Love to Hate You

by Jo Watson

  My car finally started after a few smoky chugs and I threw a few thank-yous out into the universe. But as soon as I drove out of my apartment complex and turned onto the highway, I was assaulted by bumper-to-bumper Jo’burg traffic, made even worse by minibus taxis and their “creative” driving techniques. Currently I had one only centimeters from my bumper with a painted sign on his back window that read, “What goes surround, Comes surround.” At least something about this morning was vaguely humorous. But the static traffic gave me too much time to think and reflect …

  What the hell had happened last night? Most of it was a blur, but every now and then an image flashed through my mind.

  Vodka. Lots.

  “Is this seat taken?” That smooth move and that husky voice …

  Slowly grinding himself into me on the dance floor of Club Six, running his hands up my thighs, creeping way, way too high for public decency laws, until his hands were …

  “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he’d whispered in my ear, his hands coming up and cupping my face.

  “I want you so badly, Sera.” Hang on, how had he known my name?

  “I need you.” That was the moment I melted completely and decided to walk outside with him …

  Fumbling for his car keys …

  On him …

  Under him …

  Windows steaming up …

  “Fuck, you’re amazing.” More words that made me lose my mind as I writhed on his lap and totally forgot myself in the moment …

  His tattoos … those dark piercing eyes …

  “I could do this forever,” he’d whispered in my ear seductively.

  “Sera.” He rasped as he came on top of me, the weight of his body crushing me into the seat.

  Oh. My. God.

  Had I really fallen for every lame jackass line in the book? He probably said that to all the girls he had anonymous backseat sex with. Was I really that stupid, or sex starved, or mad, or drunk, or all of those to have actually bought into his smooth-play-boy moves. Mortified AF. My only consolation was that I’d never see him again.

  After a frustrating hour in traffic, I finally arrived at work, but the only parking space I could find was all the way on the other side of the office park, so I was forced to run with a pounding head and lurching stomach.

  But when I finally got inside, I was downright shocked. Something was very wrong.

  I was expecting to run straight into the usual office chaos: people screaming at each other, screaming into the phone, screaming at the coffee pot or the copy machine. But something bizarre was going on today. People were sitting around lazily … chatting?

  It was as if someone had come in the night and tranquilized all my coworkers. Had someone put Xanor into the air conditioning system? That was surely the only explanation for this eerie calm. I inched my way to my desk feeling very uneasy—was this the calm before the storm?

  Before I had a chance to pull out my chair, Becks slunk up to me and whispered conspiratorially into my ear.

  “Have you heard?” she asked.

  I half turned to her but she cut me off quickly before I could manage to respond.

  “They hired a new Creative Director. Apparently he’s a fucking rock star. Blake something I think—”

  At the sound of that name, one of the junior copywriters who happened to be walking past quickly corrected her, “Isn’t it Blade? I heard his name was Blade?”

  Next thing I knew, an equally excitable art director joined the conversation, “Blaze? Isn’t it Blaze? Or Slash?” She was practically squealing.

  I looked from one glowing face to the other. Their eyes were lit up like firecrackers and their cheeks were flushed a bright shade of pink.

  “I heard they offered him a huge financial package to come here,” Becks said with a wild, wide-eye look. Becks, short for Rebecca, always seemed to know exactly what was going on in the office. I think she made it her business to know. She was also my toughest competition for the permanent job here.

  The other creatives simultaneously nodded in agreement, declaring that he was probably worth every cent, maybe even more. Yes, he was definitely worth more, they concluded. Then they walked off—no doubt to spread more legends of this creative man-God.

  In an ad agency, creativity is king. It’s the currency and the Holy Grail. So when one of these so-called creative geniuses comes around, it whips everyone into a star-struck frenzy. He might as well have been an actual rock star because everyone here at JTS was whipped. I was too hung over to be vaguely interested, but the rest of the office buzzed like the static on a television.

  “I heard he doesn’t sleep … ever,” the strange pale vampire girl from layout said dreamily.

  “He’s going to bring in a lot of new accounts … not to mention awards,” two senior managers said as they passed.

  “I heard he nailed all the chicks at his last job,” two guys from IT said before a macho fist bump.

  I sighed and started to roll my eyes, but they hurt too much. I opened my email and there it was: “Meeting in the Canteen to introduce new CD” (Creative Director). The meeting was in ten minutes. I lay my head on my desk and waited for the headache pills to kick in.

  I must have drifted off to sleep though because I thought I heard someone say, “I heard he was raised by wolves.” I opened my eyes and looked around, but no one was there. I glanced at my watch—Crap!

  I jumped up and ran to the canteen as fast as I could without tripping and landing on my face. When I finally got there, everyone was already inside and standing around a black-clad figure. I could only see the back of him from where I was. I glanced around looking for Becks and finally saw her standing in the front row with the other starry-eyed women. I carefully pushed my way forward trying not to be seen, but when I got there, he turned and suddenly I couldn’t breathe—

  3. A Big Load …

  The storm had hit, and it was a fucking hurricane.

  He was dressed head to toe in black—the uniform of a Creative Director—but there was nothing else typical about him. He wore dark sunglasses inside, and had a cigarette tucked behind one of his ears. His hair was strangely, unevenly cut and was slicked back and wet looking. He had a beard, obviously—it’s practically a prerequisite in this world—but it wasn’t one of those massive hipster beards that made ordinary men look like axe swinging lumberjacks. It was short and well-groomed and so damn sexy.

  He would have been a sight under normal circumstances, but considering that only a few hours before he’d had me bent over his car seat, he was really, really quite a sight.

  He wore a full suit, pants, jacket, waistcoat, tie—the works. He even had a black piece of fabric sticking out of his jacket pocket. Who dresses like that? Does he think he’s Don Draper from Mad Men?

  He was almost gentlemanly—almost. But the tattoo that popped out from under his cuff and ran the length of the back of his hand and the one peering out from his collar that went up his neck and stopped behind his ear were anything but gentlemanly. He loomed like a dark, mysterious creature. Fortunately, he still hadn’t seen me.

  “Oh my God, he’s soooo fucking weird,” Vampire girl said, rubbing her neck. Did she want him to bite her? “Weird” you must understand is a compliment in this world.

  And then he looked directly at me and I nearly fainted. I inhaled sharply, so sharply that I started choking on a fleck of saliva. As Becks patted me on the back, his eyes lingered momentarily and then they left me. He showed absolutely no recognition on his face and in that moment I was overcome by two very strong emotions. One, relief. Sleeping with your new boss is not the kind of thing that looks good on anyone’s resume, not to mention the awkwardness it creates around the office. And two … I was pissed—“I want you so badly, Sera. I need you, be mine, you’re so hot” … and now he didn’t recognize me?

  What an asshole! With his unnecessary indoor sunglasses, his oh-so-cool cigarette and his ridiculous black borderline-tuxedo.

&
nbsp; I hated him.

  Work was painfully slow that day. It seemed that the arrival of Ben—his name was Ben, just plain old Ben, not any of the aforementioned exotic names such as Blaze, Blade, Slade or Xenon … Ben—had caused people to forget they had jobs … and minds. People were standing around, eagerly waiting for their names to be called. Ben said he was “very hands-on,” a phrase that had caused me to both cringe with disgust and tremble with excitement all at the same time. He explained he was going to be speaking to all the members of his team “one-on-one”—another phrase that brought back images of backseat bumping and grinding.

  Ben had used several phrases that morning that had my panties in a twist—as JJ was so fond of saying. I couldn’t figure out whether he was an innate pervert who tossed around sexual innuendos like salad croutons, or whether I was just being overly sensitive.

  “I have a big load for you today,” he’d said before he emphasized how he wanted to “get on top of things.” All the innuendo caused strange feelings to pass through my body, but I almost passed out cold when he said he “wanted to really get his hands dirty and not be a backseat driver.” The mere mention of his backseat nearly put me in a coma.

  But the worst thing was that my desk was directly across from his glass-walled office, so I had a front row seat and a clear view and—Oh my God, he was sexy …

  He was calling people in for their one-on-ones, which caused a temporary traffic jam in the bathroom as women slicked on layers of fresh lip-gloss and fiddled with their hair and clothes.

  Ben, however, seemed totally cool and calm as he sat at his desk looking devilish. He was the kind of man that your mother always warned you about. In fact, he was the kind of guy that should be made to wear a bright red, flashing warning sign around his neck. His casual, bordering on disinterested, way of leaning back in his chair and running his hands through his hair and—oh God—chewing on the end of his pencil was intoxicating. And not just for me. Every woman that left his office looked like they’d just had the best sex of their lives. They all had a sort of flustered, dazed look to them—even some of the guys. God only knew what he was saying to them.

  As the day went on, I tried desperately to remain calm, but it was getting harder and harder as more coworkers came out with titillating stories of him—Vampire girl was especially vocal. He’d glanced over in my direction a few times when he’d called the names of people sitting nearby, but still he’d showed no recognition whatsoever.

  The torturous hours dragged on until the day was almost over, and still my name hadn’t been called. At five I got up and started packing, completely thrilled to have been overlooked, but then—

  “Sera De La Haye?”

  4. This Smile Could Be Detrimental To Your Health …

  The sound of my name dripping from his lips caused a strange reaction inside. I froze, like a mime artist in mid movement. Then I sat back down in my chair, locked my eyes onto my computer screen and stared straight ahead, unblinking.

  “Sera. Sera De La Haye?”

  I didn’t move. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his black figure striding towards me and within seconds, he was standing above me.

  “Sera?”

  I knew I couldn’t keep pretending I hadn’t heard him, so I nonchalantly held up my hand. “Just give me one moment please, I’m in the middle of something very important.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I imagined being fired on the spot. Not only had I slept with him, my boss, but now I was making him talk to the hand—what a disaster. I pretended to read a few more words on the screen, unnecessarily nodded several times, muttered to myself and wrote something down on a piece of paper for extra effect.

  “Done,” I said. Then I stood up and, totally misjudging how close he was, my body bumped into his. I took a quick step backwards but it was already too late, the damage had been done. And OH, how it had been done! His sudden close proximity and the brief feel of him set off an involuntary chain reaction inside my body and I found myself fantasizing about him bending me over the desk and showing me who was boss. I felt sweat beading on my forehead and I tried desperately to drag my eyes away from his mouth—stop staring at his mouth. Stop staring at his mouth.

  I could still make out a few pieces of glitter stuck to the side of his face and caught in his beard. I guess I had marked my territory. Ben watched my eyes, and then his lips—which I was still staring at—curled up into a tiny, slight smile.

  “Better things to do than meet the new boss?” he asked.

  My heart crawled into the back of my throat and lodged itself there. “No … no,” I said. I sounded panicked and tried to rein myself in a little. “There was just something very important from a client I had to look at. Very important, in fact, and it needed my immediate and undivided attention.”

  “Important?” he sounded amused.

  “Yes! So very, very …” I paused, wondering how many times would technically be considered too many to utter the word ‘important’ in one sentence. His eyes drifted down to my lips as if he was waiting for me to say it again. “But of course my meeting with you is far more important than the client thing, it can wait and I’ll—”

  He held his hand up to stop my rambling, which I was grateful for, but all I could think about was how I’d sucked on his fingers the night before. I’d never sucked a finger before, but he’d obviously done some kind of black magic on me and unleashed my dormant inner porn star. I snapped out of it and willed myself to look up at his eyes, and, when I did, his smile grew.

  “I like your dedication,” he said casually, like he was speaking to any other employee. “It’s good to know my staff are so hard working.” There was still no recognition on his part, and a part of me still wanted to bitch slap him into tomorrow.

  “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing with his arm toward his office.

  When I stepped into his office, I immediately became aware of the smell lingering in the air—the same soapy, spicy, sandalwood smell as the night before—minus the vodka and sweat, of course.

  Ben closed the door behind me and walked to his desk. “So … Sera?” he started, as he leaned back in his chair and looked me directly in the eye.

  I felt an electric jolt reach across the table and shock all my senses to life. I sat up straight and crossed my arms over my body protectively. “Ben. Boss. I mean, Mr … . um …” I stammered. I had no idea what this guy’s surname was!

  “White.”

  “Sorry, what’s white?”

  “My surname.”

  “Oh.” I felt the sudden hot flush of embarrassment sting my cheeks. “Of course. I knew that. Ben White.”

  He smiled at me curiously and I could see he knew that I had had no idea what his surname was. And I would never have guessed it either. White seemed like the most inappropriate surname for him. White conjured up images of sugar and spice and kittens in mittens. And he was none of these things. Ben Black would probably be more appropriate.

  “So … Sera De La Haye,” he said, breaking my train of thought.

  “Yup. That’s me.” I tried to sound upbeat.

  “That’s a very interesting surname. Very …” he paused, looked me up and down and then smiled. “Exotic.”

  I swallowed hard at the sound of the word. Why did he have to say everything like he was in the middle of having sex with you?

  His smile grew. That hot, sexy little devil smile—his smile should come with a mandatory warning.

  WARNING: Females should be aware that this smile can be detrimental to your health. Side effects include rapid pulse, palpitation, sweaty palms and in severe cases sexual arousal leading to impromptu hot-as-hell backseat sex.

  “So you’re my client service intern, I see.” He bit down on the end of his pen. There it was again. Why did all his phrasing seem steeped in sexual innuendo? Accident? I think not. He was obviously some kind of modern-day sleazy Casanova, going around deliberately trying to make females amorous—it was working. I crossed my legs tight
ly … just in case.

  “Mmmm, yes,” I managed with a slight nod, trying to look as professional as possible.

  “And are you finding you’re on top of things?”

  “On top of what?” My body stiffened as sudden images of me grinding away on his lap went careering through my mind.

  “On top of your work?”

  “Hahaha.” I let out a small laugh. “Yes. Absolutely. Of course, I’m always on top.” I flashed a smile that faltered quickly the second I heard the words that had just come out of my mouth.

  “Good to know.” Ben’s eyes darkened and seemed to drift over me, or was it my imagination?

  He suddenly looked away and cleared his throat. “Well, we’re going to be working very closely on the next few campaigns.”

  “Mmmm, I’m very excited,” I lied. I was terrified.

  “I demand a lot from my staff, you know?” he leaned in looking serious, “but I’m guessing someone as dedicated to their job as you won’t have a problem with pushing yourself and working under someone like me.”

  I swallowed. The previous images of me on top had just shifted to steamy images of Ben-on-top. I nodded and mumbled, the feelings surging through me were fast turning me into a blithering idiot. “Of course, I’m good on the bottom too …” Shit! “I mean, not on the bottom bottom per se.” I frantically tried to correct myself. I was failing dismally, but continued anyway. “I’m good under you, though … no, I mean working under a boss, like you, I mean, um …” I stopped. If I opened my mouth again I was sure I was going to choke not just on my foot, but on my entire leg as well.

  Ben smiled across at me and opened a file, “So I see you’ve only been here for six months. Straight out of college, enjoy long walks on the beach at sunset, badminton, puppies … hmm … Elton John?” he said.

  “What? I beg your pardon. What the hell is that?”

  “HR sent up files on everyone.” He had that naughty smile on his face again.

  “That’s not in there … I don’t like … why would that file say that?” I was totally confused and panicked now.