A Cordial Agreement

by Ryan Loveless

  He climbed the stairs to the balcony level, shucked the robe, and stuffed it into a cubbyhole outside along with his flip-flops. He didn’t bother knocking—it would be too loud for them to hear—and went in.

  Scanning the group in a split second, he counted seven women, one with a makeshift veil attached to a skewed tiara, and four men. He’d seen all the men before, including Bennett Jessup, who had a girl on his lap and his hand up her skirt. The other men sat along the walls, slightly apart and with varying degrees of feral desire in their expressions. Jim focused on the bride.

  He plastered his most winning smile on. “I hear someone’s been a naughty bride.” And he strode toward her.

  She giggled, and her reaction made Jim stop before he got to her. “Oh, she’s the bride.” The veiled girl pointed at the one on Bennett’s lap. Bennett glanced over her shoulder as he sucked her ear, pressing her against him. He grinned at Jim, though there was nothing friendly in it.

  Jim almost winced. Fucking a bride? If Jessup found out, Jim’s ass would suffer. The sting still lingered from last night’s visit. His briefs slid over his ass as he moved, and he wasn’t sure if it was only his imagination making him feel that rough heat again. The first girl’s touch on his wrist stopped him from unconsciously rubbing his rear. On the other hand, he wanted pain. That was why he’d started this journey in the first place.

  Steadying his voice, Jim faced Bennett and said, “There’s no sex allowed in here.”

  “You’re here to entertain,” Bennett said. “So do your job.” He turned his attention back to the bride.

  The girl tugged Jim again. “I’ve been naughty too,” she said. “Very, very naughty.”

  “Me too,” said another girl.

  It wouldn’t do any good to argue with Bennett. Jim didn’t give a shit if Bennett got banned; it would make things easier. “Well then.” Jim turned to the one tugging him, making himself stern. “I think what you need is a big”—one step forward—“strong”—another step—“man”—he straddled her lap—“to show you what a perfect thing”—he leaned down to almost brush her lips with his—“that is.” He ground his hips against her dress.

  GRANT MASSAGED his temples, trying to ward off the headache setting up camp beneath his fingers. It was supposed to be a slow day, relatively speaking: conference call in the morning, meeting in the afternoon, and a merger completed by three. Maybe he’d make it through without an omeprazole tablet for his heartburn. But no—instead he had all that and his son on the front page of the fucking Post.

  “Mr. Jessup?” Rory’s voice came through the intercom. Grant debated not answering. He could see the flashing red light on one of his phone lines and had no problem guessing who it was.

  Sighing, he replied. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Jessup on line two.”

  “Thank you, Rory.” There was no sense in saying Melanie wasn’t Mrs. Jessup anymore, since she’d kept his name. She had, after all, been Jessup longer than she’d been Markisch, her maiden name. Grant picked up the handset. “Hi, Melanie.”

  “You saw?”

  Okay, straight to the point.

  He considered making a comment about what her son had been up to and dismissed it. “The Post, yes, I saw.”

  “He’s never going to amount to anything, is he?” More than devastated, she sounded tired. Grant rubbed his temples again, which only made his growing tension headache worse.

  “I’m trying. You know that.”

  “Maybe being handed a job isn’t what he needs.”

  “You asked me to help him, Mel. This is how I know to do it. You gave Bea a job.”

  “I know you’d rather have her,” Melanie said. Grant didn’t respond because she was right. “I’m glad you gave Bennett an opportunity,” she said after a moment. “But he acts like he’s thirteen.”

  Grant snorted. They’d discussed before how Bennett’s maturity level had calcified in the year of their divorce. He resisted commenting on it because it would lead to Melanie blaming him for not being around for the children and to him reminding her that at the time she hadn’t wanted him around and had taken him to court to ensure he wouldn’t be.

  “I need you to handle this.”

  “I always handle it,” he said. Since he’d hired Bennett, Grant had dealt with Bennett’s foibles, trespasses, and idiocy. He never succeeded in a way that satisfied Melanie, but she’d told him that all her candles were burned. She didn’t deal with Bennett any better. Melanie was soft on him too. Despite what she said about Grant giving him a job, she would have done the same. Provided and hoped for the best.

  They’d been hoping for years.

  “He’s young,” Grant said. “There’s still hope. We can’t give up on him.” Never mind that at twenty-three, Grant was married, on the cusp of inheriting Jessup Enterprises, and not an astounding fuckup. His father never would have allowed Bennett to be such a mess. Grant had to blame some of Bennett’s nature on his own intentional pushback against Filmore Jessup’s brand of take-no-prisoners parenting. He’d been too lax with the boy.

  Melanie sighed. “Right. Just… tell him to stay out of the fucking Post.”

  He could practically see her pushing the brown strand of hair that always fell loose behind her ear. He wondered if she looked as tired as she sounded. At the art gallery event, he’d noticed worry lines around her eyes.

  “Yeah.” Grant sighed again. “I guess I’ll talk to you next time we’re upset at him.”

  “So, tomorrow? Good luck, Grant.”

  “Bye, Mels.”

  She hung up, leaving him with the nothingness of an ended cell phone call. He tapped the intercom and started speaking as soon as he heard the click that indicated Rory had picked up.

  “Miss Keegan? Will you ask my son to stop by my office when it’s convenient?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “On second thought, tell him to get his ass up here in ten minutes.”

  “I… don’t know if he’s in the building.”

  “I don’t care.” He turned the intercom off, letting the satisfaction overtake his guilt for hanging up on her. She’d know not to take it personally.

  While he waited, Grant perused the front page again. It showed an above-the-fold photograph of Bennett sucking face with an obviously drunk young woman outside a strip club. The headline: BIG JR CUCKOLDS AT CLUCK NIGHT was written in the Post’s typical need-a-decoder-ring-to-decipher parlance. Grant, unfortunately, had become expert at it over the years due to Bennett’s near constant presence in its pages. This one translated as “famous, powerful man’s son fucks another man’s bride on her bachelorette party night.” Grant flung the paper across his desk. It landed in the corner, sending some other documents flying.

  He got up, righted them, and poured himself a drink. By some miracle, he wasn’t an alcoholic, despite all the stressors pushing him in that direction. He drank slowly, to savor the warmth in his mouth and throat. It was Wednesday. Monday would come soon enough and he’d have Mr. Sieber’s firm ass to expend his frustration upon. He looked down, surprised at the pressure with which he squeezed the glass. Not a good idea to think of Mr. Sieber’s buttocks with any kind of adjective.

  Business transaction, he reminded himself. Nothing more.

  “You want something, Dad?” Bennett leaned in the doorway. Grant glanced at the digital clock on his desk. Bennett was one minute late, had probably waited outside because he knew how tardiness drove Grant up the wall.

  Grant crossed back to his desk chair and sat down. Bennett came in, leaving the office door open—it was more embarrassing for Grant to yell than for Bennett to be yelled at, and they both knew it—and sat down in the same chair Mr. Sieber had occupied almost two weeks earlier.

  “Your mother and I wondered if I might ask you for a favor,” Grant said.

  Bennett and his mother shared a habit of fiddling with their wrists and sleeves, which was probably why he gripped the chair’s arms. His left foot tapped instead. �
�What kind of favor?”

  Grant held the paper up. “Stay out of the fucking Post for a goddamn week, won’t you?”

  Bennett dropped his head backward and rolled his eyes. “Dad.” He drew it out, long and obnoxious like the teenager he’d never stopped being. “I’m just having fun.”

  Grant threw the paper at him. It landed short and fell on the floor between Bennett and the desk. Bennett didn’t flinch. “This kind of fun ruins lives.”

  “I’m an adult and so was she.” Standing up, he straightened his three-thousand-dollar jacket—bought with Grant’s black card. “But thanks for the input.”

  “I didn’t say you could go.”

  Bennett turned, a slight grin on his lips. “What are you going to do? Fire me?”

  Grant flattened his hands on the desk as Bennett walked away. He wasn’t such a monster that he would fire his son. He had defaults in place so that if anything happened to him the running of the company would go to his second-in-command. Howard could fire Bennett. Or perhaps Grant’s dream would come true and Bea would get over her art phase and return to run the company. Ownership would be split between her and her brother. If Bea had Grant’s business mind, she’d buy Bennett out, but she showed more of Grant’s emotional mind, which was the reason Bennett still had a job and an office—the stupid, empty hope Grant couldn’t shake that Bennett would settle down and make something of himself if he had a base to work from.

  He tapped the intercom again. This time, he waited for Rory’s greeting before he spoke.

  “Get Mr. Sieber on the line, please.”

  “Sure.”

  Less than a minute later, Rory informed him to pick up line two.

  Mr. Sieber said, “Mr. Jessup?” He sounded uncertain, and Grant wondered if he’d never taken a call like this before, one made and transferred by a secretary.

  “I was wondering if you’re free this evening,” Grant said.

  “Well, I’m not working, so I guess. Do you want me to come over?”

  “My son is in the news.”

  “Oh. I wondered if he would be.”

  “You… wondered?”

  “He was at my club last night.”

  Grant pushed away the niggling feeling of betrayal that tried to build up from that information. He had no right to expect Mr. Sieber to report Bennett’s activities. They’d never discussed it, and Mr. Sieber’s job was to give Grant a forum to relieve his stress, not to give him cause for more.

  “So you saw him with the young lady?”

  “Yeah. They ordered a private dance.”

  Grant must have taken too long to respond as his hand tightened around the receiver because Mr. Sieber sounded nervous as he said, “Should I not have said that? I mean….” He laughed shakily. “I guess I have to think about my ass here, don’t I?”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Sieber. I promise I won’t touch you until I’m calm. Is eleven o’clock all right?”

  “Yeah. See you then.”

  “Goodbye.” After hanging up, Grant sat a good long while with his hands in his lap, staring down at the calendar on his desk without seeing it. He counted his breaths. He might be calm by eleven.

  But he wouldn’t bet on it.

  BY ELEVEN, Grant hadn’t calmed much. Mr. Sieber stood in the kitchen, bent over the table in the same position he’d taken on his previous visit. His slacks, removed and folded, sat on the counter alongside the stainless-steel espresso machine. Grant hovered behind him, two steps back, contemplating Mr. Sieber’s ass and the belt in his hand. He hadn’t said much when Mr. Sieber came in, too preoccupied with Bennett to do more than gesture him toward the kitchen and offer him a glass of water, which Mr. Sieber had refused.

  So now they were here, and Grant’s heart wouldn’t let go of its adrenaline. He couldn’t see his way through the blinding rage to trust himself to lay a hand on Mr. Sieber. There was no chance he’d benefit from it and not cause Mr. Sieber undue injury. The fear he’d shared with Tanya risked coming true if he continued. She’d trusted him to know when to stop, and now he had to trust himself.

  Grant dropped the belt on the table. “Get up.” He turned away when Mr. Sieber spoke.

  “Mr. Jessup?”

  “This was a mistake. You should go.” Grant didn’t wait for a reply. He walked out of the kitchen, trusting Mr. Sieber to set himself to rights and see his way out. Grant headed for his private den, his refuge during his marriage and the room where he still escaped when the penthouse bustled with domestic staff. With dark brown walls and leather furniture accented with sheepskin rugs and pop art, it was the closest he’d ever get to a man cave. He sat down on the long couch.

  “Mr. Jessup?”

  Grant turned in surprise.

  Mr. Sieber smiled. “I was looking forward to that lavender-scented pillow.”

  “You could still have it.”

  He pressed a tumbler of brandy into Grant’s hand and held another in his other hand. “I looked for the cheap stuff,” he said, a half smile decorating his square jaw, “but you don’t have any.”

  Grant returned the smile. “No, I do not.” He sank back into the couch, letting its deep rich folds come as close to swallowing him as they could manage. Mr. Sieber stood, not quite awkwardly, and looked around the walls at the art as he held his glass near his mouth.

  “I’ll pay you for coming,” Grant said. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

  Mr. Sieber took a moment to look away from the art. “Do you want a massage?”

  “What?” Grant’s hand shook, but the liquid was too low in the glass to spill out.

  Mr. Sieber’s cheeks flushed as he studied the floor. “I thought, well, it’s another form of stress relief and then if it helped you enough, you could whip me after. And I know how.” He glanced up. “I mean, I’m good at it.”

  Grant looked up at him, feeling tired. “To be honest, I don’t feel like whipping anyone today.”

  “Except Bennett?”

  “He’s a given. I’ll take that massage, though. There’s a table in the gym.” Grant reached for Mr. Sieber’s hand. When Mr. Sieber extended his hand in response, Grant grabbed it and pulled himself up before letting go. Mr. Sieber had a strong grip and his palm was warm and dry.

  “The building’s gym?”

  Grant blinked, trying to make sense of what Mr. Sieber was saying before he realized the misunderstanding. “No. My gym. It’s upstairs.” He started walking, with Mr. Sieber behind him. “In the old days, we used it for parties, dances, things for the kids. Not much need for that now, so I’ve taken it over. You could call it my midlife crisis if you wanted….” He glanced at Mr. Sieber, who was either too polite or too intent on climbing the spiral staircase to react to Grant’s attempt at self-deprecation. They went up, brandy and all, to the small—by Grant’s standards—room that contained an elliptical trainer, exercise bike, treadmill, weight machines, quarter-mile track around the outside, and, next to the free-weight shelves, a padded massage table.

  “Wow,” Mr. Sieber said. “This is nicer than the gym I go to.”

  “You’re welcome to use it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Hearing the automatic in his reply, Grant stopped and made sure he had Mr. Sieber’s full attention. “I don’t say things I don’t mean. You’re welcome to use it. If you want to come an hour early on one of your scheduled nights, you can. Just shower afterward.”

  This time Mr. Sieber met Grant’s gaze. “Thanks, Mr. Jessup. I appreciate that.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Sieber. Now, how do you want me?”

  MR. SIEBER had magic hands. Grant tried not to moan as he was worked over from his neck down his back. He’d left his undershirt on at Mr. Sieber’s request, and after Mr. Sieber had laughed and said “don’t worry about it” when Grant had mentioned that most massages took place skin on skin.

  His worries disappeared as soon as Mr. Sieber touched him. “Strong hands.”

  “Yep,” Mr. Sieber said. “Const
ruction work.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Forgot you did that too.” Grant nestled his head into the padded table, settling in for a long time. Mr. Sieber dragged his fists down Grant’s spine. A delightful long time. “Is there anything else you want to do?”

  “Are you asking what my life goals are?” He sounded amused. “What if I said I wanted to be a stripper until I’m eighty?”

  “Well, I mean, I… I… would support you. Whatever makes a person happy, so long as it doesn’t hurt others. I never felt I had a choice, but if that’s what you want—”

  Mr. Sieber’s laughter stopped his rambling.

  Grant pulled his face out of the headrest to view Mr. Sieber’s delighted expression. “Oh. You’re making fun of me.”

  “I’m sorry. That was really nice, actually. You made me feel very supported.”

  Grant huffed and put his face back down. “Have you considered studying art history?”

  “For what?” Mr. Sieber pressed down on his shoulders. The chuckle he made when Grant gasped in pleasure indicated that he’d done it on purpose.

  “You obviously love art. You’re sharp. You’re clever. You could get a job in a museum. Do restorations. You could teach or be a docent.”

  “I don’t think that’s in my future.” Mr. Sieber pressed his knuckles down Grant’s spine. He traveled every vertebra while Grant thought about what he’d said. Had he imagined the regret behind it?

  “I think you’re discounting what you’re capable of.”

  “Dad? You here?”

  “Shit.” Grant pushed himself up on his elbows at Bennett’s shout. “Sorry.” He directed an apology to Mr. Sieber before shouting, “In the gym!” He turned back to Mr. Sieber. “It’s Bennett.”