Shades Of Obsession
Page 5
Jerry was part of an image consulting division, his specialty being public perception and damage control assignments. I’d caught a bad rap over the years because I barely tried to become emotionally close to women, so he was here to fix yet another thing in my life.
“Gee, thanks,” I finally answered. “The latter is one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.” My smile was mucilaginous as I stared into eyes that were scanning me from head to toe.
“How goes things at work? How much longer before they make you an executive? Ballpark estimation?” He was totally inscrutable, no emotion played on his face.
“Fucked if I know. I’m getting tired of running up and down the stairwell between 59 and 60, but now that daddy gave me my trust fund back, I have enough resources to match my discriminating tastes. I no longer give a rat’s ass.”
“I’ve heard that running laps on them makes for a good exercise. Have you tried that yet?”
I tried to keep the irritation and anxiety out of my voice. “Are you telling me that you tried and failed as a stand-up comedian or that I’m fat?”
“To build your image, we need strategic points of impact. Media channels influence people; they stir great emotion within those without a substantial husk. For the right price, I can make the public think a sinner is a saint, or vice versa, depending on what I’m paid for. Since your father proffered me a virtual blank check, I’ll play the little bitch and go all the way with you.”
“Look at that, my very own Svengali who just happens to be the best spin doctor in the country.”
He flushed, cracked a smile. “You flatter me good, my master. Let’s get down to it: image. No one really cares about your physical appearance, what they care about is the unwonted story behind it; how you reached obesity or how you got fit. It’s black or white. My job is to tell them the best story to achieve my goal, and when emotions start stirring, bam.”
I got hit by a bus? “Bam? What the fuck does that mean?”
He took a sip of his whiskey and wiped his lips daintily with a napkin before he continued. “Then we go big and hit them with plucky achievements, philanthropic aspirations, meritorious ways, love for animals and saving babies and human rights and all that crap. With the paucity of decent journalism, sky’s-the-limit.”
“In essence, what you’re saying is that any negative could be turned into a cutthroat positive, as long as I provide millions?”
He raised his chin at me. “Eureka. Bingo. The point is, I’ve built and destroyed countless political careers depending on who paid top dollar. Till this day, it still amazes me to see what people believe as truth, regardless of its authenticity.”
“Mama didn’t raise no fool, Jerry. See, politicians are merely pieces on a board. They keep changing and fall off the map when they have outlived their purpose. Only the general public is what remains constant, and keep in mind that perception and opinion today works the same way it has since centuries. Jerry, hon, I understand that public perception is instrumental, and just like clay, it needs to be shaped and molded and adapted to an appropriate time and place. I understand I’m the ultimate candidate. This just in, I don’t want to be known, or even worse, be a household name and start a political career. You schlepped to France for nothing, go swan around in Illinois where there are bigger fish to fry instead of putting a crimp in my lifestyle.”
“Enough posturing, I know you’re not easily deterred.” His left hand fumbled inside his jacket. “Here, your father opened my eyes vis-à-vis your cherished possessions.” There was a tinge of belligerence in his eyes when he gave me a manila envelope. “Hot off the press.”
Opening it, I let out a litany of curses under my breath. The girl who caused my dick to stand at attention every time I saw her, even if it were on footage, stared back at me. The lack of forethought on my behalf was aggravating the situation. Not that I’d lose my temper all-out, or would have to be held back if we came to blows. I’d never say or do something I shouldn’t, my body was controlled when I chose it to be.
Yet, the unease wasn’t ebbing away. I had to give the devil his due. I fought to overlay it with a casual tone. “Color me impressed, Jerry.”
“Damn right, as you should. I don’t go off half-cocked. Elena Anderson. I’ve read and researched her. Meaning you pretty much can’t do shit with her, right? After what she’s been through, if I tell her the truth, she’ll strangle herself with her own silk and lace panties—out of shame. Pretty girl like her? I’m thinking she wears La Perla.”
I decided to act as if he had me on the ropes. “Cut-and-dried, huh,” I said with a whateverthefuck smile. My knuckles white with tension, I tried to soften my voice, but it came out as a threatening rasp. “Stay away from her, you hear me? I’ve no vestige of sympathy for people who come between us. She’s mine.”
“She’s yours as long as you comply. Don’t bite my head off. Daddy insisted on the rules.”
In my mind, amid the thoughts and insults jelling, I flipped him the bird.
“Keep in mind that life seldom adjudicates on fairness. Well then, it’s settled. Until I break it off, we’re in business. We’ll start with a segment on CNN, well-heeled folks will jump in once they see dollar signs,” he went on cheerfully. “Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will want to satirize the Turner comeback, I’ll make sure they play hard ball, that’s the way to go. No more call girls, you’re going to date socialites. The city is rife with theories as to why you’re still single, so let’s feed table scraps to The Boston Globe and Herald, The Times, The Post, Forbes, The Ledger, and Le Figaro—simple titillations.”
Bridling another urge to flip him the bird, “Excellent, consigliere,” I said, clapping my hands.
“In the meantime, I’ll put the word out to my team to contact shitty pet bloggers. Since they have no life, they’ll set the social media on fire with this, and I’ll also get some prominent networkers and dipshit celebrity gossip websites to get our ball rolling. It’s all about sensational gossip and which media outlet prints the unverified facts of the trending matter first to feed mindless souls with tasteless punch.”
Based on the report in front of me, a layman could conclude he was the priciest gem, but I knew all too well that was only half the story. A man like him had an agenda. I pried further in controlled voice; I was anything but in control. “Why are you hell-bent on sandbagging me? What’s in it for you besides charging an arm and a leg to a Swiss account?”
“You’re kidding me right? What happened to your father—the story of the century? It’s the foulest travesty of the written word. Imagine the blitzkrieg, the panic among defense contractors. He’s not a fading politician, he’s a legend in this town.”
“Aw, one man gathers what another man spills. Welcome to the big leagues.”
“Took you long enough, lagger. Wait, are you high? Are you using?”
“I’m not.” I could almost see a tabloid hack’s eyes widen and mouth water at the prospect of writing that story. The Clark Kent type of reporter, horn-rimmed glasses and all that teenage bullshit.
“Just like you, I’m a gambling man. Beneath all that dross, there’s something, I want to find out what it is. I think you’re marketable. My people want their own candidate in the near future.”
I grinned, in spite of myself. “Candidate for what? Cocksucker of the century? Pass. Do you know why I don’t drink milk, Jerry?”
“Give it to me.”
“Milk is a bodily fluid. Just like my mother, I don’t fancy drinking lactated liquids—or just about any bodily fluid—produced by a mammal. For sucking dick, swallowing is imperative.”
Jerry didn’t rile easily. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” A slow smile crept over his face. “You’re singular, not just some arrant tool. I like you, Alexander.”
Any man with a skyrocketing career reflects on what he’d do if he were president. Perhaps women did it too, I couldn’t speak for them. Only, this was a job I would never, ever want beca
use of my strict privacy requirements. “Yeah well, you shouldn’t. Don’t get your lacy panties in a bunch, Jerry. I’m as bad and vain as they come.”
“No man in history who was worth a great deal was good and perfect. According to society’s standards, we like men with ham-handed sophistry, and we love flawed ones. The deeper, the better, so we can fix them.”
“The deeper, the better,” I repeated slowly, stroking an imaginary beard. “Sounds like a good in-flight skin flick. I’m all ears. And eyes.”
My crass behavior and profanity-spewing language hadn’t discouraged Jerry in the slightest. Manipulation 101: he was mirroring my movements because people like people who behave like themselves. He synchronized well, his movements subtle, his mimicking gestures well concealed.
The vintage sapphire-faced Patek Philippe adorning Jerry’s wrist told me he came from old money, it was at least thirty years old. Inherited money. Jewelry passed down from one generation to the other. Way older than my Baume & Mercier wristwatch. I had to respect that bit. The man deserved his own goddamn jet.
But, I was also obnoxious. Rub the confines of my mind the wrong way, and I became a pitiless, coldhearted bastard. So I decided to play a little before sending him off to the little boys’ room.
Folding my legs was my way of getting down to business. “Jig’s up, Jerry. I wasn’t born yesterday so don’t expect me to take this lying down. There’s only one way you’re going to work for me.”
“Have I not—,”
“Talk to Elena and you’re a dead man. As for dad, he can take back his money and stick it you know where. Newsflash, I don’t care about it all that much.”
“You’ll scrape together new moolah? Old money is supposedly better.”
“When you have no money, it doesn’t matter that much at all.”
“I’m listening.”
“Elena.”
“Jesus, I’m here to make you a public figure, you numbnut.”
“Then you can work for me as long as you promise to represent Elena as well.”
Like a PEZ dispenser, he snapped his head back. “No fucking way! The little girl and the sugar daddy? Ah, hell no.”
“When she’s old enough, I’ll make her mine.”
“No shit. Even at twenty-one-years-old, I wouldn’t represent her. Too much backlash, star-crossing, you’ll lose all credibility.”
“I’m only twelve years her senior, not twenty. Give me the appropriate age, and it better not be twenty-five. Think. Please, think long and fucking carefully before you join the naysay brigade. I like you, Jerry, and when I want someone or something, I always end up getting my way.”
“Twenty-three. And you don’t interfere when she dates boys her age.”
“2011.” I grinned like a fool. “We have the deal, then. Welcome aboard.”
“You had better go the distance.” He gave me a death glare. “Has anyone told you yet that you’re obsessed with that girl? Cocksman of great renown like yourself should ball age-appropriate chicks. UNHEALTHY. Sounds right up your alley. There’s no way in hell it’ll work between you two.”
Great. This old chestnut. Cry me a fucking river. Doing anything to own Elena was more a sadistic strength of will thing, so of course it frightened the fuck out of tame adults. “It’s like this. What separates the world into two distinct groups are people who strive for the best, and people who are willing to settle for less.”
“You know, if I refuse, you’ll live in poverty the rest of your life. Blacklisted if you go against his wishes. Forget making your own money.”
Cheerfully, I plowed on. “I can subsist on public assistance.”
“Foppish peeps don’t qualify.”
“While we’re on the subject, if jihadi terrorists can live in my country on public dole, gaily planning bombings, I demand the same right. I also demand we nuke terrorists.”
“Poverty and ruin it is, then. Shakespeare much?”
“Want me to put it in American?”
“If you will. Pop and lock it.”
“It’s better to prevent disaster than to fix it. That girl deserves to be skinned alive. She had the effrontery to not only ruin the Turner family, but also make us pariahs in the nation’s eyes—forever. But that girl, see, she also saved me from myself. She’s mine, and though she must and will suffer the consequences of her actions, she must also live for me. I can hardly breathe without her, Jerry. I want her to belong to me, sooner rather than later.”
He nodded at me, but it was clear he wasn’t agreeing with me. Kind of like how I smiled when I was pissed off. “May the good Lord be with her.”
I held all the cards, so time to kick it six yards high. Seven maybe.
I nodded over at the approaching flight attendant who carried a silver tray. “Hummingbird tongue with organic blackcurrant honey, Jerry?” I antagonized innocently, or what I thought was innocently, anyway.
Chill, it wasn’t the actual delicacy, but my powerhouse publicist wouldn’t know the difference.
He muttered, “I-I need to take a leak.”
I unstrapped myself and walked around, unfastening the collar of my oxford button-down. The brightly lit interior of the jet cabin smelled of lavender and freshly baked bread.
The sexy flight attendant brought the rest of the appetizer, extending her arm like one of the prize girls on The Price Is Right. “Seared foie gras and crispy tuiles.”
I copped an eyeful of her well-endowed cleavage; it was the kind you could engage in conversation. She, who was Playboy bunny, did a charming bit in murmurs while I wondered if—forgive me my pigginess—her privates were waxed bare or not: the trick was sprinkling fleur de sel onto the cranberry marmalade. The foie was flecked with little more than caramelized viscera reminiscent of offal, and the tuile shattered at the tap of a fork, inspiring me. I winded down and proceeded to savor the dish while Jerry was puking somewhere in the jet, so, all in all, well played, don’t you think? Cue the laugh track.
Alexander Turner
The Japan Anomaly
Six years later, 2010, not only was I a household name and stinking rich, but all negative rumors were scotched. I was also an executive. You haven’t missed much; I worked hard, fucked even harder, ate lots of good food and killed myself working off calories. In a sense, having an extreme workout was how I punished myself, aside the obvious, cutting skin—a practice I’d dispensed with, if you care to know.
An over-the-top burger had been named after me. No point in mentioning its hefty price tag, the components were enough to excuse it. It was Kobe-style beef from Japan, with a generous helping of buttery Lafitte foie gras and shaved black Périgord truffle, and a rich brown matsutake mushroom sauce on a sweet bun. First time I’d seen the dish, it looked rather devastatingly appealing, but more importantly, it wasn’t speared with a toothpick tipped with frilly plastic, you know, the type that obliterates classiness. Piled with huge slices of seared foie gras, plenty of shaved black truffles, and topped with a fried quail egg and Gruyère, it made arteries squawk in anticipation. As if all that foie and the white truffle butter on the bun weren’t enough to kill you, unsurprisingly, it came with a side order of skinny fries. I know, at least they weren’t fat fries. A red wine with a Pomerol appellation was paired with it, Château Pétrus or something like that. ‘Nuff said, it was balls to the wall, Escoffier would be proud.
I improved with age. Since I had a lot of money to burn, I donated heaps of it to whatever—hottest—cause charity organizations and politicians bitched about. For those out there who have never held a professional position: I didn’t send food-laden boats to far away continents, nowadays people like me were commonly referred to as private equity donors. For myself, I liked Honoré de Balzac’s bailleur de fonds designation, but chances are you have no idea what I’m talking about. Locally, I also provided food and shelter and medication for the less fortunate. I even wondered if I should adopt some exotic kid and show off. Probably that’s a bad idea, Jerry told me.
Let me confess, there was a time when I used to care about the future. I wanted to see humans exploring space. I wanted to see a human colony on Mars, and I wanted both Earth and Mars to be powered by clean energy. But none of things will ever come to pass in my lifetime, because humans are already underperforming. Remember Captain Future and the timeline for spaceships?
These days, my own country showed that human intelligence was on the decline. Uncle Sam had it all, public opinion on politics tergiversating all year long, scores of amorphous people, accommodating technology for the sake of accommodation, overpopulated prison cells—and let’s not forget the masses of solipsist criminals, the dumb reality shows, the vilest of foods, and the man-made and self-induced diseases. The list goes on, so let’s just say I’m happy I won’t be around to live through our demise.
By the way, have I told you the best part yet?
I smiled in front of the cameras, sometimes a little ham-handed, and every so often I shed the proverbial fake tear while addressing civil rights and racial discrimination dilemmas, decrying the negligence of human rights in certain parts of the world before I took my sadistic frustrations out on the prettiest girl in the room. My tastes were very singular, you’ll see. That’s how power and guilt worked, at least in the dark recesses of my mind.