“I can be difficult”, I say, as though interviewing for the position as his girlfriend rather than his employee. “Particular.” I think it only fair to tell him. “I have some obsessions.”
“Like the drawings?” he asks.
“Not like that”, I say. “Compulsions. I’m OCD”, I confess, my head dropping. “I hope it’s not going to be a problem.”
“Is it a problem for you?”
“Sometimes”, I say. “It means it takes a while to do things. I get nervous. I panic a lot. I get distracted easily.”
I can feel myself going red again. I’ve already been offered the job, so there’s little reason for me to do this, apart from the fact that I think, as my future prince, it’s important that he should know just what he’s getting himself into.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you in the bar”, I say.
“In the bar? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
Now I’ve done it. I can’t sit here and go along with someone else’s fiction without my own issues intruding.
“Nothing”, I say. “I meant to call, I just lost your number. To be honest, I thought it might have been a joke anyway, you know, someone like you with someone like me. I thought you might have just been making fun of me. I don’t know if I would have called you anyway, and now seeing you here, it all seems way too much like fate to ignore it. I guess you don’t remember me, that’s all. It’s okay, just pretend I haven’t said anything.”
I feel like a total idiot. I couldn’t feel any more like an idiot. I should have got up a minute ago, taken the job, left and said nothing more about it. When he found that image of my menage I wanted the world to swallow me up, now I want the whole universe to implode on itself. Obviously it was a joke in the bar, obviously he recognized me when I came in, obviously he doesn’t like me like that, he just wants me to suck his cock like Candy does and obviously I’m never going to be able to unwind this. Why can’t I just accept my single but perfectly abnormal life and forget about finding my invented, superhero, treasure hunting prince?
Jack’s now looking at me with pity, which makes me feel just that little bit worse.
“I’m sorry Penny, but I think you may have me mixed up with someone else”, Jack says.
It’s possible I suppose, I mean, I was a little bit drunk after all. There’s no way in the world I could remember his perfection inch by inch, those ice blue eyes, that perfectly square jaw, those plump kissable lips. Not to mention that perfectly tight bum, those broad shoulders, the kind of forearms you only see on north sea sailors and Canadian lumberjacks. Everything exactly as I’m seeing it now, just without the suit.
“Of course”, I lie. “It must have been someone else.”
“I’m not surprised in the slightest”, Jack says. “And I know this is incredibly unprofessional of me, but you’ll forgive me for saying it in the heat of the moment, you’re absolutely gorgeous.”
The sounds that come out of my mouth when it hangs open aren’t words at all.
“Sorry”, Jack says. “That was disrespectful of me.”
He tears a post-it note from his pad on the desk and scrawls down a phone number from memory. “Here”, he says passing it to me. “I’m sure Logan will be over the moon to hear from you.”
I look at him in utter confusion.
“Twins”, he confirms, and for the second time today, I nearly pass out with shock.
“We look the same”, Jack continues, “but we couldn’t be more different. My world is pretty much all about pretending fantasy is real, while Logan spends his life making real things look like utter fantasy. He’s an archaeologist, a treasure hunter really. A grave robber.”
“Fuck”, I say, my hand too late to my mouth to stop the word coming out.
“I know, right?” Jack says. “Way cooler than I am. Although I suppose I do get to do the things that you can never do in the real world, like create monsters, build robots, make whole universes appear and disappear in the blink of an eye, and give actors a personality, which is sometimes the hardest thing of all.”
Twins I can’t stop thinking to myself, ignoring pretty much everything else Jack has said. My Prince is twins.
“Oh, and I’m way funnier and marginally better looking”, he continues.
“You’re twins”, I say still in a state of shock.
Jack nods. “It used to happen more that people would mix us up, not so much now. I guess this is just one hell of a lucky coincidence. Who knows, maybe if nothing else happens, you’ll get some more inspiration for Sasha.”
Oh my God, the smutty picture, my twin obsession. He knows all about it now.
I realize I’m not saying anything and probably need to, but the shock of finding out he’s two different people, both of whom are essentially the men of my dreams, and both of whom have independently flirted with me, is rendering me completely incapable of all but the most primary of motor functions. How the hell am I meant to process this?
I’m not used to getting what I want, not that I think anything is going to happen even if either of these men, or both, want to get to know me, but despite my idiosyncrasies I have more of a chance now than I did before stepping into this room. I have Logan’s cell phone number again, and I have Jack’s suggestive words and panty exploding eyes all over me.
I also have a job. A real job. A drawing job with respect and dignity. There’s no cape under that suit after all, Jack really is Clark Kent, superman’s sexy twin!
“Fingers crossed”, I say, realising immediately afterwards, and completely by accident, just how provocative I’m being.
Jack smiles. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see”, he says, and I feel like it’s time to leave before I embarrass myself any further. I need to regroup my thoughts and work out exactly how to proceed. Is it greedy of me to want to try and bag them both at the same time, or should I start with Logan and make my way to Jack if that one doesn’t work out?
Maybe before all of that, I need to concentrate on the realistic. Are Logan and Jack going to want to share? Are either of them actually serious about being interested in me or am I just misinterpreting these signals? Should I be thinking about the job I’ve accepted instead of going down on the boss while his treasure hunting twin brother takes me from behind?
I can’t believe he’s a treasure hunter, by the way, talk about fate finally delivering the goods to me.
To be honest, I hardly know either of these men, yet I feel like I know exactly what I want and that these two are the perfect men to provide it for me. I guess that’s the kind of attraction you get in fairytales - instant, immediate, and absolutely unbreakable - which means that I have to be extra careful because as much as I try to pretend it is, I know this isn’t one. What I do know for certain is that fate, luck and coincidence are all shining on me right now, and I’m going to try as best as I can not to fuck this up in typical Penny Breen fashion.
After a prolonged silence of thumping sexual tension, Jack calls the interview to an end and passes me back into the hands of his faithful secretary to sort out the official details of my employment. With my portfolio pressed tightly against my chest in case more of my secret desires spill out, I take one long last look at his God-like perfection.
“Thank you”, I say again, barely able to get the words out of my mouth for delayed shock at what’s just happened.
“The pleasure is all mine”, Jack says, “I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”
I feel like I’m standing on a train platform saying goodbye to my childhood sweetheart as he disappears off to war, never to return again. I want to chase him back into the office, throw my arms around him and declare my intense and everlasting love for him, but if I did, he’d definitely call security.
I realize Candy is looking at me suggestively. She pops the lollipop that’s she’s greedily sucking away at out of her mouth for a moment.
“He’s hot isn’t he?” she says. “It’s alright, I know what you’re thinki
ng. Everybody’s thinking it.”
“I wasn't thinking it”, I lie.
“He’s single, you know, if you want to give it a go. Plenty have tried before and failed, but you shouldn’t let that stop you. I feel it’s only fair to warn you, though, he has a policy where he doesn’t date people from work, which is a shame for you, because you’re definitely his type.”
“I think I’ll have enough on my mind with the job”, I lie again, my mind replaying the way his bum moved as he disappeared back into his office.
Candy smiles. “That’s you already into payroll”, she says, passing back my bank card.
“I’ll sort out the details of the contract, your security pass and get a desk set up for when you want to begin. How does next Monday suit you?”
“That sounds perfect”, I say, still unsure if any of this is real.
“Great”, Candy beams. “Welcome to Prometheus Productions.”
She digs a card out from the holder on the desk. “If there is anything you need, you can get hold of me on this number. You want me to help you find your way out?”
“No, that’s okay”, I say, “but before I go, do you mind if I just check Jack’s office again, I feel like I might have left something in there.”
She gives me a suspicious look, before rising from her desk and taking me back to the room I’ve just come from.
“I’m sorry”, I say, apologizing to Jack, before giving a cursory look around the seat I was sat in five minutes before, and around and under his desk. “I thought I might have left something, but I must have been mistaken.”
“No problem”, Jack says, seemingly happy for the interruption.
“See you next Monday”, I say on my way out, inordinately proud of myself that for once in my life I haven’t returned to a location because I’ve been driven by an obsessive feeling I’ve left something there, but because I simply needed to see Jack again to believe he actually exists.
Chapter Twelve
I’m not the kind of person that grows attached to personal belongings, but there is something utterly depressing about watching a car that has always been as faithful to you as a family pet get swallowed up by a gigantic metal monster that would make the Iron Giant look like a barbie doll, only to be shat out the other end like a gigantic metal die. After a week and a half on the operating table, and no matter how hard the mechanics sucked their teeth, they couldn’t put my humpty dumpty Toyota back together again. I didn’t have to come here to see this, but it only seemed right, kind of like attending the funeral of a colleague who works in the same company as you, but with whom you’ve never had a proper conversation.
The thick metal teeth whirr and grind as my car is licked, tasted and then gobbled up in one piece by the terrifying mechanism, the frame bending like plastic and glass spilling from its mouth like crumbs from an entire loaf of bread.
“Oil and water”, I mumble to Alice, who seems to be enjoying this spectacle much more than I am. “That’s all it needed.”
I feel like a mother mourning a malnourished child she had sole responsibility for looking after.
“Just think about the bright side”, Alice says, “at least someone’s going to get a brand new set of knives.”
The block of metal that is deposited out of the beast’s rear end is impressively neat.
I can see a flattened gear knob, half a windshield wiper, and the license plate sticking out of one corner like a label of identification, before it gets whipped away from in front of our eyes by a gigantic magnet on a crane, and stacked with all the rest of the metal blocks in a kind of graveyard of adult lego.
If it wasn’t my car and I had enough money to replace it, I might be enjoying this much more than I am, because this place is straight out of a film and perfect for comic book fodder. Superman found himself in a scrapyard, and as for Magneto, it’s practically a second home. I can totally understand why too. Everything is ten times the size it should be normally, and wherever you look there are accidents waiting to happen. It’s also a perfect place for nefarious deals. If you need to get rid of a body in a city, there are two places you can go. One is a construction site, and the other is here, and I know which would be more exciting.
“You probably want to move away from there, girls”, someone calls down to us from a forklift cab window. “It isn’t very safe.”
With my car cubed there isn’t much point sticking round. We pay our last respects and then head out of the world’s weirdest theme park and back to Alice’s fully functioning, well-nourished car, which is still and I’m sure would like to remain entirely in one piece.
“Are you alright, Penny?”
I realize I’m caressing Alice’s car absentmindedly. “Sure”, I say pulling my hand away quickly. “Let’s get out of here before they decide to crush yours too.”
“So”, Alice says when we’ve made our way back to mine and the subject can’t be avoided anymore, “have you decided what to do yet?”
It’s thursday afternoon, almost two weeks since Logan gave me his number in the first place, and I promptly lost it the following morning, and three days since Jack replaced it for me, and I still haven’t called him.
I shake my head.
“Call him”, Alice says.
“What about Jack?”
“Jack didn’t give you his number”, Alice argues. “You can’t date them both.”
I screw up my eyes as though not being able to date them both is something I can’t comprehend.
“You should consider yourself lucky that Logan is interested in you, and that by some considerable stroke of fortune you have managed to get his number again. Besides which, didn’t you say that Jack has a policy?”
“That’s what his secretary said”, I say. “But I think she’s just saying it because she’s got a crush on him.”
“Call Logan”, Alice says again. “Jack sounds like he’s out of bounds anyway. You can leave him for me.”
“Double dating twins”, I say, “Don’t you think that might be a bit weird?”
“Weirder than you dating them both?”
“I can’t help but think it’s fate, Al, the whole thing. My obsession, Logan giving me his number, mom meeting Brandon and getting me an interview with Jack, even the job is perfect.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet”, Alice argues.
“He saw my sketch, one of the dirty ones with me and the twins. Until Monday, you were the only person in the world I’d shown that to.”
Alice shakes her head in disbelief. “Don’t mess up your chance with someone who sounds absolutely perfect for you because you’re obsessed with dating two guys at once. This is real life, Penny, and I don’t want to see you mess it up because of one of your fantasies. He’s an archeologist. A sexy Indiana Jones.”
“He’s sexier than Indiana Jones”, I say. “He’s like a young Indiana Jones crossed with Thor.”
“There you go then”, she says.
“But what about Clark Kent?”
“Isn’t one enough for you? Do you have any idea how difficult it’s going to be dating two guys when you’ve barely had experience of dating just one?” I’m about to speak but she cuts me off. “And Casper doesn’t count.”
I know she’s right, but I don’t want her to be right. I can’t ignore the fact that this all seems way too convenient for it to be anything other than fate. Logan does sound perfect for me, but then so does Jack, and the combination of the two would be out of this world.
“I could make them fight for me”, I say, picturing a classic joust for the hand of the fair maiden.
“Reality check, Penny”, Alice says. “Let me give you a rundown of how this works because I know you don’t really seem to get it, and as your best friend I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I narrow my eyes at her, but it doesn’t stop her continuing.
“Jack interviewed you for a job, and I know you got all starry eyed, but that doesn’t mean that he felt the same way.”<
br />
“You didn’t see the way he looked at me”, I say. “And he was being suggestive with his words.”
“Did he offer you job or invite you out on a date?” Alice asks.
“There was sexual tension”, I say. “Coming from both sides.”
Alice sighs. “This is the real world, Penny. I know it’s hard to come to terms with that, especially for someone as brilliant and creative as you, but in the real world people don’t date two people at once, even less so if they are twins. My cousins are twins, they are as competitive as hell and they hate sharing. Have you even thought about how a threeway relationship would work practically, beyond the double anal?”
I haven’t thought at all about the practicalities. “It could work”, I say, “it depends on the people.”
“Just think about what you’d prefer”, Alice says, “A relationship with Logan, or nothing at all.”
I know what I’d prefer, but it isn’t in the list of options she’s just given me.
“What if Jack comes on to me?” I say.
Alice can’t help but smile. “For someone who has been so clearly terrified by finding yourself a boyfriend in the past, you are incredibly optimistic about your chances with both of these twins.”
I shrug. “I guess I just like to dream big.”
“There’s dreaming big and there’s dreaming enormous”, Alice says and then after pausing for thought, “alright, what about this. Call Logan, tell him the hilarious story about how you lost his number, and then the equally bizarre story about how you got it back again after meeting his brother, and then ask him if both of them might be interested in a double date with me and you. That way you can get a different perspective on this sexual tension thing.”
Obsession: A Twin Menage Romance Page 7
