by P. J. Day
Eva flinched with surprise. “How’d you know?”
“She’s been goin’ round’ town telling everyone I like to bite. At first, it bothered me to the point where I actually thought about confronting her, but now she’s been kind of like a filter.”
“A filter?”
“Yeah, ‘cause I do. I like to bite, and I think that turns you on.”
“God, you’re so full of yourself.”
“I am? Whenever I’m near your neck, you do this exaggerated curl of your head. Your head and neck bend like rubber whenever I’m in the area of your soft, silky-smooth neck. You want a nibble, don’t you?”
“Don’t be silly,” Eva said.
Logan pushed aside Eva’s thick, brown hair away from the side of her neck and proceeded to peck at her skin. As expected, she subconsciously or consciously bent her neck almost 45 degrees. Logan’s incisors weren’t absurdly long, but they had that extra millimeter or two that gave his teeth a resemblance closer to an animal than some sort of mythical monster.
Eva lightly moaned.
“See,” Logan whispered, as he trailed nips down her neck. “You want this. Just acquiesce.”
Eva continued her moans, but didn’t say a word. This was a typical reaction from the girls that came up to the studio. The urges were there, the desire, the wants and needs, but the societal pressures and the unknown consequences of having one’s skin pierced and punctured was an unneeded and temporary obstruction.
“I’ll assume silence is consent,” Logan breathed, as he tugged lightly at her skin with his teeth. Eva’s body lay limp in his arms, in pure sensual catatonia.
“Again, just let me know,” he warned, with bated breath.
As Logan stretched his wet, thick lips to full maxim around her neck, a familiar, mnemonic ringtone tore through the part of his brain that flipped the switch for blood lust, and compromised its synapses. Logan pulled back. He looked at Eva with solemn eyes. “I’m sorry. I need to get that.”
Eva snapped out of her near-trance. “It’s okay,” she said with defeat in her voice, while crossing her arms and looking downward.
“No, no, no...wait,” Logan said, as he backpedaled toward his phone. “Just wait. Keep the blood flowing. Don’t stop the flow.”
Logan picked up the phone and retreated toward a far corner of the floor. “Hello,” he said, softly.
“Hello, Logan?” said the familiar and sobbing voice.
“Keelen,” he said, while making brief eye contact with Eva. “What’s wrong? Are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m downstairs, in the lobby.”
“You sound like you’re crying.”
“Yeah, I need to talk to you.”
“Sure, hold on. Let me buzz you in.” Logan lowered the phone away from his ear and stared at his screen, then quickly returned it to the side of his head. “I have to hang up to let you in. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Keelen sniffled.
Logan used a phone app from the apartment management to buzz his guest into the apartment. He turned toward the gorgeous specimen in his living room. Her expression was frosty and disappointed. “Eva?”
“Yes?” she replied, meeting him in the middle of the large floor space.
“I have a friend coming up right now. You’re more than welcome to stay.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. He paused, and then his eyes moved to the side. “Actually, I don’t know.”
Keelen knocked lightly.
Shirtless and wearing only sweatpants, Logan glided toward the door. He looked back at Eva before opening it, and shot her an uneasy grin.
He peered through the door. Obviously, Keelen had had a rough night. Dried streaks of mascara were caked right above her pink cheeks.
As she walked in, Keelen made abrupt eye contact with Eva. She then turned to Logan, “I’m sorry, I didn’t...”
“...it’s fine, it’s just...we were gonna—come in, please.”
“Hello,” Eva said. She turned to Keelen and faked a smile. “Well, it was nice meeting you. I’m gonna get my stuff and head on out.”
Keelen wiped the moisture from her eyes and stepped further into Logan’s apartment. “Hi, I’m Keelen.” She abruptly pointed at Logan. “We’re just friends.”
Eva nodded at Logan, sharply turned around and walked toward the bedroom.
Keelen sat on Logan’s white leather couch. She lowered her head and began weeping.
Logan immediately sat next to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “What happened?” he asked. “Where’s Matt?”
“I had to quit my job,” she sobbed.
“Why?”
“My boss was a total creep.”
“The lady? What’s her face…”
“No, not her,” she said, lifting her head. She grabbed a tissue from the box on Logan’s coffee table. “The photographer…like, the actual guy.”
“What? Thomas Click the photographer?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, he was there? At your gallery?”
“Yes,” she said, as she wiped her nose.
“He showed up and what did he do?”
“He showed up drunk and within minutes of meeting all of us, he offered me acting work in exchange for a date or whatever he wanted.”
“Did anything happen?”
“No, I just walked out on him and took the bus here.”
“Where’s Matt? Does he know what happened?”
“Are you kidding? Tell an Olympic boxer that my smarmy big boss made a pass at me? Punching that famous guy would kill Matt’s career before it even started.”
Logan nodded. “You were wise to come to me instead.”
Eva walked into the living room and reached down to grab her purse, which rested next to Keelen’s thigh on the couch. Logan stood up and tried hugging Eva, but she pushed him off with her hand. “Thanks for dinner,” Eva said, coldly.
“Of course. Do you want me to walk you down?”
“No, I’m fine. You obviously have more pressing matters,” she said, pointing toward Keelen.
With agitated abruption, Eva walked out the door, leaving behind a cold, bitter aura.
“Ouch. I’m sorry,” Keelen reiterated.
“It’s fine,” he said, sitting back down. “I’ll give her a call or text or whatever later on today.”
“I didn’t know who else to turn to,” Keelen said. “I was afraid to tell Matt. He would only see one way of solving this and I couldn’t risk it.”
“I can get a hold of my attorney. We can correct this matter in a court.”
“No, no...please. Like I said, nothing happened. He wasn’t explicit in his language. He didn’t do anything physical except put his arm around my shoulder and whisper in my ear.” She visibly shuddered.
“You could go to your HR department.”
“Carol? Hah! She thinks the sun rises and sets on Thomas Click’s head. She has a cheap apartment above the gallery with all the security cameras. She barely leaves the building, if ever. And she has a salary, not an hourly paycheck. So much for going to her with an HR issue against the owner of the company.”
“Understood,” Logan said.
“Besides, I’m not even here legally. I don’t want to draw attention to myself by filing some sort of sexual harassment claim.”
“But...”
“...no, I’m fine. I just don’t know what to do next. I don’t want to tell Cindy what happened. She’s been stressing about making rent, and if she found out that I just walked out on my job, she’ll flip. It will tear at our friendship, and if I tell Matt, he’s gonna want to kick Thomas’s ass.”
“Rock? Meet hard place,” Logan said sympathetically.
Keelen nodded.
“You want some water, Coke, a glass of wine?” Logan offered.
Keelen shook her head and scanned Logan’s apartment. The scattered canvases and the smattering of blood packets caught her attention. “I see th
at you’ve tripled your output,” she said, as she stood up and walked toward his workspace.
Logan grinned. “I’ve collected a nice new set of wealthy clients.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna tell Cindy,” Keelen said, staring blankly at Logan’s unusual workspace. “This might be the last time you’re gonna see me. My mother’s been sick and I might have to go back to Canada…I might not have enough cash to come back for a while.”
Logan came up beside Keelen with his hands in his pockets. “How much were you making at the gallery?” he asked.
“No, no, I can’t take your money,” Keelen chuckled.
“I’m not just gonna give you money.”
“You’re not pulling a Click, are you?”
Logan laughed. “You want to work for me?”
Keelen stared into Logan’s eyes. No reaction.
“How about $15 an hour? Just for a little bit, till you find your next job, since I know how much you pride yourself on independence.”
“No...no, I can’t do that. I’m barely qualified to sell Click’s cheesy mass-produced photo prints. They’re not even Giclée quality.”
“Keelen, I insist on hiring you. I really don’t want to go through the pain of looking for someone to hire. Plus, I trust you already. You already know the art print business. We’ve got history, and it’s only temporary until you land a part in a movie, television show, or commercial.”
Keelen paused. Her lips quivered and her cheekbones upturned with relief. “Thank you,” she said, wrapping herself around Logan’s torso in a grateful hug.
“Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”
“No...no...I’ve been a tremendous bother already. I’ll call Cindy to pick me up.”
“Why not Matt?” Logan asked.
“He’s probably too tired; he had a training session sneak up on him today. Besides, if I asked him to pick me up from your place at one in the morning, we’d all be asking for trouble. I’d have to spill all the details of what brought me here at this hour.”
“You’re right.”
Keelen took out her phone from her purse. She stared at the screen for a moment, and then asked Logan, “Can I use your phone?”
6
Lumber of Shame
The offices of Estil Magazine sat atop the fourteenth floor of the Brennan Tower, off Wilshire Boulevard, in Santa Monica. It was a modernized Art Deco skyscraper built in 1924, back when Santa Monica still had swatches of dinosaur-looking oil pumps on every other square block.
Adam sported his brand-new beige suit, whose fabric was closer to a gunny sack than the makeup of the fine Opus Wool suits he was accustomed to wearing as a fashion editor. Big and Tall sold functional suits for boxy guys and that’s what he was: a refrigerator shape wrapped in a gunny sack suit. He stood miserably in front of the elevator, pushing the call button in staccato bursts with a fat index finger, his laptop/tablet bag in hand and acrid sweat pouring down the sides of his bloated, mottled face.
His assistant Spencer’s eyes were bugged out in shock. His lips pressed together. He hadn’t said a word since delivering the suit, shirt, and boxers to his admired mentor. Dressed like a peacock, in a pink jacket with immaculate white trousers that clung tightly onto his slender frame, Spencer stood juxtaposed against his slovenly boss, patiently waiting for the elevator door to open.
Finally, with a whirr, the gold engraved elevator doors split, revealing a half-dozen pairs of drone eyes which immediately drew pity for the grotesque, pathetic man who had no business standing in the lobby with a confident demeanor fit for an alpha male half his size.
“Y...you should probably move out of the way so they can get out,” Spencer stammered.
Adam stood still. His eyes transfixed on the back wall of the opened elevator car. “These people used to quickly make way for me every morning. Why should things change now?”
Spencer cleared his throat and didn’t respond.
The stalemate ended when the girl at the front of the elevator shot Adam a nasty scowl and walked around him.
“Rebecca in accounting. She didn’t even recognize me,” he mouthed.
“Of course she didn’t recognize you, sir.”
“How quickly they forget. I banged her in the storage closet just last week.”
Adam and Spencer walked into the empty elevator. As the doors began closing, a short, spry blonde in a business suit shouted, “Wait, wait!”
Spencer held the elevator. Tracy, the magazine’s art contributor, huffed and puffed as she entered the elevator. She immediately recognized Spencer. “Hey, Spence. Love the pink jacket.” She paused. “God, I hope Adam doesn’t kill me for being late. Again.”
Spencer remained quiet. He darted a couple of glances at Adam.
“Good morning, Tracy,” Adam greeted her.
Tracy turned around and gazed up at Adam’s gigantic face. She squinted at first and then her face paled. “Adam? Adam, oh my God. Umm...I...I have a couple of stories you’ll like, I think.” She turned around and stood stiffly, waiting for the elevator door to open. She stared pensively at the reflective doors in front of her, in shock that her boss had transformed into a humongous toad. She couldn’t tear away her eyes.
The elevator doors opened and the group stepped into the waiting area of Estil Magazine. The trendy lobby was filled with custom furniture, abstract paintings, and exotic bromeliads and other rainforest plants, all of which Adam had commissioned a month after becoming editor. He’d even hired a special plant caretaker just for the orchids.
Trying to hold in a squeal of horror, Tracy whisked by the receptionist ahead of Spencer and Adam.
The receptionist briefly looked up in between calls and smiled at both men. “Morning, Spencer.” She then made eye contact with Adam. “And who may I ask you’re here to see?” she asked.
“I hired you, remember?” Adam snarled.
“Excuse me, sir? Who are you here to see so I may announce you?”
Spencer walked up to the receptionist counter and placed his hand on the cold marble. “Genie, this is Adam. He’s had a rough morning.”
Genie smirked. “No, really?”
Spencer stood motionless with an unamused face.
Genie stared into Adam’s eyes. Her fidgetiness soon gave way to panic. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Cagle. Can I help you with your jacket, have you had coffee? Can I get you something to eat, are you hungry...Oh, my God, I didn’t mean to imply...”
Adam ignored Genie’s sudden need to please and sternly asked, “Is everyone here in the boardroom?”
“Yes, Mr. Cagle. However, a Mr. Fisker left you a message and asked you to call him after the board meeting—he said it’s urgent.”
Adam ignored Genie’s message as he focused on the meeting. He trudged toward the boardroom, just a few feet around the corner from the lobby. Adam handed Spencer his jacket and suitcase. Large rings of perspiration soaked the underarms of his new shirt. As he approached the door, Spencer tugged gingerly on his sleeve.
“What?” Adam snapped.
“Do you want me to go in first and prepare everyone?”
“Prepare them for what?”
“Sir, your appearance is going to derail this meeting. It might affect the quality of next month’s issue,” Spencer implored. “Remember, you said that distractions and lack of focus is what has killed the majority of the print industry.”
Adam’s eyelids draped halfway above his pupils, a trait he displayed on the rare occasions whenever he’d submit to a mortal. “Fine, do your thing. Announce me.”
“What do I tell them happened to you?” Spencer asked. “You haven’t even told me what happened.”
Adam breathed heavily through his nostrils. He clenched his fists and thought about his sudden physical handicap all over again. “Tell them...” He paused.
“Yes?” Spencer asked, patiently.
“Tell them...it’s a fat suit.”
“What?”
“Tell them it’s a
fat suit, one that I commissioned through a local FX company for an experiment I’m conducting for next month’s issue.”
Spencer’s face twisted with worry. He asked, “Are you sure that’s what you want me to tell them?”
Adam lowered his brow, his eyes held firm with intensity. “Let’s get this over with.”
Spencer nodded and walked into the boardroom. Nervous about his performance, he closed the solid door behind him, making sure Adam didn’t hear his little speech.
“Before you begin the meeting, I just want to let you know that Mr. Cagle has asked me to tell the staff that his appearance will be a little…out of the ordinary. He’s commissioned a…a fat suit…from an F/X company for an experiment for next month’s issue.” Spencer paused. “Nobody freak out when you see him.”
Tracy sat on the right side of the table, staring blankly out one of the large windows that opened toward the ocean. Next to her sat Roger, the graphics editor, in charge of the magazine’s layout, Maggie, the entertainment editor, who sat on the left side with a confused stare, and Harry, the sports contributor, who was always eager to please Adam every morning. Franz, Shannon, and Frieda, the eldest of the executive staff, gray-haired and fashionable as ever, rounded out the group. Bewildered expressions overwhelmed their typically energetic faces as they digested Spencer’s words.
Franz spoke up first. “Is he out there right now?”
“Yes, and there is a perfectly good explanation for his appearance,” said Spencer.
“You just said it was a fat suit,” Maggie said.
“That’s what he asked me to say. Overnight, he…well, you’ll see what happened. It’s not pretty...I mean it’s really a marvelous makeup job,” he said, with an awkward grin.
“If it’s a make-up job, it’s the best I’ve ever seen. I’m telling you it looks too real,” said Tracy.
Roger twirled his pen between his index and ring fingers and asked, “Does he have cancer? Kind of what happened to Jerry Lewis, you know, when he showed up on his telethon one year, bloated like a piñata because of the meds.”
“You’re thinking of William Shatner,” Maggie interjected.
“No, it was Jerry Lewis, Maggie; do you even know who Jerry Lewis is?”