by Claire Adams
He was eating a granola bar, allowing the crumbs to fall all over the floor. My stomach turned at his gross image. I cleared my throat.
“I see you’re arriving back from your little meeting with the president. Didn’t last very long, huh?” Jason asked me. He took another bite and I listened to him chew.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I suppose so.”
“What happened in there? Too explicit to say?” He smiled at me. I turned my head to the right, then the left, making sure that no one was listening in on our conversation.
I hissed at him. “Can you keep your voice down? I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, okay? I had a meeting with the president about the campaign. We talked about our trip to California. Okay? Are you happy? What the hell.” I shook my head and breathed deep. I felt such a fresh, vibrant stream of energy. I could conquer the world, if I wanted to. Just not Jason.
He just laughed at my rising anger. He took another bite, and then he spoke through the crackling granola. “Say, Amanda. I was wondering where you’d been the past few nights.”
My heart dropped into the acid-rich pond of my stomach. I blinked my wide eyes toward him. “I don’t know what you mean,” I whispered. My eyes glanced around me once more.
He laughed, tossing back his head in that menacing way. His fat neck shook to the left and to the right. “I think you do. You haven’t been in your apartment lately. I know this, of course.” He winked at me.
I felt like crying. He was actively spying on me, every day. “I don’t see that that’s any of your business.” I retorted. The anger was coursing my body. I couldn’t stop my tongue as I pushed the words forward, into the world. They came out hissing, snakelike. “And if you don’t stop spying on me, I think you know what’s coming for you.” My threat hung in the air between us like a cloud.
He tapped his toe lightly and tipped his head to the right, brimming with good humor. “Is that right? Well. What is it you’ll do? Please. I want to hear it. Tell it to me straight.” He brought his lower lip out and bobbed it at me, like a child.
I swallowed. “I’m going to inform the Secret Service that I found bugs in my apartment and that there has been a breach in security.” My blood was boiling. “Don’t even think I won’t.” I brought my finger into the air and tapped it first to the left, then to the right.
But he laughed once more. He brought his hands to his stomach and shook with such a jolly manner. The fat beneath his crooked shirt seemed to jostle. “I suppose you don’t care too much about your true love’s reputation, now do you? You talk and I play show and tell.”
Xavier’s face flashed before my eyes. Up until this moment, I’d thought that everything with Xavier had been resolved. He wasn’t going to tell his wife about us—not yet. And he was going to ease off that pressure, allowing me to take on my career without his assistance. However, for some reason, I’d allowed this shadowed, terrifying part of my life to drape away. I shook my head, feeling my lungs hiccup in my chest. “If you don’t stop—if you don’t stop—“ I said the words over and over again. I felt like I was hyperventilating.
But he just laughed again. He took a step toward me. I thought he was going to spit in my face. He bit his lip and then kissed me on the side of my face. I felt my stomach turn over. “If you ever make good on your promise to go to the Secret Service,” he began in a whisper, allowing the words to course through my body, “I will make good on my promise to ruin your goddamned life. Both your life and the president’s. Know that your problems are always lurking behind your back. I’m always watching you, Amanda.” He lurched his head back and winked at me.
I thought I was going to throw up.
He shuffled around me, leaving me to stand in the shadow of the corner. Sweat dripped from my armpits. I was certain I wouldn’t make it out of that predicament; I had made too many mistakes. I had such a big enemy. I knelt down on my knees and felt the tears cascade down my face, to the ground. I didn’t know what to do.
I took a taxi from the White House that afternoon, anxious to get out of that place. Jason had sat across from me in that massive room, humming to himself and continually eyeing me with this terrorizing gaze. I continued to stare at my own computer, but the light was burning my eyes, and I was falling into a state of unrest, of fright. For some reason, every time I grew afraid of this uncertain, rocky future at the White House, I pictured myself in that room with the president once more—the room with the candles. He was hovering over me, and he was kissing my mouth, my cheek. We were sure of each other, of each other’s bodies. We didn’t have to be sure about anything else. Not in this daydream.
The taxi screamed across the city, toward my apartment. I knew I had to get some more things out of there and take them back to Rachel’s apartment. Perhaps I would offer to pay for rent; perhaps I would ask her if she could help me find a new apartment. But it would all seem too suspicious. I didn’t want her to think I was too needy; I didn’t want her to think that I needed her, after all.
But God, I did.
I rushed up the steps and burst into my apartment. I tossed my things on my couch and screamed to the walls. “I DON’T KNOW IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, JASON, BUT YOU’RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, feeling my heart beating so fast in my chest. I would kill him someday, I thought to myself. He was as good as dead.
I gathered my things and then I was out the door once more—a few suits and dresses draped over my arm. I hailed a taxi and popped into it, directing him toward Rachel’s apartment.
When I arrived, she was already home, sitting outside on her balcony. She watched me as I left the taxi, and she peered over the balcony, waving her long, thin arm. “I didn’t think you’d be back today!” she called to me. Her voice seemed hesitant. I couldn’t actually tell if she wanted me there, or if this was an unfortunate thing for her—if she just wanted her free time, alone. Without anyone.
I shrugged. “Can I take up another night on your couch? I’ll pay you a couch surfer fee!” I called. She laughed and waved me up. I felt my heart beat quickly with the thought of a friend, of companionship. I’d forgotten what it was like to actually care about someone.
She opened the door and helped me with my things, allowing me to collapse at the table. I poured us both a glass of wine, and she laughed from the couch. “Already? It’s only 5:30!”
“Exactly,” I said, my eyebrow raised. I took a sip and pursed my lips together, eyeing the red liquid. “It’s good. In fact, it’s probably great.”
“It’s from Napa,” Rachel explained. She closed her eyes as she sipped it as well, shaking her head. “My brother brought it for me when he came to visit last year. Delicious shit, isn’t it?” She sat at the table with me then, peering over at me curiously. “You seem a little off today. Are you okay?” She leaned on her elbow and gazed at me. The gaze wasn’t penetrating or off-putting. Rather, it was like a brush of support. Like a hand to hold.
I shrugged my shoulders. “The campaign team,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s a bitch sometimes. You know?”
She laughed, but her eyes said something else. I wasn’t sure she believed me. She cleared her throat. “It’s just that. You’ve been through all of this before. I know you have. I watched you work during the last round. And God, what a worker you were. You were the reason that I understood I wasn’t cut out for this job.”
My eyes widened. “No! I would have never wanted that to happen. I wanted you to stick around! You were the best part of it for me!”
She shook her head. “That’s certainly not true. You were out for blood, for guts.” She brought her fists together passionately. “I could see it from you a mile away. You knew what you wanted, and you fucking got it.” Her eyes were bright, impressed. “Which was why I always felt honored to be your friend. I felt like—if you respected me, then I was worthy of respect.”
My heart lurched in my chest. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I brought my
hand over hers. “And here I was, always thinking you quit because of me. Perhaps you thought I was too intense, or that I was a mean person. Or something.” I shrugged, smiling at her.
She shook her head. “The work was too much for me, sure. I wasn’t happy. Well. The only time I was, I was with you.” She smiled and bit her lip, delivering this treasure to me.
I bowed my head, my heart beating fast. These kind words from a friend—the only friend I’d had in years and years—had made me want to give her some of my baggage, allow her to understand my Jason predicament. I cleared my throat, and I sensed that she was waiting for me to tell her things, for me to deliver the news of my stress to her. But I couldn’t tell her everything, certainly. The president’s very position was at stake.
“It’s just. I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t be doing,” I whispered. I allowed my eyes to glaze over, peering out at the window. I didn’t want to see her reaction as I told her. “I’ve been doing something terrible, and someone found out about it. It’s not—it’s not the worst thing. You know. No one is being hurt by what I’m doing. But someone could be hurt—a lot of people could be hurt, including myself—if anyone in the world found out.”
“And someone did find out?” Rachel asked, her eyebrow coaxing into the air.
I nodded. “Someone knows.” The words were so solemn, laced with regret.
“How did this someone—I mean. Were you not careful?” Rachel asked. The words weren’t offensive, and I didn’t take them as such.
I shook my head slightly. “I was careful. I was so careful. I was—I was being spied on.”
“God. The bastards,” Rachel whispered. “They’re always spying, they always know things about people’s personal lives. That’s why—that’s part of the reason—“ She paused, shaking her head.
“You were being spied on?” I asked her in a hushed whisper, feeling that, for the moment, I had a kindred spirit. I placed my hand on her knee, and I felt her quiver. I shook my head. “You know you can tell me anything—you know I won’t tell a soul.”
She bit her lip and allowed her eyes to ramp up, back toward mine. “They had a camera in my house to watch me undress. They didn’t care about anything—about any information, nothing. They just wanted to know what I looked like beneath my clothes.” She shook her head. Her face had turned a somber shade of red. “I just. I couldn’t hack it after that. It felt like my life wasn’t sacred to them.”
I nodded emphatically, feeling like Rachel had finally hit the nail on the head, with regards to my situation. “That’s exactly it. They don’t respect my life; they feel no sense that it’s sacred, that I’m trying to keep it whole.” I didn’t realize that a tear had dripped down my cheek, then, falling to the table before me. Rachel brought her hand toward mine and grasped my fingers, allowing me to shudder as I cried for just a moment.
I couldn’t speak any more. I knew I couldn’t tell Rachel anything else—anything about Jason, about the president. But I peered up at her with these incredibly large, doe-like eyes. And I shook my head, as if I was at a loss for what to do.
She squeezed my hand once more. She reached across and grabbed the bottle of wine. In the silence, we listened to the glug glug glug of the wine as it jostled into our glasses. I took a sip and a sense of calm passed through me. We clinked our glasses together—a bit late in our timing. And we smiled at each other with red-tinted teeth.
She shook her head. “Well. You know you can stay here as long as you like. You have a safe place here, Amanda. I know that we aren’t in the same business, that you’re in a great deal of pressure. And I want you to know that I will help you in any way I can to get you through this. Whatever these people are doing to you. It must be—it must be really bad.” She nodded with affirmation.
I couldn’t believe the feeling of calm that passed through me. My friend—the only person I could trust in the world, beyond Xavier—was allowing me to stay with her. She wanted to be my protector, my person. I thanked her profusely, and then we continued to drink wildly into the night. It felt like old times. It felt like I had someone I could trust once more; it felt like I had someone to lean my shoulder on, to ride out the storm with.
Finally, I held a sense of peace.
Chapter Six
The next morning, I rose early. A hangover glistened over my eyes. I hopped into Rachel’s shower at around 6 and hosed my hair and my slim, naked body of all the toxins from the previous day. I shivered, even in the hot water. I had so much to do.
As I stood in the water, I remembered what Rachel had told me the night before—that other men on the campaign team had actually snuck a camera into her apartment in order to watch her undress. What a sick joke that was. I wondered, half-heartedly, if Jason had been involved. It had been years ago and he hadn’t been at the height of his career. However, perhaps this was his natural scheme—something he kept up year-in, year-out in order to inspect the glowing, beautiful bodies of his female co-workers. I pictured him watching us—all of us up on a screen—as he ate sandwich after sandwich, knowing that we were his pawns.
The rage of this forced me out of the shower and into my fine clothes once more. I tugged at my hair and did my makeup with fine strokes; then I stomped into the kitchen. There, I left a note for Rachel: “Be home at 6.” We were roommates now; we had to look out for each other, be there for each other. I hadn’t had a roommate in years and I was sure she hadn’t, either. Already, I sensed that we needed each other more than we knew.
In the taxi on the way to work, the thoughts were flowing through me freely. I had to make Jason see my way; I had to make him notice that he was being a creepy, backstabbing bastard. I had to make him understand that I meant fucking business, that this wasn’t just a passing fancy in which he could look at my naked body all the time, like some creepy, familiar porn.
I marched into the White House. It was still early, and only a few of the campaign workers tapped tidily away at their desks. I turned toward Jason, who sat eating a donut at his desk. He was sitting with the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder.
I placed my hands on my hips before his desk, standing like a statue. Formidable. I cocked my head to the right.
He placed his finger in the air, peering at me with curiosity. “I’m on hold,” he whispered to me, waiting.
But I just stood there. I allowed my eyes to burn holes into him.
Finally, he couldn’t take the pressure. He slammed the phone down before him and hung up, glaring at me with these passionate, bulbous eyes. “What do you want?” he hissed. A few of the campaign workers turned toward us, sensing animosity at the top.
But I just shrugged. “You know what I want.”
He frowned, allowing his eyebrows to course over his eyes. “Shall we go talk in the back office?” His voice was gruff.
“I suppose we shall,” I whispered to him. My eyes were catlike, daring him to cross me.
He followed me into the back office, stomping heavily on the wood floors. I allowed my waist to saunter this way, then that. I imagined that he wanted me. In fact, I knew he did. He would never have anyone like me. I was reserved for people like Xavier—for the powerful men at the top. I, myself, was powerful; I was at the top. I was sleek, refined—and in the face of this sad sack man before me, I was everything.
I closed the door and crossed my arms over my chest. I waited, listening to the clock as it seemed to tick-tick-tick on the wall.
“All right. What is it, Amanda,” he finally stated, tired of waiting.
“You don’t get to talk,” I said, holding up my hand. “Not until I say.”
He raised his eyebrow and leaned against the desk, waiting. The tension hung around us, pushing at my shoulders.
I took a deep breath. I directed my eyes with such menace toward him. And then, I spoke. “You must destroy the files on your computer. The files of myself and the president. There’s absolutely no other way.”
He leaned his head back once mo
re, like he was going to begin his laughter once more. But my heart hurt with the sheer thought of it. I brought my hands forth, exhibiting my palms—that tender part of the body, so pale. “Hear me out. You are blackmailing me so that you can get ahead. You. However, I was already going to give you a leg up. Before this all happened, I thought you were a good person, a good worker. I thought you were a lot of things. But not a blackmailing asshole.” I regretted the words, but I bounced back, shaking my head. “The point is. I’m going to keep giving you a leg up. I’ll keep helping you if you delete those files—if you allow me to have my life back.” I swallowed.
His face grew broad with a closemouthed smile. “Amanda, Amanda.” He shook his head. “I’m so sick and tired of having this fucking conversation. You know that?”
My heart had already begun to sink in my stomach. Instinctively, I brought my arms over my chest. “Jason. Listen to yourself,” I reasoned with him. “You can have everything you want, and you can be a good person. People get to the top all the time without ruining other people’s lives.” I felt a bit of chaos working through my voice. I shivered internally, knowing that the words were bouncing from him without care. He just looked at me with sad, dead eyes. He didn’t care what happened to me.
“Amanda.” He took a large, cumbersome step toward me. He placed his hand on my shoulder. His grip was so heavy, so strong. The pain made my face pinch. “Amanda, Amanda. If you ever come to me and complain about our little situation again, the situation will explode in your face.” He nodded at me, his cheeks ruddy. I wanted to hit him, to slap him until he didn’t look like anything anymore.
I swallowed. “So that’s it, then?” I asked him. I felt my body shuddering. The fear was passing heartily through my chest.
“That’s it then. If you come to me one more time—or if you don’t do my bidding anymore—those photos will explode all over the internet, all over the news. Everywhere. That fine ass will be a celebrity.” He reached down then, and he smacked my butt, making me leap toward the wall in alarm. I brought my hands up to my face, feeling certain that I was going to cry. I felt my stomach lurch.