open mouthed on the platform, trying to understand what the man was referring to.

  This was turning into one fucking weird morning.

  ************************************************

  ‘Housekeeping!’ Greta’s voice was chirpy as she announced her presence to the occupier of room 501. The ‘Do not disturb’ sign hung from the door handle but it was coming up for two o’clock and Greta had to get this room ready for the next guest. According to the manager, Mr Thomas, this guest hadn’t returned his key card, so there was a chance that there may still be somebody in the room. She’d left this room to last. She hated going into rooms when the guest might still be in there.

  Indeed she had seen some sights in her five years as a maid in one of London’s most prestigious hotels. If her dear strict Catholic mother in Poland knew some of what she’d seen she would demand her daughter return and ask the church to cleanse her spirit.

  Greta had left room 501 to last to give the guest maximum time to leave, which is exactly what she would be doing in about half an hour – leaving to meet some friends for a late lunch.

  ‘I come in now, so cover up ok?’ Greta chuckled good-humouredly to herself. ‘I don’t want to see no dangly thing ok?’

  Greta opened the door and crinkled her nose. Something smelled strange, bad even. The room was dark.

  ‘Hello? Anybody here?’

  She reached for the light switch and flicked it on; the bulb fizzed noisily, flickering briefly, and then made a pinking sound as it burnt itself out. She cursed under her breath in Polish, annoyed. Now she would have to find and tell the hotel handyman so that the bulb could be replaced; she hoped this wouldn’t delay her too much. She hadn’t seen her friends in what felt like an eternity and it wasn’t often they could all get together.

  Greta moved gingerly into the room, her eyes unadjusted to the gloom. She couldn’t clearly distinguish all the bedroom furniture but she could make out the contours of the bed and the rumpled duvet on top of it.

  ‘Ok, I need to open curtain. It’s dark in here and I can‘t see good.’

  Greta often talked to herself when making her rounds, she found it helped her to remember what she had to do and it alleviated the boredom. There were other maids working in the hotel but as they were each allocated a couple of floors to clean, they didn’t often come into contact with each other when they were cleaning the rooms.

  ‘Man, what you do in here to make it stink so bad? You know it’s not nice to be maid. Have to clean up after you dirty ‘Scurva‘.’

  Greta pulled back the curtains and turned towards the bed. What she saw caused her to recoil in horror, a guttural scream lodged somewhere between her stomach and her throat. The thing on the bed was not a rumpled duvet.

  The body was naked, tied starfish style to the bed, limbs rigid and pale. The left eye hung out of its socket, dangling uselessly against the person’s cheek, blood and bits of tissue the colour of raisins speckled the pillow. The mouth was agape in a silent scream, tongue swollen and ghastly within.

  As Greta looked at the body, her cries still trapped within her, her eyes fell upon the area between the corpse’s legs. All that remained was a bloody wound where any evidence of manhood had been hacked away. The sheets around the body were stiff with solidified blood, the corpse’s thighs streaked with crimson rivers.

  Finally, Greta screamed, a terrified and horrendous noise that caused hotel staff and guests alike to come running.

  Chapter IV

  ‘Stop crying you stupid fucking creature!’ He was shouting at her again and she didn’t know why or what she was supposed to have done. All she’d done was crawl under her blanket because she was cold. The room had no heating, not because he couldn’t afford it, but because he liked the goose flesh it gave her. It made her cling to him for warmth too, her little body shivering on his lap, his big, hairy arms wrapped around her, pulling her face into his naked chest.

  ‘Get out of there and lie back on top of the covers,’ he demanded.

  She nodded slowly, and rubbed her eyes, wiping the tears away. She did as she was asked.

  This was their special room, the place he took her when he wanted her to do things. There was a large bed in the middle of the room, which is where they usually did things to her and made her do things to them; there was a large sofa and a couple of comfy chairs in the one corner of the room and in the other was a play mat on which she was sometimes allowed to play with her dollies and horsies. She’d always loved horses and had seen movies where people actually rode them.

  He told her that what she was doing would give her good experience of riding. His friends had laughed at this and seemed to find it very funny. One his fat friends had said: ‘You can practice riding on me,’ and he’d grabbed her, pulling her onto his lap.

  Fat man had really hurt her, but she was used to the pain. It was normal, what all children went through, he’d said in the beginning when he first introduced her to riding. But it was never, never discussed. If it was talked about, Mummy and Daddy would die and then she would die with no one to look after her. She’d die a slow horrible death. She hadn’t liked the sound of that and so had agreed that she would never tell.

  At the foot of the bed there was a video camera. He said it was there so they could view it lat
er and see how well her riding was coming along. Sometimes, he would make her sit with him when he watched tapes of previous riding lessons, commenting on her performance and rubbing between his legs. He’d touch her too and say, ‘See how well you did there? He was really happy with you. That’s good isn’t it?’ She always nodded. She didn’t know when she’d ever had a bad lesson, he always seemed pleased.

  He only got angry when she cried or didn’t do exactly as he said. Sometimes it all hurt too much and made her cry. Then he’d get angry. Then he’d shout. Then he’d hit her and then she’d do what he asked.

  There were three men in the room today. She’d met one of them before. He was nice to her, told her she was beautiful and a good little girl. He didn’t hurt her as much as some of the others did. Sometimes he just watched her playing with her horsies on the mat. She was always naked, and always cold, but at least she got to play and nothing hurt.

  ‘Sam, you want to go first?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, what are the rules?’

  ‘You can do what you want, just don’t hit her or if you must cos she ain’t doing what she’s told, at least don’t leave any marks. We get to watch. And you pay me first.’

  Sam grinned and handed over a wad of cash. ‘There you go, five hundred big ones.’

  He smiled back at Sam, and said: ‘For the next hour she’s all yours. Look sweetie, Uncle Sam is going to take you riding today. Be good won’t you?’

  She didn’t reply. Just looked at him, her sad eyes wide and expressionless. She’d already fled to the safe place within her mind. She was nothing more than a shell.

  Chapter V

  ‘Come in!’ Louise shouted at the rapping on her office door. Ben poked his head around the door frame.

  ‘Have you got a minute Lou?’

  ‘Hey Ben. You alright? Come in. I’m just reviewing the layout. Looks good doesn’t it? The graphics for this issue are great. Very modern looking; gives us an edge I think. Much better than…’

  Ben smiled at her and raised his hand in a bid to silence her. He was a good looking man with his square jaw, deep brown eyes and athletic physique. More than one woman at the magazine had fantasized about the gorgeous Ben Mathews whilst crying out in ecstasy as her partner brought her to satisfaction.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Louise, her expression quizzical, eyebrows knitted into a frown.

  Ben sighed and quietly shut the door behind him. He sat down opposite Louise in the large chair she had insisted upon for visitors to her office. ‘You’ve got to make them comfortable,’ she had argued, when challenged over the cost of the chair. ‘Comfortable people are happy people and happy people are open to suggestion,’ she had pointed out. Additionally, the shape of the chair made it difficult for people to comfortably cross their arms across their torso - an essential tool in negotiations, according to body language experts. Open posture, open mind they said.

  ‘It does look great, think this is one of our best issues actually.’

  ‘Yes it is, but you didn’t come in here to discuss the layout did you? What’s wrong?’

  Ben ran a hand through his dark blond hair and sighed wearily, unsure where to start, deciding that he’d better just get to the point.

  ‘Louise, the magazine’s in trouble. We’ve been in trouble for a while, but now we’re talking redundancy and pay cuts and cutting overheads. I’ve spent all morning with the company’s accountants discussing options and alternatives,’ he began.

  ‘Shit,’ breathed Louise, although she wasn’t entirely surprised. The whole country was in a recession - pay cuts and job losses were occurring across the board as companies fought to maintain their existence in an economic environment that was spiralling downwards rapidly.

  ‘This has been in the making for the past six months, but we tried to front it out by increasing advertising in our pages. I approached more companies and tried to negotiate higher advertising deals by playing on the fact we’re about to receive that award for being the most comprehensive business magazine, which is a great accolade. However, unfortunately, and as you know, when the going gets tough, advertising is one of the first areas that companies cut back on. Our income from advertising has dropped by almost forty percent. We’re really struggling and unless I lose twenty staff members at least, and cut overheads by twenty percent this company will not survive another year.’

  Louise exhaled a long drawn out breath.

  ‘Ben, have you come in here to sack me?’ she couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice. The thought of being made redundant turned her stomach. Foolishly, despite all the media coverage of businesses going under and thousands of workers being made redundant, Louise had never entertained the notion that her own job could be under threat. She looked at him challengingly, daring him to tell her this was the case.

  ‘No, no Louise that’s not it. We need to begin by losing non-essential staff. Writers and editors make this publication, so I don’t want to lose more then a couple if any at all. I consider you too valuable to this company, which is why I wanted to ask you for help.’

  ‘Flattered as I am that you consider me valuable Ben, would you please get to the point? Why have you come in here to tell me this?’ asked Louise, a flicker of annoyance skipping across her face.

  ‘Ok, sorry. It’s not easy for me to talk about this crap. You know I founded this company Louise and I never thought it would come to this. I never thought my company could be on the verge of collapse, that I would be forced to sack people, forced to make such drastic cuts.’

  Louise’s features mellowed. Ben had set this company up ten years ago at the tender age of 23. An entrepreneur through and through, she knew how devastated he must be by the current state of affaires.

  ‘Ben the whole world is suffering from this recession. It is not a reflection of your abilities or business acumen you know,’ she said, hoping to reassure him and encourage him to say whatever was on his mind.

  ‘Thanks,’ he smiled. ‘The thing is, you are more hands on than me, you know the people that work here, and you are better equipped to decide…’

  ‘No,’ said Louise, shaking her head.

  ‘..who we can dispense of. I spend too much of my time out of here. Whilst I know all the staff here, I don’t have the same understanding of their work ethic and productivity that you do…’

  ‘Ben, how can you ask me to do this? You’re the boss for God’s sake, please don’t ask me to do this.’

  ‘Louise, please. You know you are the best person to help me decide this. I may have the final say but I am removed from the everyday interactions. That is your role and you do it well. I need your help on this. No one will know that you’re helping me. I will do the sacking. I just need you to help me decide who should go.’ said Ben. He looked at her pleadingly, his big brown eyes beseeching.

  ‘That’s not my job. I am really not comfortable with this. Why don’t you just look at performance and sack those who are the least productive? I don’t see why I have to get involved.’ she retorted, annoyed. Louise felt sure that Ben was perfectly capable of making this decision on his own, and she didn’t see why she should have to do his dirty work.

  ‘Ordinarily I would, but time is of the essence. I need to have a list of candidates by the end of the week. It would take me longer than that to go through performance records. And besides records are not a true reflection of ability, you know that. I am sorry to have to ask you to do this Louise, but I really need your help. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think it necessary. You know that.’

  Louise looked at him; he looked crushed. She noted the dark circles beneath his eyes, the gaunt ashen appearance of his usually radiant skin. This was a man who was struggling, a man who was not sleeping or taking care of himself. The gorgeous Ben Mathews looked worn down.

  Louise sighed and rubbed her forehead. Ben was asking her for help because he needed to make redundancies immediately, because he was not as involved with the staff as she was. And, she suspected, b
ecause he didn’t want to go through this alone.

  ‘Ok. I’ll do this for you but you better promise me that no one will know I am the reason they’re getting the boot. This is shit Ben, and you shouldn’t be asking me to do this.’

  ‘You’re an angel, thank you. I promise no one will find out you’re helping me with this.’

  Louise snorted derisively, and made a show of shuffling papers on her desk.

  ‘I need to get this sent off to the publisher. It’s all good to go. Another outstanding edition of Biz Talk to hit the shelves.’ She stood up a clear indication that the conversation was over and a display of her disapproval.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ said Ben, the silent message of her actions not lost on him. He also stood up.

  ‘Just one more thing Lou, don’t forget we have the awards ceremony on Friday. We must continue as normal. Who knows, the ceremony could prove to be just the boost the business needs.’ he said optimistically.

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ll be there. Good job really, given that you want my executioner’s list by then. I’ll need a good drink by the evening.’ she smiled at him, a small melancholy smile that left him in no doubt as to her feelings on the subject.

  ‘Lou, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you.’ Ben turned and walked out of her office, giving her a final smile as he did so.

  As the door shut behind him, Louise sat back down and swivelled her chair so she was looking out the vast office window. The rain had not relented since the morning and continued to cut a dreary, grey swathe across the city. As Louise looked at the cityscape, the matchbox cars and people milling around on the streets below, she felt a pain beginning to spread behind her eyes. So much for taking a holiday. It hardly seemed right to ask for time off now, she was just grateful to still have a job.