by Ryan Taylor
“Cross us and I guess you’ll see,” she blustered.
I made a show of thinking for a minute. “To be certain I understand, you’re saying that you have videographic evidence that Matt Kennington and I have held hands and kissed, which you believe would cause the firm to do what, exactly, if they knew?”
“There’s a no-tolerance policy for fraternization, which you know. The penalty is firing.”
“If you told the firm about this alleged relationship, you believe they would fire Matt, or me, or both of us?”
She tossed her hair back, looking smug. “You’re a quick study, Mr. Roth. Now, the money? Cash only, I’m afraid.”
I cocked my head. “You’re telling me that if I pay each of you a thousand dollars, you will forget the relationship and not say anything about it to anyone?”
“Yep.”
“And the videographic evidence?”
“Will be erased.”
“And what will happen if I don’t pay you?”
She passed a few seconds inspecting her nails, which must have been two inches long and were painted the most garish shade of orange I could imagine. “In that case, we take what we know to Earl Liswell in HR.” She sniffed like something in the room stunk, which it did. She smelled like knockoff perfume from the drugstore. “And we take him the evidence we have, of course.”
“And you believe doing that would get us fired?”
She nodded, looking grave. “I already told you that. I’ve worked here a long time, and I’ve seen it happen over and over.” After giving her nails another once-over, she met my eyes. “Come on, two thousand bucks is nothing to you, especially compared to losing this cushy job. And dear Matthew, what would happen to him after he got fired and you dumped him? Of course, you could tell me to hit the road and take your chances.”
I held her gaze for a few seconds and smiled. “Well, Suzanne Martin. You’re not the only one who has some evidence.” I lifted my phone off the desk and held it up so she could see it was recording. Her mouth fell open.
“You’re the one who’s taking your chances, Suzanne.”
“What good do you think—”
I harrumphed at her. “You’ve just committed a very serious crime. Blackmail and extortion are violations of DC criminal law, both felonies.”
She grabbed her throat and started pinching the wrinkly skin there. “You think that’s going to scare me?”
I went back to my flat voice. “It sure as hell better.” I squinted at her. “Under DC Code, section 22-3252, blackmail happens when someone intends ‘to obtain property of another or to cause another to do or refrain from doing any act by exposing a secret or publicizing an asserted fact—’”
She threw back her head and cackled. “You can stop right there. Like you’d turn us in to the police.”
I fixed her in a harsh stare. “Oh, Suzanne…. You can bet your life that I would. By the way, you haven’t even let me read you the statute on extortion yet, which may be even more on point for what you’ve just done.” I held out my hands, palms up. “Who knows? I’m not a criminal lawyer, so it would be up to the DA to figure that out.” I sighed and shook my head. “Blackmail carries a fine and five years in jail. Extortion gets a fine and ten years.”
Her lips trembled while she twisted her hands together. I fiddled with my tie, giving what I’d said a moment to sink in. “Put it like this. You try to hurt us, we go to the police. That will certainly hurt you.” I let that settle for a bit. “Understood?”
She bared her teeth and jumped up, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with, Aaron.”
“It’s Mr. Roth to you.” I spent a few seconds watching her jump back and forth. “The criminal charges would only be part of your problem, you know. We haven’t discussed the issue of civil liability. You can be sure that, besides calling the police, Matt and I would both sue you for your front teeth. There’d be actual damages, like lost income, job searches, transportation, moving, salary differentials… who knows, maybe even therapy. Of course, a court would probably award punitive damages as well. They can’t let people go around destroying others’ lives.” I shook my head. “All that, for both me and Matt. You’d be costing us a lot, so it would really add up.” I whistled dramatically to emphasize how much it could cost her. “No question about it, Suzanne. Without even trying hard, you could end up in jail, owing the government a huge criminal fine. And, besides that, facing a civil judgment that would let Matt and me take everything you have, or might ever have.”
Her face had faded from fake-tan orange to white, and a vein popped out on the side of her forehead. “You will rue the day you decided to fuck with me, you silly little queer.” She sneered again. “I’ll tell you one thing, if you like to take it up the ass, you better find somebody besides Matthew. Your pansy-ass boyfriend is more of a girl than I am.”
I sat very still while she flounced out the door and made a beeline for the outer door into the hallway. I’ll never be one-hundred-percent positive, but I’m pretty sure I heard her shriek as she ran down the hall to the elevator.
Matthew
I was in Aaron’s office, and he stood right in front of me, leaning back against his desk. I was still furious. “She’s that thing that rhymes with bitch.”
He laughed, his dimples creasing his cheeks in a way that warmed the cockles of my heart—actually, now that I think about it, maybe it was some other cockles. Anyway, I managed to take a few breaths and calm down. “Do you think it worked?”
I’d brought him coffee, and he took a big swallow before he answered. “I think so. She was pretty rattled.”
I swirled my coffee in its cup while I thought about things. “I don’t know, Aaron. She’s devious. She doesn’t take anything lying down.”
He threw his head back and bellowed out a laugh. “Based on what you’ve told me, I thought there was a lot she took lying down.” Fast as lightening, he reached up and smacked my cheek.
I grabbed his hand before it could get away, but quickly let it go when I remembered we were at the office. “We really need to watch our backs.”
He reached over to caress my upper arm. “It’ll be okay, sunshine, as long as we’re together.”
Paranoid, I looked around before raising up on my toes to give him a kiss. The door was closed but even that could be construed badly.
“Come to my place tonight?” Aaron’s glowing eyes were hypnotic. “We can order pizza and hang. I have Dragon Quest Builders, which beats the shit out of Minecraft.”
After making it through the rest of the day without incident, we left the office about five thirty. Aaron drove up Massachusetts, where all the embassies and fancy houses were lit up in holiday glory. He took a right at Wisconsin into heavy traffic, but when we got to Willard, where he should have taken a left to go to his place, he kept going.
“Did you decide you want to go eat?” I asked.
He flashed a bashful smile in my direction. “Nah, we’ll order pizza, but I thought we should stop by your place first and let you get some clothes to wear to work tomorrow.”
Aha! I grinned. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Later, while we played Dragon Quest Builders, we talked about our parents. He was nervous about what my folks had thought of him, and I did my best to reassure him that they liked him a lot and didn’t want anything to get in our way.
He wrestled with his controller for a minute before he spared me a quick glance. “My Mom will love you, and I think you’ll like her. She’s always wanted me to find a nice boy and settle down.” I admired his muscular body as he twisted on the sofa, holding on to his controller like it was alive. “Now she and I both get our wish.” Very quickly, since we were still playing, he turned around and gave me a sweet peck. “You and Ben will be great together, too. You have the same quirky sense of humor.”
“What about your dad?” I was a little afraid to go there, since Aaron had never said much about his fath
er.
“He supports me, but he’s always really busy, constantly has a trial going on.” He paused the game, put down his controller, and turned to face me. “He’ll like you, but he has his own ideas about when relationships are appropriate.” He rolled his eyes so big it made me proud. “Like after I make partner,” he said, shaking his head. “Just do what my brother and I do: don’t expect too much, and you won’t be disappointed.”
What the fuck does that mean?
“Gotta take a leak,” he said.
Friday, December 16
Matthew
Aaron decided to drive us to the office because having a car would make more sense after work. We planned to go back to my place to get ready for the Christmas party, and he’d brought along the suit he wanted to wear.
I’d been having second and third thoughts about the damned party. When we stopped for a light, he glanced my way, giving me an opening. “Can we talk for a sec?” I asked. He nodded at me, and I sighed. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for us to go to the party together, Aaron. Not after what happened yesterday with Suzanne.”
He looked my way again, longer this time, with a serious expression on his face. “It’s a risk, but one I’m willing to take. If we go separately and don’t hang out, I’ll be watching your every move, whether I try to or not. That’d probably be pretty obvious to anybody who was looking for something.”
“I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes off you, either. But what if—”
“It’s up to you.” He shrugged and pressed the accelerator as traffic started moving. “I can pretend to be sick, and you can go to the party alone for a couple of hours. I’ll go back home and wait for you.”
That option had no appeal. I wanted to go to the party with Aaron, but was it worth the risk to his career, or to mine? “Why don’t you go instead, and I’ll play sick? You’re an associate, so it’s important for you to schmooze. Your absence would be noticed a lot more than mine.” We were stopped in front of the National Cathedral on our left, and I admired the nativity scene and other decorations on the lawn.
“This sucks, you know.” I wasn’t sure whether he meant our circumstances or the traffic, and I watched as he drummed nervously on the steering wheel. “I’m willing to take a chance, Matt. We’ll be careful, and I really don’t think Suzanne’s going to risk the parade of horribles I marched by her yesterday. If the worst happened, we could fight the stupid rule.”
I rolled my eyes, bigtime. “Fight an international law firm?”
We were still dead in the water on Wisconsin Avenue and Aaron reached over to put a hand on my thigh. “I’m not trying to pressure you. Just because I’m willing to take a risk doesn’t mean you have to. It needs to be your call, and I’m cool with whatever you want to do.” He paused, and I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I didn’t come out until I got to college. I tried to be straight, I really did, and I—” The car behind us started honking; traffic was moving again, and Aaron put his hands back on the wheel.
“You were saying?”
He jutted out his chin like he did on that first night we had a drink together. “I’ve hidden every day of my life that I will ever hide. I know this is a little different from being closeted as a gay man, and I’m not saying we need to flaunt things, but I’m so proud to have you as my boyfriend. I could never do any better than you.” His glance at me was short, but so tender that it brought tears to my eyes. “I’ve never felt this way about anybody before.”
“Beware of swoons,” Jane Austen told one of her heroines, and I really needed to channel Jane right then. I grabbed for Aaron’s hand, figuring that driving with two hands was overrated. “Now that you put it like that….”
Aaron
The day passed quickly. I stayed busy talking with clients and finishing some documents for Herb’s review. Matt was glued to his computer all day, too, editing my drafts and formatting a big Excel spreadsheet Herb needed to file with a court in Virginia before the holiday.
We left the office at five o’clock and battled appalling traffic all the way to Matt’s place in Bethesda. It was almost six by the time we arrived. After we took a chaste shower together, I got dressed and went into the living room while Matt got ready. To paraphrase something JFK said about Jackie once, “It takes Matt longer to get ready than it does me, but he looks a hell of a lot better when he’s done it.”
I sat in the living room texting friends while I waited. When he came out of the bedroom, I could hardly believe my luck that this fine man was going to the party with me. He had on a navy blue suit with a white shirt that was open at the collar, and he’d done that awesome messy-neat thing with his hair that I can never quite manage. His suit’s perfect cut made me remember what he looked like without any clothes at all, and I considered asking him to stay home so I could get him like that again.
It was reckless, but when we were walking to the hotel from the parking garage, I couldn’t resist putting a hand on his exquisite ass, and that instigated an immediate reaction in my privates. Keep your hands to yourself until you get back home, Aaron. Then get that suit off him quick.
I stopped before we got to the hotel entrance. “You walk in first and I’ll wait about five before I follow. Meet you twenty minutes later at the bar?” Twenty minutes of hell. What if some other guy tries to move in?
He put on that shy smile again, the one that made my knees turn to rubber every single time. “Okay.”
The Mayflower is a big luxury hotel on Connecticut Avenue. The plaque by the door said it opened in February 1925 and hosted Calvin Coolidge’s Inaugural Ball two weeks later. The hotel had quite a reputation, and Craig Swan did a lot of business with them. It was where they put me up for a night when I interviewed for the DC job.
The firm pulled out all the stops for the holiday party. A huge ballroom was decked out in elegant holiday décor, with a sumptuous buffet at one end and a dance floor with a live orchestra at the other. Plenty of mingling space was in the middle.
“Aaron.” An arm went around my shoulder as someone came up beside me, and I recognized Trent Kincaid, a partner from Financial Services. “I’ve been meaning to ask you to lunch. How are things going?”
Kincaid was one of my designated mentors. I was supposed to meet with him regularly during my first year but hadn’t seen him since October. We bullshitted for a few minutes until his wife came and spirited him away, and I was looking around for Matt when Teddy Ezekiel walked over to shake my hand. He was one of the partners in T and E, so I saw him regularly.
After what felt like an eternity, twenty minutes had passed and I hurried toward the bar. I found Matt there, talking to some blonde girl.
“Mr. Roth, hi.” He stuck out his hand, which only felt like the weirdest thing ever.
“Matt, how’s it going?”
While we shook, his eyes locked with mine and he parted his lips slightly. It was all I could do to keep from pulling him in for a kiss.
Matthew
Suzanne kept circling like a shark. She never got too close, but she’d make eye contact and walk away. A couple of times when I scanned the room looking for Aaron, I noticed her doing the same thing to him.
For ninety sorry minutes, Aaron and I played the “run into each other, go our separate ways, run into each other again” game. We finally agreed to get some food, and after piling our plates full of every gourmet treat imaginable, we found a bar table to rest our plates on while we ate.
“Ready to go home?” he whispered. “I’m sick of this. Can we leave now?”
He had on a black suit that left nothing about his meticulously worked-out physique to the imagination. I couldn’t decide whether it was genuine Armani, or another brand cut in the Armani style, but either way, he looked like a god.
“We need to be smart about this,” I said. “How many partners have you hung with?”
“At least five or six.”
His fashion model looks and clean-woody-cologne smell had
me a bit lightheaded. “Let’s stay another hour. Talk to three more partners, and then we’ll go.” I gave him what I hoped was a seductive once-over.
He licked his lips and stood there, pitching a definite semi in his form-fitting pants, not that I looked. Eventually, he sucked in a breath. “You drive a hard bargain.”
Aaron
Forty-five minutes later, I needed to take a whiz. I had to search around to find the restrooms, which were around a corner and down a long hallway from the ballrooms. After I pissed like a racehorse, I was washing my hands when Matt walked in. I primped in front of the mirror while he took care of business.
No one was in the hallway when we came out, and he took my arm, pulling me the opposite way from the party. “You look amazing tonight,” he said, glancing sideways. The light was very dim in the direction we were going, but there was just enough for me to detect the devilish glint in his eyes.
“Who was that guy you were talking to in the ballroom? The blond.”
“Nick?”
“Who is he?” I tried to sound as matter-of-fact as I could. “He was standing really close to you, and looked like he wanted to stand closer.”
Matt turned me loose and cuffed my arm. “What, are you jealous?”
His grin was playful, but he hadn’t answered my question and I couldn’t help huffing a little. “Maybe.” Why is it so hard to breathe? “Should I be?”
He stopped, and I turned to get a better look at him. “No, not at all,” he said, brushing at my lapel. “Nick’s happily married, to a woman, no less. He used to work in Real Estate my first year at the firm and showed me the ropes. We were just catching up.”
“Good.” So what if he knows I’m feeling a little possessive?
We started walking again, and at the end of the hallway, a ninety-degree turn took us into a meeting room, where I couldn’t hold back a whistle of amazement. The space was much more elegant than the ballroom where the party was. There were ornate white-and-gold walls and several crystal chandeliers. A classic red Oriental carpet was laid over a parquet floor, and gold-framed mirrors and portraits of past presidents hung on the walls. The light was still very dim, but you could see well enough.