The Towers of Babylon

by Michelle Kaeser

  Her moans change tenor, dropping into lower registers, and Yannick hears his own moans and pants echoing hers, their sounds forming a pattern.

  “Unh.”

  “Huh.”

  “Unh.”

  “Huh.”

  Lou’s been doing this thing sometimes, when he hits her in just the right spot, as he’s doing now, when he can feel the tip of his dick up against a sort of spongy spot on the front wall of her pussy. The contact makes her moans flatten out—they come out in guttural bursts, from deep within her chest, or somewhere deeper still, pulled from the very centre of her body, and with her eyes half-closed, her head begins to rock ragged on top of her shoulders, like she’s lost control of the muscles in her neck. When they get to this stage, Yannick doesn’t dare adjust his positioning or his rhythm or say anything at all, fearful of disrupting her trance. He waits for her to get where she needs to get, and when she does, she rises up off his dick, just an inch or two off, her hands on his chest for support, and the moment she’s off him, a stream spills from her pussy, like his dick had been plugging up the massive reservoir of whatever combination of fluids makes up female ejaculate.

  He thought it was an urban legend, this kind of orgasm, until he saw it emanate from Lou, until he felt her fluid flow over his pelvis, all over his skin, drenching him and the sheets beneath him, and the mattress beneath the sheets. It’s new, this phenomenon—a development of the last half year. He’s afraid to ask if it only happens with him. Or if it happens with Elliott. With others. Are there others? He doesn’t know.

  She falls heavily onto his chest. With two fingers he massages her clit, coming at it from behind—strong pressure, then off, strong, then off—and each time he applies the pressure, her pussy contracts, bringing forth a fresh spurt of fluid. It’s like he’s conjuring the expulsions with his skilful manipulations and direction. He’s a conductor, making her blow with a wave of the baton. He’s a fucking maestro. No one else could make her come like this. Of course there aren’t others.

  One minute, two minutes pass while her intermittent contractions continue. When she’s finished, she slides back onto his dick, but now her pussy is twice as tight as it was a moment ago, and way wetter, sopping. It doesn’t take him much from here. A few in-and-outs and he’s ready. He pulls out just before he comes and rockets his load up onto her belly: a champion’s blast. What doesn’t get her arcs back down onto the towel beneath them. A trace catches his thigh.

  Afterward, he lies with his head on her chest and checks the clock. Nine minutes to go. Nine minutes in which to lie here with her fingers weaving through his hair. He likes these aftermath minutes as much as the sex itself, maybe more. He likes feeling her hands on his scalp. It’s a calming sensation; he doesn’t encounter many of those anymore. It’s good for him, salutary, necessary. Because he’s tired, he’s always so fucking tired, and a few minutes of uninterrupted rest, with her soft breath on his head and her fingers in his hair … well, it’s a temporary reset.

  Eight minutes.

  The breeze kicks up through the open French doors that lead to the terrace. Boscarino put them up in the top-floor suite today. He always gives them the best available room, the top-floor rooms, which Yannick appreciates in theory, but hates in practice, because he hates heights. They make him want to jump. He knows it’s not uncommon, this urge, he’s looked into it, but it worries him nonetheless, because the urge comes on so strong sometimes he’s not sure he’ll be able to override it. Just last weekend, he was walking across the Bloor Viaduct with Yvie, who insisted on stopping every few metres to peer down at the Don Valley more than a hundred feet below. As he stood there looking down, even with the kid’s hand in his, he felt the height trigger something in his cells, some biological response that seeks self-destruction. It’s psychotic, this death wish. But there it is. And if it weren’t for the suicide barrier along the bridge, a series of rods about 5m high, which make it impossible, or at least very difficult, to jump, he’s not sure—not one hundred percent sure—he could’ve stopped himself. The city put up that barrier (the “Luminous Veil”) after the bridge became a magnet for suicides, averaging one every twenty-odd days. All those plummeting bodies caused traffic problems on the highway below. Something had to be done. But Yannick wonders just how many of those hundreds of suicides were genuine, planned-in-advance efforts to die, and how many were the result of some poor sucker simply overtaken by the urge to jump.

  With four minutes left before his alarm sounds, Lou pushes his head off her chest and says, “Hey, up. I have to go.”

  “What? Where?” Where could she possibly have to go? She’s unemployed now.

  “I’ve got a thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “Just this thing.”

  He’s been worried about her employment status for weeks. If she wanted to quit her job, fine, but she should’ve had sense enough to line up something else first. She’s usually sensible. He hopes to god she’s not just sitting around smoking pot all day. They both did a lot of that in high school. How many times did they drive down to the park, smoke up against the hood of the car, have sex in the back seat, then just hang out, waiting to sober up enough to drive home? But she always liked smoking more than he did. Still does. She likes it after dinner, likes it at the baseball games, likes it before big social functions (she was baked and then some at his wedding), which is all fine. As long as she’s not spiralling.

  “You get a new job or something?” he asks.

  “Well yes, actually.”

  “What? What job?”

  “Managing the batting cages. At Bond Park. Evenings and weekends.”

  “How’d you get that?”

  “Guy I used to know from baseball. He runs the cages. He likes me. I asked him for a favour.”

  His shoulders stiffen. She always seems to know some guy willing to do her a favour, and it always tweaks his jealousy. “That can’t pay a lot.”

  “Pays almost nothing.”

  Maybe her father will help her out with the finances. Or maybe Elliott’s doing well enough with the photography now to support them both. He charges enough, that’s for damn sure. Thousands for Yvie’s baptism! It’s costing them fucking thousands. For pictures of a baptism. Outrageous! Straight out indefensible. But in this case, this one particular situation, he doesn’t mind forking over the money. It was actually he who suggested to Karen they use Elliott for the baptism. He likes to throw work Elliott’s way. Because he wants Lou to be all right. If she hits some rough waters, he’s not just going to let her flounder.

  “You said evenings and weekends?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “So why do you have to go now?”

  “Oh. I’ve just got a thing. A different thing.”

  “Why are you being cagey about it?”

  She’s already stepping into her lacy pink panties. “I’m helping Ben, all right? With this community dinner that he organizes.”

  “Ben?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Babylon Ben?” The last time he saw Ben he was perched in the pulpit, preaching the doom of civilization like a deranged cult leader.

  “Stop calling him that.”

  “You didn’t hear that sermon, Lou. The shit this guy was rattling off.” That sermon. Whoa now … that was something. Pure scattershot insanity. Yannick came home from that church ready to rip into Joly: one, for standing him up (there he was, trying to be a good fucking brother, trying to be supportive, and she doesn’t even show?) and two, for dating this unhinged loser in the first place (this maniac raving about the “corporate machine” and the end of civilization?), but instead, when she finally turned up, having spent the distraught post-breakup day at Lou’s, she announced the split and looked so fucking crushed about it that Yannick just let the whole sermon thing go. Besides, the breakup, truly, is a holy fucking miracle. “I’m telling you, Lou, that guy is right out of his fucking mind.”

  “Well whatever. He organizes th
is community dinner. And I’m helping him with the shopping and the prep. So I have to go.”

  She slips on her blouse. He waits for her to further explain this sudden interest in charity work, but she just pulls her jeans up over her strong thighs.

  “Is this a religious thing?” he asks.

  “What? No.”

  This lurking religious presence, it’s everywhere. Haven’t they all moved beyond this yet? Into a culture motivated by just a little more reason and rationality? Or is the whole society in regress?

  “It’s a church program, though, right? Ben runs it out of his church?”

  “Yeah. But it’s not a religious thing. It’s just … I don’t know … It’s just a virtuous thing.” She stops dressing herself and turns to him with her jeans still unbuttoned. A pink triangle of underwear shows itself. “One of these days, Yannick, we’re gonna have to stop doing this.”

  “I know.”

  “I feel like shit.”

  “I know.”

  She’s been ringing this note more and more lately. But she never stops coming out to meet him. He grabs the waist of her jeans and pulls her toward him. He brushes his lips to her stomach. He wants to fuck again—even though he’s supposed to be in the shower in exactly one minute. When she talks about ending it, he gets nervous. Any day, any fuck could be their last. He kisses her stomach again; he slips his tongue into her belly button. She tugs at his earlobes.

  “I don’t have time,” she says.

  “When do you have to be there?”

  “One-thirty.”

  “Where are you meeting him?” He sheds her blouse. His cock is already hard again. Christ, she makes it move.

  “At the church. On the campus.”

  “That’s not far.” His hands are over her bra, then inside it.

  “No no. You have to go to work.”

  “It’s fine.” His mouth on hers. “We got time.”

  Her body yields against his hands. He grips her. He fucks her. “Mmm,” she says. Two notes: high-low.

  3

  THE STEINGRUBER VINEGAR deal is one giant fucking headache. Goldstone bought the vinegar company a few years ago, when it was a mismanaged mess. They restructured it, laid off a bunch of redundant workers, made it a whole lot more efficient, consolidated it with another of their holdings, all of which substantially boosted its value. Now they’re ready to sell. It should be a windfall.

  But negotiations with this current buyer are a maze of irritations. The buyer’s got some third-party guys who keep stalling, keep flagging things, keep calling back with the same idiotic questions.

  “Listen … no, listen … listen to me,” Yannick says into the phone, doing his best to keep his voice calibrated at something below a full-blown scream. “We’ve been over all of this already, John. I’ve explained it to you, haven’t I?”

  “You have. But we still have some questions about these growth projections.”

  “What questions? We’ve been over all of your questions.”

  “You guys are just too high on these projections, Yannick.”

  “We’ve been over the projections. More than once. We did a point by point breakdown. Did we or did we not do that last time we met?”

  “We did, but—”

  “You’ve looked at the financials, right?”

  “I have. But we still don’t understand how you get to these—”

  “You’ve looked at the data?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I don’t understand how you don’t understand.”

  “Just walk me through this again. Let me see how you’re getting to these numbers.”

  At first Yannick thought these guys were just trying to flex some muscle. Third-party guys always hope to find a minor problem or two, something small enough to keep the deal on track, but large enough to justify their jobs. Over the last couple of weeks, though, Yannick has readjusted his opinion. These guys are plain old-fashioned morons. They don’t know what they’re doing.

  “All right, John. Let’s walk you through it again. If that’s what you need.”

  The vinegar deal matters. In a big way. Yannick’s economics on this deal are looking good. He’s got phantom stock in Steingruber Vinegar—that’s cash, a bunch of it, that’ll be paid out to him when they sell. It’s part of his new bonus structure. He used to get a straight cash bonus at the end of the year, but the size of that bonus came entirely at the discretion of Adam, the team boss. At year’s end Adam would go into a room with the top brass and pound on the table to see what he could shake loose, and whatever number he came out with got divided among the team. So Yannick never knew what he was going to get. It was always a lot, of course, at least equal to his base pay. But a 300k yearly bonus is an embarrassingly small slice of the pie when he’s helping to engineer profits in the hundreds of millions. He got tired of seeing the top guys pocketing a fortune each year while he lingered in six-figure territory. So he complained, he and Anosh both. And things adjusted. Now they’re in on the backend of every deal.

  There’s some risk to this setup. In an underperforming year, Yannick could wind up with almost nothing. But in a good year, he’ll be making a whole different kind of money. Real money. He’s looking at about half a million when the vinegar deal closes. Just on this one deal.

  Half a million (a quarter after taxes, but still) will mark out growth in the pile. A big step toward that five million dollar exit marker. That’s the figure he and Karen agreed upon. A net worth of five million and he can pack it in. The plan has always been to retire early—Freedom Forty!—sell the house, and move out of the city, to a small cottage town, where they’ll live right on the lake, and he’ll spend his free time, his abundant free time, sitting on the deck, staring out at the water, or reading on a well-stuffed chair. He used to like reading. He used to read books, full books, novels, lots of them. Now? Last time he read a novel, it took him two months to get through it. By the time he got to the end, he’d forgotten the first half. No point even trying right now. He’ll read when he’s forty.

  He already knows the town he wants to move to: Bayfield, Ontario. Right on Lake Huron. He’s been out there a couple of times, knew some people with family property on the lake. The great lake. With its awesome quiet. That’s what he wants.

  He’ll open a little sandwich shop. That’s part of the retirement plan, too. Just a dive, with room for maybe ten or fifteen diners, a place he can hang out during the day, meet the locals in the winter and the cottagers in the summer, and keep a low, but steady, income flowing. When Yvie’s old enough, she can work the counter. She’ll learn practical skills, a good work ethic, and be spared the worst influences of affluent city life. He doesn’t want her around these predatory private school girls, who have sex and eating disorders and drug habits. He had lunch with an investment banker from New York the other day, this guy Jacob who told him that they’ve had to start stripping tablecloths from bat mitzvahs in the city. Why? Because the kids have been going under the tables. To do what? Drink? Snort drugs? If only. Instead these girls, these children, are crawling under the tables to give blowjobs. Blowjobs! Yannick almost choked on his burrata when he heard this story. Imagine. Twelve-year-old girls giving under-the-table blowjobs at religious functions. That’s affluent city life. Now Toronto isn’t quite New York, but it’s always trying to be, and Yannick doesn’t want Yvie chasing this stick. He wants the kid out of the city before she turns twelve.

  He and Karen discussed all this before they got married. The retirement, the sandwich shop, the house on Lake Huron. It was a plan. But now Karen brings home brochures of private high schools in the city, or she talks about building up her own real estate firm—a years-long project, maybe a lifetime project—and it’s like she’s forgotten all about Bayfield, Ontario. But Yannick hasn’t.

  Five million. Not an extravagant amount, but enough. Or it seemed like enough when he and Karen arrived at that figure years ago. But their expenses have become greater than he
could have dreamed. The mortgage, the renovations, the property taxes, the bills, Yvie’s Montessori daycare. Joly. Who else is going to make sure his sister doesn’t starve and die in destitution? Contingencies, emergencies, surprises. It adds up.

  But still, five million—how could five not be enough? Most of the world never gets close to five. He’ll quit at five. When he’s forty. If he keeps his head down for the next few years, he can make it. He just needs to work harder.

  “We all sorted out now?” Yannick barks into the phone.

  “I think so,” says John. “Yeah.”

  “Good. Fine.”

  “So I’ll call you if I have any other questions.”

  “No no, what? If you have any other questions, John, ask them right now. I’m here and ready to answer.”

  “Well. Uh. No. I think that’s all for now.”

  “You sure? You better be sure.”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  It takes a few more back-and-forths before Yannick is able to extract definite assurances. As soon as he hangs up, he rushes to join a meeting he’s already late for, with a pair of entrepreneurs looking for investors. When that wraps up, he’s still got some research to do on Corey Jayne Living, a lifestyle company Adam’s thinking about acquiring. He’ll be home late again tonight, he’ll miss dinner.

  Yannick and Anosh have been splitting research duty, but neither of them should be doing it. It’s grunt work. They need an associate to do this shit. And they’ve been looking for one. They did a first round of interviews last week and have another round scheduled for tomorrow. But last week’s crop of candidates was underwhelming, and Yannick, having looked over the resumes himself, isn’t confident that this week’s candidates will prove any better. He doesn’t understand what has happened to people. It’s like the whole world has turned stupid.

  4