by KT Morrison
She walked up to him, leaned over him, one hand on his desk. “You're like a dirty little teenager, wanting everyone to know you just had a shag in here.”
“You do too, you know it.”
“Yeah, but still,” she said, looking at his desk, “You should clean that corner up, no need to be vulgar.”
He looked at the dried smear they'd left there, wiped it with his suit sleeve. She grabbed her purse and went to the door. “See you tonight.”
“Love you,” he said.
3
Box Within A Box
Mitch’s secretary, Maureen Mehrotra, twenty-five, and three years out of York St. John’s business school, watched Kate’s figure work its way down the floor and to the elevators. Mitch saw Maureen’s eyes follow her along then look down at the blank briefcase-sized cardboard box with the two big, bright green shipping labels. She picked it up, felt it wasn’t too heavy. Mitch was expecting it. He waved her in, catching her eye through the glass.
“Thanks, Maureen,” he said, “Just on my desk, please.”
Maureen had been with him since he got here, worked with him even when he was just doing Compliance. She was quick and smart, and she wanted more than what she had there. She was taking courses at night and Mitch helped her out when he could. She put the big box on his desk, cleared the space for it.
“Can I get you anything else, Mr Sutton?”
He told her he was alright and let her show herself back out without saying anything. He got a sharp little blade from a bowl on his desk and slit the tape open on the box and peeled the flaps back. A box within a box. The one inside pale blue, glossy, adorned with a layered cloth ribbon in navy blue. He lifted the lid off and looked inside at what he’d purchased, pushing aside the silk to uncover it. He closed it up and took his notebook from his pocket.
He buzzed Maureen back in, asked her to tape it back up, told her someone was coming to get it. He found the page he was looking for in the tiny, worn leather notebook. Dialled the number into his personal iPhone.
“I need you to swing by here later today, pick something up…yeah, it'll be here, ask my secretary…a box…no…I need you to take it for me, put it somewhere…I’ll be out, right...yes, I have an idea…alright then, call me when you've got it…”
He hung up, saw Derek coming in, waving off Maureen. Derek dropped himself in Mitch’s couch, undid the button on his jacket.
“Finished your little quickie?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I can smell her in here,” he said, putting his arms over the back of the couch.
“Well she was just here, Derek,” he said, picking up the folder he’d been working on.
“I can smell her insides.”
Mitch looked up at him, “Don’t be so vulgar.”
“Don’t be so coy and I won’t have to.”
“It’s not coy when I refuse to answer questions you don’t deserve an answer to.” He threw the folder back down, and undid his cufflinks. “And please don’t forget you’re talking about my wife.”
“You’re not going to ask me about Jahangir?”
“Well, you’re here in my office and not splashed across the sidewalk thirty floors below your window so I’m going to venture all is right again with Iranian Natural Gas.”
“All is right again.”
“I knew you’d do it, he can’t back out any way. Just rattling your cage.”
“What makes you think that?”
Mitch looked at him for a moment. “I’m going to the gym.”
“Before you go: Brian brought me a folder, you invested in a Formula race team?”
“It’s a tiny investment. It’s a shop too, retail, repair and the like,…” he said, standing up.
“But why?”
“Just curious. I have an idea.”
“It’s not even that much money though.” Derek said standing up.
“Because it’s an experiment.”
“I’ve liked your experiments before, but they made sense. This is stupid.”
Mitch picked up his bag off the couch, bumped Derek with his shoulder.
“Why don’t you just mind your fucking business,” he said, quiet and up close. He turned and left, went to the gym and didn’t look back.
A list of her crimes presented before a magistrate: The defendant was dissatisfied with the size of her kind and loving husband's slightly below average penis. She tried tricking her husband into a threesome, offering to bring other girls into their bed so that it would open the door to bringing another man on too, eventually. When her husband never took the bait she found a way to trick her best friend into a threesome hoping that her husband would feel safe with someone he knew and liked, and anticipated that he couldn't resist her. The defendant wanted her best friend's ex-boyfriend’s big cock. She manipulated her friend into asking that ex-boyfriend into coming along, bringing his large penis with him. She did that regardless of how difficult it would be for her innocent friend. She tricked her husband into that threesome and when she figured he was hooked, finally aroused by the prospect, she took it all away. She let it sit for days and then teased it back, now attached with the object of her desire, Exhibit A. Holding up a print of that photo of Omar's tremendous organ. Gasps from the jury.
That your honour is just a brief outline of the efforts made by the defendant to essentially cheat on her husband to solely have intercourse with a man with an impressively large penis. She did this, went to this Machiavellian effort, because she is a reprobate, a disgusting whore.
Kate clicked the key fob and the lights flashed on her silver Bentley Continental, lighting the low underground ceiling in two amber flashes. She dumped herself in and slammed the door up behind her.
She put both hands over her face and leaned forward until she felt her forehead touch the polished wood steering wheel. She willed it to come, brought it from herself hoping to feel it cleanse her. It rolled over her like a storm, her face filled with blood, tightened and carved. The tears streamed from her, and then she could feel the sobs, embraced them. She heaved and cried, filled the car up with her sounds of grief. She moaned, said No, no as much as she could, through her running nose. It felt so good, just giving in, letting herself be overcome. She cried it all out, cried herself exhausted alone in her car, fifty feet underground. She hugged the wheel.
When it was done, when she felt dried out and swollen and psychogenically empty, she leaned herself back into the leather.
This couldn't go on. She needed to end it. She needed a plan.
Four days a week now Mitch was going down to the gym and lifting weights. Heavy lifting with a personal trainer, it had made him stronger, more aggressive. Not some twenty-four hour fitness joint, some glass and steel juice bar with yoga classes. This was a hole in the wall, a brick and peeling plaster joint, no one here wore yoga pants. His personal trainer wasn’t some pretty boy with abs and nice hair, he had a neck like Mitch’s thigh and looked like he could flip a Beetle.
The changes, though not readily apparent yet, gave him an amazing feeling. It was something he would analyze—considering the changes to his thinking patterns, his desires, his decisions—as all the work he was doing boosted his testosterone. He was the same Mitch, but he was careful to notice when he was thinking too rashly. Don’t let this newfound masculinity make you make a mistake, become too reactionary. Like telling your brother to mind his own fucking business when he had a legitimate question. He had to watch that. Mind your own business. What Mitch invested in was literally Derek’s business. It didn’t even make sense.
He got himself under the bar in the squat rack. Two hundred and eighty pounds, ten more pounds than last week. Not exactly Hercules, but definitely better than last year’s Mitch. He broke it out and walked a step. He squat easy and deep, five reps.
He’d made a few mistakes recently. Not snapping at anyone, that was new, just generally bad decisions. Things he would have never tripped up on befor
e. This thing with Omar. How fucking crazy does one have to be to pretend to blackmail your wife? And to give up honest-to-goodness blackmail material to a stranger just to make it all seem authentic. What an absurd action for him to have taken. Far too risky. However…
He fucked his wife in his office today. He’d used another man like a device to arouse her to an inescapable intensity, and she had come with Mitch’s dick stuck inside her. He had done that to her. He had pleased her. She didn’t know it but Mitch was the one who had her on this erotic razor’s edge, he was her sexual dynamite, tickling her little pussy from the shadows. He was fucking right to do it. It was the little unpredictable sexual tantrums she’d pull, the ones like today, that made him know that pretending to blackmail her was the greatest idea he’d ever had.
But still, he’d made himself vulnerable, exposed himself to Omar, a relative wild card. Sure he’d bought the phone from him, destroyed it. He’d had Omar’s computer scrubbed and scoured. It was gone. That video didn’t exist at all any more. It only existed in a seedy, derelict theatre playing on one screen only: in his mind’s eye. He watched it once. His hands shook as he destroyed the phone. Tore it to pieces and spread its guts across the beach in Cayman.
But what if? Omar was really an unknown. He’d figured he was a rather simple mechanic who wouldn’t have the ambition to try and really blackmail Mitch. But what if he still had a copy somehow, what if he had friends who would have the nerve. Some seedy Eurotrash who was good with computers, pulling that video back to life off some dusty server in North Carolina. He was smart enough to get Mitch to invest in his little garage, his racing team. He wanted that instead of cash. That had surprised him. Pretty bold, pretty smart.
And what about new videos. What had happened today, what had set Kate off? What about what he might record in the future? He had to be more careful moving forward. This business was far too risky. But there was still something he wanted to see, something special. Something already in motion and he wasn’t ready to stop just yet.
He finished his squat then moved on to power cleans. He hit the shower and stood under the hot water, worked something out, something Kate would love. Worked out how he was going to do it to her. She’d hate it too. That’s why she’d love it. His little Kate. He loved doing this for her. Really giving it to her like she wanted. No other man could do that for her. He was her fucking God.
The last three months had been the worst of her life. She was sleepless, worn-out, hungover in the mornings. She was taking Ambien again, too much of it. Her back always ached, her head always ached, her jaw was sore from clenching it all the time. She was under a constant vague dread. And a defined worry; a cause and a consequence easily measured. All the blame was hers and hers alone. Her pussy was a live wire though. She’d left her poor husband raw on a few occasions. The one saving grace: her cherished Mitch was loving this.
She drove the Bentley through the quiet Campden Hill streets, under the budding cherry trees that reached out from the sidewalk. She flashed her key card at the black box, heard the buzzer and watched the wrought iron gates slowly open wide for her. She pulled in, driving between the long brick walls with medieval looking black claws embedded in their spine that funnelled her to the gatehouse.
She thought of Derek as he’d watched her this morning. He was an odd bird. There was no love lost between them, but his fate was in her hands as well. He had a family. He had children. Her own niece and nephews. She’d really fucked it all up. Derek’s eyes on her this afternoon were like a condemnation. He didn’t like her in his territory. If he only knew how right he’d been about her. She knew that he’d never have guessed the damage she could bring to his life. Derek had always seen her for what she was. Mitch couldn’t see it. How could his own brother look into her eyes and know her so deeply?
She waved at Greg, the skinny Somalian guard sitting in the doorway and he waved as she passed. The gate house had been an actual home some fifty years ago, an impressive red brick hulk with a slate roof and an enormous blackened chimney.
She crossed the grounds and pulled up in front of the low metal awning at the entrance to the lobby of their apartment. She got out and pulled her bags out of the rear seat. She went into the building, an award winning design in glass and steel and reclaimed brick, and met the porter as he was coming out.
“Hi, Dan,” she said to the young, snaggletoothed man in his black uniform, “Would you mind parking it for me, I’m just exhausted.” He told her Of course he would and she gave him the key and headed to the elevators.
She needed a plan. She needed a way out. She needed a big score. No more five thousand quid purses sold for cheap on the internet. She had to figure out a big payment. Enough money to make Omar pay attention. Enough money that it wiped sex from his mind. So much that he’d tuck that thing back in his pants, leave her alone; just go away and never be seen again.
She had absolutely no idea how to do it. How to get a lot of money. Mitch handled everything and he was a secretive bugger too. She’d have to go through his things. His papers, his computer; find something, some way to shake out enough money to make this go away. A million pounds. Millions of pounds.
She stepped out of the glossy wood and smoked mirror elevator into the carpeted hall and walked down to their door. She opened it with her key and stepped in, dropped her bags and leaned back against the door, so relieved to be in her home.
If all else failed she knew there was another option.
4
Jay Shaker, Heart Surgeon
Kiley had flown in from Chicago, landed in Denver then a little hop over to Grand Junction Regional. This was her weekend off, spending it now driving a rented Subaru down a twisting mountain road, crunching rubber through the snow. Client retention, keeping the notable Dr Jay Shaker, heart surgeon, writing his scripts for Agrix and some of the other fine products of Jakobsen-Mueller. Keeping him happy.
Jay wrote the most scripts in her database; he was a popular and prolific heart-guy, great reputation, office in UC Medical Center. He was nice too, easy to work with, no-nonsense, very little hand-holding. He even read the literature and when he called, which was rare, he had legitimate questions.
Problem was, even though he must be pushing fifty, he was one of those fitness types. Had her run a 5k with him last summer, a little team he put together with some of the folks in his office. They raised a few grand for charity, her office contributed of course. She was no runner, but she put on a brave face, thought It’s only five kilometres. She finished but she felt a little embarrassed that her lithe, slim, little frame was exposed to him as quite deceptively non-athletic.
Last week he says, You’re coming out to Colorado? Think I’m there then, come by my place a bunch of us go skiing. It was an opportunity, friendships were the goddamn lifeblood of her little empire. She cleared 75k last year in salary, plus four quarterly bonuses and an annual that knocked her socks off. Agrix and its companion meds were top of the line, low competition, and nobody could out-hustle her, especially since the other products were inferior. The market was always fickle though, and forging bonds with doctors insured her against future changes. So here she was, lost on the Grand Mesa, skis strapped to her roof, wondering if she was going to repeat her last dubious physical performance.
She’d picked up the rental car at the airport and drove into Grand Junction, instructions from the girl at the counter about where she could rent skis. Checkers Ski & Cycle was a century old building, maybe older. Looked like it was built for a Western then painted with black and white checkers with a huge adirondack chair sitting out front, in the cold, made out of old skis. The young guy there was helpful, some cute blond kid with miniature dreadlocks, probably high as a kite. He helped fit her feet to some short boots, rented her some skis and she bought a bunch of clothing. She was a complete newbie to this sort of thing.
As she got closer to where she thought he was supposed to live it was obvious that the car’s GPS was betraying her. The r
oad she’d been following narrowed to the point she figured it was impassable, unmaintained. She looked at his written instructions, printed off from his email, checked it with the screen in the Subaru. Something wasn’t right.
She called him from the car.
“Yeah, I know where you are, that’s not really a road anymore,” he said. “Hang tight, you’re not far, I’ll come escort you.”
She felt stupid and she hated that he was coming to rescue her. He said he was already out in his truck though, like it was no big deal. She sat in the car, listened to the radio. She should have just followed the written instructions rather than plug his address into the stupid navigation. He showed up in about ten minutes, driving up in a burgundy Chevy pickup, four square bales of hay in the back.
“Can’t trust those things around here,” he said through the open window when she blamed it on the car. “Stay with me, I’ll get us back,” he said, arm hanging out, smiling for her.
She closed the window up, turned the heat higher and followed him back down the road she’d come up. They hit a funny three-way intersection, jogged through it, then a right turn almost immediately through it. She never would have figured that out. They passed what might have been a little Main Street, couple of frontier buildings, pickup trucks parked along the street, then a few minutes down another road where there was nothing but tall, snow covered pine trees right up close to the road. He was signalling up ahead, turning into a driveway and she followed him in.
This must have been his place, temporary little arrow-shaped sign stuck in the plowed snow said, Shaker Ski Challenge. It was a long meandering driveway, much like the road, tree-lined and hilly. they came to a clearing off on one side, trees giving way to a big open field, cedar rail fence and wire closing it in. There were horses out in the snow, trotting in the cold, running the field like they were following his truck. Up ahead he pulled into a little plowed area, green and yellow tractor parked under an open sided garage, a gate into the horse’s paddock. She pulled up next to his truck and got out. He came over to her, took her hands, and kissed the air next to a cheek.