by Yossi Porat
The jangle of her cell-phone caught her attention. It was a marketing message. “Hello, Deborah. This is Eugene, the manager of the Owen branch of London Volvo. I imagine that you are wondering why I’m calling you. It’s to let you know that Volvo is offering families like yours an amazing offer. We would like to replace the two Volvos in your possession – the white XC90 and the silver S80 – with the newest models, along with a payment arrangement of twenty-four interest-free payments. This comes as well with a free family vacation in the United States, hotels and board included, along with a white Volvo jeep, of course. If you are interested please call my private number, 20-7577-2222. I would be very happy to see you soon. Have a good day and thank you for listening.”
Deborah felt slightly dizzy, as if she had just drunk a glass of champagne. “Lance will be so excited!” she thought to herself. “And the children will love this holiday!”
Deborah walked slowly through the entrance to her office building, smiling pleasantly to the reception people. She turned to her personal mailbox. She enjoyed walking through the beautifully decorated halls. She took the pile of
messages and letters and walked toward her office. Sitting down, she removed her cell-phone from her bag and placed it on her desk in the special holder that
allowed speakerphone, as well as downloads of data from her phone to her computer. She ruminated on the amazing advances of the digital age. At the same time, she felt a pleasurable wave of heat crawling up her upper neck and her head. Surprised, she concentrated on the heat and put her hand up to feel her neck.
Opening her email, she found sixty-four messages awaiting her attention. Sorting them according to importance, deleting the spam, she simultaneously opened her bottom drawer and pulled out a piece of her favorite Mozart chocolate. The phone began ringing – it was a direct call from the Managing Director, Mr. Raphael. Pushing the speaker button, she heard his voice. “Good morning, Deborah, could you possibly come to my office to discuss a few urgent matters?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Just give me a few moments to answer my emails and I’ll be right there.” Mr. Raphael agreed with his customary pleasant air.
Raphael leaned back in his custom-designed Italian manager’s chair. He was more than a little excited about his upcoming meeting with Deborah. “She’s not like the rest,” he said to himself. “She’s the cream of the crop, the crowning touch. She knows how to handle matters and she always acts with discretion and good sense. She’s also beautiful. I’d love her for myself, but I suppose the chances are slim. She’s always talking about her husband and twins, never letting me get close.”
Deborah straightened her flowered skirt. “It always pays to look one’s best for the boss,” she thought to herself. As she walked toward his office, she paused to admire the beautiful original paintings hung on the old oak walls of the hall. One in particular stood out, a portrait of a long-necked woman by Modigliani, with a fair face and shining eyes. The Chagall painting of Jerusalem, replete with Jewish figures, angels, sheep and, olive trees moved her as always, and she also enjoyed the multi-layered Escher and the Pollack abstract, seeing
something new every time she looked at it.
“Number one in British customs clearance; six branches all over England; more branches in France and Germany; major profits which allow for generous bonuses to the directing staff. Mr. Raphael deserves lots of credit,” she thought. “He’s a perfect company manager. And the paintings? A wise long-term investment. It’s too bad that there are sometimes ugly rumors about office romances. I, at any rate, have made it clear that I’m not available, just by the way I look at him.”
She entered his spacious office, feeling immune to any possible advances. But she suddenly felt an inner stimulus, different yet familiar. She gazed warmly at Raphael. He rose to shake her hand, a break with his usual custom, while looking directly into her eyes. Deborah held his gaze and shook his hand firmly, wished him a good morning, and began to sit down, slightly dizzy. Raphael’s body pulled towards her, still holding her hand, and only at the last moment was she able to release her hand from his grasp.
The hot feeling was overpowering her. She felt she was not in complete control. Raphael was throwing glances at her neck and her breasts. She blushed slightly. When Raphael turned his back in order to remove a file from his shelves, she hurriedly opened the top button of her blouse, revealing the cleavage. She stared at his muscular buttocks, wondering how he looked naked. Raphael returned to his seat, outlining his plan to have her involved in the planning and management of the new branch in Rome. He emphasized how this was the fruit of her outstanding work for the company, which made Deborah feel quite flattered, and even slightly dizzy. She felt the warmth between her legs.
Raphael asked Deborah to bring a file from a distant shelf in his office. Raphael looked over the information and then asked Deborah to return the file.
Deborah turned quickly and the file fell from her hands, pages flying everywhere. She felt unusually confused and embarrassed; she hastily bent down to gather the papers, moving clumsily. She felt Raphael’s eyes burning
into her, seeing her black underpants, her long legs – watching, weighing,
desiring. She felt herself growing excited, her heart beating quickly. After returning the folder, she found herself striding quickly toward the seated director. She pushed her breasts close to his face, hugging his head shamelessly, moving her hands through his hair, sliding down from his neck to his back, slightly scratching him, demanding an answer. Raphael lightly bit her nipples through her blouse, feeling almost faint with desire, almost drunk, in fact.
Feeling slightly hesitant and confused by her unexpected behavior, he turned off the lights with the switch under his desk and locked the door. He opened Deborah’s blouse and began licking her breasts, sucking her erect nipples one after the other. Deborah was feeling pleasant warmth rushing through her head, bringing back memories.
“Wait,” she whispered, elegantly removing her skirt. She stood before Raphael in her black panties, her blue bra falling to the floor, all warmth and wildness; scenes from a pornographic movie flashed through her head, and she felt that she was the lead actress, free, unrestrained. Raphael leaned back, thrilled by the reality of his dream come true, his tongue wetting his lips, breathing heavily, struggling to believe the reality.
Deborah got down to her knees in front of Raphael, unbuckling his brown leather belt. Opening his fly and pulling up his shirt, putting her hands into his underwear, exposing his member. She looked up at him with her shining face.
“Wait,” he breathed, and brought Deborah up. He put his moistened finger into Deborah, turning with dexterity, until he reached the right spot, thrusting his finger in more deeply. Pushing ever deeper into the wet, pulsating area, making Deborah moan and groan with pleasure, closing her eyes and moving slowing and rhythmically. Deborah was completely hooked, uncontrolled, carried far out on waves of pleasure, weightless on frothing waves, sailing murmuring, sighing, crying. He put a finger to her lips to silence her, but she would not be disciplined.
Deborah fell to her knees, shaking, climaxing stormily, and feeling the biting pinches rolling over and over. She made Raphael come to climax, leaning back in his chair, almost in a faint, as she watched him with eyes of desire.
“Darling,” he said feelingly. “I’ve wanted you for years.” He lay Deborah down on the thick Afghan rug, stroking her all over, but Deborah stopped him immediately. She raised herself up, pushing him away with both her hands. He looked like a tired prize fighter.
“I want to look my best,” she said, through a mist of satisfaction. “I want to celebrate with you in a four-poster bed, a giant Jacuzzi, and tons of flowers. I wanted to wear alluring and sexy lingerie and to feel desired.” She was feeling a pang of doubt, but led by passion and impulse, she demanded more and more. An inner voice somewhere was warning her to be careful, but she continued to ignore it.
Raphael sighed with disap
pointment. “Buy whatever you like,” he smiled. “We’ll meet at two o’clock at the Strand Palace, in the luxury suite. I’ll be waiting.” He got up and opened his oak cabinet, exposing a secret safe, tapped in the code, and drew out a heavy roll of 50 and 100-pound notes.
“I’m sure you’ll manage with this – and don’t stint,” he told her with a smile, looking at her lovingly.
She dressed quickly. Raphael watched her, amazed. On one hand, a delicate bird in need of protection, on the other, a wild creature, stormy as a winter night. She put the bills in a folder lying on the desk, picked it up, extracted two peanut-butter filled chocolates from the box on the table, mouthed “Ciao,” and left the office.
Raphael dressed, sat down at his desk, dialed the Strand Palace and ordered the suite for two that afternoon. “And as usual, loads of flowers, scented candles, hot water in the Jacuzzi with jasmine-scented oil, cold champagne and caviar.”
He smiled smugly to himself, and turned to read the pink pages of the Financial Times.
Raphael thought about these exciting developments and was reminded of his first goal as a boy – the boiling blood, the throbbing temples, the quavering temples, surrounded by pals, all wanting a hug. “They’re all the same,” he thought to himself. “In the end, they all come lying at my feet.”
Chapter Three
As he did every morning, Inspector Morris Breitman arrived at exactly eight o’clock to the Detective Division of the Metropolitan Police at Number 220 Buckingham Palace Road, parked his black car at the ever-full parking area, walked up one flight and pushed the brown revolving door with its slight creaking noise. Morris stood opposite the old elevator, peeling various colored paints, rusting slightly; its disrepair in striking contrast to the crisp blue uniforms of the policemen standing in the hall. He decided to use the stairs and went up to the third floor, two steps at a time, all the while sighing at the wretched state of the stairway.
Reaching his office, he entered the kitchen alcove, making a face at the smell of left-over food. He took a tall glass, removed a used plastic spoon from the tray and used it to lift out a heaping spoonful of some unnamed brand of coffee from the can, filled it with boiling water, added a bit of milk, and stepped into his office.
Slamming the door behind him with his foot, holding his coffee in one hand and his briefcase in the other, he sat down behind his desk, which was overflowing with papers and orange folders. Leaning back in his chair, which had seen better days, he stared admiringly at his model of the “Cutty Sark,” the many-sailed ship built in Scotland. Gulping from his foul coffee, he felt slightly childish.
Morris bent and removed the leather-bound office diary which Anne had given him for his thirty-eighth birthday. He licked his lips, still feeling the taste of her on them. He looked over his busy schedule for the day and wondered again when he would be rewarded with his own secretary. The ring of his cell-phone caught his attention and he answered it on speaker-phone.
“Morris?” a deep voice sounded.
“Yes.”
“This is Claude, from the evidence warehouse at Victoria Park. How are you this morning?”
Morris answered that everything was fine, and he pictured Claude’s thin, awkward figure, and remembered his strict requirements to all the rules of evidence and its handling.
“Superintendent Benjamin referred me to you. Could you help me out, and take the package of heroin that you caught in your last case to be burned?”
“Gladly,” replied Morris, pleased that his superior officer trusted him. At the same time he realized that although he was ready and able for any job, this had not translated itself into a promotion. “I’ll be there within the hour.”
Morris closed his eyes, reflecting on his life. “I’m almost forty,” he thought. “I start early, finish late; I’m loyal to my job and to my wife, careful in everything I do. Where can I advance to? Will it always be like this, dull and unexciting? When will we be a family, Anne and I, like the rest of the policemen at work? And what will be then? How much time will I be able to give my children?” He thought for a minute “Well, let’s hope that everything will work itself out.”
Morris went over the files on his desk, wrote some notes to himself and left the office with his briefcase. His cell-phone, hanging from his neck, vibrated and sent a strange feeling through his head.
He got into his black Rover Sterling 825 and left the parking lot with a screech of his tires. Morris listened to Beethoven’s Ninth, drumming his hands on the steering wheel in time to the music, concentrating on his driving.
After twenty-five minutes he reached the evidence warehouse. Parking and locking his car, he strode over to Claude’s office. Claude greeted him warmly, handed him the package of heroin, and said jokingly, “You know, this little package could set you up for life.”
Back in his car on the way to the division garbage dump, where the incinerator was located, Morris looked at the envelope, remembering what Claude had said. The strange heat was still plaguing his head and upper neck. His left hand closed on the big brown envelope, closer, farther, closer and farther again. His fingers trembled slightly, sending him an unclear message. Morris felt a weight in his chest and started breathing heavily, afraid that something unknown was happening to him, feeling sick and confused. He wiped his forehead and realized that the heat was getting stronger, radiating from his cell-phone to his neck and head. He tried to cool it off with his hand, but to no avail.
He glanced at his rear-view mirror, making sure no-one had followed him, and took a sharp right at the next intersection, parking at the sidewalk. He tried to slow down his breathing, meanwhile keeping an eye on his rear-view. He pulled the brown envelope toward him, undid the metal catch, withdrew the two packages of white powder and hurriedly put them in his briefcase. He told himself to calm down, and forced his breath out slowly. “Nobody knows you stole this,” he told himself out loud.
When he reached the dump, he walked to the incinerator with one of the workers there, threw the envelope in and waited long minutes to make sure that it was totally burned. As soon as he returned to his office, he called Claude to let him knew that the job was done. Claude thanked him and hung up, and Morris felt that he had indeed successfully done his work.
Through the day, Morris kept thinking about what he had done, trying to justify himself. “After all, everybody does it, and I’m allowed to do it once.” He thought again and again about how much the heroin could be worth, and found that he was not worried at all to have it in his office.
He had always been considered something of an odd duck at the police force. He would spin wild, fantastic theories which had his fellow officers laughing, until in the end he was proven right. His ability to focus on the case, his attention to the smallest detail and his infinite patience all served him well. He
remembered a case from two years before, where hundreds of heads of cattle had died mysteriously. The veterinarians decided that it was a form of plague, and Morris’ supervisor told him to drop the case. But Morris was not satisfied, and kept up his inquiries on his own time. When he discovered that one grower’s herd was the only one not to be affected, he found that this grower had poisoned all his competitors’ herds with an odorless, tasteless poison. When he had first brought up his theory, he was ridiculed by the rest, but then he was awarded the prize for excellence for solving the case, to his and Anne’s great pride.
Morris thought about how his married friends all cheated on their wives, and knew that his wife was the mainstay of his life. Her inner serenity, her professional understanding, her desire to help, were the core parts of her. “Everyone has a star, and she is mine,” he thought to himself.
At three that afternoon, Morris entered his boss’s office. Superintendent Benjamin’s office was similar to his, with the addition of a large picture window, filling the room with a cool breeze. Morris liked to stand by the window, listening to the chorus of birds outside, giving the office a pleasant warm feeling.
The Superintendent’s desk was covered with files and dusty folders, in messy piles. Morris told his boss that he would be leaving early as he was not feeling too well, but that he would go by Covent Garden to gather some information for the case he was working on. He made sure to keep eye contact with his boss, wondering if the Superintendent had any idea what was burning inside him. The Superintendent always backed him up, encouraged his theories and made him feel professional. Morris looked jealously at the picture of his boss’s two young boys.
“Well, I hope you feel better,” the Superintendent’s bright blue eyes were full of sympathy. “Send Anne my regards.”
After Morris left his office, the Superintendent thought about his young detective. He admired Morris for his honesty and his professionalism, and knew that Morris was the best officer at the station. He knew that the rumors of
graft and corruption among police officers had no chance of sticking to Morris, and that he could always trust him. Morris was able to contribute much to the solution of many cases, which advanced both the station’s and Benjamin’s standing. Benjamin promised himself that he must work harder to see his best officer promoted. He also decided how nice it would be to invite Morris and Anne to his home for dinner.
