MANIAC - LOVE DERANGED

by Violet Shaw

  Valerie tried to look at him as indifferently as possible and tried to suppress the uneasiness that the stranger’s words had evoked. She didn’t want him to see her reaction.

  So, Jason was apparently a lousy rat.

  Somehow, deep in her heart, she had already suspected as much and consequently had held back, not allowing herself to fall for him up ‘til now. She had always harbored the possibility that he would disappear after the first time they had sex.

  On the other hand, Valerie pondered, what business of hers was the tattle-tale gossip of others. She always came to her own conclusions, irrespective of others’ opinions. In the final analysis, there was so much jealousy and resentment. And to this day, during the several months that she had known Jason, he had always behaved in an exemplary fashion toward her.

  “OK, thanks for the info!” Valerie said emphatically, and distanced herself with her voice.

  She wanted to get rid of the good-looking stranger as quickly as possible; she had no use for any more gossip and senseless information!

  The stranger looked at her with a resigned expression and said the following significant words: “You’re welcome, but take care. You should really watch out for yourself!”

  Just then, Jason reappeared; he had been nearby, watching Valerie and her conversation with the stranger like a hawk.

  Did Jason know who the stranger was, and did he remember him and his putative misdeed?

  But Jason stood before her with an impenetrably casual facial expression, then leaned in and kissed her on the lips.

  The two glanced at one another quite coolly, and didn’t change expression. It seemed quite serious between them. Then he disappeared again into the darkness of the club.

  Valerie turned to have a short conversation with her girlfriend Chloé and her new acquaintance, the good-looking stranger from Munich:

  “Listen, Valerie, please take care of yourself. Your guy is apparently pretty crass!” Chloé proffered without being asked, voicing a warning.

  Again, strange unsolicited information about him. Slowly, Valerie began to get angry about the constant deluge of disclosures about her oh-so-terrible friend. Where was all this going? Did these people want to ruin

  everything for her? And had she made such a stupid, naïve impression on those who knew her that they felt they had to warn her repeatedly? After all, she wasn’t Bambi!

  Valerie looked around the club. Ah, there was Jason, right at the next table.

  He had positioned himself to keep her in his line of vision, and had been watching her the entire time.

  Although more than one person had warned her about him this evening, she couldn’t dismiss the attraction that she had begun to feel for him.

  Her head said “no!!!”, but her body positively screamed “yes!!!”, so she felt compelled to make the next move.

  She went to his table and he was waiting for her like a bird of prey for its quarry.

  At that moment, as she stood before him, he reached for her neck and tried to kiss her on the lips.

  At the first try, she was able to avoid him by sharply pulling her head back and averting his thrust. But Jason didn’t give up. He repeated his gesture, this time reaching for her head aggressively and with even greater assurance. Her inner resistance melted away. They kissed. Finally, again. It felt good. Passionate. Fiery.

  It wasn’t at all boring.

  Jason was the embodiment of the investment banker prototype. He had managed to rise rapidly in the world of M&A within the last few years. In order to prevail in investment banking and particularly in the realm of mergers and acquisitions, one had to be ambitious, narcissistic, without scruples, and an absolute egomaniac.

  The character traits of a good, a top-notch, banker were the will to succeed, and above all, an unbridled readiness to raise the stakes on behalf of the bank. At the same time, one had to appear to be hard as nails and cold as ice, arrogant and unapproachable, on the outside.

  In the final analysis, the banker plays roulette not only with the financial market, but also privately, since the border between the two becomes more and more blurry with time.

  Many psychopaths can be found among investment bankers, particularly among the most successful who, because of their callousness, and the fact that they are not emotionally bound to anyone, are best able to take on the challenges and therefore are the best at their job.

  Inside the banks, it’s not just about the money and the bonuses. Individual competition is an essential driving force that challenges the bankers. It revolves around the daily measure of muscle and might. Each banker wants to win on a daily basis and climb the professional ladder internally. Constant comparison with the greater and lesser achievers is a relentless factor.

  Investment banking is far more than a normal, full-time job because it means constant readiness for action and to a great extent, the sacrifice of a private life.

  Besides, the job is like a drug on which dependence develops. Over the course of time, everything else becomes secondary to the banking drug: family, friends, and social relationships in general.

  The limits of morality become more and more vague, and finally disappear entirely:

  “First we gorge ourselves, then the morality!” A nice proverb, comparatively speaking . . . one for pre-school, not for the I-banker prototypes. Because there are no morals here – whether before or after.

  Only the money is of prime importance; the constant running after the money and the feeling, despite the panting after it, that one doesn’t have enough of it:

  “Ten million and then we can live well, Valerie!” That was Jason’s claim, primarily addressed to himself.

  It was an infinitely vicious circle, a witches’ wheel – and in the long run, no one could win, much less find happiness. In the end, everyone was always against everyone. Finally, all investment bankers are slaves in the middle of a great Ferriswheel, for the higher one rides, the less one wants to give up the view at the top and descend, no matter how much strength and effort it costs to remain at the top of the Ferriswheel.

  Besides that, many were also sex-addicts. Sex was the perfect stress-reliever. Banking and banging was the newest and most beloved combination.

  Those who were in a serious relationship or who were married had, for the most part, a girlfriend, second wife, mistress, or similar arrangement. And that didn’t mean that they would stay away from the brothels, either.

  By their mid-forties, it was over, since each year a new crop of recruits came to the bank. They were ready to work, to work hard, and cost less in salaries and bonuses. By the mid-forties, one had to have made it.

  After a few years and upon reaching the top of the career ladder, the banker feels superior to God and other people because he is, among other things, more egoistic and less scrupulous, which he must be to achieve success in his job. He’s playing an entirely different game.

  And actually one has to come from the bottom to have the will to persevere. Most people stemming from privileged, moneyed backgrounds didn’t have the inclination to be exploited and maltreated by the bank until such time as they themselves reached the higher steps of the career ladder, when they could exploit others.

  Jason, however, who had not had a happy childhood, who hadn’t had a family in which the parents’ love for a child was a matter of course and unquestioned, now as an adult still sought the missing recognition in his job as compensation for his childhood.

  He chose the greatest challenge for himself in that he picked one the hardest job of all: investment banking, and the highest gradient therein, the M & A realm, because only the strong survive. It was by no means childs’ play.

  For five long years, Jason worked in London and New York, learning the business from the ground up and was regularly exploited in that he worked until 1:00 a.m. almost every night, and also on the weekends, until he almost lost consciousness.

  Following that, to make a long story short, he transferred to Frankfurt, but there
too he normally worked over 100 hours per week according to rule.

  Despite all of the assaults on his strength and the sacrifices that he made, the early years proved to be worth it. Now he found himself on the higher rungs of his career ladder; that is, now he could exploit others and therefore was also rewarded with higher pay.

  Jason continued to climb the ladder higher and higher, and his salary climbed steadily, too. He had become one of the “money makers.” At the same time, his rise professionally was matched proportionally by his rising self-confidence.

  With time one became insensitive and without scruples, emotional and amoral. This was the only way one could withstand the system and be successful.

  To ease up a bit, he transferred to Zurich. Yet, his work-day schedule was not all that different.

  As it was, he spent most of the year traveling in the interest of his business. Actually, he was married to the bank. The Blackberry was always on the table; there was no breakfast or dinner without the Blackberry.

  This made Valerie furious, this constant accessibility and availability to spring to action – all on behalf of the bank. His motto was: “I text, therefore I am!”

  Almost everything was sent in abbreviated form and in English. The shorter the sentence, the better to communicate how important and totally “busy” one was: “I am important! I am an Investment Banker!”

  At the same time, the job also caused the banishing of social niceties, of adeptness in social interactions.

  And one was also not intellectual -- of course not; one was smart or gave the impression of being very smart.

  “I-Bankers” were like little tricksters, and every time when they could trick or deceive someone, they were pleased like little imps, like little kids, that the “prank” had worked. And each time they tried to raise the stakes.

  In time, they were all dependents, not only on drugs, alcohol, sex and similar habits, but also on the bank. They couldn’t live with her or without her. An unhealthy constellation.

  The best time of the year was without doubt February; all the bankers feverishly looked forward to the month of “The Bonuses!!!”

  That year Jason wanted to spend his bonus on a white Porsche 911 with red leather seats and black-glazed windows – and to do that as a banker in Switzerland: Miami-Style in the Alps! He really didn’t have the necessary intuitive sense to carry it off – he was a proletarian in a Gucci suit! A proletarian at the bank. That was the new, successful type of investment banker: devoid of scruples, quick, flexible and superficial – and those qualities coupled with staying power and a desire to win.

  The pressure to succeed was as great as in a high-performance sport: “All or Nothing!” That was one of Jason’s favorite maxims. One had to expect almost every day that one might be fired, regardless how long one had been working for the bank, since the system owed one nothing.

  After a period of time, most of them were so done in that at lunchtime they went to see their orthopedist, their psychologist, or dealer. In the worst cases, they went to see all three of them.

  If one had closed a mega-deal, then a liquid lunch was in order. That meant that one drank oneself under the table twice over during the lunch hour.

  Valerie had been warned about him by several people by now. The warnings of others, however, fed the flames of her fiery feelings for him even more.

  He was perverse and also peculiar, but her own interest in his person first developed because of the warnings of those who were on the sidelines. It made him interesting to her.

  “Oh, yes, I just ran into Jason at the airport in Zurich. That is not a man for you!” was a comment delivered emphatically by one of her acquaintances. The question that she always posed was: Is he really so crass? And what actually was he hiding behind his façade?

  And, of course, her urge to conquer came seriously into play since she wanted to be the winner, the radiant conqueror, who succeeded in taming the monster, in rehabilitating and re-socializing him, so that he could finally say: “I love only Valerie.” With that, she would be the winner and the goddess at the same time. That’s how sick she was herself. It was impossible. An infinite vicious circle.

  And at the same time, it was illusory and naïve. It was already predestined that she couldn’t win this game herself. He was not to be conquered.

  Valerie saw herself as a woman with many possibilities, who dreamed of absolute passion and great freedom at the same time. Besides, she loved to take risks to experience the accompanying thrill. But she was also aware of the danger that the “thrill” could eventually do her in.

  And Jason embodied this “thrill” for her, this ideal of passion and freedom: great freedom!!!

  An absolutely self-directed life that was not tied to any conditions.

  His was as free a life as a person could lead, far from social ties, far from unnecessary bourgeois responsibilities.

  Ready at any time to leave bothersome responsibilities behind.

  After she had known him a while, assessing it from the outside she found his life to be worth aspiring to; she wanted to participate in it. She wanted to win this free spirit for herself. And besides, he was so attractive and desirable, the most sexy man alive!

  “My goodness, Valerie,” her friend Chloé joked, “he isn’t Brad Pitt!” to which Valerie responded, “no, of course not, he’s much better!”

  “Oh, God, you’ve become a maniac!”

  And when he screwed her for the first time, she knew what life and freedom meant, she knew what floating on air meant. To feel sublime and free from everything.

  She never wanted to own him, to limit him in his sphere of action, his need for freedom. He was free and should remain that way with her.

  The feelings that she harbored for him were very ambivalent – a constant alternation of approach and avoidance. On one hand she loved him sincerely and without limits. On the other hand she feared him and mistrusted him – yes, even hated him from time to time.

  And yet, despite all of her fascination with his lifestyle, and against all of her own standards, she was also extremely jealous.

  It was almost like Sartre and Beauvoir.

  The passion between them was the measure of all things for her. For the first time and only through him, she felt as if she were really alive, taking part in life, including all the pain and humiliation.

  And he hovered over everything, able to be found in Miami and New York as well as in Moscow, Munich and St. Moritz -- a real cosmopolitan; yet never really tangible, never within reach. He just exhibited his irresistible sexy smile everywhere – like in a toothpaste ad.

  He was simply not to be caught. Eluding her again and again; subsequently more reachable and seemingly available, only to flee again.

  Curiously, and contradictory to the situation was that she loved and desired him on the basis of his great need to be free, his attitude regarding love without possessiveness. But she wasn’t good enough to communicate this to him.

  Quite the opposite, in fact; she feared restricting him. She believed that he felt constricted with her, that he sought flight before she could possess and restrain him. No chance. He was free as a bird.

  She would have wanted him to understand, to tell him, that he could go or come at any time, without having to be accountable. The same also applied to her. Love without conditions, at least in theory.

  They had played this game with one another often and were often also disrupted by it, since jealousy won every time. He was one of the few men of whom she was extremely jealous.

  She hated herself and felt shame equally because of this feeling. Jealousy was a lowly feeling in her eyes, actually a characteristic not worthy of her. She could nevertheless not protect herself from it, although she actually did want to be above such base feelings.

  And Jason had a not inconsiderable role in her feelings of jealousy. He wanted to make her properly jealous, flirted outrageously with other women in front of her to test Valerie and to finally bring he
r to the point of explosion. Each time Valerie was determined. Oh, again, his wretched game, she thought; today I won’t fall for it, and then frothed with rage within.

  Valerie’s friends found themselves in more or less similar situations. They too were victims of the drug that loving an investment banker could turn out to be.

  It was grotesque, but two of her friends were having an affair with the same investment banker at a large German bank at the same time.

  And they knew about one another, knew about their delicate triangular relationship, which actually turned out to be a quadrangular one, since Alex, the banker, had a serious girlfriend of many years whom he betrayed at regular intervals and according to the demands of Valerie’s friends.

  All in all, the protagonists, including Valerie, found themselves in a miserable vicious circle.

  The pivotal point of the prevailing relationships was built on a structure of supposed love, passion, sex, money, and power. It was a modern game played by adults, and each one wanted to win the contest for himself or herself.

  Her friends, Chloé and Severin, fought between themselves, using different methods to gain Alex’s love and favor. Each wanted to have him for herself.

  Chloé used her empathy and her sex appeal, since she considered herself to be a full-fledged goddess in bed.

  Severin brought her wit and extraordinary intellect to bear, characteristics which she felt exceeded those of Chloé.

  In their game to win Alex for themselves, they both seemed to ignore his serious girlfriend, since Chloé and also Severin -- and both agreed entirely on this point for a change – perceived her to be a little gray mouse who, however, had had a serious relationship with Alex for years, but whom he clearly didn’t love and who functioned, after nights consumed with work, as an escort for the weekend. They more or less dismissed the uninteresting lady-of-the-fitness-spa.