by Daryl Banner
No, I opted for Hell.
That’s right; I actually chose to live in Elijah’s cramped, one-bedroom shoebox, which comes with an ugly orange-and-white cat named Salamander who hates me.
But I did it for a good reason. See, Elijah and I both happened to land the same opportunity of a lifetime: being interns for Gage Communications. The campus where I live—sorry, lived—is exactly an hour and nineteen minutes away, so the commute would have been hell for me. Apparently it’s no big deal for Elijah, as he’s been trekking from his place to the campus for years. He lives just two blocks from Gage Communications, so he offered me his “guest room” (i.e. spare storage room full of old, rusted computer parts and Star Wars memorabilia) and I quickly accepted.
“It’s gonna be so much fun,” Elijah had told me a week ago on the car ride to his place with my things in the trunk. I could hear everything rattling around back there, which worried me the whole way. I clenched up every time he ran over a pothole, and dear Elijah seemed to hit all of them. “You and I in the big city. Interning together. Kicking ass. Those other wannabe interns don’t stand a chance of impressing Mr. Gage like we will.”
I sure hope Elijah was right about that last part. I’m eager to prove myself to Benjamin Gage, whenever I finally get to meet him. First impressions are the most important thing. It can make or break an intern; that much I know. I have to impress him come next Monday. If I don’t, the summer and this opportunity will be a total waste. It’ll be back to the university—and back to my daily neck-tightening tedium, long classes, and tasty little helpings of disappointment in my morning cereal.
That can’t happen. No slacking off. No tardiness. No half-assing.
Another intern struts right past my table. I avert my eyes and staple the next packet with conviction, grinding my teeth.
And no distractions.
2
Benjamin has it all under control.
Well, isn’t this a shit storm.
“Mom, really, you’re overreacting,” calls out the half-naked girl from the bed. Her nightmare-black mane of hair dances down her shoulders as she searches the sheets for her top.
“You’re only sixteen!” cries her mother Melena, the woman in the silk robe at my side with a cigarette pinched between two long, pale fingers—who also happens to be my client.
The girl sighs demonstratively. “Yes, Mom. Everyone does it.”
“And you are not everyone, Angelina Marie! You live a life in the spotlight. You have to set an example for other girls your age, and I swear on my grandmother’s pearls, you will not be an embarrassment to this family like your father was!”
“Oh, so we can all suffer damaging our precious public image when it’s your divorce we’re talking about. Yet I’m not allowed to do something in the privacy of my own room …”
“It won’t be so ‘private’ when your boyfriend sells that video you just sent him to the highest bidder!”
After finally managing to put on a top—which does little to actually conceal anything at all—the petulant girl huffs and rolls her eyes, rises from the bed, then proceeds to brush past us on her way out of the room.
“Angelina Marie, you will not walk away while I’m—!”
“Screw you!” calls her daughter from halfway down the stairs.
Melena shakes her head, dismissing her daughter’s attitude with a careless wave of her hand. “Lord help me, I can see the headlines now. ‘Divorced Hollywood Actress Can’t Control Her Own Daughter Amidst Sex Tape Scandal With Horny Boyfriend.’ Hopefully it’s more artfully written than that, at the very least. Any press is good press, right?” she asks me flippantly, then proceeds to suck on her cigarette like she’s trying to draw blood from a stone.
This isn’t the worst case of rebellious-teenager-mess I’ve had to clean up by far, but it’s still a pain in my ass. “Thankfully it wasn’t an actual sex tape,” I point out. “It was just your daughter putting herself in a compromising state of undress … which she happened to proudly share with her boyfriend.”
“Teenagers,” moans Melena with a roll of her eyes, as if every teenager in the world suffers this exact same situation, like it’s some expected rite of passage.
My phone buzzes. I slip it from my pocket and squint down at the screen.
JAZZ
the friend may become a problem.
advise me.
I hide a pinch of annoyance from my eyes with a tightened smile. Always the damned boyfriends stirring shit up. I can’t show any concern on my face, not when Melena’s career could explode on account of her daughter’s boy-toy wanting to make a buck. Melena is counting on me and my team to handle this swiftly and cleanly, no matter how blasé she’s pretending to be about it all.
I may come off as cocky to some—maybe even arrogant—but if I don’t appear to my clients to have everything under control at all times, they start questioning whether I’m really worth the cash they’re putting down for my services. They’re quick to read even a flicker of doubt on my face as a sign that everything is going to hell. In this industry, I have a reputation to uphold, and if it takes exuding a constant air of confidence to reassure my clients, then I’ll wear that mask with pride, keep my chin up, and never falter.
Even if I’m shitting my pants right now.
I face Melena again. “It just happened this morning,” I remind her assuredly, “so we’re still ahead of the game. I have my team watching the network traffic on Angelina’s phone while blocking the outgoing data packets from her boyfriend’s to ensure the video—or videos—don’t go anywhere.”
Her eyes lock onto mine as I speak. The look in them is pretty unmistakable, and I’ve seen it a thousand times. Her hair, as dark and voluminous as her daughter’s, flows over one shoulder and leads the eye to the slit of her robe, which plunges far too deeply down her cleavage to be decent. Recently divorced, starved for affection, and filthy rich, this woman is clearly hungry for something more than just my help in cleaning up this situation.
“You think you can fix this?” She raises one of her pencil-thin eyebrows and crosses an arm over her stomach, which pushes up her breasts ever slightly. Her whole demeanor has changed, as if the outrage with her daughter was all an act and she was just waiting for us to be alone together. “You can make it better?”
“My team and I will handle everything,” I assure her again, my voice like steel. “None of this will get out.”
“You really … know what you’re doing.” She takes another long drag, lets it out languidly in a twirl of smoke. “You’re saying you have the whole situation … under your control?”
Her voice bleeds with unapologetic innuendo. All I can smell is cigarette smoke and lavender. I almost feel sorry for her. She should know I’m gay by now, but denial is a powerful thing. “In a matter of hours, your daughter’s short-lived career in sex taping will never have happened.”
She bites her lip, her eyes drifting to my chest. “You never let me down, Benjamin. Thank you.” Like a finger along flesh, her gaze slides up my body and meets mine.
My cue to leave. Time’s ticking. “I’ll be in touch with you.” I make my way for the door.
She intercepts me with the swiftness of a panther, then leans against the doorframe suggestively. “What’s the rush?” Her lips purse as she hooks a finger into the waist of my pants. She is nothing if not totally to-the-point and utterly shameless.
“Every minute counts,” I tell her smoothly, as if I don’t even notice her finger caught in my waistband.
“You must be so stressed. Why don’t you let me do some of the work?” Her eyes flick down to my crotch.
There is a fine line I must walk of treating my clients with respect while also setting strict boundaries. I have never messed around with any of them—male or female—and certainly won’t be starting today. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not—”
“I have just the right idea,” she insists, then leans in and adds in a whisper, “I really like
having a big, swollen cock in my mouth.”
I lean in just the same and reply, “So do I.”
Her body stiffens. Then she pulls away to get a look at me, as if I’d suddenly become a two-headed leprechaun. “I … I thought they were just rumors. You mean …?”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“N-No. Not a disappointment.” Flustered, Melena crosses her arms. After some thought, she tilts her head, reconsidering. “Now it sort of makes sense, actually.”
“Does it?”
“You’re too well put-together to be straight,” she decides. “I have never seen a man’s clothes fit as well as yours do. Plus, you are just too damned good-looking. And also you’ve never been married—I checked.”
I have no idea what to make of all that. “I just do what my company promises: I make people look good.”
“And you start with yourself,” she notes with a suggestive lift of an eyebrow, pursing her lips. She takes another long drag, then lets it all out. “If you decide you’re lacking a woman’s touch, you know where I live.”
“I think I have all I need. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Surely there’s something more you want,” she persists.
“Good day, Melena.” I give her a reassuring wink, then turn to leave.
Her voice catches me halfway down the stairs. “What could a man like you—a man who has everything—possibly want?”
I stop at the foot of the stairs and turn, seeing her standing over the banister, her robe half-open to reveal her nearly-nothing bikini underneath. She poses the question like a riddle.
A riddle for which I have not, in many, many years, had an answer.
“He’s got to want something,” she sings. Then, with a quirk of her eyebrow, she turns from the banister and disappears back into her room, leaving me with that last, lingering thought.
What do I want?
The fresh air outside slaps me in the face as I don my shades and rebutton my suit. I slip into the back of the black Jaguar out front. Ian, my driver, kicks the car into gear and burns rubber.
Just as my flight lands back home, I get another text, this one from Rebekah back at the office.
REBEKAH
Are you still returning Monday?
Or are you able to come in tonight?
Topher Sr. AND Jr. need to meet with you, plus Benson’s lawyers.
I check the date, then tap a quick response.
ME
Call them in for Monday.
Tonight is Lance & my anniversary.
REBEKAH
I’ll schedule them for Monday then.
Side note: I’m fairly certain you’ll like this batch of interns. They’re all very hard, dedicated workers.
I smirk. Interns. They’re the bane of my life. I should really be more appreciative of what Rebekah does for me, hiring the interns every year, but she seems to think she’s serving me by choosing good-looking young hotshots with muscles in their arms and nothing in their heads—or worse, their hearts.
Every summer, it’s the same story. I see the same dreamy look in their eyes when they approach me. I see the wants and the needs and the urgency behind their every movement. The desire for me to help them rise up to whatever great thing they dream of is so palpable, I can taste it like smoke.
And it always burns me just the same.
When I push open the door to my penthouse, the love of my life rushes across the smooth tile to embrace me, sliding and slipping excitedly along the way.
Lancelot, my Jack Russell Terrier, crashes into my legs, then tries to climb up my body as he licks and licks, his tongue eager for my face.
All the stress I was feeling a second ago drops to the floor like a sack of shoes. Or maybe that’s my luggage. I crouch down and let him have his way with me, chuckling as I rub his white-and-brown spotted coat. “Miss me?” I sing to him as he licks my face over and over. “I was only gone for a day and a half. Quit bein’ silly.”
He’s a rescue, and a damn near close call, if you ask me. Had I found him one day later, I’m certain he would have been dead. It was one really bad night after a really shitty week when I turned to the bottle and strolled down 8th Avenue, lost in heavy thoughts and despair. I stumbled over his emaciated body in the alley by King Arthur’s, a restaurant, and face-planted right next to him. Then there lay the sad pair of us that night—two thrown-away, lonely, damaged fools. It was seven years ago today.
“You know what day it is?” I ask him as I make my way to the kitchen, ignoring the luggage I’d left at the door. He pads along behind me, panting excitedly. “Our anniversary, Lance! I bet you knew that. Dinner for two, comin’ right up.”
An hour later, I’m eating at one end of the table while Lance sits in the chair beside me. Yes, he sits at the table with me. This is perfectly acceptable behavior in my home, as Lance is part of my family. In some sense, he’s my only family. He’s even eating his favorite meal from an ornate blue-and-white china bowl.
He’s the only creature on Earth—human or otherwise—I’ve ever let close to my heart. I’m not even sure my parents have earned such a place in it. When Gage Communications struck its first success, it wasn’t a call of congratulations I got from my mother; it was a lecture in morality, integrity, and how I’m throwing away my life on the spoiled rich brats of Beverly Hills.
I’d built this multimillion dollar business out of cents in my pocket, but my parents will never see it that way. I might as well be cooking and dealing crystal meth out of a white, unmarked van in Albuquerque. Considering how much damned weed my father smokes, I figure I’m ranked even lower than that.
“We started from the bottom,” I say to Lance across the table, “you and I. We started with nothing, and now look at us.”
Lance pants his response, then resumes licking his bowl clean with overflowing excitement.
Yeah, he gets it.
“Happy anniversary, Lance!” I lift my glass of bourbon in a toast, despite Lancelot totally ignoring me, as he’s six-hundred percent committed to licking every last bit out of that bowl. My words echo through the big empty condo, echo off the baby grand in the living room, echo off the ten-thousand dollar backsplash on the kitchen walls, echo off the crystal chandelier above us, echo off the floor-to-ceiling eighteen-foot-tall windows and down the giant archway into the hall and through my four guestrooms and my giant king-size bed, which I’d sleep in empty every night if it weren’t for that special canine at the foot of it.
So much space for my voice to echo off of. So much room.
So much nothing, if it weren’t for Lancelot.
What could a man like you—a man who has everything—possibly want? asked Melena over that banister.
The question still plagues me when I’m lying in bed hours later and Lance is already kicking in his sleep, his paws rubbing along the soft comforter as he chases dream bunnies.
Her voice keeps fluttering around my mind, taunting me. He’s got to want something. I stare at the ceiling, swallowed in cool white sheets and wearing nothing at all. A man who has everything …
For a man who has everything, my life sure feels like it’s full of nothing.
I put my hands behind my head and close my eyes, but even in the dark peace behind my eyelids, the question still haunts me.
Then Lance kicks me in his sleep and jerks himself awake, his big watery eyes searching for his imaginary assailant in a panic, confused.
I grin. At least I’ve got him.
3
Trevor needs to let loose.
“I’m not hungry,” I try to tell him, stumbling over my shoes, “and I still have to pick out a tie for Monday.”
“We’re not going out for dinner, cupcake,” Elijah teases me, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “You, Trevor, need to loosen the hell up. I promise, you can plan your week’s wardrobe when we get back, down to your matching underwear.”
On a Friday night like this, the streets are crowded with partygoers, fri
ends meeting up, and drunken laughter. The city is alive, and its inhabitants never sleep. Elijah has been one of these inhabitants for two years now. Amidst the city noise, he’s totally at home.
And then there’s me, obsessing over whether a red tie will indicate a sense of desperation over a mauve tie.
Listen to me. Using words like “mauve”. I lean into Elijah with a heavy sigh, my safety net. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
When we finally arrive, I do a hell of a lot more than seeing. I do some coughing, some gagging, and a bit of squinty-eyed ear-covering. Elijah’s brilliant idea of how to loosen me up is visiting a nightclub we’ve passed every morning on our way to the office and every evening on our way home. I’ve never been to a bar, let alone a seedy downtown hangout with thumping music and throngs of sweaty, half-clothed people everywhere you turn.
Making our way to the bar, I witness a woman grinding her body against a shirtless hunk, whose eyes are glued to her breasts. I witness another guy gyrating his hips against a girl who grasps his hair in a fist as she hungrily pulls his mouth to hers.
This place is a den of sex, sweat, and slippery skin.
And then there’s Elijah and I ordering a pair of Cokes. Neither of us will be twenty-one for three more weeks. Did I mention our birthdays are just four days apart? We’re so stinking cute.
Shoot me now. I grab Elijah’s sleeve. “Over it already.”
“This place is exactly what you need. Just let it happen.”
“Yeah. A loud nightclub where I get to watch a bunch of men and women grope each other drunkenly.”