We stood there for a minute, staring each other down while the tremoring inside me grew like a drum roll. I felt like slapping him and clawing at him and kissing him, but instead, I threw myself as far forward as I could and, pressing myself to him, groaned, “Fuck you, Carter. Fuck me.”
With a victorious smile sliding onto his face, he did.
Picking me up, shoving me back onto the desk, he slipped inside me with one smooth, hard motion. As I cried out, he railed into me, sliding in and out, both of us gasping out breaths in sync, my hips rising to meet his thrusts.
And—oh God—it was like nothing I’d ever felt before, and—fuck—it was just what I needed. My mouth was opening and closing with a chant, the urge being uttered as a “yes.”
I was practically at the edge with “yes,” and he was fucking me just how he liked it, and my “yes” was a howl, a begging, a moan-scream. His cock was spasming, and he was coming, and I was coming, and “yes” was a sort of yowled thank you to the universe as we were finally freed.
Afterward, we slumped into the chair, me on top of him. My gaze kept flicking to his turned-away face. It was strange, but I could’ve sworn that, as we sat there, he had been looking at me, that there had been something in his gaze on me that had been kind. Our breaths were still in rhythm, but the longer I sat there, the more I realized that I was sitting on a statue, on my unbelievable mistake, and I had to go.
In one swift motion, I uncuffed myself and grabbed my panties off the floor. As I slipped on my tossed-aside clothes, Carter got up too.
Once I’d put on my clothes, I lifted my head to see something in front of my nose.
“Told you I’d help you if you helped me.”
Carter’s voice was light, casual. In front of me, he was holding a check for $100,000.
As I stared at it, he tucked it into my skirt pocket. I searched his face, looking for disdain, superiority, a sneer, anything. All I could find was my own shy confusion. Turning away, I made for the door.
My hand was just grasping the door handle when—“Hey.”
Turning, I saw that Carter had something orange and red in his hand. My sock. My red, smiling-faced apple-print sock.
“Almost forgot this.”
I took a step toward him, but Carter was already sweeping toward me. As he placed it in my hand, there was something on his face that was tender, almost kind.
Before I knew what I was doing, I’d kissed him on the cheek, and he said, “I never got your name.”
Over his shoulder was the portrait of the cruel-faced man, the man who was as cutthroat and heartless as the real Carter Ray, no matter what game he was playing now.
I turned back to the door and opened it.
“Donna,” I said as I left. “My name is Donna.”
The elevator was already waiting for me, so I didn’t have to look at the snide secretary. I hit the button for the lobby and stared into the chrome doors at my own distorted reflection.
Really, it should have been me who was snide. I had gotten what I’d wanted, hadn’t I? Hadn’t I?
As the elevator made its way down, picking up and dropping off faceless people with incomprehensible chatter, as I strode out of the building to my car, the question repeated itself: I had gotten what I’d wanted, hadn’t I?
I pulled out of the parking lot and made my way along the highway, staring out the window dully. The sun was a bright yellow ball amid twirling whooshes of clouds.
I’d done it. I’d gone to the CEO of RayGen, Carter Ray himself, and made my case.
I took out the check. As I squinted at the amount, and the basically illegible scrawl of Carter Ray, a lump formed in my throat. What if it was all a trick, this being the final punchline of the joke of that cruel man?
Seeing a rabbit on the edge of the highway, I slowed the car and then stopped so it could make its slow, hopping way across.
Why not? For Carter Ray, it was probably all a game, playing and negotiating with people the same way he did with business.
I tucked the check back into my pocket. I’d have to go to the bank to find out for sure. In any case, as much as I hated to admit it, that encounter—whatever it had been—had undeniably been just what I had needed. The rabbit having finally made it across the road, I continued on, though I soon found myself stopping once more.
A few feet from the road was a group of people with signs. I rolled down my windows to hear the familiar chant—“RayGen not again! Not again RayGen!”—and felt a wave of nausea overtake me. The check in my pocket suddenly felt like it weighed 100 pounds.
I had gone to Carter’s office wanting justice and gone away with a check. What kind of sellout was I?
Pulling over my car, I bleakly stared into the encroaching storm cloud ahead. I wanted to go back there, back to Carter Ray’s fancy, overdone office and throw his stupid check in his stupid, condescending face. And yet, I couldn’t.
The storm cloud was the same gray as the walls of the house where my parents and I now lived. It was a gray-walled, white-doored house that we shared with another dead-faced family who left garbage in the corners of common spaces and yelled at each other all night long. No, my parents and I couldn’t stay there. We had to use this check; we needed it. Regardless of my moral qualms, I had a family to look after.
Taking one last look at the group of protestors, I pulled back onto the road and drove on.
It seemed like the next minute I was pulling up to the tall beige and white building I could hardly wait to get into. My bank, where someone would tell me whether I had just made a terrible mistake or finally gotten a lucky break.
As soon as the frazzled-looking teller ogled me, I knew I was golden.
“So, you’d like that deposited in your savings account?”
“Y-yes,” was all I could manage.
One hundred thousand dollars. One hundred triple 0 dollars! Carter had been as good as his word—better. All he had promised me was help, and he’d given me $100,000.
“Will that be all today, ma’am?” the bank teller’s nasal voice asked. Nodding dumbly, grinning like an idiot, I left.
I couldn’t get home fast enough. As I drove, I swapped around potential stories.
I’d gotten a great new job—nah, I’d have to wait too long to use the money then.
I’d been contacted by a long-lost relative—no, my parents knew all my relatives; they were my parents, after all.
No, wait, I had it—I’d won the lottery.
There, simple as pie and immediate and perfect. And, in a way, true. Almost.
As I pulled up to the slumping, two-story hovel I had come to call home, my latest check in my bank account, everything looked twice as filthy and crappy. The broken screen, the screeching door, the tattered rug with missing patches on the floor, all of it only made me happier with what I was about to tell my parents.
As good old neighbor Gina slumped by, giving me her usual stony glare, I actually grinned at her.
Bye-bye, Gina, I chirped in my head. Nice living with you and your shrieking, demon children, but my parents and I are off to greener pastures.
Then, it was time to burst into the laundry room—my parents’ favorite hangout, with the ever-clattering machines—and yell over the ruckus, “I won the lottery!”
Staring at me like I’d smacked him, my dad ran a hand through his long beard.
“You…won the lottery.”
My mom nodded a little, let out a little sneeze, and said the words even more unbelievingly. “You won the lottery.”
Grasping both their hands, I nodded, smiling so wide my face hurt.
“One hundred thousand dollars, and it’s all yours. I want you to have it. We can buy a new house. We can get out of here.”
My dad’s gaze was on a massive spider web in the corner.
“I don’t know, honey. That’s your money,” my mom said.
She hardly looked happy. After two months in this place, both of them had gotten out of the habit, I guessed
.
Taking her soft, creased hand, I shook my head.
“No, Mom. It’s ours. You and Dad have always been there for me. This money is for us, to buy a new house, a nice house.”
“A nice house,” my dad murmured, the traces of a smile beginning to form on his face.
“A new house,” my mom whispered, her gray eyes flicking to the window, where the sunny, blue sky was still visible.
Taking both their hands, I led them out of there, out of that noisy, smoky dump of a house. Out into the fresh air, sweet with forget-me-nots.
“Wait here,” I told them.
I raced back inside to my room and grabbed the pamphlet I’d had stashed in my bedside table since we moved in. Then, racing back to them, I held it out in the palm of my hand, like it was medication I was offering them, some sort of cure. And, in a way, it was.
“Better start looking, Pops,” I said as he handled the real estate pamphlet gingerly, as if it were a bomb that could go off at any moment. “You two have a new house to find.”
Chapter Five
Carter
Strange missing something you had never really had. At any rate, there would be no need to see Cynthia after work today. I’d had more than my fill.
And yet, every few minutes, as I signed off on contracts and negotiated over the phone with businesspeople who didn’t yet realize they were going to agree with me, I found my gaze irresistibly drawn to the handcuffs still attached to my drawer.
A strange girl. So haughty and passionate, and yet…what had that look in her eyes been at the end there, when I’d returned her sock?
No matter. I had work to do, and I would never see her again.
As the tall, stately grandfather clock in the corner ticked on, I thought of her: I wondered which seized ranch had been hers—there had been so many lately; I wondered if she had told me her real name. “Donna,” she’d said.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was on the phone with Cynthia, ordering her to look into all the Donnas in Denver, hanging up before she asked for clarification. Although, Cynthia knew better than to ask why.
It was a good idea to know about the girl in case I had more trouble from her later. You could never be too prepared.
As the grandfather clock rang out 6 p.m.—time to go home, I took out the map once more.
The creased, pen-drawn thing looked older every time I took it out, though soon, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Soon, all the pipelines would be just where my dad had planned them to be. I wouldn’t need his old map to tell me where they were supposed to be, because they would actually be there; it would be done.
I turned to the portrait on the wall, to the face that was the spitting image of its dissatisfied original.
“I’m going to make you proud, Father,” I said, and, for a second, the real man flickered there amid the painted version. Over the canvas flashed his tormented eyes as they’d been in the hospital bed, those black, beady orbs like a creature unto themselves, roving around and around, never stopping, never pausing once. The thin, sneered lips moved only every so often to mutter, “Unfinished business, unfinished. Pipelines to the downlines. Father to son.”
Back in the hospital, those lips hadn’t moved even when I had promised him I would do it—finish the pipelines, take over the family business, make him proud. Neither had the roving eyes so much as paused when I’d sworn that I wouldn’t rest until RayGen was bigger than ever, more successful than ever before.
I pushed the map away and turned around his ring on my fourth finger, the one I’d inherited after he’d died. The one I’d twirled once, just like now, before I’d gone and changed everything.
A glance at the clock revealed it was 6:05. I should’ve left five minutes ago; I had better go now. That was how bad habits started: one little time-wasting thought here, one little afternoon gone to waste there, and before you knew it, you were watching your empire fall and your competitors pick over your slothful carcass. No, I would not get lazy and let inertia sink in. The grind was what I lived for; it was what made me who I was, and it was what would make me who I wanted to be.
I strode past Cynthia without a word; maybe she would be useful tomorrow. By then, perhaps she would have found out something about that girl. No matter. It was time to go home and eat.
The elevator came, picked me up, and deposited me in the now nearly empty lobby. Few other than Cynthia stayed as late as I did. In at seven, out at six—just how Father used to do it. And those were on his easy days, too.
“Work until the work is done, and then some.” That had been his motto, and it had extended into every part of his life. With his late nights and early mornings, Mom, Peter, and I had hardly seen him for weeks at a time. But that was for the best; they’d never understood that.
As I made my way through our tomb of a building, I knew that the others would never see that. No, not the lazy ones who lived for lunchtime and break time and weekends and time off and sick days, who put the bare minimum into the shitty work they did and moaned the loudest when their shitty work didn’t pay off.
I stopped at my gleaming black sports car to smile at my reflection in the window. The best thing about work was the work itself, losing yourself in something greater than yourself. But the next best thing was this—fast, luxurious cars, girls, trips. Buying something, looking at it, smiling, and just knowing, with every part of you, I earned that.
As my coupe sped along the road back home, work didn’t follow me, but she did.
Her hair was the same mahogany brown as my desk; funny I was only realizing it now. And that sprinkle of freckles on her nose… Was her name really Donna? She had seemed more like an Alice or an Abigail. Would I ever see her again?
I pressed a button on the stereo, and a light jazz song floated around me, sliding my thoughts into a pleasant nothingness, moving them along to the beat. No point in worrying about it. It was not on the schedule, and, truth be told, it was extraneous.
At a red light, I took out my phone and checked it. Tomorrow night was Selma, the next, Jane. Thursday I had off, and then Friday was Tammie, then Carly. No, my schedule was full. I was a lucky, busy man. There was no need to make myself any busier.
“If you have to skimp, skimp on the pleasure; you only get it because of the work, anyway,” as Father used to say.
I set a memo for myself: “Tell Cynthia to forget about Donna.” There.
Now, I was home anyway, putting my hand on the front door’s security tablet. The broad, dark slab of wood opened and I walked in, the lights flicking on automatically as I made my way to the kitchen. My dinner was there and ready—hot, as if she’d known I’d be five minutes late.
As I enjoyed the broiled basil chicken breast and the garlic roasted asparagus and potatoes Karen had prepared, I made a mental note to give her a raise. Only a few months in, and the woman had perfected what I called “invisible excellence,” meaning she put everything where it belonged, cleaned everything according to schedule, and also avoided being seen. We did have our monthly meetings where I outlined what she had to work on, but other than that, it was as if my house itself was providing me with just what I needed.
Once the meal was finished, it was time for the gym. Only a five-minute drive from my house, I arrived at the glass-walled, machine-clanging box to find a pleasant surprise. Crouched in the weights section, as if he’d known today was my arm day, was none other than Skylar.
“You still come here, big man?”
I grabbed the weight he was struggling with, lifted it with one hand, and then grabbed another.
“You betcha, little guy.”
We grinned at each other. It was the little joke we had going. I was 6’1” and Skylar was 6’2”.
Soon, we were deep into pumping iron and chatting about our days. I didn’t mention Donna. I didn’t know why.
“But listen, Car, I’m serious,” Skylar was saying. “You have to check out this café, Blue’s. It’s really something. This nice little arty,
overpriced place—perfect for those business lunches you write off, anyway.”
Amid my 50-pound lift, I managed a sort of grimace-smile. Skylar was a sleazy fucker—but at least he was honest about it. You could never trust the kind, good ones, the ones who hid what they were really like.
Flexing at himself in the mirror, Skylar continued. “I mean it. I’m taking you out there next week. They’ve got this little dessert of a girl who’s the waitress. Brown hair, blue eyes. Haven’t added her to the rotation yet, and she’s a tough cookie, but I’ll have her in a month, tops.”
Exhaling and releasing the weight on the ground, I shot him a grin.
“Oh yeah?”
He nodded.
“I love me a good hard-to-get bitch. Makes things more fun.”
Turning to face him, even though he was still admiring his reflection in the mirror, I put on my faux-worried voice. “I don’t know, man. How many are you on now? Fifteen at once? Are you sure this is healthy? Don’t you want to—I don’t know—really connect with someone?”
At our running joke, we both laughed.
“Yeah, screwing fifteen hot girls at once, and I’m gonna settle with one. Fat chance,” Skylar scoffed, and we grabbed the weights once more.
Really, it was my own brother’s words I’d used; Paul was a bleeding heart if there ever was one.
Though, seeing some of those couples on the streets with their stupid smiles made me wonder sometimes…
Skylar finished his workout before me. He had started “like two hours before,” he claimed, though it was probably more like five minutes. For my final half hour, I was left with the rhythmic clank of exercise machines, an arsenal of weights, and my own reflection. Carter Ray. He looked tired, though I couldn’t for the life of me say why. He got six hours every night, seven on the weekend. Eight on vacations. At any rate, there were only ten minutes left, so I had better make the most of it.
By the time I got home, I was wrecked. I had gone all-out for the final five minutes and was so tired that when I found a slice of protein-fortified chocolate cake on the kitchen table (as specified) I was too tired to even eat a bite of it.
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