by Cerys du Lys
Still, the place looked nice enough. I kept it clean and my furniture was only a few years old. I never watched TV, but I had an older CRT TV in a rustic looking entertainment center against the wall for when guests came over. Granted, I didn't have cable(since I never used it), but Redbox or my DVD collection solved most problems there.
I used to think all of this was good up until Jeremy peered around my apartment with a funny look on his face.
"What?" I asked. "Yes, this is my apartment."
"It's kind of small," he said.
"I live by myself. I don't need a big place."
"Is there another room? Is this it?" He stepped past the "dining area" and into the "living room."
"My bedroom, then the bathroom. I can't... I mean, I know that Asher's place is nicer, but it's hard for someone like me to afford more than this. I think it's..."
"Oh," he said, frowning. "No, no. I didn't mean it like that. I guess... well, I only have a room of my own at Asher's, anyways, so I don't know what I'm going on about. It's a nice place, though. Looks cozy. Not a ton of room to move around, but I guess that's what going out is for, right?"
I rolled my eyes. "Thanks."
"So," he said, sitting at the table. "What was that before? Why did you run me out of the bookstore? You were so excited to go in, and then..."
"Yeah..." I trailed off, remembering it. Maybe I shouldn't tell him. Except I felt like I really needed to tell someone. It was definitely them, Asher's wife, Beatrice, and his director of public relations, Solomon Royce. I'd inadvertently happened upon them at my favorite independent bookstore, which was odd enough, but after overhearing their conversation it became even stranger. I didn't even know what to think about it. Maybe I was going crazy or something. That seemed like a more logical explanation than the truth.
"Do you want cookies?" I asked. "With milk, of course."
"Sure," Jeremy said. "Yeah, why not? Sounds nice."
I poured us both a glass of milk and dug through my cupboards for a box of Russian tea cookies while thinking about what to tell him. How should I start? With the beginning, I supposed, except it sounded weird. Oh, yes, I just overheard, and...
I handed Jeremy his glass of milk, sat alongside him at the table, and put the box of cookies between us.
"These are cookies?" he asked, plucking one of the confection sugar-covered balls from the box. "Huh."
"Some people call them cakes, but they're harder like cookies. I don't really care what they are, but they're delicious."
He nibbled on one, then lifted his brow. "Huh." Dunking it into his milk, he plopped the rest of it in his mouth and chewed.
"Right, so..." I looked at the box of cookies and considered stuffing one in my mouth to waste time while I chewed it. "Alright, listen. I know what I'm about to say won't make any sense, but I swear it's true. I saw Beatrice and Solomon in the bookstore. I overheard them talking."
Jeremy nearly choked on a mouthful of milk. He coughed and spluttered and I gasped and yelled at him to raise his hands in the air.
When he seemed alright again, he said, "That's strange. Are you sure about... I mean... I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I can't imagine why either of them would be there."
"I don't really know why they were there, either," I said.
"Fair enough. So, let's say they were there. What did you hear?"
I explained it to him. I didn't know the exact specifics, but it sounded like something involving an affair, an attempt to ruin Landseer Enterprises, and then Beatrice's inevitable divorce from Asher. I knew it sounded insane, but I really needed to tell someone.
Jeremy stared at me long and hard. "Maybe we need to take you to a doctor besides the in vitro specialist," he said.
"This isn't a time for jokes!" I grabbed a cookie from the box and chomped on it hard, crushing it into pieces. "I wouldn't just say this, alright?" Powdered sugar sputtered from my mouth to the table. I glowered and finished eating my cookie, then added, "I don't know why they were there, either, but I know it happened. You don't have to believe me. I swear I'm not trying to pull anything. I just... I don't know what to do, you know? Do I do anything? Do I just ignore it? If I tell Asher, he'd just look at me funny and get mad, don't you think? I wouldn't blame him if he did."
Jeremy took a drink of his milk, wiped his lips with the cuff of his sleeve, and sighed. "Look, first off, Asher wouldn't look at you funny or get mad. He probably wouldn't believe you, but he's a nice guy, so he'd at least listen. The problem is that right after he'd talk to Beatrice about it. And, if what you said happened, then she'd obviously lie to him. So we can't do that."
"Does this mean you believe me?" I asked.
"I don't not believe you," he said. "Let's leave it at that. I wouldn't be surprised if Beatrice was planning something like this, but I don't know you that well, either. I like you, don't get me wrong, and you seem nice, but..."
"No, no, I understand. Thanks for listening and not yelling at me. I really appreciate it."
"What we have to do," he said, "is figure out what exactly is going on. With evidence, preferably. If that's even possible, I have no idea. You have to understand and agree that maybe you misheard, too. Also, maybe it was someone else entirely in that room. People that sounded similar, or with the same names, right? It happens."
"No." I shook my head. "When, um, when I kissed you in the alley, you remember? It was because I saw Beatrice and Solomon walking past. I didn't want them to realize it was us."
"I just figured I was irresistibly attractive," he said, smirking. "I guess your reason makes more sense, though. You and I totally wouldn't work out together. Sorry. I wish I'd seen them, though. It'd make this easier."
"Yeah," I said. "Sorry about that. I didn't know what to do."
"Eh, it's fine. I got a kiss from a beautiful woman out of it, so who am I to complain?"
I hit him in the shoulder and pursed my lips. "Shut up."
"I was giving you a compliment!"
"Right. Sure. Whatever." I stood up, grabbing a cookie for good measure. "I have to call my mother to tell her what's going on, but after can you help me pack some things and maybe we can think of something? Maybe it's nothing, but it's good to have a plan, right?"
"Yeah," Jeremy said. He smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. "Don't worry. Asher's a tough guy. Everything will work out in the end. He didn't get rich from dumb luck or anything. He knows what's up."
I smiled. Yes, he must. Asher was kind and nice and interesting and fun, maybe a little domineering, but he was other things, too. He had business savvy, of course, and knew how to navigate the corporate world with ease. One thing really bothered me, though.
"Solomon Royce has done good work for me, though I don't understand his methods exactly," Asher had said. "Always away doing this or that, sparking interest in company holdings, doing press releases, that kind of thing. I couldn't manage any of it for the life of me, so I'm glad to have him, but sometimes it's confusing since I don't understand most of what his reports are about."
Maybe I was worrying over nothing, but it seemed like Solomon could easily pull something if he wanted. If he slipped it into a report, disguised it so that Asher wouldn't even bother to notice, then it could be disastrous. Asher said he trusted Solomon and that the director of public relations had done good work for him in the past, so why would he suddenly stop trusting him? If Solomon wanted to sabotage Landseer enterprises through faulty reporting, Asher probably wouldn't even bother to double check and try to understand the PR reports until it was too late.
I walked to my bedroom contemplating that. Falling onto my bed, I snatched the cordless phone from my nightstand and dialed my mother's number.
...
"Jessika," my mother said. "I've tried calling you. Where have you been? What are you doing home this early. Shouldn't you be working?"
"Mom," I said. "Yes, about that. There's... well, I found a job. It's um, maybe more permanent."
"Oh?"<
br />
Right. A job. That's how I'd spin it. "So I met a man," I said, figuring I should start with that.
"You're not moving to Las Vegas or something, are you honey? I don't care how attractive he is, if he says you can make it far as a stripper he's just trying to use you."
"Ugh! Are you serious? No, I'm not moving to Las Vegas and I'm not becoming a stripper."
"You were a really good dancer. You could probably do it if you wanted to. Have you looked into that? I've heard those girls are really nice and you can make a lot of money."
"Mom, I'm not going to be a stripper. You need to be attractive for that."
I could almost see my mom shaking her head on the other side of the phone. "No, that's not true. They have um... waffleface?"
"Butterface," I corrected.
"Oh! Yes, that's it. Not that you are one, but if you've got nice breasts then it doesn't matter. I'm your mother, so I know these things, and I bet men would definitely like your breasts. Just don't become one of those crackwhores, alright? Promise me that."
"Mom. Listen, please. I'm not even becoming a stripper. This isn't about that. I met a man and he's rich, alright, and..."
"Oh, so he's like a sweetdaddy. That sounds nice."
"Sugardaddy," I corrected. "And, no. Um. So, he has a wife, right?"
"Are you having an affair with a married man, Jessika?"
I blushed. Oh God, my mother already knew about my indiscretions with Asher and I hadn't even told her. "Would you let me finish?" I said. Better to change the subject, really.
"Alright. So you met a man and he's rich and he has a wife. I can't see where this is going if you aren't having an affair with him."
I ignored the last part. "They want children, but his wife... she can't. There's problems, right? So he asked me if I'd consider doing, um..."
"Oh. I read about that in the paper. There was an ad looking for women to donate eggs. That's really nice. So you're doing that? That's probably better than being a stripper, honey. I don't think you could handle taking your clothes off in a room full of men."
"Yeah," I said, blinking twice, frowning. This was going easier than I thought. "Yeah, so I'll do that. I'd be a surrogate, too. His wife, she doesn't really want to carry the baby to term, either. Um... it's about a year long, nine months and everything and... maybe I'll be a nanny after, you know? Because I've always wanted to try and get more into book stuff. I'd really like to see if I can do it. This way, if I'm living there and helping out, I'll have a little more free time."
"Just don't let his wife catch you having an affair with him, alright? I don't want to read about you in the tabloids."
"Mom! We're not having an affair! I... we just watched a movie once, and I slept in his guest home. It's..."
"Oh, no, don't tell me about the affair. I don't want reporters hounding me if you get caught. I'd rather know nothing so they can't get information out of me." My mother laughed when I groaned. "So who's this man? What's his name?"
"Asher," I said. "Asher Landseer. He owns Landseer Enterprises."
"Oo~oh," my mother said. "An older man. Close, though. I just saw an article on him. He's one of the richest men under thirty. Twenty-eight to be exact. That's good. Dating an older man is usually best since I find the maturity levels mix better."
"I'm twenty-four. He's not that much older. Also, we aren't dating."
"No, no, of course not. But when you start dating and having your affair, I'll approve."
"I'm hanging up now. I'm done with this conversation."
My mom laughed. "I'm glad you're doing well, Jessika. So you're going to stay at Asher's place? That's nice. Is there a phone there? I want to be able to call you. Also, I need to talk to him, you tell him that. I don't care that he's rich, but if my daughter is staying at someone's house and doing this egg thing for him and his wife, I want to know who they are."
"You could always, oh, I don't know, Google him. I'm sure there's plenty of information."
"Google can't tell me if someone is nice, Jessika. He might be faking it. When I talk to him I'll know for sure. Trust me on this, I'm your mother."
"Right. Bye mom. Love you."
"I love you, too. Be safe."
I hung up the phone and let it fall into its receiver. That hadn't gone at all like I expected, but I was glad it went alright. I thought she'd be more... upset? Maybe not upset, but concerned. Not that she had any reason to be, or not that I thought she had a reason, but still.
"Your mom sounds like a hoot."
Startled, I jumped up and stared at my bedroom door. Jeremy stood there eating a cookie, powdered sugar covering his lips.
"You have something—" I gestured to my lips. "There."
"Yeah," he shrugged. "Saving it for later. You can never be too careful. Who knows when my next meal will be?"
"That was the corniest line I've ever heard," I said.
He grinned. "Let's pack your stuff, Miss Stripper Adulteress."
...
I packed some of my shoes and clothes in an overnight duffel bag. I didn't really need them, since Asher had asked Jeremy to buy me clothes and he'd filled an entire walk-in closet with them, but I liked some of what I owned. It was comfortable and familiar.
"Maybe she has the plans written down," I said, cramming another t-shirt into my bag. "Maybe that's why she doesn't like Asher sleeping in the same room with her. At night, when he thinks she's sleeping, she's actually writing down her evil plan in a notebook that she hides in her bedside table."
"Are we coming up with plots for a YA fantasy novel or are we talking about how to figure out what, if anything, Beatrice is up to?" he asked.
I frowned. "Sorry, I read a lot."
"It's fine, but I doubt she did that. If anything, it'd be on her computer. No one writes stuff down these days."
"True, true. So... we could check that?"
"Maybe. I imagine it's password protected, though."
"She might use a simple one. Did you know that a lot of people use 'password' as their password? It could be that."
"I... I doubt it. I mean, it's possible, but I don't think Beatrice is one of those people. She graduated from Dartmouth." Jeremy rummaged through my drawers and grabbed a cute blouse. "Let's bring this."
"I really like that one. Put it in the bag." He did, then I stared at him. "Can you stop going through my drawers, too? There's..."
"Do you really wear this? Wow." He held up one of my cutest and sexiest pairs of underwear; a frilly pink chiffon piece that always clung tight to my body, with a black silk bow in the front at the top. "This is... wow. I mean, there's sexy, right? But then there's cute, and then... wow. This is really good. How do you not have a boyfriend?"
I snatched the underwear away from him. "Give me that! Stop looking through my underwear drawer!" I shut the drawer on him, nearly slamming his fingers in it as I did. "Also, my last boyfriend didn't even like these. That was awhile ago, but still. He said they made me look like I was twelve and he felt like a criminal whenever I wore them before we had sex."
Jeremy burst into laughter. "Ah, well. Weird. I don't know how anyone could ever mistake you for a twelve year old, underwear or not. Really, I think the appeal to a pair like that is the innocence, though. Like, hey, they're cute, right? But also sexy. It's the best of both worlds, really. You get the hotness, but the demure nature, too, so you're going to have some really good sex, but you won't feel like you're with a slut. That's how I think about it."
"I guess thanks for not calling me a slut? Can we stop talking about my underwear now?"
Jeremy snickered. "Yeah, sure. Sorry. I just... man... if Asher saw those on you, he'd..."
He didn't say more. Why wouldn't he say more? "What?" I asked. "He'd what?"
"Well, you shouldn't wear them around him. Also, why would he ever see you in your underwear? Strictly speaking, this will never happen, so this is all hypothetical, but I think he'd go crazy. In a good way, for you, except maybe not, since, you
know, he's married."
"Yeah," I said. "Right, of course. What time do we have to be at the doctor's?"
"We should probably leave soon. Asher's going to meet us there. You both have to sign paperwork or something. Anything else you need besides what we grabbed?"
"Yes, um. Can you grab the other boxes of cookies? I'm going to change quickly."
Jeremy looked at me funny. "Sure, but I think Asher can afford to buy more cookies."
"They're expiring soon," I lied. "I don't want to waste them."
Jeremy shrugged and left to go fetch my cookies. I grabbed the pink panties and rushed into the bathroom to change. Shimmying my current pair of underwear down my bare legs, I stepped out of them and then stepped into the new pair. I lifted them up, holding my skirt above my waist while I did, and fit them into place. And, they didn't match my bra, but who cared? I had plans, delicious and devious plans, and they didn't involve anything to do with a bra.
...
"Are you on birth control?" the doctor asked.
"Yes," I told her. "Is that alright, or...?"
"It's fine," she said. "In a standard procedure, we would have you go on birth control for a month anyways. This insures that we're dealing with a regular cycle. The long and short of it is that we need to know exactly when your period is so that we can plan for egg retrieval. There's medication involved and various shots. You'll have to self-administer those, but we'll show you how. The shots are simple and mostly painless, but after awhile there can be slight bruising and discomfort. I assume you have an OB/GYN you regularly go to?"
"Yes." I swallowed hard. The medication didn't sound bad, but the shots worried me. I was always kind of a wimp when it came to needles.
"So, what we'll do today is preliminary exams. Nothing intensive. I'll need to speak with your OB/GYN about your history, but I assume we won't find anything detrimental to IVF, so everything should be settled in a couple days. Depending on the type of birth control and where you are in your cycle, we might be able to start this sooner than regular. I can't guarantee anything, though. Do you know when you usually have your period?"
