by Amber Burns
Anna shook her head and leaned back into the backseat.
“Yea,” she agreed. “You’re right. It’s a killer house, but we’re being total fucking creepos right now,” she laughed.
“Totally,” Nina agreed, but she could not tear her eyes from the vision of the house. She felt in her heart an attraction to it so powerful that she could not stop her mind from wandering, from imagining what it looked like on the interior, and what she would not give to call it her own…
“Nina.”
Esme was staring at the front seat, her darkly lined eyes boring into Nina with a look of pure annoyance so sharp it jolted Nina’s gaze away from the mansion and back onto the road.
“Yea,” Nina blubbered, slamming her foot down on the gas hard. The car shot forward and Jess squealed, gripping at Nina’s thigh in shock. Anna laughed, and Esme rolled her eyes, coolly slipping her iPod headphones back into her ears.
They drove on, singing along to the top forty that Jess ensured kept blaring steadily from the car’s speakers, chatting about what they had liked and hated from the Gucci Spring Fashion Show, and gossipping about their co-workers. Nina spoke more than anyone, well, except maybe for Jess, and yet all the while they drove and chattered, her heart wasn’t in it. She could not for the life of her, try as she might, pull her thoughts from that house. She drove on and imagined how wonderful it would be to come home to a giant house like that, each and every night. She pictured herself throwing open the doors, tossing a tip at the maid’s feet, and then settling down with a bottle of wine in one of the house’s jacuzzis. And at that moment, as she steered the car over the bumpy narrow side road, on course to the hiking ground, she felt positively certain that if she could one day have a house just like that one, she would be the happiest person in the world. Having a huge sprawling home filled with everything she could ever want, that would be when Nina was finally and truly happy.
“Yea but what if you step in some animal shit? Poopy stilettos, not so cute,” Anna was saying to her.
Nina rolled her eyes behind the concealment of her dark shades and forced herself to stop thinking about the house. She had to focus in order to properly combat her friend’s attacks about her shoes, there was no way she was going to let Anna talk down to her about fashion. Nina bit her bottom lip and forced a stiff smile across her face.
“You just worry about you, you little forest adventurer,” she said through gritted teeth, her voice jumping in pitch. “I’ll take care of myself and my cute shoes too, alright?”
“Is there like a rest stop somewhere? Because I totally have to pee,” Esme whined.
Nina reached forward and cranked the music.
“I can’t hear you!” she yelled. She smashed her foot down hard on the gas pedal and the girls shrieked as she sent the car flying forward along the bumpy dirt road.
***
Nina sat still in the car, staring ahead at the house as it appeared before her now. In her mind she ran through that day, the way she had pulled over so that she could stare at the home, force admiration upon her friends, and then had been so unable to pull her thoughts away from the house; to make her mind stop wandering through the corridors and endless rooms of the mansion. Now, she could not feel more different, she truly felt disgusted as she stared at the house now, and something deep inside of her seemed to whisper its longing for nature, or at least, some semblance of it. Shocked at her emotions, she tore her gaze away from the mansion and drove onwards, curling the car around the remainder of the curve, finally re-entering her private, gated community.
After countless twist and turns on the narrow path of the private roadway, Nina turned onto Poplar Tree Lane, and her stomach flipped over as her home appeared on the horizon. She bit at her lip as her electric green eyes swept over the three-story home of perfectly clean white brick and dark gray trim. She drove on and the lawn, spic and span and perfect, thanks to the constant doting of her exceptionally well-paid help, seemed to smile at her from a distance; welcoming her home as if rolling out a carpet of impeccably bright green grass.
She slowly pulled the car into the driveway, coming to a gentle stop. Then she pushed open the door of the vehicle and placed her leather slippers upon the rose gold tiling. The cement felt so solid, so surprising, beneath her feet, she had become so accustomed to the soft feeling of grass or forest beneath her bare toes, or the gentle give of the hand laid, wooden floors of Rowan’s cabin in the woods. She slowly walked to the front double doors of her home, marveling at how large her house felt, she had always felt embarrassed by her home because it had always seemed so small in comparison to the houses of her neighbours and her relatives, but now she could not believe how massive her home felt rising up before her. She pressed the key into the lock and let the doors swing open as she slipped her hips through the entranceway of her home.
Nina did not pause to soak in the vast differences between Rowan’s cabin and her home, she already knew that her house contained more objects and more square footage in a single room than Rowan’s entire cabin.
“Stop thinking about him,” she said out loud, pushing forward through the rooms until she found her phone charger.
She yanked her dead phone from the wall and plunged the charger into it. In moments, the iPhone jumped to life, and Nina felt herself relax, felt her shoulders drop and soften, her breath rush out of her. She powered up her phone and held it to her ear. The familiar ring tone, followed by the click of someone picking up on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” the warbling voice asked tentatively.
Nina swallowed.
“Mom?” she said. She sniffed. “I’m home.”
11
“Yes, thank you! I just have to visit the restroom for a moment, thanks. I’ll be right back.”
Nina struggled out of the arms of her coworker and squeezed past the crowds of people sipping champagne.
“Nina! Nina!” two half drunken interns cheered as she pushed past.
“Ha,” she laughed, flashing a smile. “Thank you, boys.”
“Hey, Nina!” Felicia from the statistics department was suddenly in front of Nina, waving a glass of vodka punch enthusiastically, emphasizing her words with sloshed pink alcohol. “It is so great that you got home safe and sound, lady.”
Nina forced a smile onto her face yet again.
“Yep,” she said, trying to squeeze past Felicia’s ample chest. “If you’ll just excuse me, I’m going to use the restroom…”
“Like it is so amazing,” Felicia continued, waving her glass of punch in the air, the contents of the glass sloshing dangerously back and forth. “That that lumberjack didn’t totally kill you, right?”
Nina froze. Her cheeks suddenly began to burn and heat shot through her body. She fixed Felicia from statistics with a hard look.
“Of course he didn’t totally kill me,” she snarled, and her green eyes burned with rage. “And he also is a lot more than just some lumberjack.”
Felicia’s honey brown eyes widened in amusement.
“Well woah there,” she slurred, the pink liquid still slapping against the edges of the glass. “Did Nina fall for the very man who abducted her?”
Nina bit down on her bottom lip, fighting hard not to obey her instincts and slap Felicia across her face.
“No one abducted me,” Nina began, but then, deciding she did not care about Felicia enough to explain the story in detail, she changed course. “I am back home now after a brief adventure, and I could not be happier,” she grinned, then peeled herself away from the crowd of her coworkers before Felicia could so much as think to utter another word.
Nina slammed the door of the private bathroom and locked it behind her. Then she walked to the mirror and leaned forward, resting her hands upon the sink, her face inches from the glass. She stared hard into her own green eyes and then, speaking out loud, begged of her reflection:
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
She stared hard at her reflection,
searching for answers, searching for herself in the mirror. For try as she might, no matter how hard she stared, no matter for how long she forced herself not to blink, the image displayed upon the shining glass did not change. Nina did not, could not, see the woman who had so loved this job, who had so wanted nothing more than to one day become the CEO of this corporation. She stared at the mirror until her eyes hurt, until watery tears slinked down her face, and yet she still could not for the life of her see the woman who had dreamed of these things.
She now saw someone else entirely different, a naked face, devoid of corporate desire; a woman who was made up of fire, burning so brightly that it colored her hair a viciously passionate dancing red. She closed her eyes, attempting to regain some semblance of focus, and Rowan’s face, the perfectly carved shape of his legs, pulsing with muscle. His abs, so chiseled the image sent shivers shimmying down Nina’s spine, made her instinctively grab at her breasts, her nipples hardening beneath her blouse; his night-dark eyes, fuck, those eyes, the pure black orbs that seemed to hold the secrets of the universe within their spheres. All of it sent goosebumps dancing across her flesh, made her pussy drip with longing. Nina forced her eyes open and staggered out of the bathroom before she had a chance to again catch her reflection in the dreaded mirror.
Stuck in her tangled, confusing thoughts, she found herself wandering down the back hallways of the office complex. She passed by the meeting rooms, her fingers grazing the wall, her fingertips absentmindedly playing over the gentle sloping of the walls. She followed the hallway to the back lounge, the place where the CEO interviewed potential hires, and she flopped down into one of the comfortably padded armchairs. She tilted her head back and stared at the array of portraits of past employees that hung upon the walls.
Nina allowed her green eyes, now slightly reddened with the rush of the party punch, to wonder over the many faces mounted up upon the wall. The wall was a bit of a legend at the workplace, only employees recognized for exceptionally prestigious accomplishments or strange office happenstances were allowed the honor of having their faces immortalized on the would be wall of workplace wonder. Nina felt a faint smile tugging at the corners of her plump, red painted lips as she read the small inscription that was tacked to the wall beneath the photo of an over zealous looking young man.
“Zach Koroflis: intern who lasted an impressive two hours without being fired. Fired for spilling boiling coffee down the front of CEO Ilsa Copperfeld’s blouse.”
Nina chuckled to herself, imagining the aging Ilsa younger and more spry. She would have unleashed a stream of profanities at the young man and fired him on the spot, Nina was certainly sure of that. She grinned to herself and continued to allow her eyes to peruse the wall hangings, reading up on the brief moments of fame of these strangers who had all once sat in the chair that she now rested in. There was Katie Rinzfeld, who had succeeded in becoming a junior partner after just six months on the job. Daniel Gearing had sold a record-breaking forty-seven shares to high profile clients, all within the span of three and a half hours. She shook her head at that feat, not even she, Nina, the woman who was being considered for future CEO, could have managed to accomplish that, and there was not much that her fiery fortitude could not succeed in accomplishing. She nodded her approval at the man in the photo.
“Good work, Dan,” she said aloud. “Talk about getting it done.”
The sound of her own voice, unaffected and light with playfulness, was so in contrast to the refined, higher pitched tone she had been employing all night long with her coworkers and inferiors that the sound of it echoing within the empty room sent shivers spiraling up her arms and down her spine. Nina found her freshly manicured nails digging into the soft leather of the chair, her spine straightening with anxiety. She willed herself to feel calm, to ignore the feelings of disgust that boiled in the pit of her stomach, but she could not. Coming back to the office had made her feel sick. Because for the first time in her life, Nina had not felt sure of herself. She had expected to return to her workplace and be enveloped by employees falling over themselves in order to bathe her in welcomes and praise, and they had, but the words had not felt the way Nina had expected them to feel.
Nina had relied upon other people’s praise to lift her up for her entire life. Her entire existence had been a rally of receiving affection, and there was a lot of affection tossed her way, as Nina was and always had been a truly remarkable beauty. She had moved up quickly in life, jumping over hurdles that would have stifled the ambition of those less attractive than she, and the result had been that, after just two years working as an intern at one of the largest, most proficient corporations in the United States, Nina had been asked if she might like to take over as CEO. The offer had floored her, but not surprised her. For she was as smart and talented as she was incredibly beautiful, and she had put in every inch of effort in order to ensure that she would always be the most successful person in the room.
Yet now, for the first time in the entirety of Nina’s experience on earth, she felt completely lost and unsure of herself. She no longer felt that she belonged here, in this office, or even within this corporation, everything about it, from the cubicles to the client accounts to the drunken, put upon praise of her coworkers. Coworkers that she suddenly realized she did not even know, and moreover, really did not like as people. Her phone buzzed in her lap, and she flopped her green-eyed gaze down upon the vibrating device. She slid a tired hand around its girth and an image of Rowan, naked, his charcoal eyes begging her, daring her, to reach out and grab his throbbing cock as she had the phone flashed across her mind. She shook her head angrily, ridding her mind of its wandering, and slapped the phone against her ear.
“Yes?”
Jess’ voice flooded through from the other end.
“Girl. Where did you go? Everyone is asking me where you are and it is really like, getting like embarrassing.” The background sounds of the office party danced behind Jess’ lilting voice.
Nina breathed out and closed her eyes. She drummed her fingers upon the phone.
“Yea, Jess, I just needed a minute,” she said shortly. She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, preparing herself for what she knew was coming next.
“Okayyyyyy,” Jess began, dragging the word out. Nina heard her slurping at a drink. “Okay. And like, Nina, it’s like okay I get that, I get that, but like also, people keep like, ramming me with questions, and like, what the hell am I even supposed to say because like, I don’t know. I don’t know where the fuck you are. I’m like… okay. I get that you are dealing with stuff here okay, and I totally am not like, undermining that, okay, but like also like… I am dealing with stuff too? Because like, people totally fucking blame me? So like, there’s that and like I do not get to just, you know, go away because ‘I just needed a minute’ so… maybe like… do you even get what I’m saying here?” The threat of sobs began to edge into Jess’ voice, and Nina rolled her eyes. “Like do you even know how it even feels to like not have you come back and then no one cares about me like they all care about you and like how am I not a victim here like ohgmigod…”
Nina stared at the different photos of past coworkers as she listened to the sounds of staggered sobbing that leaped through the phone line. Finally, she spoke up.
“Jess. You’re about ten feet away. I’ll be back in a second.”
“Wowwww,” Jess drawled, her sobs instantly resolving into complete composure tinged with vehement sharpness in her voice. “I see how it is. You don’t fucking care at all about like any one person but yourself Nina. Wow. Like you probably like don’t even care that everyone fucking cares and…”
Nina toned out the next bit of Jess’ sprawling selfishness and let her eyes jump from photo to photo. All of a sudden she froze. Goosebumps shot up all over every inch of her flesh. Her plump lips dropped open, and she nearly dropped the phone.
“Jess,” she said, her voice cold and urgent. “I have to go.”
She sla
mmed her freshly done nails against the phone and dropped it to the carpeted floor as she stood, her heels sinking into the plush carpeting. She reached out shaking fingers towards the image that hung before her.
The photo displayed the image of a man’s face. His eyes looked flat and distracted; his dark hair hung around his face, too long to be considered professional looking. Beneath the image hung the requisite descriptive plaque.
“Rowan Davis,” the plaque read. “Disappeared after being offered position of CEO. Never located by police. Remembered fondly by CEO Ilsa Copperfeld (1999-____). Rest in peace.”
Nina’s fingers hovered over the photo, and then her hand slapped across the familiar face held captive within the frame. She trembled slightly, teetering back and forth upon her six-inch heels, not able to believe what she saw so plainly before her. After several long moments spent reading the plaque description over and over and over again, she let her fingers drop, turned on her heel, and marched out of the room.
