Protein Shake

by Alexis Angel

  Cara

  “Thank you so much!” Alexa squeals, repeating her words for the hundredth time since she stepped into my office. Reaching across the table, she takes my hands in hers and, squeezing them tightly, she looks into my eyes. “I don’t have the words to thank you, Cara.”

  I smile at her, trying to hide the pain shooting up my arms as she crushes my fingers in her hands. For as small of a girl as she is, she sure has a lot of strength.

  “Just doing my job,” I tell her, taking my hands back and flexing my fingers - yup, they might be numb but they still work.

  “You taught him a really good lesson… I doubt Ben will pull shit like that ever again. I bet he’ll think twice before crossing another woman. I can’t believe I fell for him and I --”

  She continues to drone about her ex-boyfriend, her monologue filled with gleeful hate, and I just nod. When Alexa goes on a tangent like this, there are two things you shouldn’t do - you don’t interrupt her and you don’t comment on anything she's saying. You do that and I guarantee you that you just added another forty minutes to her monologue. Just let her speak and, before you know it, it’ll all be over.

  Hopefully.

  “...and the look on his face! Priceless!” She continues, her eyes glinting as she remembers the way I managed to expose her lovely ex-boyfriend Ben.

  When Cara came up to me, suspicious that Ben wasn’t the man he said he was, I immediately got to work. It didn’t take me long to realize that Ben wasn’t even his real name.

  Presenting himself as an airline pilot, he was just running a con. Dazzling women with his quick-witted responses and tailored suits, Ben’s game was a simple one - he entered a relationship with women he felt could be manipulated and then, after a few months, he’d clean their bank accounts and disappear into thin air.

  Unfortunately for him, Alexa wasn’t as gullible as he expected. She came into the Lust Muscle offices, asked for my help, and I got to work right away. Pretending to be a rich widow that had no idea on how to manage her money, I ‘accidently’ bumped into Ben in one of his favorite bars. Red flags went up as he started to flirt with me, but I decided to dig deep into his history.

  I went on a few dates with him, slowly piecing the puzzle together behind his back, and I managed to discover that ‘Ben’ didn’t even exist - his real name was Jeremy, and he already had a warrant for his arrest in at least three states.

  I took the proof I had to Alexa and, after hearing her cry and rant for what seemed like an eternity, she finally decided to inform the police of the whereabouts of her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.

  We accompanied the police to her apartment, and you can imagine the surprise on his face when he saw me and Alexa together, two cops flanking us. He didn’t even say a word - his eyes just bulged in their sockets as he realized what was going on, and then he tried to run out the door. Unfortunately for him, the NYPD officers accompanying us knew exactly how to handle scum like ‘Ben’.

  One punch was all it took to bring him down to his knees.

  I have to admit, though - as bad I felt for Alexa’s ruined relationship, it felt good to see a piece of shit like ‘Ben’ being hauled off by the police.

  Good riddance, asshole.

  “Oh, by the way,” Alexa says, remembering the purpose behind her visit. She rummages through her purse with one hand, and then fishes out a neatly folded check from the inside. She slaps it down on my desk and then slides it toward me. “Here it is!”

  Still smiling, I pick the check and, without looking at its value, I save it inside one of the drawers under my desk. I don’t need to look at it to know that Alexa has paid me handsomely. You see, this isn’t my first rodeo with her. This whole ‘Ben’ situation is the second time she has used my services, and I made a very nice profit the first time I did business with her.

  You’re probably wondering what I do for a living, right? It’s quite simple, actually: I’m a merchant of vengeance, a dealer of just retribution. I grab men by the balls and twist them hard, making them feel the pain they’ve caused to the women that loved them.

  Now, how I do things changes on a case-by-case basis, but rest assured: I’m a bad girl, and I do whatever it takes to succeed.

  “Thank you again, Cara!” Alexa repeats again, and I just give her my professional smile. “Now, I gotta go,” she continues, looking at her tiny wristwatch. “John is waiting for me.”

  “John?” I ask her, raising one eyebrow. Oh, I almost regret asking.

  “Yeah, he’s my new boyfriend, and he’s so sweet and amazing and --” She continues for almost five minutes, and I just nod patiently. Inside, I can’t help but wonder about why people such as Alexa jump back into the dating scene after situations such as the one she went through. Is it masochism or just plain naivete? Either way, it seems that some women just like to have their hearts broken over and over again.

  I’m not one of these women.

  Yup, I’m one of the women that don’t really believe in love. I mean, do people really believe that the “happy ever after” really exists? Yeah, right. The way I see it, love is just like cigarettes - it’s supposed to make you feel cooler but, in the end, it just rots you from the inside out.

  There’s only one type of love I believe in, and that’s self-love. Always look out for numero uno. After all, the only person that truly cares about you is… well, you.

  You might think I’m being too harsh, but that’s okay. This is how I live my life and I’ve been doing just fine.

  Cara

  “Your eleven o’clock is already here,” my secretary tells me through the intercom, minutes after Alexa left. Sitting by myself in the office, I was taking a few minutes to unwind and ready myself for the next meeting, but I guess that my break is now over.

  “Alright, send her in,” I reply to my secretary, and a few seconds later there’s a gentle knock at my door. “Come in,” I say, sitting up straight as the door swings open to reveal a woman in her mid-twenties.

  She’s wearing a tight navy blue dress, and the first thing I notice is her perfect tapered waist. More than having a perfect body, she knows how to draw the attention to her strongest characteristics. Her straight golden hair cascades down her shoulders and, as she walks toward me, I notice the big (and expensive) sunglasses hiding her eyes. She has her arms folded over her chest, and in them she carries a tiny dog. From the look of it, it’s a Yorkie, one of these small dogs that socialite women just love to be seen with.

  Despite all that, there’s a sour smile on her lips. She’s beautiful, that much is for sure, but the expression on her face isn’t a happy one.

  “Please, take a seat,” I tell her waving at the chair facing me. I usually have my first conversation with a client on the couch I have in the corner of my office, but I decide to skip that for this meeting.

  Women usually come to me during their most desperate times and, more often than not, they end up needing a shoulder to cry. That’s why I always start off my relationship with a client on a more intimate and personal note. Not today, though - something about this woman’s strut as she walked into my office told me that I should keep it strictly professional this time.

  She sits down on the chair I pointed her to and, folding her legs, she just stares at me from behind her sunglasses.

  “My name is Caralyn, and --” I start to say, cutting through the silence, but she just waves me down with her manicured fingers and cuts me short.

  “I know who you are,” she tells me, patting the head of her dog as she speaks. By the look on his face, he isn’t enjoying it. He still hasn’t bitten her fingers off, so at least he seems to be tolerating it. “And I figure you know who I am, don’t you?”

  “I do,” I respond, leaning back against my chair. “Misty Lane,” I whisper, drumming my fingertips against the surface of the desk as I say her name. In case you haven’t watched TV or used the internet in the past year or so, Misty Lane is as famous as anyone can get. Not the good kind of famous, mind
you.

  More often than not, she’s gracing the cover of some tabloid magazine, the life she leads like a beacon for the paparazzi. I’m not a big fan of the vultures in the press, but Misty seems to enjoy the attention.

  She rose to fame with a reality TV show called Authentic Heiress, and she had cameras following her around 24/7 as the producers showed America how the heiress of a billionaire lead her life. Her audiences shot through the roof after just two episodes, and I wasn’t too surprised by that. Her life’s a train wreck, and there’s nothing more hypnotizing that seeing someone ruining her life while you sit in your ass and stuff yourself with cheap beer and Doritos. We all fear a world of constant surveillance but, given the chance, we’re the first to give in to our voyeuristic tendencies.

  Unfortunately for her, Authentic Heiress only lasted one season. Despite being a home-run for the network channel behind it, some higher-up decided to axe the whole thing. Rumour has it that, more than being self-destructive on live TV, Misty also carried that flame whenever there were no cameras around - apparently she was sleeping around with one of the producers, and the guy’s wife found out. Understandably, his wife wasn’t too happy about it.

  To top that, she apparently enjoys coke too much for her own good. She denies these rumours, of course, but her vacant eyes always seem to tell a different story.

  “So, I need your help,” she finally says, drawling out the words, and I can’t help but wonder if she has started the day with half a bottle of champagne. It’s only eleven in the morning, but I figure that for the socialite it’s always champagne o’clock.

  “And what can I help you with, Misty?”

  “Well, there’s this guy, you know?” She drawls again, and I nod, already feeling sorry for whoever the poor guy is. “And I want you to bring him down,” she says in a single breath, leaning forward and perching her sunglasses on her forehead. Her eyes are bloodshot, and the makeup around them is a complete mess - she has been crying. “He vanished! Into thin air! He doesn’t return my calls, he doesn’t reply to my texts…!”

  I listen to her as she pushes the words past her gritted teeth, and I can tell that she’s on the verge of bursting into tears. Oh, look, here we go - there’s already a lonely tear streaming down her face.

  Going up to my feet, I walk around my desk and rest my right hand on her shoulder. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I whisper, patting her shoulder softly.

  “No! It’s not okay!” She cries out, a sob making her whole chest shake. “Everything’s definitely not okay! I thought… I thought he could be the one, you know?”

  “These things happen, Misty,” I tell her softly, sitting on the chair next to her. She strutted inside my office like royalty, but she has let that mask of superiority fall in the blink of an eye. I thought I had to act like the cold-blooded professional that I am, but I was wrong - in the end, what Misty really needs is a shoulder to cry on. More than anything, she looks like a girl that has lost her sense of direction in the world.

  I kinda feel sorry for her, you know? Despite leading a self-destructive life, there are a lot of people interested in stopping her from getting her shit together. From the paparazzi to the studio execs, everyone prefers an hurricane to a cookie-cutter woman.

  “He broke my heart!” She howls, her chin quivering as she tries to hold back the tears. “He cut it into a million pieces, stomped over it! He ruined me for other men!”

  “Okay, okay… We’ll figure it out, Misty. Who is he?”

  “Liam Donovan!” She whispers, lowering her voice as if, somehow, her saying his name would make him materialize inside my office.

  “The Liam Donovan?” I ask her, leaning back against my chair. Interesting - this job might be more complicated than I had anticipated.

  “Yes, that Liam!”

  Well, this was bound to happen, wasn’t it?

  Liam Donovan is the most notorious playboy in New York, a man that goes through women so fast that even the tabloids fail when trying to play catch-up with him. Oddly enough, Misty is the first woman to come in here and ask me to take care of Liam. You’d think that some disgruntled ex-girlfriend of his would have already knocked at my door by now, but nope - Misty is the first one.

  It was only a matter of time for this to happen, though, and I knew it. Lust Muscle and Liam Donovan embody opposite ideas, and these ideas have been on a collision course ever since the first Homo Assholius broke a woman’s heart.

  “You’ll do it, won’t you?” Misty whispers, grabbing my hands and looking at me with tears brimming in her big eyes. “You can break his heart, right? You’re the best at this, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” I tell her, feeling absolutely sure that this job is going to be a complete nightmare. Still, the bigger the nightmare, the bigger my payday is. “I’ll do it. I’ll bring Liam Donovan down.”

  “YES!” Misty squeals, jumping up to her feet. Her Yorkie whimpers as she moves, but she clutches him close her chest and he closes his eyes with a bored expression. “YES! FINALLY! He’s so done!” She continues, the sorrow in her face now replaced by exultant joy.

  “Misty, I’m going to need some information on him and --”

  “Oh, you’ll do fine, I’m sure of it,” she replies, waving me down as she picks up her purse from the chair and turns on her heels. “Oh, I can’t wait,” she whispers to herself, looking into my eyes with a wild grin, and then she starts walking out of the office. Her balance seems slightly off, and I realize that she probably didn’t go through half a bottle of champagne this morning - no, she went through the whole bottle.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” she tells me, putting on her sunglasses, and then she just leaves, slamming the door behind her.

  Oh, what have I gotten myself into?

  Cara

  “Crap,” I mutter to myself, taking off my reading glasses and rubbing my eyes. I’m sitting in my living room, trying to profile Liam, but it hasn’t been easy. I’ve been at this for God knows how many hours, and my eyes are killing me from staring at the laptop screen without taking a break.

  Sighing heavily, I close the laptop lid and throw it to the side. I throw my feet up on the coffee table and I lean back against the couch, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

  Doing recon on Liam is proving to be harder than what I had anticipated. The internet hasn’t been much of an help - all I seem to be able to find is the same recycled bullshit that the tabloids thrive on. There’s nothing substantial in there, absolutely nothing that I can use.

  Usually the women that hire my services give me something I can use as an in with the target, but Misty didn’t help with that. She just dumped her problem onto my lap, outsourcing her heartbreak to me. Not that I mind - I’m paid handsomely enough for my efforts. But, still, it’s frustrating as hell.

  As notorious as Liam is, he’s a complete mystery. He’s living the high life and breaking hearts all over the city, but I don’t even know exactly what he does for a living. There are a lot of articles talking about how savvy he is with his financial investments, but what the hell does that even mean?

  “Ah, screw this,” I sigh, getting up from the couch and picking up my phone from the coffee table. Unlocking the screen, I run my thumb over my contact list and then dial Renee’s number. If there’s someone that can help me with Liam, it’s got to be Renee.

  “What’s up, Cara?” She says excitedly, picking up my call after just one tone.

  “All good, girl,” I laugh, Renee’s good mood infecting me immediately. She’s the kind of girl that has one these contagious good vibes around her, and that’s probably one of the reasons we became such good friends back in college.

  Daughter of a famous hedge fund manager, Renee was part of one of these ridiculous cliques of rich snobbish kids. They drove around campus as if they owned the whole thing, polo shirts draped over their shoulders as they showed off the sports car they bought with their parent’s money.

  I’m not saying that all kids that come
from wealthy families are assholes, but some of them are. And that was the kind of crowd that Renee was part of; despite that, she never really felt at home with them.

  I think that I was actually the first person Renee met that wasn’t from a wealthy family, and I think that was also part of the reason we hit it off so quickly. Renee was hungry to know more about life, and she relished the opportunity of being friends with someone that only had one thing going for her: hard work.

  “Listen, Renee, I need some help,” I tell her right away, getting down to business.

  “Shoot! Who do you need dirt on, girl?” She laughs, her California accent coming through her words.

  “Liam Donovan.”

  “Liam Donovan? Is he your next target? Woah, that’s impressive,” she tells me, and I just wait for her to give me whatever information she has on him. You see, despite being friends with me, Renee is still part of the socialite - which means she, more often than not, has information on some of my wealthier targets. And when she doesn’t have that information, she digs it up for me. How she does it, I don’t even want to know. But the fact remains - Renee has been central to the way Lust Muscle has been able to operate successfully ever since I set up shop.

  “Yeah, he’s going to be trouble, isn’t he?” I ask her, already anticipating her obvious answer.

  “Oh, you betcha. He’s a handful, that’s for sure. Pretty good looking too, and rumours has it that he has a pretty big --”

  “Okay, okay, I get it!” I laugh again, biting on my lip to stop my mind from diving straight into the gutter. “I’m going to need an in with him.”

  “Yeah…” She replies, sighing into the phone, and I can tell that she’s thinking hard. “I don’t have a lot to give you on him right now, Cara. He’s a well known face, sure, but no one really knows much about Liam. He keeps to himself, you know?”

  “That’s not what the tabloids say.”

  “Yeah, he’s a bit of a wild card when it comes to women. But, really, what does anyone know about him besides the fact that he has a pretty active sex life?” She exhales sharply and I smile to myself, the tone in her voice telling me that she’s imagining how it’d feel to be a part of Liam Donovan’s ‘pretty active sex life’. “Who hired you, though? Or is this some class action lawsuit type of thing?”