“Maxi,” Olivia says, her chest heaving with emotion – what kind, I'm not sure. That makes me nervous. “Can Lex and I have a minute? I'll tell you all about it as soon as we're done.”
“Oookay,” her friend says, looking around my shoulder and up at my face. “But I need all the deets, Olivia. The moms and I had a bet going where they said you'd never get married because you hated the institution so much, and I said you would because you're actually a hopeless romantic deep, deep, deep down. If this is what it looks like, they each owe me a hundred bucks.” Maxi disappears and the sound of the door closing behind her echoes loudly in the office.
Olivia clears her throat and turns away from me, moving over to the window and staring out at the gray-blue sky.
“Love?” she asks the question like she's trying to come up with an answer to it that makes sense. The only problem is that it's a complex question with no single right answer, if any. An enigma. I run my tongue over my lower lip. “You came to me to get beat up and dominated and now … you're in love with me?” Olivia chokes on the word and shakes her head. “I won't lie, Lex. I'm a little out of my comfort zone right now.”
I move up to stand beside her and we exchange another look.
“Being in love is not a death sentence,” I tell her, a strange thrill cutting through my stomach, making me wonder if that's what this is really about. Love. Do I love Olivia? I think about this for a moment. She's infuriating, cocky, headstrong, bossy. After a moment, I decide the answer is yes. “I'm in love with you, Olivia.”
She groans and spins away, putting her back against the window and sinking down to the office carpet with her legs outstretched.
“Don't say that,” she groans, but I did and it's too late. I'm not taking it back. I wouldn't, even if I could. “Lex, come on. You are not in love with me.”
“How do you know that?” I ask, sitting down on the floor next to her. Olivia slams her palm against her face and shakes her head.
“I only said I'd marry you because Lara Caliper was looking at me like I was dog crap that needed to be scraped off the bottom of her designer shoes. And because your dad called me a whore. That is it, Lex. I – ”
Olivia gets interrupted by the sound of the door opening. A moment later, my grandfather's face appears above the desk. He smiles down at us in that strange way he always did when I was a kid and he caught me doing something my father would've beaten my ass with a belt for. Only Grandpa never told him about those situations, not once. I imagine this is a similar situation.
“Lex, I pulled some favors with the other board members. Your father's not going to be happy about it, but that's too damn bad.” He nods his chin at Olivia. “I like this girl much better than Lara Caliper. Granted, that would've been a match made in heaven for the company, but I imagine it would've have gone over so well for you. I don't want you to end up like me and your father, Lex. Don't run away from situations that make you uncomfortable or twist you up inside or you'll end up like me, bitter and alone.”
“Art,” I begin, but he waves me off and smiles at us again.
“I don't want to hear it. Just keep on doing what you're doing, and I'll see you at the board meeting. I just wanted to let you know that your position's secure as long as I'm alive and ticking. And don't worry about Lara spilling your secret. I have enough dirt on that family to write a dossier.” He grunts and disappears, the sound of his footsteps shuffling across the carpet. Once we're finally alone again, I love back over at Olivia.
“This is just the beginning, Olivia, and you don't have to marry me if you don't want to. Keep the ring. Don't stop working here. Keep that open invitation to my place. If you do that, I think that eventually you'll feel what I feel. Maybe you're just not capable of being romantic?” I goad her, trying to get a bite of that righteous indignation that comes out when we're together. We do arguments oh so well.
“I can be romantic,” Olivia scoffs, looking back at me from her emerald eyes. “I can romance the shit out of anything.” I smirk at her and she frowns at me.
“So you'll stay?”
“Well, I'm not running,” she says firmly. “And we can still date, provided you don't try to take me to Fisherman's Wharf. Friends don't let friends visit Fisherman's Wharf.” I laugh as Olivia gets up on her knees and scoots closer to me, looking me in the eye with a narrowed gaze.
“This ring, this marriage thing, I don't know about it. But I'll give it a try. Nobody ever accused me of being afraid to try new things.” She looks down at the ruby. “If I can embrace Craig's commitment celebration, I think I can handle this. I think both situations are weird, and I don't understand either, but I'm willing to keep an open mind. The moms, at least, taught me that much.”
“Will you say it for me?” I ask, reaching out and taking her hand, pulling her into my lap and brushing her hair back. “Just once.” Olivia purses her lips.
“I don't know, Lex,” she starts, shaking her head, red hair fluttering around her face. I wait patiently for several minutes, staring into her eyes, holding her gaze, communicating without words. After a while, she sighs. “Look, Lex, you're a dick. This is a fact that can't be sugarcoated, denied, or contemplated. It just is. You are an asshole.” She holds up her finger before I can protest. “But … I guess for now, at least, you can be my asshole. How's that?”
“Cheating. But that's okay. If you can't say it, I understand. It takes courage to say I love you.” She glares at me again and grits her teeth. We both notice that since she's straddled me, I'e become harder than a rock.
“I know you're using reverse psychology on me, but I don't care.” Olivia takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and then sighs again. “I … ” Her face twists into a painful expression. I open my mouth to tell her that it's okay, that I don't even need to hear it when she blurts it out. “I love you, Lex Lyndon. Gah!” Olivia lifts her hands up and wipes at her tongue like it's been contaminated. “That was so gross.”
“And unbelievably attractive. Miss Ashcraft, I hope you have horribly unflattering cotton panties under that skirt because I think we need a celebratory moment.” I lean forward and taste her lips. She kisses me right back, winding her tongue with mine, leaning her body into me. “If you want to stab me with your high heels, I wouldn't be opposed,” I whisper as I pull back an inch. Olivia's hot breath stirs my hair as she closes her and eyes and sighs. I think she's going to tell me no, to get out of her office and leave her alone for the rest of the day.
She doesn't.
“Let me make sure the door's locked this time. I don't need another repeat of what happened in my brother's girlfriend's bathroom.”
So Olivia locks the door and we lock bodies and although everything isn't perfect, it is exciting. There's love, and the promise of love, and a boss who's been tamed (almost).
I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.
If it happens to be Olivia's high heel in my back, all the better.
If you enjoyed "Taming Her Boss", you might like C.M. Stunich's stand-alone Paranormal Romance novel, "Hell Inc.".
It's never easy to deal with supernatural creatures, especially when they've got the IQ of a doormat. And the clerk behind the counter wasn't your typical teenage drop out. Nope. This one was a special one. He glared at me with his one eye (which just happened to be lazy and seemed to be staring at the ridiculously bright fluorescent lights above my head instead of at my drowsy face) while I questioned him as to the whereabouts of a very specific item. I was looking for black candles. Spooky, huh? But that's what the newspaper ad had specified and so, that's what I was going to get.
“Um,” the clerk, who I suspected was probably a Cyclops, mumbled under his garlic scented breath. It was so bad that I actually had to take a step away from him, press my spine against a display of cheap romance novels, and choke back a sob. His breath was so terrible, in fact, that I thought I saw a puff of green float out past his thin lips and join the CFC gasses in destroying the ozone layer. “I think we
've got some Glade Flameless Candles in the clearance aisle. They're eggplant purple, but they look black.” I tried not to scowl. The Cyclops didn't know what I needed them for. I thanked him politely and wandered off. Served me right for trying to go to Target for dark arts supplies.
I found the aisle my halitosis challenged friend had been talking about and stared at the little white boxes with their red clearance stickers. Yeah, I thought sourly, feeling defeated before I'd even begun. That's what the Devil wants, candles without flames. In eggplant. Fantastic. I scooped several of the boxes into my basket anyway and tried to ignore the pixies that were swooping and giggling and pulling my mussy hair. If I swatted at them, if I paid them the tiniest bit of attention, then they would do worse. Had done worse. Focus, attention, belief, it was what made them real. When a girl and her mother sauntered into the aisle, tossing their identical peroxide manes and glaring at my ripped jeans and my faded Shrek T-shirt, they walked right through them.
The pixies giggled and darted towards their shopping basket, shedding sticky glitter dust all over the white linoleum as they heaved a packet of pens out, twiggy arms straining with the effort, and dropped them on the floor. The mother picked them up absently, hardly noticing what she was doing. I sighed. How nice it would be to live so ignorantly. To not know that anything other than humans walked this world. I squinted my gaze at the shelf and tried not to kick something. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.
But this was why I was doing this. Following the directions in this stupid ad. I picked at my pants pocket until I found the crumbled square of newsprint. As I reread it, I couldn't help but have terrible flashbacks to Brendan Fraser and Bedazzled. But he'd been stupid. He hadn't been clear with his wishes. I would be. I'd rattle 'em off like the best of bureaucrats. The key was to be specific. Very, very specific. I mouthed the words aloud as I walked, swinging my basket and trying to stay positive.
“WANTED: Souls. Single adults only. We are a professional organization looking for talented persons of marriageable age to enter into a trade agreement. Willing to offer three wishes in exchange for a signed contract. Please contact us at our office by arranging three black candles into a semi-circle in front of a mirror. Anoint with blood. Recite address. Hell Incorporated, 666 Gladiola Lane. This solicitation posted by the Devil. No sales inquiries. Offer ends 08/16.”
Okay, so it sounded shady and well, just plain bizarre, but I was getting desperate. Two years out of high school had left me with a crappy apartment and a crappier job. I had no friends (except for Erin, but I didn't even really like her), my family was too busy to ever come and see me (and I never went to see them either, I know, I know), and I had absolutely no romantic prospects of which to speak. Well, there was this guy that worked at our local museum, William T. Smidden's Palace of History, that was pretty smoking hot, but I knew I didn't stand a chance. He always had this group of people swarming around like he was the queen bee, buzzing and nodding and kissing his ass. He was young with sandy hair and a strong jaw and pale eyes that shimmered like the aquamarine jewel on my pinky finger. I raised my hand to my lips and gave the ring a light kiss, pretending for just a moment that it was that man's mouth, confident and strong.
I was so entranced in my thoughts that I forgot about the pixie dust and ended up slipping, rather comically, my legs flying out from under me, worn rubber soles of my shoes parallel with the ceiling for just a moment before I ended up slamming into the floor so hard that I was seeing stars. I knew it was bad because the stars weren't just spots of light; they were yellow and smiling and singing the theme song to My Little Pony.
The Cyclops I had spoken with earlier raced towards me, red vest flapping, as he pounded over to me and knelt quickly, waving a hand in front of my face and asking a bunch of stupid questions that I wouldn't have known the answer to even if I hadn't just given myself a concussion.
I waved him away but ended up with the store manager and several rubber necking customers surrounding me, jabbering away, and making my head spin while the pixies laughed and sprinkled more of their sparkling crap over my face and arms. I'd be visible from space for the next week. I groaned and sat up while the manager sweated and mumbled things about lawsuits. I rubbed my head and pointed at my basket, just wanting to get the heck out of there.
“I won't sue you,” I said, pointing at the candles and trying not to drool. “But can I have these for free?” The manager licked his lips and nodded. This is too easy, my brain tried to convince me. Ask for more. “And do you happen to have any chicken blood?”
A half an hour later, I was strolling out the automatic doors of the Super Target and mouthing the lyrics to some pop song that I only actually knew half the words to. They hadn't had any chicken blood, but they had given me several containers of chicken hearts. There seemed to be quite a bit of bloody residue sloshing about in the bottom of the Styrofoam containers, so I decided that would count. It would have to. It was getting late, and today was the sixteenth, the last day for me to try the spell.
I trudged up the rickety, cement steps to my apartment and tried to ignore the permanent smell of moth balls and dog urine that seemed to permeate the dreary hallway. My neighbor, Gene, a lady of questionable age with a sneer as sharp as cheddar and a smell to match, kicked open her door and proceeded to glare at me as I fumbled around with my keys. She always did that. Opened her door and stared at me. I think on some deep level that she recognized that there was something different about me. Sometimes people did. Though they never seemed to be able to get what that was. If only I felt confident enough in my own sanity to share the simple fact that I could see things that they didn't. I sighed and managed to get into the eight hundred square foot shit hole before Gene began shouting. She did that, too, sometimes. But that was only because she was crazy. She shouted at everyone: the super, the PG&E guy, the mail lady. That act wasn't just reserved for me.
I slammed the door behind me, locked it, handle, dead bolt, chain, always in that order, and headed immediately for my bedroom. If I was going to meet the Devil, I was going to do it in style.
I found a slinky, skin tight dress as red as a hooker's lipstick, and since I'd bought it used at Goodwill, probably something that had actually been worn by a hooker, and paired that with some black pumps and a quick slash of eyeliner. I grinned at myself in the wavy mirror that hung crookedly on the back of my bedroom door. I was as hot as a book cover bimbo. Perfect. I fluffed my black bob, punctuated by neon streaks of pumpkin-bright orange, courtesy of Punky Colour, and sashayed into the bathroom. I was in a better mood than the day I'd bought my Rabbit Habit, though not by much.
The candles, once I'd taken them out of eight, stiff, plastic layers of protection and about a dozen twist ties, looked absolutely ridiculous arranged around the edge of the porcelain sink in my bathroom. They flickered weakly, the cheap lights inside dimming and brightening in a pathetic imitation of a true candle. I frowned at them as I opened the plastic top to the chicken hearts. They smelled gamey and a little bit like iron, leaving a heavy, metallic burn in the back of my throat.
“God,” I choked as I dipped two fingers into the cold, watery bird blood. My spine bucked involuntarily as I rubbed the runny ooze down the side of one candle, and then the next, and the next. Let's just say it didn't get any easier or any less disgusting.
After I was finished, I tossed the unused hearts into the bathroom garbage can and scraped anything resembling so much as a fingerprint off of my skin in an attempt at cleansing myself. Once I had decided that liquid soap, a squirt of shampoo, and half a travel sized bottle of Purell would just about do it, I was ready to begin.
I flicked the lights off and grabbed the newspaper scrap off its temporary home on the back of the toilet. I squinted at the words which were incredibly difficult to read in the flickering light and took a deep breath.
“Hell Incorporated,” I began, trying to pitch my voice low so that it came out as eery and mysterious as possible. “666 Gladiola Lane.” I
set the newspaper down on the edge of the sink next to one of the plastic eggplant monstrosities and waited. And waited. And waited.
Nothing happened.
“Goddamn it,” I screeched at myself, fighting back tears and gripping the sides of the mirror with a frenzied fervor. “Why do I do this to myself?”
I had a tendency to get really, really involved in things that most people could tell weren't going to work out for the best. It was one of my special talents. I punched the mirror once, in a juvenile fight of rage, cracking the glass and cutting my hand open along with it. Tiny droplets of red dripped into the sink and swirled down the drain, turning the residual water a pinkish color and staining the edges of the white porcelain.
“Ah, hell,” I cursed, unaware of the swirling black vortex beneath my feet. “I'm going to need stitches.”
And then I was falling down a hole, screaming like a B-list actress in a horror movie, until I found myself landing face first onto some terribly itchy, navy carpeting. I pushed myself up quickly, tugging down my dress in the back in an attempt to cover my ass, before taking a look around.
My exploration ended before it even got started because the very first thing I saw was the demon.
And he was pissed.
I gazed at it through the thick glass of the display case. There the necklace sat, in a bed of blue velvet, glimmering in the store's soft, yellow overhead lighting. In that
“Have you ever considered yourself to be lacking in propriety?” asked the demon at the front desk; orange eyes glared at me over wire rimmed spectacles. “I said, how may I help you?” He was drumming his long, red fingernails on the polished mahogany of his desktop and clutching a book in the other hand. I had the feeling that that was at least the third time he'd asked me that very same question. I took a deep breath and blew a puff of hot air out and up in an utterly worthless attempt at getting the hair away from my eyes.
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