by Seth King
Hannah Goncalves
“You didn’t.”
She refused to meet my eyes.
“Rachel. Please tell me that my own twin sister did not set me up to work for the guy from the worst, and weirdest, date of my life.”
Finally she exploded into laughter. “Okay, fine, fine, I couldn’t resist. You know that Laurie from across the hall is a headhunter. I may have put in a call after your date, just to dig around…”
“I knew it was too coincidental to have been an accident. You evil, scheming bitch. How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know,” she giggled, “I give her weed all the time, she owed me a favor. A huge one, considering how good my green is.”
“Okay, great. Thanks. Now I’m officially fucked, and all because you’re a stoner.”
“Are you kidding? What’s the problem? You said your hookup was hot.”
“That’s exactly the problem! I don’t know how to act now! You know how I am.”
“Whatever. Everyone in this city wants to work at a place like Spark. You’re staying, and you’re just going to try to transfer into a different area or something.” She kept her eyes on the movie she’d rented from OnDemand, about a guy who was racing to an airport to somehow save the life of his helpless little girlfriend.
“Gross,” I said. “Turn this off. Why is the damsel always in so much distress? When will the roles reverse?”
“Don’t be bitter because you’re now a coworker with your little lover.”
“Shut up. You don’t know what you’ve done. He’s probably going to love torturing me. Also, there’s nothing little about him. I’m actually still sore.”
“Please stop talking, that is disgusting. And you’re going to do fine. It’s not so bad. Goncalves girls always end up okay. At least it officially gets you out of our bet, since I feel like kind of a huge bitch for doing it. And who knows? You might even fall in love.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m serious – maybe you needed this. I couldn’t just let you run from another guy. If someone doesn’t push you toward love, you’re going to run forever. You’re the Usain Bolt of romance.”
“Please,” I scoffed as the dread settled into my stomach. “I just watched The Blair Witch Project on Netflix. I’ve had enough horror for one day.”
Penn Sparks
“Have you ever gotten it by a billionaire?” I asked my fourth Spark date of the week. She shook her head, her brown hair quivering in its wake. “Good news, then: you’re about to.”
As I slid into her, I couldn’t help but see Hannah’s face in my mind. Out of all the temps in Manhattan, she had to be the one to walk through my door? Seriously?
I’d taken the day off just to avoid her, and then I’d skipped in and out of the office for a few days while she got settled in – but nothing helped. I just couldn’t banish her eyes from my head – brown, shiny, glowing like secrets in the dark. She was like herpes of the brain – I just couldn’t get rid of her. She was mesmerizing, and she was also a pain in my ass. (And a tongue in my ass, too.) No woman had ever talked back to me like that, and it went against everything I’d ever thought about gender roles. Was it strange that I also liked it? And that it had made me throb in my pants all day? Why did these things always happen to me? My life was a comedy of errors, just without the comedy. And now I couldn’t avoid her…now I would see her every day…
At least the conflicted emotions I felt about Hannah were now starting to make me look at the Nicole thing a little differently. Maybe I’d been delusional the whole time. In all the years I’d known Nicole, she would never surprise me with a kiss me on the mouth, touch me for no reason at all, reach over and hold my arm when I walked into a room with her. She never did any of that stuff. What I’d felt – that was passion, red and blazing. But it was also probably an illusion. She’d probably just been passing the time with me, hanging around until she figured out something better, and it was both painful and liberating to think about. But if nothing else, suddenly I wasn’t so angry anymore. I was just numb, like an island dweller after a hurricane.
“So, it’s been great,” I yawned as I rolled over ten minutes later. “After you go down to the lobby, the concierge can help you get an Uber. Have him charge it to my account.”
She finished wiping her mouth and stared at me. “But…don’t you want to hang out together for a while? Maybe watch some Netflix? Drink some wine or something?”
I checked the time on my phone. “Sorry, I’ve got work early, and I’m so tired.”
“But you own the company. I saw your magazines in the foyer. I’m sure you can come in whenever...”
“Well, no offense, but do you think I reached that level of success by sleeping in?”
“But why did you download the app if you don’t want to hangout?”
“Why did you?”
She looked down and played with her cuticle. Only now did I notice that her clothes were somewhat old and ratty, and the strap of her purse was broken. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve been a little lonely, being in nursing school full-time, and more and more of my friends are popping up in engagement stories on my News Feed, and-”
“There it is,” I said.
“What?”
“There’s your reason. You came here because of an arbitrary social system designed to make you feel inferior for being single. Your friends post engagement stories left and right, and so you get desperate and download an app and show up at a cheesy Italian restaurant hoping to find the person that will make you officially un-single. But you don’t need that. You don’t need anyone. I’m starting to learn that. So stop buying into the lie society is telling you. Stay single. Go on a little vacation. Have some fun.”
“But I’m broke.”
“Let me help, then.” I grabbed my checkbook and wrote her a check for $12,999, the maximum amount of money you could gift someone without getting in trouble from your accountant. “Here. Take a break. Get to know yourself.”
“Wait…you’re serious? Really?”
“Of course. I don’t need the money. Do I look like I need another Hermes wallet? I’m already enough of an asshole without it.”
She blinked a few times, taking stock. “Thank you so much, but…I kind of feel like a hooker now.”
“Oh well. It happens. Sorry, not sorry.”
“Well, whatever, then,” she said as she got up, clutching the sheet around herself. She started looking for her clothes, which had been strewn all across the room. “You’re strange, Penn. I don’t get you. But thanks for this money. I will never forget this.”
“No problem.”
She got back into her dress, grabbed her shoes, and angled her body toward the door. “And you also obviously enjoy your own company, which is good, because you’re going to have to. Why the whole ‘here’s some money, get out of my house’ thing? Why wouldn’t you at least try to find a match? Why would you want to go through the world alone?”
I shook my head. “I’m not alone. I have this apartment…”
“Dude, this is not an apartment, this is a museum. A very cold and boring one. Part of my soul died the second I stepped in here, no offense.”
“But-”
The elevator pinged outside. I tried to say something else, but she had already left.
All night long, I found that I just couldn’t cleanse the words “the world alone” from my mind. Was that really what I was headed towards? What if I waited too long, and everyone else settled down, and I lost my shot at love for good? My money, my fame – all that obviously wasn’t helping me. What if Hannah was my best chance?
At midnight I sat on my six-thousand-dollar sofa, put on an old episode of 30 Rock, and waited for the loneliness to wash over me.
~
The workday came all too quickly, and I stormed into the office to see Hannah already sitting there, adjusting the stuff on her desk in a cream sweater. And I couldn’t deny that she looked fucking sexy. As I
stared at her, a longing dripped over me, and I was nearly overcome with the need to reach out and touch her, to connect with her, to run my fingers along those deliciously soft cheeks, and then bend her over my desk and pump into her until I filled her with me…
I gave myself a mental slap in the face and told myself to calm down. Then I marched right up to her desk, furious with her anew. “God. Why are you still here? Is this some kind of sick joke?”
She looked up at me, her eyes even darker than usual. “Well good morning to you, too. And I could ask you the same thing. I didn’t ask to be hired here. I had no idea this was the job my sister had put my name down for. And trust me, I am aware of the irony of someone like me being hired to do the most antiquated job ever, for someone like you.”
“Then quit.”
“I can’t. I’m broke.”
“Sucks to be you, then.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I could say the same to you. The color of that bowtie is truly unfortunate. But then again, I’m not surprised, judging by the general ostentatiousness of your personal style.”
“What does that mean?”
She tossed a glance at my drapes, which were bright red, due to my attempts at stimulating office creativity. “It means nothing. By the way, Ivana Trump circa 1987 just called, she wants her office back.”
What was wrong with people? First I was too austere, and now I was tacky?
“You know nothing about me,” I told Hannah. “And Tammy Faye Bakker left me a voicemail, she wants to slap you from the grave for stealing her eye shadow tricks.”
She blanched. “Hey, I let my sister do my makeup this morning from some YouTube tutorial, it’s not my fault that high drama is on trend this season. Who picked out your office’s color scheme, RuPaul?”
“I happen to think RuPaul is fabulous.”
“Whatever. And yeah, I do know things about you. I know you probably went home alone last night.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Come to think of it, yes, after I fucked my date, yes, I was alone.”
She crossed her arms, and I could see that it bothered her. “Gross. And you really think casual sex is going to fill the gaping void inside you?”
I smiled at her, my dick bulging against the seam of my pants. “I certainly wanted to fill some voids within you last time we hung out, but you beat me to the punch.”
Her mouth fell open, just as I’d hoped. “You’re my boss. I could sue you for saying that.”
“Try.”
“I’m not the suing type,” she said airily as she sat back and inspected her nails. “But I am the working type, and I have a job to do. After all, this is an excellent company, despite you being in charge of it. I’m a bright girl, and I’ll be able to get hired at any tech company I want after a successful tenure here. Would you like a rundown of your day’s appointments?”
I looked down at her delicious nipples showing from underneath her top – one of which was pierced – and an idea came to me. If I couldn’t make her leave, I would make her jealous. “No. Clear everything after lunch. I’m having a Spark date.”
“…You’re having a Spark date…at Spark?”
“Yes, at Spark. Why not? I have a kitchen and a bathroom in my office. I also own ninety percent of this company and can do as I please.”
“Oh, really,” she rolled her eyes, “you hadn’t reminded everyone enough times already. I’d like to hear it again, please. Where do you work? You haven’t told me eighteen times yet.”
“Well get ready to know it even more. And much, much more.”
She sighed and leaned in. “Okay, look. You think this is fun, some little power trip. But I won’t be a player in this game. I’m going to do my job, and I guess you’re going to do yours, and that will be the end of it, because I’m a mature adult, or trying to become one, at least. Anything else will be filed as harassment with the HR department.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please don’t use that patronizing tone with me,” she said stiffly.
“Okay then,” I smiled, definitely still patronizingly. “Send in my date whenever she’s ready. Goodbye.”
Hannah Goncalves
Penn took a breath, flexed his arms, and turned on his heel to march away. Then he glanced at Alexis, the annoyingly beautiful office manager.
“Hey, please keep an eye on Ms. Goncalves – she’s a newbie, and I don’t want her making any mistakes. And by the way, please move her right next to my office. I want a good view of her.”
I blushed with rage – and shame – as we moved my desk over near his glass-encased office. His date arrived for lunch, right on time. She didn’t leave for almost two hours. And when I looked down at my hands at the end of their visit, I realized I’d bitten my nails so badly, my fingerprints were blooming with crimson bloodstains.
~
Butterscotch leaves peppering the crispy Manhattan sidewalks. Steaming cups of Starbucks in the touristy squares around NYU. Halloween decorations draped across massive brick townhomes in the West Village. This was the New York City autumn I’d envisioned upon arriving from Connecticut. I wanted a roaring fall in the city where it all happened, the city of Sinatra himself, the city of the vagabond shoes. This was not the autumn I got.
For five days, and then two weeks, I went to work, did my job ensconced in an icy silence, and went home. My sister was desperate for details, but I had none to offer – I was disengaging from Penn and his nonsense, and that was it. First of all, I was being ignored, and that made me as happy as a hardcore Republican at a gay pride rally in San Francisco. If there was one thing I loved, it was attention. But also, I didn’t have time to babysit and/or try to “fix” some irredeemably damaged man. (I’d been Googling his childhood, and I knew enough to know that he was pretty fucked up.) Some people were so broken, you could never hug them back together, no matter how hard you squeezed. And Penn was broken.
But at the same time, it was getting harder and harder to pretend like we’d never met, like I hadn’t licked his bum and then fucked him, like the rest of the room didn’t blur into soft focus whenever he walked in. Our proximity alone was driving me insane. He was so hard not to notice. For one, he was so driven, so dedicated, and his motivation was kind of admirable. I’d never met someone so obsessed with success. But I couldn’t figure him out – he’d waffle between being laid-back and friendly, and then incredibly focused and to-the-point. He’d switch in an instant. But he was perfectly nice to his employees, which I knew was a somewhat rare occurrence for a boss. He also dressed impeccably, which I’d always appreciated in a man. Basically he was everything I didn’t want to admit I wanted, and if he wasn’t such a prick (or, of course, my boss) I would’ve told him a long time ago.
I was also curious about other things. Our sex had been the most explosive of my life, but was that a bad sign for the potential bond between us? Was our connection purely sexual? Could hot sex and hot romance coexist at all? Everyone I knew either had a red-rose, hearts-and-flowers, text-me-all-day-because-I-miss-you type of relationship with the guys in their lives, or they had someone that they met up with to fuck once or twice a month when they were both in the mood. Could we even combine the red roses and the orgasms if we tried?
And wait – why did I even want to try? Why was I thinking about this? And what did he want from me in the first place? Did he miss me? Did he think about me, too? Sometimes when he looked at me, I thought I saw this sense of longing in his eyes – but then he’d turn and walk away. Why did I give a single shining fuck about any of this, anyway?
One fact was unavoidable: every night I would go to sleep and see one person in my dreams. Every night, that person was Penn.
I was at my desk one breezy, blue-skied Monday morning, trying not to think about all this, when I overheard Penn talking to his second-in-command, this guy named Wade.
“Really?” Wade asked him. “Nicole is throwing her new relationship all over social media, and you don’t even care? A week or two a
go, you wanted her dead.”
“Nah,” Penn said, disinterested. “She wasn’t totally bad. She could be sweet sometimes, I guess.”
“Penn. This is the girl who left you on the biggest day of your life.”
“It wasn’t all shitty,” he said breezily. “She was beautiful. You can’t deny that when that girl smiled, it was like the whole world sang.”
“Whatever you say, Shakespeare.”
An hour later I was trying to manage Penn’s impossible schedule, which I found took up most of my time as his assistant. Now that his business had gone public, Spark was attracting more media interest than ever, and as the face of the app, everyone wanted a piece of Penn. Social media influencers wanted to come tour the office and post selfies from in front of our infamous logo, the more fame-hungry of the New York City politicians wanted face time to ask him to drop by their fundraisers and campaign events, and then there was the endless file of media requests for website interviews and magazine profiles. As a result he was delegating more and more work to Wade, and was acting as more of a figurehead than a CEO, spending more time working on the image of Spark than the nitty-gritty side of things. Suddenly a Gchat window popped up on my screen:
Penn: Why haven’t we spoken since our date?
My heart dropped and my vision tunneled.
Hannah: I didn’t know you wanted to. And maybe you should ask Nicole, the girl with the music-inducing smile. She sounds magical.
Penn: Oh, stop, I was just trying to get him off my case. And why were you listening?
I didn’t respond.
Penn: We could still talk as friends, you know.
My heartbeat got all fluttery and irregular as I typed back to him.
Hannah: Not anymore. That’s against some kind of law. Right?
Penn: Only if somebody complains.
Hannah: I’m not “talking” to my boss. That’s weird.
