by Jason Parent
By—
“On second thought, don’t tell me. Ever.”
Clive blocked out thoughts of Chester’s eating habits and the images they conjured. He had enough to worry about. But the image of cobwebs loaded with twitching black specks wouldn’t relent.
“That’s just great, Chester. Simply wonderful. If it weren’t bad enough that I’ve got you hanging around in there, you’re bringing in strays for fucking and feasting purposes. Tell me again why I shouldn’t have you removed?”
Because you’d miss me. You did miss me.
“Frankly, this whole situation is a nightmare.”
Again with the dramatics, Clive? Lighten up, will you? Trust me. I’m keeping everything up here tidy and in proper working order.
“Trust is something that’s earned.”
I haven’t earned it yet?
“Not a chance.”
We’ll keep working at it, then. Are you ready for this?
“I guess now is as good a time as any.” Clive rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles. He didn’t need to convince himself that he wanted to enter Harcourt. He never wanted to enter Harcourt. He just had to convince himself that the day was like any other and he hadn’t slept with his boss a few nights prior. He let out a breath and stepped up to the door.
Then he stepped back.
After pacing in front of the door for another minute, he built up the courage to enter. He was immediately greeted with a hug and kiss from the receptionist. He smiled, considering himself lucky it was Connie and not one of the other two.
“I had a great time the other night.” Connie smirked. She leaned in closer and gave his ear a playful nibble. The warmth of her breath against the side of his neck sent him shivering.
She winked. “I only wish you weren’t so much of a gentleman.”
“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” At least she doesn’t know. Clive’s tension eased as he moved away from Connie, venturing farther down the hallway to his desk.
A firm, heavy hand came up behind him and slapped his buttocks. Judith circled Clive, hustling off to do whatever it was she did. She caressed his arm as she passed. With a bat of her blue-eye-lined lashes, she was gone.
The sickly feeling in the hollow of Clive’s stomach returned. He gasped and glanced around the office but relaxed when he saw no one looking back at him.
At his desk, a small stack of paperwork awaited his arrival. He immersed himself in it, not daring to initiate conversation with his often inquisitive coworkers.
A few minutes into processing a six-day-old insurance claim, Clive heard Felix’s boisterous voice nearby, bellowing something about how sweet Connie’s tits looked in her low-cut blouse. He hunched over his desk, minimizing his presence and pretending to fixate on an accident report.
He can’t possibly know I’m here. There’s no way he can see me in my cubicle and no reason for him to come down this way. Maybe he won’t bother to come by.
“Hey, Clive!” Felix’s obnoxiously loud voice announced both his and Clive’s presence to the entire office. “You got pretty wasted the other night, huh?”
Clive scowled. “Hey, Felix. You mind keeping it down? I have a headache, and people in fucking Pago Pago can hear you.”
“Pago Pago? Where’s that?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Well, if you’re going to throw a place out there like that, you should at least know where it is.”
“Is there a purpose to your visit, Felix?”
“I just wanted to see how you were doing. Do you even remember the other night?”
“I had a few drinks.”
“A few?” Felix said in a softer, yet still loud, tone. “Dude, you were blitzed, plastered, bombed, rocked, fucked-up, shit-faced, and all of the above. I’d bet you don’t remember half the night. But for your sake, I hope you do. You gave me whack-off material for the next year.”
“That’s way more than I needed to know.” Clive grimaced. His dissatisfaction, however, wasn’t prompted by Felix’s disclosure of his solo-sexual practices. Rather, he feared the answer to the question Felix had prompted within him.
“What do you hope I remember, Felix?”
“Dude! You and Connie were all over each other. And I don’t mean that soft-core-porn shit. You guys were going at it. Not very classy if you ask me, being as you were in a family restaurant. But hey, I salute you, brother. Way to go, man!”
Felix followed up his praise with a congratulatory pat on the back and an awkward massaging of Clive’s shoulders. Clive squirmed beneath his grasp.
“Well, there’s work to be done. You better give me all the details later. I have to know if you sealed the deal, but if you tell me now, I might have to go rub one out. I can’t be popping a boner all over the place, you know.”
“We wouldn’t want that, would we? I hate to spoil your excitement, but Connie went home in a cab. Alone.”
“What a buzzkill, man. Bummer. Still, you could hit that. Let me know if you need help hooking it up.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
Felix didn’t wait around long enough to hear his answer. He was probably off to ogle any number of female coworkers. Clive was happy to see him go.
Wow! Chester sounded genuinely surprised. He didn’t see you and Judith going at it.
“Please. The mental image…”
Sorry. Well, that’s got to make you feel better. It looks like you’re in the clear unless Judith told somebody.
“She’d be stupid to do that. She’d probably lose her job. No manager-staff relationships. It’s company policy.”
She wouldn’t, would she? Clive asked himself. She couldn’t be that stupid. Why would she risk her job just to brag about one night with an average Joe like Clive?
He shook his head and chuckled. Judith would keep their secret. No one would ever know about the worst mistake of his life. Second worst, if one counted his contraction of a talking spider living in his head. Besides, if he didn’t remember it, maybe she didn’t either. As every drinker knows, if you can’t remember it, it didn’t happen. He smirked. The worst-case scenario for him would be if Judith did remember it. He would just have to smooth things over with her and—
“Oh my God, Clive! Say it ain’t so!”
As the voice echoed behind him, Clive could actually feel his blood pressure rising. His collar felt tight. Slowly, he turned.
“Bradford. What’s up?”
Clive’s rail-thin buddy from Sales leaned in conspiratorially. In a whisper, he said, “Rumor has it that you fucked Judith. Is it true?”
“What?” Clive feigned shock. “Come on, Brad! Of course that isn’t true.”
Bradford squinted down his nose at Clive. After a moment of awkward silence, he said, “Whatever you say, Clive. If you did, though, that’s fucking nasty. How would you even be able to get it up?”
“Tell me about it.” Clive’s stomach turned. His throat was so dry, all he could spit from it were more lies. “However, since I didn’t have sex with Judith and never would, I’d rather not think about it. Now, if you don’t mind, I got a lot of work to catch up on.”
“All right. We’ll talk later.”
Bradford was gone, but his “rumor” left Clive reeling. Perhaps it was just Bradford’s way of starting shit. He’d been at the bar the other night, but even if he saw Clive making out with Judith, Bradford had no proof that she and Clive had… He didn’t want to think about it anymore. Even if there was a rumor, it was just a rumor and would be dead and buried in a couple of days. Besides, it had to be a coincidence that Bradford would make that allegation. No one could have seen the act itself. It had to be a coincidence. Just Bradford making a wild assumption. Speculation, nothing more. Clive settled back into his work.
“Hey, Clive.”
Who now? Clive swiveled around in his chair to face Kim, giving her a forced smile that he was sure looked as fake as it felt. Kim stank of cigarette smoke, but it was
her expression that concerned Clive. She looked disgusted.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay, Kim. What’s up?”
“Well,” she started. Her hesitation was enough to put Clive on edge. “I don’t want to add any more stress to you, but, um, I heard this rumor.”
Clive swallowed hard, expecting what she would say next but hoping he was wrong. “Oh yeah? And what rumor would that be?”
“It’s… never mind. It’s not important.”
“Kim,” Clive said, leaning forward. “Just tell me.”
“All right. I’m not sure how to put this delicately, so I’ll just come out and say it. Word around the office is that you and Judith slept together.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Clive began, flashing a hint of anger. “I—”
“Holy shit, Clive!” Felix interrupted, barreling into Clive’s cubicle. “I just heard the sickest thing. Rumor has it you fucked Judith!”
Clive lost control. He sprang out of his chair and shouted so loudly that whoever hadn’t yet heard the rumor was brought up to speed on the latest development in his workplace relations. “I did not fuck Judith!”
The office went silent. Then the intercom buzzed on Clive’s desk phone.
“Clive, could you come in here please?” a familiar but rarely heard voice beckoned through the speaker. It belonged to Malcolm Fisher, the top guy at Harcourt, and Judith’s immediate supervisor.
“Well, duty calls,” Clive said, thankful for the opportunity to escape his gossip-column coworkers. He squeezed out of his cubicle, leaving Kim and Felix to ponder his alleged sexploits.
When he reached Malcolm’s corner office, Clive would have traded anything to return to the Kim-Felix inquisition. Malcolm sat at his desk, leaning back in his posh leather chair. A cloud of smoke hovered about the room. Malcolm’s lit cigar, some imitation Cuban shit, was the cloud’s source. Clenched firmly between his molars, the cigar and its predecessors had turned Malcolm’s teeth grey and rotten. His breath reeked in ways unimaginable.
Across from Malcolm sat Judith. She looked fat as always, staring at Clive with unknown intent. Only one empty seat remained, right by Judith’s side. Clive turned around, thinking he might fake illness after all.
Malcolm spotted him. “Come on in, Clive.”
Clive had no choice but to comply, but he had enough sense to shut the door firmly behind him. The local ears had already perked up. Some were outright eavesdropping.
“Please, have a seat.”
Clive plopped himself down beside Judith. He rested his hands on his lap, but he couldn’t stop them from fidgeting. Neither he nor Judith spoke.
“We’re all busy,” Malcolm started, “so I’ll get right down to it. I heard a rumor that you two fornicated. I presume you know our policy on interoffice relationships?”
Fornicated? Clive sat up straight. “We’re not in a rela—”
“It was one night of intense passion and unbelievable eroticism,” Judith blurted. “Nothing more.”
Malcolm’s complexion turned varying shades of green. Evidently, Judith’s words had the same sickening impact on him as they did on Clive.
“Is that true, Clive?”
“We have no relationship,” was all Clive could muster. His face felt hotter than fry oil. How could he explain to the big kahuna what had happened if he wasn’t sure about it himself? The humiliation choked and silenced him.
Malcolm rocked in his chair, his fingertips pressing together and his stare off in space as if he were in deep thought. Clive wondered if the man would pity him, see the incident for the drastic mistake it was.
“All right, then. I’ll let you both off the hook without a written warning. Besides, I don’t want to hear the details I’d need to know to properly write up the incident. Believe me, no one here wants to hear about it.”
Could’ve fooled me, Clive thought.
“Better yet, why don’t you two keep it in your pants, and we can avoid this altogether.”
“Yes, sir,” Clive replied, getting up to leave. “Thank you, sir.”
“One more thing, Clive. I hear you recently asked for a promotion. At Harcourt, you need to work, not sleep, your way to the top.”
“Yes, sir.”
Clive opened the door to depart, thoroughly embarrassed. Judith followed him out.
“Call me,” she whispered, sending Clive a wink.
Clive returned to his desk, where he sat in utter silence. The stigma that now surrounded him kept the cubicle intruders at bay, and he found some solace in the solitude. It kept everyone out except Connie.
“Clive, I just heard the craziest rumor,” she said, hurriedly barging into his private space.
“Let me guess. I fucked Judith?”
“No.” Connie looked perplexed. “Why? Did you fuck Judith?”
Clive slumped over, defeated. He shook his head. This is going to be a long day.
CHAPTER 28
K evin sat in darkness at the edge of his bed. Biting his nails, he stared at the cell phone resting dormant atop his computer desk, only inches away—the physical form of his torment. The phone was evil, a mechanical menace taunting him with silence. Yet he was a slave to its commands. All he could do was sit by it and wait.
He knew the call would come. Every other week for the last eight weeks, it had come at the same time on the same day: Thursday, 4:05 p.m. Each time, it came with new instructions, new condescension, and new threat.
Kevin faced it with anger. How did he get my number? Who the hell is he? How does he know so much about me? Does he get some kind of sick enjoyment out of torturing me? Why can’t he just leave me alone?
One by one, the unanswered questions plodded through his mind, filling the void between each breath and the next phone call. In truth, Kevin didn’t want his questions answered. As stressful as not knowing was, as unpleasant as being forced to relinquish control over his fate to a stranger was, even the status quo was better than the alternatives he could envision. But what he wanted was irrelevant. He had to know. He had to know what his tormentor planned to do with the damning information he’d somehow gathered. He had to know who’d been watching.
The phone rang, and every nerve in Kevin’s body stood alert like an army barrack at 0600. He jumped to his feet, startled so intimately that his heart jumped with him. With the phone set to both ring and vibrate, the desk under it shook as though a small earthquake struck. It rattled the wood along with Kevin’s mind.
To quiet it and himself, he lunged for the phone. “Hello?”
“Kevin!” a voice said in a musing tone. It was the same poorly disguised voice Kevin had expected. Its dreadful accent sounded as though an American male were trying to speak like Crocodile Dundee but ended up sounding like some sick offspring of Russell Crowe and Liza Minnelli. The accent would undoubtedly regress as the conversation continued, changing from the mildly silly to the completely idiotic. Still, Kevin found no humor in it. And if the voice belonged to someone known to him, Kevin couldn’t recognize its owner.
“Sorry I missed you last time.”
“You fucking bastard,” Kevin said. “Do you know how cold it was that day? I waited for you almost two hours!”
“Actually, you waited just over forty minutes, but who’s counting? Admittedly, though, you looked pretty cold, mate,” the stranger said.
“You were there?” Kevin’s words fumed with quiet rage as they hissed from his lips. “You were watching me?”
“I’m always watching you, my dear boy.”
“So why—” Kevin huffed, cutting himself off. His temper flared, his mindset venturing toward the wildly hostile. Yet he didn’t want his caller to better his hand. He didn’t want him to know how easily Kevin was shaken by the calls. He didn’t want evil to know that it was in control. He took a deep breath to slow his mind and heart.
“I brought you what you wanted. If that isn’t what you want anymore, tell me what you do want so that we can end this crap.”
“Meet me at Providence Place on Saturday at two o’clock. It should be warm enough for you there. Sit somewhere in the food court and wait for me.”
“Why? So I can drive out there and twiddle my thumbs for a few hours, waiting for your cowardly ass to show? No. I won’t do it.”
“You’ll do it, and you’ll like it. I don’t think I need to remind you about that terrible secret of yours that you’re so desperate to keep. I’m more than willing to let it stay undisclosed as long as I get what I want.”
“How do I know you’re not a cop? How do I know you won’t give it to the police even if you’re not a cop? How do I know you won’t use it to further blackmail me? What other possible reasons are there for you wanting it?”
“I’m no cop, and if you bring it to me, you’ll never, ever, hear from me or the police again. Consider it a bizarre fetish of mine. Besides, the way I see it, you have no choice. It’s a small price to pay for your heinous crime, isn’t it? It’s not like I don’t already know where you hid it, anyway.”
“Then if you want it so bad, why don’t you get it yourself?”
“And subject myself to arrest as an accessory after the fact? I think not. Plus, this way is much more fun.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? You shouldn’t be so quick to name call. Here’s one back at you, murderer.”
Kevin sagged into his mattress. He tried his best to dismiss the insult, but it crept under his skin and made him hollow. He was beaten, ashamed. The guilt had worn him down to an empty shell, hollowed out by fear and remorse. “I didn’t mean to…” he started to say, but the words became too painful to voice.
“I know, Kevin. I know,” his tormentor said softly. “What’s done is done. Now, we must live with the con-sequences. How you live with it is up to you so long as I see you on Saturday. Should I expect you?”
Composing himself, Kevin decided to force an ending to the conversation. “How do I know you’ll be there this time?” With the question came defiance and a resurgence of hostility. “I’m getting sick of your fucking games, sending me around the region like I’m on some long-distance scavenger hunt.”