by Amber Burns
I stood timidly in the center of the room, awkwardly straightening out the wrinkles in the skirt of my dress, while I waited for Mr. Cartwright to turn around. He took several moments of time checking, and then double checking, the looks on the heavy looking door. Finally, after he had rattled the door heartily a number of times, checking that it would not come open even if banged upon violently, he turned around to face me.
“Okay,” he said, taking a breath, his shoulders leaping up and down anxiously.
He fixed me with a very somber look, his eyebrows no longer dancing flirtatiously up and down his forehead, his solid jaw line somehow appearing more square and serious than ever before. I swallowed nervously in spite of myself. There was just something about this man, some weird sort of… energy, or something, that allowed him to command the attention of an entire room, to change the atmosphere of an entire place, just by stepping into it. He was something unique, something powerful. And undeniably, Mr. Cartwright was some sort of force to be reckoned with. I nervously pushed my hair behind my ears and forced myself to meet his dark eyes.
“Please, if you do not mind, tell me more about your friend,” Mr. Cartwright began, taking a small step towards me. He seemed visibly distressed, and this threw me off. I watched him carefully as he began to pace in small circles while he spoke. “You have told me that Miss Melissa is a professional, and an exceptional worker, possessing unmatched wit, or so you think, anyway,” he added, almost talking more to himself, a small, self-indulgent smile curling privately across his lips. “Not to mention unmatched beauty… and that quality is absolutely true, as I myself have had the privilege of appraising it.”
At these words, I felt my face grow hot. Yes, Melissa was beautiful, but did Mr. Cartwright really think so highly of himself that he would only find a woman attractive if he himself had had the opportunity to lay eyes on her?
What a complete asshole, I heard my mind whisper.
And yet, even as the words danced around my mind, I felt a sort of tug, or pull, towards this world class, professional bad boy. There was something entirely tantalizing about just how much of an asshole he was. Something, dare I say it, even impressive. He just did not give a single fuck about any other person’s opinions, and that was something I so wished I myself had the power to do. As I watched him pace the room, his hands dancing in the air before him, accentuating his words as they spilled from his perfect lips. I found my eyes tracing the lines of his body, the way his muscles visibly rumbled and worked beneath the expensive pressed linen of his custom designed suit. I watched the way his jaw line jumped and flexed when he spat out a word he found distasteful and the shape his eyebrows formed when he chuckled quietly in a private moment with himself. I observed how his eyes would fill with electricity when his tongue leaped over the syllables that formed Melissa’s name. I felt envy creep into the pit of my belly as his eyes filled with lust, and it was a sensation that bothered me. I wasn’t sure what this envy was, for how could I feel envious of Mr. Cartwright’s desire for Melissa if I did not at all desire him? I did not have long to muse about this thought, however, because it was just then that Mr. Cartwright halted his pacing abruptly and sharply turned on his heel.
“Well?!” he yelped, facing me, his eyes wide with question. “Does she?”
I stared back, my mouth hanging open, realizing that I had completely missed the last few minutes of Mr. Cartwright’s ramblings because I had been, well, watching his body and how it moved across the room, instead. I instantly blushed a deep crimson and tried not to tremble too much from the embarrassment I was feeling. I swallowed and stared back, my lips flapping stupidly, searching for words, for anything I might be able to say to save me from being caught in such an awkward situation.
“I… I, um, well, Mr. Cartwright, sir….” I tried, grasping at anything that I could think of.
He stared at me, confused, his hands still hanging, mid-air, in question, his eyes still wide with hopeful expectation. I cleared my throat and tried again.
“I mean, that is not really the easiest question, you know, sir, because, well, she is, well… Melissa is unique.”
I ended on that widely general statement, hoping it would, in some way, serve as a suitable enough answer to whatever question Mr. Cartwright had posed towards me. My boss stared at me; his face a mask of confusion or frustration or perhaps both, it was difficult to tell.
After a moment he responded, “I know she is unique, Molly. That is precisely why we are having this conversation.” He crossed the room to the small loveseat that stood pressed against the wall and flopped down upon it, kicking his heels over the arm rest. “I just want to know what exactly her ‘unique’ outings include, alright.” He sighed, rubbing a hand over his ruddy face. “I need to know what she does when she goes out… if she is, well…” He seemed to search the air with his fingers, probing it for the word he needed. “... as adventurous as I am.”
I had succeeded in getting him to repeat the question, in some form or another, and felt a shiver of release tickle its way down my spine. I took a careful step forward, feeling very much like a therapist in a therapy session with my patient, thanks to the way that Mr. Cartwright had draped himself across the couch.
“Well,” I began; still unsure as to why Mr. Cartwright desired to know so much about Melissa. “I suppose that would likely depend on your definition of the word ‘adventurous.' If you mean rock climbing and the like, she definitely does complete quite a bit of physical activity,” I revealed.
Mr. Cartwright dropped his hands from his face and turned his head to look at me. He served up a look of absolute incredulity.
“No, Molly, my dear,” he said as patiently as he could muster. “I am not referring to extreme sports. What I am asking you, if I must put it so plainly, is whether or not your lovely friend Miss Melissa enjoys going out, drinking ridiculous amounts of expensive alcohol, and sleeping with beautiful people... and whether or not she enjoys doing this on a regular basis.”
I blinked at Mr. Cartwright several times. The question had caught me off guard, but I felt that under the stoic, examinatory stare of my brand new employer, I could not tell a lie.
“Oh,” I said, still blinking in surprise. “You mean that definition of adventurous. Well,” I said, clearing my throat. I gripped my hands together. “Well, then, by that definition, I would have to go ahead and say that, yes, Miss Melissa is adventurous. Yes,” I added, thinking back to our last conversation which had been, thanks to Melissa’s updates on her latest crazy nights out, very colorful. “Yes, I would in fact venture to say that Melissa is very, very, very, um, ‘adventurous’.”
Mr. Cartwright sat up instantly, nearly smacking his head off of the back of the wall. He looked at me seriously, his eyebrows shooting anxiously up his forehead.
“Very?” he repeated, as if not possibly believing that he had heard me speak this word, multiple times.
I nodded slowly, keeping my eyes trained on his.
“Very, very, very, very,” I repeated, never once taking my eyes off of his dark, serious orbs. Staring into his eyes left my stomach leaping with electricity. I swallowed, it was taking everything in me to keep my cool, and the fact that this man was making me so hot and bothered was concerning me.
“Agghhhh!” He cried out, slamming his head into his hands.
He spent a moment like that, sitting, with his head cradled in his fingers. I watched, silently, awkwardly, not sure whether I should attempt to comfort him or immediately vacate the room. I was just about to take a hesitant step forward when Mr. Cartwright sat up sharply and jumped to his feet.
“I knew it,” he said quietly to himself. He ran his hands over his face once, then again. Then he looked straight at me and cried out, “I knew it!” And he swung around and slammed his fist down, hard, into the spongy pillows of the love seat. “Of course she is like that! Of course, she is! Because she is a perfect, perfect fucking wondrous human and so, of course, she is going to be one hu
ndred percent exactly like me!”
I watched him as he flailed about, his arms smashing his fists into the pillows of the love seat until finally causing a flurry of tiny white feathers to leap out from the lips of the pillows and dance through the air. Even after this, Mr. Cartwright continued his angry assault upon the couch, thrusting his fists down into the couch, harder, harder, tiny white feathers dancing down all around him, christening his anger in a silent, soft flurry of gentle white.
After about five minutes of watching Mr. Cartwright smash the loveseat pillows to bits of flattened cotton, I cleared my throat. He did not so much as glance my way. Instead, he kept on driving his strong fists into the fabric, even though by now, not a single feather remained inside of the pillows. I watched for but a moment more and then, slightly concerned, cleared my throat again and managed to muster the confidence to speak.
“Mr. Cartwright,” I said gently.
The man finally threw two last, half-hearted punches at the love seat and finally came to a standstill. He stood with his back to me for a moment, his shoulders heaving up and down, riding the waves of adrenaline that his attack had no doubt sent roiling through his blood. Then he turned around, slowly, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, making a small, sad circle in the pile of feathers, a final two feathers fluttering slowly through the air and coming to land on the ground at his feet.
“I am sorry,” I said, because I did not know what else to say.
He was clearly upset by something, and I felt somewhat to blame for the whole pillow attacking ordeal. After all, he had been completely fine all evening until I had begun to provide him with details about Melissa. And yet I still had no clue as to why he now stood so very upset amidst a pile of sad feathers and flattened, lifeless pillows. All I could come up with was that he had wanted to know these details about Melissa because he was attracted to her. One could even see that much from a simple, quick glance at his eyes as he spoke her name. But then why would he become so upset upon discovering that the object of his affections (or at the very least, the object of his lust) was, in fact, a very similar person to him? It just made no sense to me. But then Mr. Cartwright was a bit of a strange man, I thought, glancing at the feathers that lay about the room, and thinking of the elaborate champagne rain storm that he had unleashed upon the dance floor. Perhaps he was simply prone to erratic moods. Still, I could not help feeling apologetic, and so I repeated myself again.
“I really am sorry, sir,” I said, glancing up carefully at his eyes.
Mr. Cartwright looked at me, his face softer, dejected.
“Ahhhh it is not your fault, Molly,” he said, waving a hand half-heartedly at me. “It is not your fault at all. It is completely me. Completely me,” he repeated, dragging the words out. He kicked at the feathers that lay at his feet and sent a fresh white flurry spiraling through the air. Then he flopped back down upon the flattened love seat and placed his head in his hands. He began to chuckle, and then he started to laugh more fully.
“Ohhhhh, dear,” he laughed, running his hands over his face again. He scratched his head and looked at me, his lips open with laughter, his cheeks pink with amusement. He continued to laugh while holding my gaze and so I forced a timid little laugh out of my lips. “Ohhhhhh, my,” he spoke again, and then he shook his head and leaned forward, placing his hands upon his knees. “As if I ever expected a woman such as Melissa to be anything other than a true, professional partier,” he said to me, and then he continued to laugh again, and so I forced a little, half-hearted chuckle to escape my lips. He shook his head again. “I mean, think of it. What I really need right now, right, is a woman who is absolutely, completely the opposite of a girl like Melissa! If Melissa liked to… to sing old songs while baking elaborate pies or… collect raspberries from the local market and make bird feeders or…” he flapped his hands through the air, searching for other things to toss into his description. “Or partake in scrapbooking and saving stray dogs from the slaughterhouse and what not! Then, why then, and only then, would she be the perfect woman for me. That is the kind of woman I need right now, and Melissa is more of, well, not that,” he said as he laughed nervously. “Yes, what I need is a scrapbooking, bird feeding, pie baking woman,” he rolled his eyes and coughed out a few short guffaws. “Because that is probably what those bastards would believe is the complete opposite of me.”
I tilted my head to the side, and this time a genuine laugh escaped my lips.
“Yes, sir, Melissa is not quite exactly that type of woman,” I confirmed, shaking my head with a chuckle. “She is a lot more, well, bold and goal oriented and party savvy,” I said. “If I may, sir, I would just like to be frank: Melissa is just kind of way too cool to be that sort of a woman. If you are looking for a woman like that, you would probably have a better chance looking at people who are, um, not as cool and popular.”
Mr. Cartwright nodded, thinking about this for a moment. Then he rolled his eyes and threw his head back with laughter.
“Where the fuck am I ever going to come across a woman who actually enjoys making bird feeders?” he laughed. “How did I even come up with that one?”
I shifted my weight uncomfortably from foot to foot as he sat there lost in his own laughter. I tipped my head back and forth, considering whether or not I ought to speak up. After several seconds, I felt my own ego taking such a blow that I could not keep the information from escaping my lips any longer.
“Actually, Mr. Cartwright, sir,” I said, my cheeks growing hot with frustration. “Making bird feeders is not something that deserves to be laughed at. It is, in fact, a very demanding undertaking that requires both a considerable knowledge of woodworking and the creativity to create something that will prove effective in attracting the proper avem.”
Mr. Cartwright stopped mid laugh and froze. He dropped his head back and looked at me, fixing me with a very strange look. A single eyebrow crept up his forehead, and he jutted out his chin at me, his expression posing the question before his lips did, “What did you just say?”
I cleared my throat and felt my cheeks reddening, this time not in anger, but in embarrassment. Had I actually just said that out loud? Had I actually just admitted to this man, on my first day of employment, that I was so uncool and so nerdy that I happened to enjoy building bird feeders?
Not a particularly good move, Molly, I told myself, glancing down at my hands. But I had said it, and now I had to stick with it.
“Um, I just mentioned that building bird feeders is not, as many people might think, a stupid or pointless endeavor,” I said nervously, glancing from my hands to Mr. Cartwright’s confused face, and then back down to my hands again. I gripped at my fingers and tangled them up around each other as I brought them to my chest. It was a nervous habit of mine, and if I had ever felt uncomfortable and nervous, it was right now, under the intense, appraising stare of my brand new, billionaire employer.
Mr. Cartwright ran his tongue over his lips and nodded slowly, never once removing his eyes from my face. He watched me carefully for a moment as I fiddled with my hands anxiously and attempted not to grow any redder than I already was. After several seconds of careful consideration, he spoke again.
“You make bird feeders?”
It was more of a statement than a question. I felt my cheeks grow hotter and I avoided his eyes, this time choosing to direct my response towards the puddles of feathers that covered the floor.
“Y...yes,” I sputtered, my hands grabbing at each other. “Yes, sir. Yes, I do make bird feeders.”
I stood there anxiously, embarrassed as ever, shifting my weight from foot to foot, tangling my hands nervously around each other, staring at the feathers on the floor and biting at my think pink lips. I risked one glance up at my new employer but that was not a wise choice. He sat staring at me, appraising me, his eyes running so obviously over my body that I nearly passed out; he was so attractive, damn it. That dark jaw line and light brown hair cut close to his head, those deep eyes j
umping over the shape of my curves; I could not take it. I forced my eyes to stare down at the floor yet again and tried my best not to break out in a cold sweat.
Mr. Cartwright nodded slowly again, his eyes rolling from my lips, down to my breasts. They lingered upon my hips before dropping down to my ankles. I suddenly became, for the first time in my life, very self-conscious of my ankles. His eyes were then back up to my hips, my waist, sliding over the fullness of my breasts then finally, finally, climbing up the gentle slope of my neck and over the ridges of my trembling lips to meet my eyes. The moment I realized his eyes played on my own I immediately ended the embrace of pupils by focusing my attention again on the fallen white feathers that whispered sweet nothings softly to the marbled floor.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence made heated and heavy by Mr. Cartwright training his dark eyes upon my cheekbones, I took a breath. I squeezed my fingers tightly against each other and cleared my throat. Then finally, I forced myself to tear my gaze away from the delicate puddles of white feathers and look into the dark, deep eyes of my new employer. Mr. Cartwright stared right back into my eyes, not once blinking, not once hesitating as he countered my timid gaze with a stare of pure iron.