Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  I love people like that. Unfortunately, I see very few of them.

  Which is why I wanted to propose to Emily Caldwell on the spot. Just like that. In front of a crowd of people at some snooty fundraiser. In front of my grotesque father and my vile excuse for a mother.

  Just as well I was introduced to Emily Caldwell’s fiancé before I could do anything ridiculous.

  I was introduced to Emily Caldwell’s sister shortly afterwards.

  I think it was the tux that first snared Claire. Then it was the cool million my company donated to some Sports Relief gig as the champagne flowed.

  Charity.

  I despise the way it brings out the self-righteous in people. Far more effective than the confession box at church, because it involves no self-searching, no confrontation of the terrible things people do to further themselves. Give a million to some poor unfortunates and let the world know about it. Go out and fuck over those same unfortunates for some cold hard profit on your next dividend statement and nobody bats an eyelid. Smile for the media as you hold the cheque and the world tells you how generous you are. How wonderful you are. What a great example you are.

  When I give personally to charity – and believe me, I give a lot – I give anonymously. Totally anonymously.

  I don’t want credit. I don’t want salvation. I don’t want my pearly whites all over some fundraiser on prime time TV. I don’t want to impress some smiling Miss Perfect like Claire on the back of my generosity.

  I don’t want to impress anyone. I rarely impress myself.

  Brutus, at least, is pleased to see me when I get home this evening. He’s not a particularly expressive beast, just a meeting of the eyes and a wag of the tail, and we both know he’s glad I’m back.

  That does me just fine.

  I get him his dinner, then pull Claude’s shitty offerings from my pocket and dump the paperwork on the side. I grab myself some sushi to get food out of the way, and hit the treadmill downstairs for thirty to raise my serotonin levels.

  I take out my case notes, prepare for another crappy day in court, getting my clients a retrospective free pass to do whatever they feel like.

  I’m doing just fine when my phone rings.

  My other phone.

  I don’t answer, just stare numbly at the incoming call. It stops flashing, and the ping of a message comes through. I open it.

  Lulabelle. I’m taking her.

  I reply instantly. I don’t fucking want her.

  Another ping. Claude says you’re turning your nose up at his merchandise. That’s bad form, boy. Very bad form.

  I don’t reply to that one, and another comes through.

  We use Claude. No alternatives acceptable.

  As if I’m interested in another fucking supplier. I go back to my case notes.

  The phone flashes.

  He’s starting up the auctions again, for brand new merchandise.

  I reply. And?

  No more first refusal. We bid fair and square. I want my old meat in some fresh young meat.

  My reply is instant.

  You disgust me.

  His comes straight back.

  You disgust yourself, boy. I’m just the scapegoat.

  Boy. I turned forty-four last spring, and the old prick still insists on calling me boy.

  I can hear his voice say it. A hiss and a jab of the finger.

  You disgust yourself.

  He’s right about that.

  Not for what I do with women. Not for buying sex as a service because I can’t bear the thought of anyone coming close to me ever again. Not for liking to choke off some pretty girl’s breath as she squirms around, spluttering as I drive my cock into her tight little asshole.

  Not for treating them like I own them.

  I do own them.

  I’ve paid generously for the privilege and they know exactly that they’re signing up for. Exactly.

  I disgust myself because of the things I’ve done.

  The people I’ve destroyed. The money I’ve taken. The cunts I’ve protected from justice.

  The people I’ve destroyed. I’ve destroyed.

  Not Henley Grosvenor in our ivory tower with our poncey graphite and mauve letterheads. Me. Face to face, eye to eye, destroying innocents in the courtroom. Taking away their justice behind the scenes. Taking away their rights, their validation, their fight.

  Their soul.

  Claire once asked me, a long time ago, why I don’t just quit.

  Claire’s a fucking imbecile.

  You don’t just quit when you’re in as deep as I’m in. When you know the things that I know. When you’re in tight with the people I associate with, that my father associated with before me.

  My father’s client list makes mine look like a fucking children’s party.

  That’s the closest I’ve come to getting out.

  I’m a long fucking way from getting out.

  There is only this.

  This.

  More. Of. This.

  My case notes blur into nothing. The curtains parting and showing me the bleakness beyond. The pointlessness. The complete and utter pointlessness of my existence.

  My heart stutters, my gut twisting as my mind closes down.

  Pointlessness.

  Everything is meaningless.

  Empty.

  My life is empty.

  Brutus stares at me as I get to my feet.

  My steps are light on the stairs, my tie still perfectly knotted as I stare at my haunted face in the bathroom mirror.

  I clear my throat as I ease open the cabinet door. A row of bottles, perfectly lined up. Prescription painkillers, easily enough to end it all, all lined up, just waiting for me.

  My heart beats quickly. My mouth is dry as a bone.

  I draw myself a tumbler of water. Pick up one of those pill bottles and shake its contents.

  Empty.

  My life is empty.

  I picture my boys’ faces as they told me they were going to the game with Terry. Claire’s twisted expression as she screamed You’re just like your filthy fucking father.

  I picture my filthy fucking father.

  I can feel Bill Catterson’s clammy handshake.

  Ronald Robertson’s tabloid sleazy grin as he stares at me.

  I picture Vivian Rachel Farr. The hate in her parents’ eyes as they screamed at me outside the courtroom on Lionshall Lane over a decade ago.

  I shake that pill bottle.

  It’s not that I want to commit suicide. It’s really not that dramatic. There isn’t any wailing, or panic, or crushing sense of misery.

  It’s not any of those things that ensure I have a stock of medication on hand to end it all at any time of my choosing.

  It’s the nothingness. The pointlessness. The exertion it requires to get through day after pointless day, knowing tomorrow is going to be more of today, and the next day is going to be more of that. On and on and fucking on.

  For nothing.

  For no one.

  Although that’s not strictly true.

  I hear Brutus on the tiles. His panting breath. He has such rancid breath.

  The thought makes me smile.

  I take a breath of my own.

  Brutus was the most hopeless, desperate animal they had at the shelter. That’s what I wanted, and that’s why I took him.

  Vicious. Untrainable. Unlovable. Haunted. Scarred. Ugly. Miserable.

  Hopeless.

  And less than twenty-four hours from euthanasia when I loaded him into the Merc and brought him home with me.

  We’re a good pair.

  Vicious. Haunted. Hopeless.

  He grunts at me as if he knows it.

  I put those pills back in the cabinet and take a shower.

  I jerk myself off to brutal pornography in my dressing gown.

  I think about burying my dick in another man’s asshole as I finally come, ignoring the sickness in my stomach, ignoring the memory of that public urinal all th
ose years ago.

  I let Brutus out for his late night shit. Give him a fish stick as a reward for basic bodily functioning.

  And then I go to fucking bed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MELISSA

  I’M RATTLING with nerves as Cindy and I take the tube across the city. I’ve officially signed my life away to whatever non-disclosure criteria Henley Grosvenor insisted upon. I didn’t even read it, not completely, just signed my name in the box and landed it back on Janet’s desk first thing this morning, much to Dean’s despair.

  Cindy is quiet on the crowded carriage, and I bite my tongue, holding back the stream of questions zipping through my mind. We get off at Kensington and Cindy hands me the company expenses credit card outside the vets. She shows me the exact treats for Brutus inside, some gross dried-up fish things that barely look edible, even for a dog.

  “Always these,” she tells me. “Never walk through that door without them. Seriously, that nasty little shit will take a bite out of you.”

  “I guess he’s a guard dog,” I comment, handing the card to the woman behind the counter. Cindy hands me a little black book and flips to a page partway in. The company credit card pin is written amongst a load of random numbers.

  “Guard dog my ass. The thing’s a menace.”

  I hold back judgement until I meet him for myself.

  Mr Henley’s house is an impressive white building on a leafy corner. The garden is neat but plain, ornamental hedgerows and wood-chipped flower beds. The front door is thick and black, standing at the top of some fancy white-tiled steps. I’m full of butterflies as Cindy talks me through the set of keys, turning one at the bottom before adding a second key to the top.

  She pauses before opening the door. “You don’t have long to disable the alarm,” she tells me. “The number’s in the book.”

  I flip through the pages. “Seven seven six, three four five nine.”

  “That’s it. Keypad’s under the stairs, to the right. Brutus is always in the conservatory, you’ve got time to sort out the alarm without him causing problems.”

  “Got it,” I say, and she opens the door.

  The countdown bleep of the alarm sounds right through the house, and I make a dash for it, heading to the little white door under the stairs and searching inside. There are coats in here. They smell of him. Him. Butterflies. So many butterflies in my belly. Seven seven six, three four five nine. I sigh in relief as the alarm goes silent, and turn to find Cindy smiling at me.

  “It’ll become second nature after a while. Everything about Mr Henley becomes second nature after a while.”

  I can’t believe I’m really here, standing inside his house. His actual house, where he eats and sleeps and showers. I spin on the spot, trying to memorise it all, every little detail – the red-tiled floor, the leafy plant at the bottom of the stairs, the wrought iron balustrade climbing to the upstairs landing. There’s a table by a low window, on it sits his bottle of whisky, and next to that is a single glass tumbler, and the antique inkwell Cindy told me about. I feel heady at the sight of the Insignia cigarette packet.

  And then there is Brutus.

  His growl is absolutely terrifying, a horrible low snarl behind me. The hairs on my arms stand on end, and I take a breath before I face him, turning slowly towards what looks to be the kitchen doorway.

  “Don’t walk away from him,” Cindy hisses. “Hold your ground.”

  Easier said than done.

  Brutus really is a brute. He’s big and black, some kind of Rottweiler cross from the looks. But shaggier. Meaner. If that’s possible.

  He’s got a big scar under his right eye, and his lips are curled back, showing some monster teeth.

  “Hey, boy,” I say, and he growls all the louder.

  I’m relieved when Cindy comes to my side, and she talks to him like a baby, as though she’s not scared, even though she’s as white as I must be. “Fish sticks,” she whispers. “Give him a fish stick.”

  I fish in my handbag for the packet, and his ears twitch at the rustle. I pull out the treats, tear into them with shaky fingers.

  “Throw one,” she says, but it’s not my game plan.

  I’m in. Totally. All or nothing.

  Come on, boy. Let’s be friends, right? Please let’s be friends.

  I step forward and drop to my knees and Cindy grabs my shoulder, curses that I’ve got a fucking death wish, but I shake her off. Edge closer. A stinky dried up fish treat in my outstretched fingers.

  “Hey, Brutus. Do you want this?”

  He’s still growling, and I’m totally shitting it, but I force that down and take a breath.

  “Hey, Brutus. Good boy. Come on.”

  “You’re fucking batshit,” Cindy tells me.

  Yes. Yes, I am.

  A flash of panic as Brutus comes toward me, and it takes every bit of steel not to get to my feet and bail a retreat. He sniffs the treat in my fingers, his face so close to mine. And his breath stinks. It really stinks. Enough to make me splutter.

  “Geez, boy, you’re quite a honker.” I dare to laugh, smiling with my face in his, that gross bit of fish wedged between us like a peace offering.

  It feels like that dog is staring right into my soul, his big dark eyes so cold and mean. I feel like he can see everything, and that’s good, because there’s no way he’ll be able to look inside me and not see how much I want to be his friend.

  I really want to be his friend.

  Because I love his owner. I love his owner so much it takes my breath.

  And I’ve worked so hard to get here, given everything to get here.

  “It’s for you,” I whisper. “Come on, Brutus, take the yummy treat.”

  Cindy gasps as he actually does take it. He takes it gently, right from my fingertips, then sits back on his haunches and crunches it with a big slobbery gnashing of teeth.

  I get to my feet slowly, very slowly, but he doesn’t seem that interested, just finishes up his treat and drops to lay on the floor with his head on his paws.

  “Fuck me,” Cindy says. “Do you moonlight as Cesar fucking Millan or something?”

  I shake my head. “I just want him to like me.”

  “No shit. You could’ve got your face bitten off.”

  But I didn’t. The relief feels amazing.

  “So,” I say, before my confidence burst fades. “Tell me everything about Mr Henley.”

  She smiles. “Everything?”

  I nod. “Everything.”

  “I’ll talk as we work,” she says, gesturing to the kitchen.

  I WIPE down Mr Henley’s gorgeous granite worktops as Cindy cleans out the inkwell. One solitary cigarette butt. That’s all there is.

  “He really is magnificent,” she says. “If you get to see the corporate suite reception on floor ten, you’ll see all his legal awards lining the main corridor, Mr Henley senior’s, too.”

  “He’s the best,” I say, “I mean, I know that. I wanted to be a criminal lawyer myself.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Shit. What happened?”

  I shrug it off. “Life.”

  She shrugs back. “Cool beans. Anyway, he’s incredible. He’s smart, observant, totally demanding of perfection. For real make sure you do a good job in here, because if there’s so much as a fingerprint on a candlestick he’ll notice it. Well, he would have done.”

  “Would have?” I slow down my scrubbing to look at her, and she’s dithering, weighing me up. “Please,” I say. “I need to know this stuff.”

  Her eyes are so pointed. “Everything?”

  “Yeah, everything. I want to know everything.”

  She stops cleaning and I do too. “I’ve been doing this nearly four years, and it was a whole different gig when I started, believe me. The kids were here then, and Claire, his wife. She was nice, the kids were cool, it wasn’t this stealth operation we have now, I’d knock on the door and she’d let me in, and we’d have a coffee sometimes while I was working.”
>
  “And then the divorce?”

  “Yeah, she took the kids.”

  “Why?”

  She grins. “You’re hot on him. I know. Sonnie told me, like it needed pointing out. It’s written all over you.”

  I’m so embarrassed I feel sick, so far from professional that I wish the ground would open up. “Sorry, I just…”

  She shrugs. “He’s beautiful. Talented. Smart. Driven. I get it.”

  “You do?” Of course she does.

  “Yeah, I get it, but if you’ve got any sense in that pretty head of yours you’ll steer well clear of him. The guy’s damaged. Broken.”

  “Broken?” The thought seems ridiculous. Alexander Henley seems anything but broken. He’s the most together person I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  “He used to be careful,” she says. “He still is. His passwords and security codes change monthly, like I said. He’s got a shredder in his study, and that gets plenty of action, but he’s not…”

  “Not what?”

  She pauses. “Not like he used to be. It’s like he’s careless on purpose, leaving loose ends hanging, like he wants to be caught somehow.”

  My heart is thumping. “Caught doing what?”

  She laughs. “Jeez, girl. Sonnie really did keep her mouth shut, kudos to that one.”

  I just gawp. Mute.

  She sighs. “Mr Henley has some issues. Not just the weird little habits he has like only using one set of cutlery, and smoking one cigarette before bed, none of that crap. The guy likes… pornography.”

  I smile.

  “A lot,” she adds. “He used to lock everything down. You’d never even get into his TV without a twenty digit passcode. Now he doesn’t care, let’s it all hang out, his browsing history sometimes still glaring on screen when I come in in the morning.”

  “So he likes porn.” I shrug it off. “Show me a guy who doesn’t.”

  “Not like this. You’ll see, that’s all I’m saying.”

  I want to ask her more, but she goes back to cleaning.