by JA Huss
I like being back-up, I decide. Much more than I do being the boss. I like being part of the team.
Well, Pierce’s team. That’s the only team I want to play on.
Anyway. It’s party night and I’m dressed like a Halloween goddess. If a Halloween goddess looks like the Myrtle Rothschild version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I decided that if every woman at this party will be wearing the little black dress, then I’m going to be wearing the floor-length gown version.
I’m the first to arrive at the Le Man building because I need to double-check the details with Maggie. We played phone tag all week and I finally just told her to make decisions herself because I was too busy saving the magazine.
But I want it to be perfect. It is, after all, my first foray into the world of glossy magazine photoshoot parties. Speaking of which, that was one of the details I ended up dropping into Maggie’s lap last week after the first photographer canceled. And the dessert. I assumed Maggie is clever enough to hire Eden’s father to provide the baked goods, but I haven’t seen Eden all week either, so I’m not even clear on what the dessert table will look like.
I’m just going to assume it will be spectacular and delicious.
When I enter the building I am pleased to see the security staff dressed in tuxedos. So far, so good.
“Good evening, Ms. Rothschild,” one greets me as he checks my badge and collects my invitation. “Maggie is waiting for you in the second floor lobby.”
I thank him, hand my coat off to a woman in the coat check who is wearing a perfectly acceptable little black dress, and then head for the escalator, feeling pret-ty good that this party is gonna go off without a hitch.
The first thing I notice is the music. A string quartet being piped through speakers.
Nice touch, Maggie. Nice touch.
And there she is! “Maggie!” I call. She’s talking to the catering staff—all of whom pass my dress-code requirements—but turns when she hears her name.
“Myrtle,” she says, coming towards me with both hands outstretched. She is done up right.
“Wow,” I say, letting her clasp her hands into mine and give me a squeeze. “Love the dress.”
“Yours too. This is”—she puts a hand on her heart and blinks her eyes three times fast—“the most spectacular Halloween party I’ve ever planned. Such a vision, Myrtle. Such a vision.”
“Thank you,” I say, beaming with happiness. “But the hard work was all you, Maggie. I love it.”
“The photographer is here and he’s just great. He even threw in a photo booth at no charge. How fun is that?” She giggles.
My brow furrows. “A photo booth?” I ask.
“Yeah, you know. Those old-fashioned things you see in the mall? Where guests can go inside and make funny faces.” She leans in, cups a hand to her mouth, and whispers, “Or, you know. Do other things.”
I tap my perfectly manicured fingernail to my chin, trying to think if I’ve ever seen a photo booth at a cocktail party before. “Hmmm,” I hum.
“What? What’s wrong?” she asks. “You don’t like the idea?”
“Well,” I say, cringing. “I’m not certain it fits with the theme, that’s all.” Her face falls. “But I’m sure it will be great. And I’ll love it,” I say, giving her a boost. She did pull this whole thing together in less than two weeks. And I really appreciate her picking up the slack while I was busy this week. So we had one miscommunication. No big deal.
“Good,” she says, relieved. “I think you’ll like it.” Then she glances down to the main lobby below and she says, “People are arriving. Do you want me to give you a quick tour before everyone comes up?”
“Yes,” I say, my excitement back. “Lead on.”
She walks over to the nearest set of double doors, pauses, then opens them with a flourish like she’s turning letters on Wheel of Fortune.
Inside I see… a cage. With a girl inside wearing…
“What the…” I step into the auditorium, which has been transformed from top to bottom. Literally, top to bottom. Because tables have replaced the chairs, but they’re not dining tables where people sit. Unless the people want to get a good long look up a girl’s little black dress, that is. And from the ceiling hangs yards and yards of thick strips of black satin fabric, creating… peekaboo rooms, I guess.
There must be a fan somewhere, because the thick satin strips are flowing back and forth, giving me little glimpses of women and men doing… what the fuck are they doing in those peekaboo rooms?
“Ta-da!” Maggie says. “Don’t you love it?”
Love it? I’m not even sure there’s a word to describe what I’m feeling. Or seeing, for that matter. Oh, every woman in a cage is certainly wearing a little black dress, that’s not the problem. The problem is that they’re wearing undergarments I can see and they look like they just walked out of my dungeon. Or have plans to visit it later. Take your pick.
“Ummm… what the hell is this?” I ask, trying not to freak out, because the first guests are now opening other sets of double doors and entering the… the… sex club? Because… “Holy shit, what are they wearing? Why are they all dressed like that?”
And then I look at Maggie, and her mouth is moving, and she’s forcing a smile because she can see this was not my vision, but I can’t hear her, because, yes, there’s Josh Washburn cracking a whip in the direction of a woman, who I hope is his date, because I think he actually touches her ass with that thing. She whirls around, hand covering her giggling mouth. Wearing a dress cut so low I can clearly see her red and black bra. She has on stockings and thigh-high boots. And then Josh—“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “Is he going to handcuff her to that cage?” I whirl, turning back to Maggie. “What the hell is going on? This was supposed to be a black-tie affair! This looks like… like a succubus sex club!”
“Oh, my God, Myrtle. I’m so sorry. I thought—”
“I said,” I say, gritting my teeth so I don’t fly off in a rage, “I didn’t want it to feel like Halloween. How in the world did you think this was my vision?”
“I came by several times this week to run all this by you, but your assistant told me you were too busy, so I just asked your co-workers and they all agreed I was on the right track, so…” She stops, realizing there is no good way past this fuckup.
“Which co-workers?” I growl.
“Well, all the ones around your office who had time to talk to me.”
“So the other VPs,” I say, looking around. There are dozens of people in here now, all of whom are wearing one version or another of what Josh and his sex demon have on. “They told you I’d like girls in cages?”
“Yes,” Maggie says. “They did. They were sure of it.”
“Great party, Myrtle!” I whirl around, find Josh standing in front of me. To his credit, he did get the mask right. Because it’s just a simple black thing with eyeholes. But he’s still holding the whip. And his little demon is still handcuffed to the cage. She’s doing a damn good impression of a stripper as she sways and bends to the beat of string quartet music. How that’s even possible, I’m not sure. I might have to chalk it up to talent.
I open my mouth to say something but I’m blinded by flash photography. “Perfect,” a tall, gruff man coos. “I’m going to call this one Mistress Myrtle,” he whispers, then moves on to take pictures of a crowd of people entering the auditorium.
I’m about to follow him so I can steal that camera and drop it into a punch bowl, when Valerie walks up wearing her version of the little black dress.
This isn’t happening.
Because her version is something I’m gonna call Demon Black Swan. “What is this dress?” I ask.
She laughs, leaning forward to whisper, “No one will mistake me for Little Bo-Peep.”
“They certainly won’t,” I say, turning back to Josh. “Did you tell Maggie that I wanted girls in cages?”
“I love them, Myrtle. So great. This is the best party ever. I mean, I knew yo
u’d throw something fabulous when you stopped by my office to lecture me about the dress code in that sexy outfit, but this? Wow!” He holds up his whip, cracks it, nearly hitting Gretchen, Eden’s old boss, who is wearing… what the fuck is she wearing?
“This is amazing!” she yells over the music and conversation. “Best costume party ever!”
I wonder how long she’s had that Elvira costume in her closet, just waiting for Myrtle Rothschild to throw a Halloween party.
Another flash as the photographer catches Josh and Gretchen mid-jubilation.
I just stand there, turning in a slow circle, as people file in wearing every version of black suit and black dress their Halloween imaginations could come up with.
Witches. So many witches.
And to be fair, my perfectly-worded dress-code warning did not include no witches.
Or sex demons. So much worse than Josh’s girlfriend could think up.
Most of the men are in regular tuxedos, but some of them, like Ryan in accounting who has spruced his up with stab wounds, and Dave, the VP of media relations, who appears to be an undertaker leading a girl by a leash, just decided the only real requirement was that they be dressed in black.
What is happening?
How did this go so wrong?
Another flash, then another. And with that my nightmare manifests in perfect clarity.
This is who they think I am.
All of them.
I am not just that weird woman who gets paid more than Josh Washburn and took his office.
I am Myrtle. Dungeon mistress. The kind of woman who cracks a whip while wearing black lingerie. The kind of woman who locks her boss in a cage and blindfolds him as she spanks his ass and then threatens him with a cock cage.
Hands slip around my waist as lips press up against my neck. “Great party,” Pierce coos. “This is perfect.”
I take a deep, deep breath, remove his hands from my waist, then turn to face him. “This,” I say, looking around. “This was not my vision.”
“No?” Pierce says, taking a step back as he looks around the party. “Well, I love it. And the photographs,” he says, shaking his head. “Wow. I mean, this is gonna be some spread. No one will ever accuse Le Man of being boring, that’s for sure.”
“They thought—” But I don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t want to admit it, especially to Pierce.
“They thought what?”
“They think this is me, Pierce. That this is the kind of party I’d throw.”
He looks around again, then shrugs. “So? I mean, it kinda is.” He laughs, then abruptly stops when he sees I’m not. Laughing, that is. “Come on. It’s just fun. And you actually have a bona fide dungeon in your basement, right? Not to mention you dress like—”
“Hey, Myrtle!” Josh calls out.
“I dress like what?” I ask Pierce, ignoring Josh.
Josh comes towards us, two-fisting cups of blood-red punch. “Sorry I gave you such a hard time about the advertising at first. I just knew the magazine wasn’t in trouble, that’s all. And you were getting a little carried away, which is my cue to just go with it, right, Pierce?” Josh elbows Pierce in the ribs, spilling punch on the floor.
“What?” I ask, confused. But when I turn to Pierce, he’s making one of those slashing motions across his throat. Telling Josh to shut up. “What’s he talking about? What’s he mean he knew we weren’t in trouble?”
“Oops,” Josh says, elbowing Pierce again, spilling more punch on the floor. “My bad, man. I thought you told her.”
“Told me what?” I growl.
“Thanks,” Pierce says, taking Josh by the arm and turning him around. “See you later, Washington. Enjoy the party.”
“What is going on?” I ask.
Pierce rubs a hand across his jaw, then sighs. “I might’ve… misrepresented the financial situation of the magazine.”
I clench my jaw and say, “Explain.”
“You felt… adrift to me, Myrtle. And I was afraid that one day I’d come into work and you wouldn’t be there. I mean, you were refusing to forgive me, OK? I had to do something to make you… stay, I guess. Be the woman to me you always were.”
“And you thought lying to me and giving me a fake job to do was the answer you were looking for? So this whole party…” I stop. Look around at the joke I’ve been turned into. “Was for nothing? We don’t even need—”
“We’re doing the spread, Myrtle. That part’s not fake.”
I laugh. And he laughs with me. But then he stops, because he can see that this is not a real laugh. “OK. So it’s just everything else that’s fake?”
“Myrtle, you’re overreacting. Just listen—”
“Do we need advertisers, Pierce?”
“We always need advertisers, so yeah, of course.”
“You weren’t going to lay anyone off in the new year, were you?”
“Myrtle, listen—”
“Answer me.”
“No.” He sighs. “No. The magazine is fine.”
I take another deep, deep breath. “So this is… just a joke to you.”
“What? No! Of course not!”
“‘Plan a Halloween party for me, Myrtle. You’re into that, right?’”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“‘We’re counting on you, Myrtle. To save the magazine. To keep people from being laid off after the holidays.’”
“Listen to me,” he says, taking my arm.
I shrug it off and shake my head. “I am a joke to you people.”
“You’re not a joke, I swear. No one thinks you’re a joke.”
“Fucking Myrtle,” Janet, the lobby receptionist says, coming up to me dressed in what everyone will be calling Myrtle-wear by Monday. “I always knew.” She laughs.
“Knew what?” I say, eyeballing Pierce to see what he’s going to do about this interruption that has no possibility of being productive to his cause.
“If I ever got invited to one of your parties, this is exactly what it would look like.”
“Is that so?” I ask, still waiting for Pierce to put a stop to this.
But he just stands there. Looking at her, then me, then back to her. Like he has no idea what to do.
“Say something,” I snap.
“Can we just… go upstairs and have a conversation?”
“That’s your reply to this?” I hold my hands up to indicate the entire fucking mess. “Let’s go upstairs? So you can what? Stop being embarrassed for me?”
“I’m not embarrassed for you—”
“Well, you should be,” I say. “Because…” I just shake my head. “I thought there was no way I’d ever feel as humiliated as that moment you had me hauled out of this room by security last summer. But you know what? I was wrong.”
I lift up my long skirt with my gloved fingertips, and start to make my way down to the coat-check girl to gather my things.
I feel Pierce’s hand on my arm.
“Hey, no, wait,” he says.
I look at his hand and then up at his face. “You know what’s really ironic?”
“… What?”
“Of all the things I may be—and God knows I’m a lot of things—I’m not a liar. I didn’t lie to you when you thought I was lying. I didn’t lie to you about the things I wanted from you. I didn’t lie to you… ever.”
“Myrtle… I didn’t lie. I mean I did, but not intentionally. It’s not that I lied exactly, I just…”
“You just… what?” His mouth contorts. He looks away. “You just… forgot?” I say.
“Yeah. I just kind of forgot about it is all.”
I nod slowly. “Right. Right. And as you told me… you only forget about things that aren’t important to you. So…”
I let it hang in the air, giving him ample opportunity to respond. But he doesn’t. I suppose he can’t. It’s not possible to defend against the indefensible.
I say, “I told you that something like what happened last
summer can never happen again.”
“This isn’t like last summer.”
“Isn’t it?”
His expression changes. Pierce the ball-busting deal-maker emerges. I know what it looks like. I’ve seen it before. Just never directed right at me.
“Jesus, Myrtle,” he says. “I mean, look, I’m sorry. I really am. But… fuck.”
“Nice. Nice apology. Thanks.”
“Y’know, I’ve tried to… Jesus Christ. I’ve apologized for last summer. I’ve paid penance. I’ve, literally, prostrated myself. And this was, y’know, an accident. And it’s not my fault that you handed this party off to someone else and they misinterpreted what you wanted. I mean, to be fair…” He trails off.
I can feel my eyebrow arch. “To be fair, what?”
“Nothing.”
“No. What?”
He sighs and says, “To be fair… this”—he gestures around him—“is the impression you’ve given off for pretty much the whole time I’ve known you. That this is the kind of thing you’d be into. And—and let’s be real—it’s not unfounded, so…”
My eyes go wide and my mouth falls agape. Not in shock, but in anger.
“I’m just saying,” he says. “Stop taking it so seriously. Just let it go. I mean, goddamn, how many times are we going to wind up back here again?”
“Where? Exactly?”
“You pissed at me and me begging for your forgiveness?”
“You are fucking unreal.”
“Look, what’s it gonna take? You wanna have another contract? Some more ‘dominate Pierce’ time? Is that it? Hey! You wanna do it now? Here? How about we just go right over there, stick me in a cage, and you can pour candle wax on me or have a tiger lick my nuts or something. How about that? Let’s do it in front of everybody. Would that make you feel better? I mean, I’ve already told you that I love you and you’ve told me that you think I’m ‘pretty cool,’ so, you know, what difference does it make to put myself out there for you one more time just to wind up looking like an asshole?”
