by Amber Burns
I stared at the girl, and I began to nod slowly, remembering the events that had followed the meeting with the intern.
“Right,” I said, my head bobbing up and down in slow, regretful recollection. “That is right. I met with you upon the advice of ...Melanie.”
“Melissa,” the girlish woman quickly corrected, then blushed. “Yes.”
“Yes,” I repeated as I worked to remember. “Yes…”
2
Nikko – The Day Before
“Is this not the best view in the entire city?” I had asked, leading the young intern to my reserved spot beside the window. She had grinned, all huge lips and blue eyes, none of the jaded look so typical of an older business woman.
“It really is,” she breathed, casting a glance out across the beautiful Californian evening. The stars pricked the darkening sky, and the ocean lapped at the edges of the beach. She smiled and leaned forward, pressing her ample breasts against the glass table. “Thank you so much, again, for agreeing to meet with me, Mr. Cartwright.”
“Please,” I said, brushing her formality away with a gentle flip of my hand. “Call me Nikko.”
The girl smiled and tossed her long, golden hair behind her shoulders. “Alright, Nikko. Thank you, once more.” She glanced at the passing waiter, and I caught her mid-stare.
“Drinks, then, why don’t we!” I announced, slamming my hands upon the glass table top.
She giggled lightly, and I raised a finger in the air, signaling the waiter to bring a round of my favorite.
He caught my glance and nodded, spinning on his heel to attend to my silent demand. I smiled and turned my attention back to the stunning young woman who sat before me, her manicured fingernails tapping delicately upon the glass table top.
“Well,” I said, stretching back my shoulders and leaning forward. “Shall we get down to business?”
She flashed a quick smile at me and then slipped her shoulders out of her jacket, her ivory skin sliding free of the desert sand colored folds of fabric. She placed her hands together and eyed me seriously, with a coolness undertoned by casual coyness. I knew her type: the young, business tycoon wannabe, playing all the right cards in order to slowly succeed in working her way to the top. I knew her type, and I admired her type. If anything, they allowed me a bit of an ego boost and a whole lot of flirtatious fun.
“Well, Mr. Cartwright,” she began, and then, catching herself, grinned and offered up the correction. “Nikko… I was hoping that we might be able to discuss a few the brass tacks of business here. I obviously do realize that the term ‘business’ encompasses a rather broad array of subjects, topics, and discussions,” she elaborated quickly, expertly catching the look that flashed ever so briefly across my eyes. “So please do not think that I have sought out a meeting with you with only the beginnings of an understanding of industry forming in my head.”
She smiled, and her eyes played easily over my face. I instantly revised my opinion of this young intern; she was sharper, smarter, more in tune than the rest. She might not be jaded, but she was certainly no delicate flower, innocent to the ways of the corporate world. I leaned forward, more enthralled now than ever, and more turned on by her combined beauty and business integrity than ever. She noticed my intrigue and her eyes gleamed greedily.
“Yes, that’s right,” I affirmed, nodding, but keeping the smile from my face; I wanted to hear her next words before allowing her the gift of a grin of approval. “I do not judge you at all, and if anything, I appraise you as a smart, calculating young business woman.”
She nodded curtly and continued.
“What I wish to speak with you about this evening,” she said, her eyes trained deeply upon my own. “Is a certain sort of proposition.”
I grinned wickedly, and she instantly pulled away, her slender body curling sharply back from the glass table top.
“No, Nikko,” she drawled, fixing me with a look of mild amusement, “Not a proposition of the sexual kind.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm and I quickly shot back, “I thought nothing of the sort, of course.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Of course you did not,” she retorted. “I was, of course, only teasing.” With those words she leaned forward again, pressing her breasts against her pale arms. “The proposition I wish to offer you is this: I will work for you, as an intern, at your company, for one year, for free. During this time you will explain to me the inner working of the corporation, as much as you are able to divulge, and I will tend to your every need… though perhaps not entirely directly.”
I stopped her there, my mind crowding with the clamor of objection. This intern was beautiful, yes, and she certainly showed the potential for greatness. But to employ her upon the terms that I should be required to treat her as an associate rather than a lowest of the low-level employee did not jive well with my instincts. I shook my head at her and ran a hand through my golden, short cropped hair.
“I do not think you have properly thought out this proposition, my dear,” I said, raising my eyebrows in sympathetic expression.
The waiter arrived then, balancing two glasses filled with amber colored scotch upon his silver plated tray. I nodded my thanks as he carefully placed the drinks upon the table, bowed, and left us to our conversation.
“You seem to think,” I continued, sliding my hand around the iced glass. “That you would provide me with some benefit that would exceed any other would-be intern. And this is where you happen to be very, very wrong.” I brought the glass to my lips, tipped it back, and sipped, never once breaking eye contact with the ivory skinned girl that sat across from me.
She stared at me for a moment, those painfully blue eyes refusing to slide from my gaze. Finally, she allowed her eyes to fall upon the drink that sat before her. She sifted the liquid around the glass, watching it attentively, studying it, clearly enveloped in some deep, quick internal pattern of thought. I watched her, amused, and not just a little bit intrigued. I felt the old familiar creep of pleasant competition slide on in; the feeling that I sat playing a game of intense chess with the woman that sat before me.
She raised the glass to her lips, but paused there, and did not drink. This is when she lifted her eyes back up to meet my own and parted her thick lips to reveal her next move.
“I happen to be able to provide a bit more than the average intern,” she countered, still swirling the drink beneath her nose slowly, teasingly, as if easing my cooperation. I arched an eyebrow in curious interest and allowed her to continue speaking. She pressed the cool glass against her cheek.
“I happen to be in connection with one very, very proficient typist,” she began, rolling the icy glass slowly across her cheekbones, and her chin. It was hard to keep my eyes from the slow and deliberate massage, but I forced myself to remain strong amidst her games and trained my coal-black eyes upon her own blue orbs. “In fact,” she continued, “I have a resource which is so efficient, thorough, and productive that she will effectively reduce your workload and stress by an impressive thirty-percent.” She eyed me for a moment, the glass still rolling seductively over her skin, and then finally, she pressed the glass to her lips and took a long sip.
I am a man of business. Real, deep, serious, all-encompassing business. The kind that leaves you addicted and longing for more, for another chance to play the game; the kind that keeps you up at night, wakes you up in the morning, dictates your comings and goings, your relationships, and your morals. The kind that leads you to the greatest success, a sort of golden experience that ninety-nine percent of the population of this planet earth will never even begin to be able to truly imagine. This is a passion of mine, a passion I admit to having because I see in it nothing but the beautiful abilities to allow me to lead the most enjoyable possible life a man could ever hope to enjoy. This passion, of course, naturally leads me to find interesting any sort of half believable prospect at saving a dollar or eliminating some of the more unpleasant grunt work of my daily
job. So, of course, I was interested. To deny myself interest in such an unexpected, seductive proposition would be to fail to properly understand the potential of a curve ball to deliver complete and absolute success.
And also, I had already downed most of my scotch, had not eaten since breakfast that morning, and was sitting across from a woman whose breasts were nearly grazing her chin.
Which also helped inform my decision.
I nodded slowly, sifting the aged scotch gently back and forth in small circles, pretending to consider this siren’s proposition. Then, swiftly, I raised the glass to my lips and tipped the remainder of the expensive contents down my throat.
This, naturally, helped solidify my certainty in agreeing upon her proposition.
I placed the empty glass back down on the glass table top with a resounding smack as glass hit glass. Then I stuck out my hand towards her, my face a mask of amicable agreement.
“Congratulations,” I said, gripping her soft fingers tightly within my own. “You have got yourself a deal.”
Melinda, or Melanie… or whatever it is, giggled that same, tinkling giggle and tossed the rest of the amber scotch down her throat. Then she slid a hand beneath the table and fished her cell phone from a pocket. She began to tap at the phone with her long, pointed fingernails, executing a dance across the phone’s small keyboard.
“What are you up to now?” I asked, leaning forward, hoping to catch a hint at her planning.
She smiled but did not raise her eyes from the screen. Her fingers continued to fly across the keyboard at an alarming speed.
“I,” she drawled, “am just informing the resource I mentioned to you,” she continued. “About her newfound employment.” She pressed her finger solidly on the screen once more and then tucked the phone back beneath the table and back into whatever pocket she had first fetched it from. She then looked up at me and grinned, that same, now familiar smile sliding its way easily across her pale face. “So consider yourself, Nikko, from this moment on, a much more at ease man.”
I chuckled out loud at her confident response and slid my arms free of the constraints of my tight, cleanly pressed jacket and stretched again, this time taking a great deal of care to flex my arm muscles as I did. I succeeded in catching her eyes tracing the muscular outline of my arms, visible ever so slightly as the fabric of my shirt pulled across my flesh. I bit at my lip and raised my hand, signaling the waiter for another round.
“Tell your friend to come by,” I told the intern as the waiter obediently placed two fresh glasses of icy, aged scotch upon the glass table top before us. “Briefly,” I added, catching the young woman’s eye.
She grinned and poured a sip of the beverage through her lips. “Briefly,” she agreed, reaching again for the phone and this time pressing it against her ear. “Briefly, I will.”
She kept her piercing gaze trained upon me as she spoke into the phone. “Hey, Molly? Yes, it’s me. Yes, you bet I am.” She allowed her eyes to trace a path up and down my body as she said the words. I grinned and sipped at my scotch while she continued her conversation. “Mmhm, oh you bet. Molly, of course. Molly, it is me, after all.” Her lips snuck up in a quick allowance of self-pride. “Oh, you bet. Just come by for a few minutes, ok? Yes, we are just about twenty minutes from your apartment. You can even walk. He just wants to meet you now, considering you start tomorrow.” She said the words while staring directly into my eyes and at that point, I was too devoted to the idea of what might lay behind the folds of her sandy coat to object. I returned her stare while she finished. “Great. Great. Well then, Mol, amazing. We will see you in twenty. Alright. Yes. OK. Chow, babe.”
She had clicked at the phone with a pink fingernail and then again returned the cell to its place within her pockets. She had turned her attention, then, back to me, sliding her slender arms forward so that her thin wrists just ever so slightly grazed my own.
“Well,” Melissa had said, her eyes still piercing my eyes. “Where were we?”
3
Nikko
With my recollection now well in hand, I looked at the plain, bookish girl that stood before me now, her fingers still fluttering nervously about each other, her lips twisting with anxiety.
“Yes,” I said once again. “You are Molly.”
Molly nodded quickly, sharply, her chin again completing that quick, girl like jutting motion, in and out. I continued to stare at her for a few moments, nodding, allowing the fragments that I could still recall to float back into my mind. She had arrived, I did remember that, but I had been so rapt with the girl that sat across from me that I had not at all retained any memory of any detail of this bland, nervous woman that now stood trembling before me. She certainly did not seem the picture of efficiency and ability that her beautiful friend had made her out to be, but wasn’t that just as well, I thought because that is what happens when you allow yourself to speak true business while drinking on an empty stomach. I sighed, understanding that I should now have to put up with this stuttering, anxious girl for the entirety of a year. That had, after all, been the deal I had agreed upon, and after last night’s events, I was fully sure that putting up with this bland, uncomfortable waif would be well worth the trouble if it meant securing her stunning siren of a friend to my company. I nodded, again fixed the collar of my jacket, and turned to climb the back stairs to meet the owner of the company.
“Oh and, Mr. Cartwright?” Molly called, her high pitched stammer following me up the staircase.
I did not pause and continued to climb upwards. “Yes?” I called back shortly.
“Thank you ever so much for allowing me this great, awesome chance of being able to work with you,” I heard her gush breathlessly. I gritted my teeth and nodded. I was already annoyed by her innocence and over the top doting.
“Yep,” I called down the staircase. I began to climb more quickly, eager to leave her behind.
“I will not fail you, Mr. Cartwright!” I heard her call as I curled up the staircase, reaching the top landing.
I stopped again and sighed deeply, knowing full well that I probably had months and months and months of this bullshit coming my way.
“Yeeeeup,” I called down, feeling the muscles in my neck twitch in annoyance at her persistent yelping. I paused for a moment, my eyes closed, bracing myself for one more pathetic cry for approval.
None came.
This pleased me greatly, relieved my deeply, and I leaped across the landing and towards the double door entrance to the Red Lounge, ready to meet with the owner and leave the sour taste of Molly’s neediness behind.
I paused as the double mahogany doors of the Red Lounge rose up before me. I again, out of habit, straightened my collar, tugged at the sleeves of my suit jacket, and straightened my tie. I ran a hand through my blonde hair and tilted my neck back and forth; enjoying the satisfying cracking sound that greeted my ears. Then I pressed my hands against the heavy doors and pushed my way into the room.
The weighty mahogany slid to a soft close, the doors thudding gently as I strode across the deep red carpeting. I could see the chocolate brown leather chair, its golden studs catching the dim light and flashing a sort of muted ‘come hither’ towards me. I walked confidently towards the back of the chair, my eyes fixed upon the head of silvery white hair I could see just slightly peeking over the top of the chocolate leather high back. Not an inch of movement betrayed the presence of the chair’s occupant, but that outcropping of whispy white hair was a dead giveaway. Sure enough, as I completed my final steps across the sound absorbent, plush red carpeting, the chair slowly spun around and left me standing face to face with the man himself.
“Mr. Offerton,” I greeted.
The name was delivered from my tongue the way a dinner service maid might deliver the main dish of the evening: the syllables were dripping with honey, and all served up upon a tone of voice that was the equivalent of a silver platter. It was true; I sucked up to this man. But I have always believed that there is
a time to suck up to people, and a time not to suck up to people, and it is knowing the difference that really separates the spineless men from the intellectual men. A spineless man will suck up to everyone he thinks might offer him a bit of something; he will suck up out of fear, or out of desperation. An intellectual, intelligent man will do nothing of the sort. That is because the intellectual man knows how to identify which people are worth sucking up to. He will not ever put himself down or risk his own status in exchange for a potential benefit. Whereas the spineless man will suck up to anyone he thinks might offer him a bit of something, the intellectual man will only suck up to someone he knows will offer him a whole lot of something.