by Jamie Knight
When I turn back around to face Vanacore, she’s looking pleased. Satisfied that she seems to have finally molded me into someone obedient and happy to watch her. She’s also succeeded in cleaning herself up, packing away her pussy, and pulling down her skirt. If you looked at her now you wouldn’t even know she’s just gotten off. She says to me, “Did you like that, boy?”
I did, but not for the reasons she thinks, but reasons I’m going to be happy to let her hold onto. “Yes, ma’am,” I answer, making myself sound drunk and blissed out.
She leans forward in her chair, bringing himself back up to her desk. Where her pussy was once so stably arranged, she now has her hands neatly folded there. “Would you like to do this tomorrow, Tommy?”
I know this isn’t an offer. It’s in order, phrased like one. And I already know the answer I’m going to give her. I don’t even have to think about it.
As I move back to my desk and pause before the little privacy screen I say, “yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Melissa
Just after 3:30 PM on Friday, I see Tommy jog by my desk. He looks as happy as I feel the moment I see him. I’m fluttery, excited. I really want to wave to him, to tell him I’m looking forward to our date tomorrow, but I don’t. I can’t. Isabella’s right nearby. While I don’t think she would mind the fact that Tommy and I are officially an unofficial item — this company has practically become known for encouraging and fostering relationships between subordinates and their superiors — but our situation is a little different.
Different because, as of this week, Tommy is secretly “involved” with his boss, but not with the same love and care. It’s to expose Ms. Vanacore as the predator she is. And that’s all the more reason I can’t let anything slip. I can’t show any bit of affection, even if Isabella and the rest of the company were ones to judge. A connection between Tommy and me would greatly jeopardize his mission to neutralize Vanacore — to move her out of the company and end her decades-long reign of secret terror in various law firms.
Even so, Tommy’s joy is infectious. It fills me with warmth and happiness, even if I can’t show or speak to it the way I’d like to. I can see it in the way he moves. The way he practically runs out of the office with his head held high.
I let my eyes follow him as far as they can out to the doors of the elevators. Once he is inside, I turn back only to notice Isabella. She’s followed me following him. She raises an eyebrow at me. “That boy’s gone from nearly negligible, not worth much attention at all, to being almost everywhere I look.” She scrunches her eyebrows together, studying me. “He seems to be everywhere you look, too, Melissa.”
I chuckle, already ready to answer her question. “Well, how could I not look after him?” I sigh a little too wistfully for my liking, but I can’t take it back. “After I helped him out with that interview a few weeks prior, it’s been really amazing to watch him step into his own. He’s getting out of the shadows and into his own limelight, though I don’t think he realizes how good he looks in it.” After murmuring this, I shake myself out of my rather poetic and romantic mood.
Almost subconsciously/unconsciously, I move my picture of Dennis further back on my desk, but I still don’t unseat him completely. Some part of me still can’t quite let go.
Isabella simply sighs and says, “To each their own, my friend.” After she says this, she switches off her computer, grabs her ginormous purse with stars and moons engraved on it — it looks like the back of a wearable tarot card to me — and scoots her chair underneath the desk. “I agreed to help a friend get home a little early today,” she adds, noticing my unspoken question to her. “She’s been feeling a little icky, so I volunteered to be her ride home.”
I nod. Things have been slow, and Isabella can take off as much time as she likes.
As Isabella leaves, I hear my phone ping with an incoming text. I dig out my phone, move to turn on the screen and get a glance at the text. It’s from Tommy, and it immediately settles my stomach and my nerves.
Stopping by the bank to get money out for our date, Melissa! Getting out enough to have some fun with! I hope you’re ready!
I giggle, pulling up the keyboard. Oh, I’m so ready, my love! At the same time, I type it out, I say it aloud. As I send this text, I immediately start on another. But remember: I don’t expect you to spend all your money. You can spend some of mine, too. I send this one as well.
The response isn’t immediate, but that’s okay. It gives me time to get myself straightened out. When a follow-up text finally does come in a while later, it’s just as I’m stepping out of the private bathroom for us receptionists, and back toward my desk.
The text reads: Oh, no! You’ve already lavished enough of your money on me, pet. All those lunches and dinners. Not going to have any of it. Not this weekend! It’s all on me!
Hurrying back to my chair, I can’t help it: I’m giggling like a schoolgirl with her first crush. I might as well be since Dennis never had this kind of effect on me. He was never so chivalrous, and he was older than Tommy is by five years.
Yes, sir, I reply, feeling my temperature and hormones spike, whatever you say, sir. I am yours to command. I almost lose the courage to do this, but I finish the text off with some kissy lips and a few hearts. Something that Dennis always said was childish and unnecessary.
And you are mine to protect and treat right, is the reply text I get back. As long as I’m around, no one’s going to mess with you or devalue you ever again. If there’s one thing I want you to get over this weekend while we’re getting my wardrobe upgrade, it’s that.
Teary doesn’t even begin to describe where I’m at after reading this text, but I work to keep from bawling outright. Still, tears drip out of my eyes, happy ones. Under these, I move Dennis’s picture a little more out of the way.
That’s a real man for you, I think toward the pompous eyes and lips of Dennis’s portrait. A real man will make you cry from the amount of joy he brings you, not sadness.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Tommy
While running my errand to the bank directly after work, I’m kept happy and lighthearted by texting with Melissa, who’s still at work. I’ve just let her know what I’m going to do: that I’m withdrawing money for our date tomorrow. I’ve also just told her that she is not going to be allowed to spend any of her money on me since she’s already done that to an egregious and unacceptable level with me.
I’m her boss. Not her dependent. If anyone should be getting a “free ride” on tomorrow’s date, it’s her. Especially since I’ve just gotten out of the bank and back into my car with nearly five thousand in cash in hundred-dollar bills mostly, with a few smaller denominations thrown in there — in case we want to go get some food or break a bill for some change.
The envelope of money in hand, I hurry home. It’s now only a few minutes before four, and I’m eager to avoid Dad. Over the last week, he’s been bugging me for money. He wants me to give him something to spend, though I know he’ll just spend it on garbage: lottery tickets, beer, and titty magazines. If he sees the envelope, he’s going to ask what’s in it. If he finds out there’s money, and that much, he’ll be taking the “cream off the top” as he says — stealing what small bills there are off my pile — and pocketing them as his own.
I need to get this money home and stashed in my downstairs chest of drawers before he sees or smells one bit of it, I think angrily. He’s not getting his grubby, lazy sad-sack fingers on one dollar of it. Not one crisp, clean bill.
This is for my date. My first real date with the first really great girl I’ve met since I started working. This money is not for his instant gratification or for his black-hole vices!
These thoughts in mind, I gun it out of the parking lot, and down the streets that will take me home. I’m careful not to floor it too much, though. Cops are out in force on a Friday, and I see a few of them looking at me, giving me those warning glances, as I drive by.
Wheth
er by this game of cat and mouse with the Friday afternoon cops or my share bad luck, by the time I get home and pull into my driveway, I’m not in a Dad Free Zone. I’m in anything but. He’s right there, right in the driveway, waiting for me to pull in. It’s like he can sense the money on me the way vampire scents a warm, untapped vein.
“Fuck,” I growl this, throwing my head against the headrest. “Fuck. Fuck. Why do you have to be here right now? You’re never home this early on a God damn Friday!” I take my head off the headrest, grip the steering wheel, and study him. He’s just smiling at me like I’m the toy in his box of cracker jacks. “You should be down at the bar, gambling away whatever money other stupid people are generous enough to give you, or ordering drinks you don’t need! Not here! Not now!”
I growl again, wishing that he wasn’t here right now. That something could’ve just kept him in the thrall of his bad habits for this particular afternoon, but that’s not happening. I’m going to have to get out and face him — unless I want to spend all night in my car, which I don’t.
I get out of my car, trying to stuff the envelope of money into my suit jacket before he sees anything. But he’s staring at me, drinking in every damn detail. So, it doesn’t matter how I move or how I try to hide it, he sees the envelope. Dad’s on me as soon as I get out of my car and close the door.
“I saw the envelope. A bank envelope,” he says, sounding obsessed over it. “So, don’t even try to say that there isn’t one, or that I’m seeing things.” He burps at me. It’s almost a throw-up, but not quite.
I am never taking my girlfriend home to meet you. While my heart and mind would like nothing more than to celebrate over the fact that I just called Melissa my girlfriend, I’m not in the space to enjoy that fact now. First, I’ve got to get back into my room with my money.
“I’m not giving you anything out of it,” I tell Dad, pushing past him.
He stops me, plucking the envelope out of my suit jacket like it’s a magician’s hat under his control, even though I’m wearing it. The envelope is in his hands and open before I can even blink. He whistles appreciatively at the money. Like my green money is the same as a stripping, cheap whore to him.
“Whoo, look at all this money. You’ve been holding out on me, boy,” he says, staring daggers at me. Again, it’s like it’s his money I’ve been keeping away from him or stealing from him. “Just for that.” He reaches into the envelope and takes out a giant wad of my cash, at least a thousand, maybe more — I see rage at this point, so I can’t be sure — and pockets it for himself.
“I didn’t get that money out for you,” I scream. “I got that out for myself!”
Dad raises the calculating eyebrow. “For what, boy?”
As much as I want to tell him what it’s for, I know I can’t. That will just invite more obnoxious behavior.
“Comic books?” he asks, taking out more money and pocketing it.
I don’t answer. I just start trembling.
“Video games?”
More money comes out of my envelope and goes into his pocket.
“Fat Fuckers’ Galore: The Magazine?”
This one snaps whatever self-control I have, and I go after him. I grab my envelope from him, but not fast enough to keep him from grabbing one last handful of my money.
“Shut up! I don’t ask you what you spend your money on, jerk!” In the back of my mind, I find myself wishing for someone like Vanacore. At least, if she were here, she could scare the shit out of my dad. She could intimidate him in a way Dad would take seriously.
Even with me raging at him, Dad just laughs and heads toward his beat-up truck, waving my money at me like a red cape designed to enrage a bull. He says, “I’m going to have me some fun tonight! Thanks, boy!”
Dad’s off and roaring down the street in his hunk of junk before I can do or say anything. Before I’ve even really started to chase after him and curse him out, he’s already gone. He’s waving my money out the window, though somehow, it’s not blowing out of his hand.
I turn back to the house, roaring in anger. I kick at anything I can reach that’s not nailed down, getting some satisfaction when it clings and flies off whatever handle or nail it was affixed with. But I’m still so angry, it wouldn’t surprise me if I started bleeding from the mouth. “You fucker! You fucking asshole! Stealing my money! The money I’ve saved up for years, not knowing what I was going to use it for!” I bang my way into the house, and through my entryway, though I’m still feeling way too murderous to be left alone. “That was for my date! My fucking date with Melissa,” I scream. I scream this to the empty house and in the dark stairway down to my room.
I turn on my lights and see what little of my money is left. Only a hundred or maybe two hundred between everything. From five thousand to a little more than maybe two hundred. “Well, there goes any fucking ability I have to treat Melissa. There goes any chance of having a good date: what this was supposed to be.” I growl and wander limply to my bed. “There goes my new wardrobe! There goes any good thing we were trying to go for, thanks to that fucking piece of shit!”
I scream in anger again, thinking for a moment that I should just text Melissa and cancel. I should tell her there was a problem with the money I got out, and that I don’t have any way or reason to go through with the date tomorrow.
But as I take out my phone and prepare to do just that, I can’t. Something in my heart won’t let me crush Melissa’s excitement or her joy at our plans tomorrow. I’ve just seen the kisses and hearts she sent me with her last text. I stare at them, feeling them warm the edges of my spirit that haven’t been snapped in two.
I have no idea how I’m going to make this date anything like what it was supposed to be, but I can’t let it be ruined like this. I won’t let it be. Dad may have ruined my plans, pilfered the money I was going to use, but he doesn’t get to ruin her plans. If I’m any good at being your boss and your boyfriend, I’ll defend you from that. I must. It’s the least you deserve after all the kindness you’ve shown me.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Melissa
I wake up with a smile on my face. I get dressed in my finest, most casual clothes with a lightness and a spring in my step. Even as I’m having a bit of breakfast, running over my plans for what kind of stores to visit with Tommy, what kind of styles I think would accentuate his build, his size, and the color of his hair and eyes, I’m trembling with excitement. I’m giggling at nothing except the thought of being with him all day.
Also, I want to bring him back here after the end of all of it for some much-needed, long-awaited intimate time — time I’ve also started to plan out in my head. I’ve decided we’re going to start out on the couch, then move to my bed or maybe even to the patio connected to my bedroom, since it’s not right next to another unit. My condo, unlike a lot of condos in this community, is actually open to Manhattan.
I have views of the cityscape, and the suburbs beyond. It’s a million-dollar view. That’s the price tag they wanted me to pay, but I happened to move in when construction wasn’t at its best, which meant I got this at a steal. I’d been hoping I would be able to show this view to Dennis, but I’m no longer heartbroken over that loss. It’s all his anyway. Still, I have plans for Tommy and me out here later, after everyone else has gone to bed.
I smile at the naughty thought I’ve just had, and grab my purse, keys, and cell phone, then head out. It’s a quick trip down to my car. Once inside and behind the wheel, I send Tommy a text. On my way. After sending this, I look through our old conversations for the one in which he tells me his address. I press the hyperlink for it and let my map application go to work.
About the same time that the map app. pulls up directions to his house — something that seems to be in a neighborhood and a part of town I’ve never visited, even in the ten years I’ve lived in Manhattan — I get a reply from Tommy. It’s simple, short, and to the point. It simply reads: K. Will be waiting for you.
Thoug
h it doesn’t say anything of the kind in what he writes me, I feel between the lines “Hurry up and get me. Rescue me. If you don’t come soon, I might just go crazy.”
With that driving me onward, I pull out of the parking lot and start navigating my way to Tommy’s. While it says it should take no more than ten or fifteen minutes in current traffic conditions, I find myself wishing I could just teleport to him and then teleport with him out of there to our little slice of retail paradise, but no. I’ve got to drive and go through all the motions. I can’t just wish myself. Damn.
On the way to Tommy’s, I turn on the radio. I’ve got a paid-for radio service. A premium access port to a world of music, literally. Something I’ve found to be an absolute necessity here in the states. It’s the only way I will hear current and popular music from England and the rest of Europe. Also, it has the unique and sexy new age and atmospheric music I like to listen to sometimes. What I’m listening to now, actually.
About ten or fifteen minutes later, just as my navigation program predicted, I’m at Tommy’s. But, as I pull up to his house, with the weed-infested front yard, the gnarly looking tree presiding over a baked-to-hell porch and house, I have trouble believing this is where my boyfriend lives. While I know he hasn’t been the most well-paid employee to work, it surprises me that he’s here in a rundown neighborhood like this.
I remind myself not to judge where he is living, or what surrounds him — I came from a childhood home that most people in England wouldn’t call lavish — that I don’t look like my origins much anymore. I try my best to grow beyond them, but I’m still taken aback. I’m shocked by how much this place, everything about it, does not match with what I know of Tommy.
Before I have too much more time to myself to muse about how he can live here and still present that aura he carries himself with now — like he’s a man truly beginning to understand his worth — there he is. Tommy. He’s just appeared out of the side door on the house — one that has its own storm door and everything. He sees me and waves.