Play With Me

by Ananth

‘The brief was to get something that would get parents to think about a good long-term plan for their kids, not education or health, but a fund plan, stroke insurance, like we have for retirement. So when the kid turns sixteen, he’ll start getting a monthly payout. The challenge is that everyone has one such scheme. We need a really strong print campaign as a differentiator.’

  ‘Let’s get Cara over,’ said Nat, almost as if she had been looking for an opportunity to bring her into the meeting.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked CD.

  ‘New intern. She’s from New York, smart kid, and I think, especially given our conversation prior to this one, it will be good to have someone additional to think about and begin to sell our work,’ Nat told him.

  I wanted to say something but kept quiet. I really wasn’t prepared to meet Cara, at least not yet. I had met her last evening for the first time, and then gone home with her, where we fucked like bunnies . . . okay, made love (too much?) . . . and now we’d be in a meeting together? That simple? Really? And since when did Nat believe an intern could sit in on a review meeting?

  ‘Nat, don’t you think we should give her some time to learn the ropes and meet everyone around here before we throw her into meetings to look at work?’ I asked, feigning an attempt to differ.

  ‘I know it’s your shoot but I think she’ll be fine, Sid. Besides, you are the last person I expected would say things like “learn the ropes”, or at least you used to be. Now you sound like CD. Sorry, CD, no offence,’ she said, turning to him.

  ‘None taken,’ CD mumbled, clearly unhappy.

  ‘Who taught you the ropes?’ Nat glared at me.

  Roy started laughing. I looked at him and smiled, feeling sufficiently stumped. ‘Okay, get her in.’

  Cara walked in wearing an elegant yet simple black sheath dress cinched at the waist by a slim silver belt; it looked like she had walked straight off a fashion shoot. Roy immediately turned to me, wide-eyed, and mouthed FUCK! Clearly he hadn’t paid attention to how gorgeous this girl looked last night. With almost no make-up and her hair styled to look like a well-thought-out accessory, Cara looked astonishingly beautiful. Even CD, who isn’t affected by these things normally, adjusted his collar nervously.

  She sat down next to Nat, and said her hellos around the room. When it was my turn, she said, ‘Hello. Thank you again for dropping me home yesterday,’ and smiled.

  All I could muster was, ‘No problem.’

  Clearly there was some kind of a giveaway on my face, because Nat turned to me and gave me a quizzical look.

  Fortunately, before I could say anything, CD cleared his throat and said, ‘Let’s do this, guys.’

  The shots began to roll in twelve-second intervals, slower than usual, which in a review meeting gave everyone time to take in the pictures and play devil’s advocate, if required. On an average, particularly if there was a regular stream of work, we would maybe reject a shoot once a quarter. Not more. It was simple actually – the photographers were allowed to pursue personal artistic projects but when it came to working for Alpha, the client got what he wanted and we were to stick to the brief. It kept matters simple, costs low and avoided confusion. The crew could then work with the agency and deliver exactly what they needed. Sometimes clients came into the office and sat in on editing too.

  I think we were ten or eleven pictures down when Cara asked, ‘These are all boys . . . didn’t we shoot any girls?’

  Nat turned the knob for the lights to brighten the room.

  Roy said, ‘He did, but the girl had a strange pout so I knocked the photos off the shortlist.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we see them too? I don’t think we should present just these to any client, they don’t seem balanced,’ Cara said.

  Roy began to say something, but Nat cut him off and turned to me, ‘Where is the rest of the shoot?’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Cara, suddenly embarrassed about causing a fuss. ‘I just thought . . .’

  ‘It’s fine, Cara, that is exactly why we do reviews. We should see the other images too – you do have a point about excluding the girl,’ Nat reassured her.

  Roy kept staring at me. I smiled back.

  Nat called the crew room on the speaker phone. ‘Hey, it’s Nat. I am in the boardroom. Can one of you bring all the shots from Sid’s insurance shoot here please?’

  ‘Sid just picked them up,’ replied Kunal, who managed the crew.

  ‘Yes, we have those pictures. I want the full shoot.’

  ‘Roy’s shortlisted them already,’ Kunal said.

  ‘Kunal, baby,’ Nat was getting irritated, ‘can you bring Sid’s full shoot on a stick, please?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ replied Kunal, getting the message.

  Nat disconnected the call and began doodling. Roy and CD turned to their phones, and Cara stared blankly at the table, twisting her hair around her finger. We sat there, unusually quiet, until Kunal brought over the images and set them up, and the slides began to roll again.

  It was my first cut, and I had set them up to appear in a certain order. Seeing them again, the girl did make sense, despite the pout on someone so young. These were black and white with spaces in the frame, part of the shoot itself, where the client’s logo, bright yellow and purple, would be placed, as I saw it.

  ‘Is the shoot in colour too?’ asked Cara.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I replied.

  ‘I think we should present both and let them choose. These are super sexy, but I think we should go traditional, full colour, keep the girl and not show those pictures where it seems like one of the boys and the girl are a couple, not cool! Insurance is a conservative product,’ Cara said in a rush. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound that way. Shouldn’t we?’

  CD had a wide grin plastered on his face.

  ‘How different would it be from what we’ve seen elsewhere?’ asked Roy. He made it sound like a genuine question rather than an argument.

  ‘That is my point. I think there is a reason why insurance ads don’t look radical,’ Cara replied.

  Despite coming across as arrogant and pushy, she was right. In retrospect, this was the kind of thing I’d had in mind while shooting. Nat turned to look at me and even in the low light I could tell she wanted to make sure I was okay with the way things were going.

  I nodded, assuring her that I was fine.

  Satisfied, Nat turned the lights on full and said, ‘Great! Cara, will you edit these then? Your first assignment and you get to slash this man’s work! Even we don’t have that privilege.’

  ‘If he doesn’t mind, that is?’ Cara gave me a questioning look.

  ‘Why would I?’ I looked at Roy, who added, ‘I am happy.’ It had been his edit after all.

  ‘Good.’ Nat ended the conversation and the meeting.

  Just then Cara’s phone rang and she excused herself and left the room.

  ‘What exactly happened here?’ Roy began the moment she disappeared.

  ‘It’s fine, Roy, she’s a young girl and she gave her opinion. We are fine with that, aren’t we?’

  ‘I don’t like her,’ Roy replied.

  ‘C’mon, Roy, she’s a kid. Don’t worry about this. You have a CLIO to win and we’ve got to plan the GoaFest trip, it’s not that far away,’ Nat said. ‘I am not defending her because I brought her in, but if you think about it, it is why I brought her in.’

  My phone beeped; I’d received a text message. It was not a number in my contacts.

  Are you going to work late today? I think you should. C.

  I smiled but before I could come up with a reply.

  Nat asked, ‘Who’s that?’

  I felt like I had been caught red-handed and fumbled for words, finally saying, ‘Nothing. A joke.’

  She smiled. ‘Jerk. One can never find out with you.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Nat,’ I said, smiling, and went back to my phone.

  Am I supposed to be working late?

  Yes. And make sure no one else is.

 
; Right.

  BTW did you lock the apartment before you left?

  I panicked because I didn’t particularly remember checking after pulling the door shut behind me.

  !!!!

  :|

  ‘What do you think, Sid?’ someone asked.

  Startled, I replied, ‘Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What was that?’

  ‘Are you fine with the girl going in and Cara making the presentation?’ asked CD. ‘I don’t see why not . . . you shot her.’

  ‘I am fine, CD, no problem. Don’t worry about it. It’s natural I think. Normally only Roy would have said something about this, but now we have someone who’ll keep saying things, from the look of it,’ I replied, smiling.

  ‘Good, that sorts it. Roy, you might have to work with her too.’

  ‘Not might, he will have to at some point,’ Nat added. ‘So, Roy, be the darling you are and welcome her in. You know, I think I know what the problem is – when Roy finds someone very attractive, he goes around saying he hates them.’ She leaned over and poked him.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Roy as we all laughed and stood up to leave.

  ‘Can someone find out if Matt is coming over?’ CD asked before we dispersed. ‘And do we have our stuff ready to show him?’

  ‘Aanya was going to take care of everything Matt, so let me check with her,’ Nat replied as we walked out of the room.

  I was headed back to my room when Roy caught up with me. ‘Man, what’s with that new chick?’

  ‘C’mon, Roy, I met her last evening too. I don’t know, but I think she’s good. Don’t you?’ I prayed he wouldn’t ask me about me dropping her home last evening. He didn’t.

  ‘Yeah, whatever, but you can’t come in guns blazing to your first meeting, can you?’

  At that point I really didn’t know what to say; it was strange discussing her like I didn’t know her and it was definitely something I didn’t want to do with Roy.

  ‘Interesting times ahead, Roy, let’s see how long she lasts and what happens. She’s an intern who’s a plane ticket away from filthy rich parents in New York. Either she’ll get bored or they’ll want her to come back. Let’s not worry too much about th—’

  ‘She’s hot man!’ Roy blurted out before I could finish. ‘Definitely yanked my chain,’ he winked.

  ‘Sure, Roy, sure,’ I said, grinning. And as I looked at him I thought to myself, If only he knew!

  7

  Back in my room, while replying to emails and surfing the net, I picked up the other set of keys from the croc skull and toyed with them. Kunal came by with the full lot of pictures; Nat had wanted them all in colour and Kunal asked if I wanted to see them before he sent them away. I went over to the sofa and we looked at the contact sheets again, so I could mark the ones I liked.

  Nat and Cara walked in.

  ‘Hey! Busy?’ Nat asked.

  ‘No. Tell me,’ I said, looking at them both. Cara smiled.

  ‘Cara?’ said Nat, turning to her.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi,’ I replied.

  ‘I just thought . . . I should apologize . . . maybe? . . . and ask if we can look at the pictures together this evening? Here?’

  I turned to look at Nat before I said, ‘Of course! And you don’t have to apologize for anything. Speak your mind. Always.’

  So this is what she had in mind when she asked me to work late!

  ‘And you don’t have to worry about working late when it comes to him. He even sleeps here sometimes, by the way,’ added Nat.

  ‘TMI,’ I objected. It definitely wasn’t a good thing for Nat to discuss my sleeping habits with Cara.

  Cara laughed and walked away. ‘Okay, thanks, see you later, Sid.’

  As soon as she split Kunal got up, saying, ‘Sid, if you are going to look at these again in the evening, let’s not do this now, you are going to begin hating them!’

  He was right. ‘Agreed. I’ll do this later. Nat, you don’t know what you’ve gotten us into. What were you thinking, letting a cat in among the pigeons?’ I asked as I watched Kunal sprint out of the room.

  ‘A kitten and a sexy one at that,’ she winked.

  I smiled back at her, glad that she had no way of seeing the images of a naked Cara that were clouding my vision.

  ‘It’s fine, Sid,’ she continued. ‘I think everyone is overreacting. I know it doesn’t help that she’s drop-dead gorgeous, speaks with a slight accent and everyone feels intimidated. But she’ll settle in, you’ll all love her, and everything will be fine.’

  Left alone, I leaned back against the sofa and thought about last night in Cara’s apartment. It seemed almost surreal that an amazing night of sex could happen without the prelude of a date, or a conversation even. The spontaneity of unabashed sex with a beautiful stranger, knowing that the body was having its way and the mind, well, didn’t mind at all. Hedonistic! Maybe that’s why the evening turned out the way it had.

  And today? She walks into my office, and I mean literally my office, my place of business, the one I founded and ran, and it’s like we are complete strangers! Not an ounce of recognition. While she was talking to me at the meeting, all I could think of was last night – of kneeling between her legs while she lay spread out on the bed like a delectable offering, and licking her wet cunt. It had taken considerable effort to push those thoughts aside and act like this was the first time we were having a proper conversation. Had Cara felt the strangeness of it too?

  I returned to my desk and tried to resume work but ended up mindlessly surfing the net. There was a lot happening on Twitter, as usual, and I kept looking for things I might have missed reading. I suddenly remembered that Matt was expected in the office and called Aanya, who moaned that JWT had changed plans again and that Matt would come into the office the following day, if he managed to find time. That got my antennae up. I called Roy.

  ‘Hey, Matt isn’t coming over. Can you call JWT and find out what’s happening? I know this wasn’t scheduled and we only fixed this last evening at the party but to keep moving the meeting seems odd. I am thinking about what CD said, about Jay Arora laying it on for Matt. I am not worried but I am thinking about it.’

  ‘Okay, man, let me call them. Bastards!’ Roy replied.

  I smiled to myself. Roy came loaded with a generous amount of competitive spirit that didn’t need much prodding but the odd thing was that he was also the most patient photographer when we were on a shoot. Nothing could ruffle him. Idiotic designers, cranky models, power cuts, faulty equipment – nothing. He would sit there, zoned in, unflappable, and get his shot.

  I went back to my machine.

  Roy called twenty minutes later and said he had spoken with JWT. He didn’t think there was anything to worry about; Matt was indeed at the JWT office all day because they had begun conversations on restructuring (And this is confidential, he whispered) and so they didn’t want any offsite meetings. I hung up, reminding myself not to be swayed by sporadic shifts or delays and to trust my gut. And something told me that when it came to JWT or Matt and the ideas for going after a new stream of business we had it in us to get it.

  The office had begun to quieten down and the lights were turning off in various parts of the floor. I went and sat on the sofa again and began flipping through some magazines. I wondered if I should call Cara to find out when she would come to discuss the photographs, but then decided against it. I checked the time on my mobile phone – 18.26 p.m.

  ‘Do you want to a grab a pizza?’ Cara asked as she walked in twenty minutes later.

  I looked up at her. She shook her head smiling, questioning.

  I smiled back and noticed that her body language had changed from what it had been in the morning. This was a more confident stance, her body fully facing mine, almost as an offering, or maybe my mind was making that up, considering I wanted to be offered that body again. The silver belt was missing. In the very low light in the office, emanating from the single large saucer fixture on the ceiling, and the bl
uish glow from the widescreen Mac on my desk, she looked devilishly beautiful.

  ‘Okay, I’ll order something,’ she said, disappearing as suddenly as she had arrived.

  Aanya walked in a while later to say she was leaving. I wondered if that was all or if her appearance had another purpose.

  ‘Cara is ordering pizza—’

  Ah!

  ‘I’ve indicated what you like,’ she said, not happy that I hadn’t asked her to. ‘And please go home tonight.’

  ‘Thanks, Aanya. I’ll split as soon as we are done,’ I promised, wondering if she meant go home to your place instead of sleeping in the office or don’t go home with Cara.

  I got up and walked out with her, down the passage, to the door.

  ‘Are you making sure I leave?’ she asked, elbowing me.

  ‘C’mon, Aanya, can’t I see you out?’

  As I walked back towards my room I noticed a couple of the crew were still working, but that was normal, those guys tended to leave late. With not enough time to do all the new stuff they wanted to, all they ended up doing during the day was tinkering with and redoing images. The best work usually got done when the office was quiet. I looked around and saw Cara, busy on her computer. I made a note to find out from Nat which projects she had been put on. Not willing to wait any longer, I called her as soon as I got back to my desk.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, answering the phone.

  ‘It could have been anybody.’

  ‘But it isn’t! You want me to come now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The office is sufficiently empty, do you think?’

  ‘What exactly do you have in mind?’

  ‘Let me come,’ she replied and hung up on me.

  I heard her walk through the office. She was wearing nude stilettos, I had noticed, that made her ankles look sexy and lifted her ass just enough to make an impact. Almost everything about her was designed to make her desirable, I thought. Sitting there hearing her come closer to my office, I asked myself if she was too much of a construct. But then the woman I had held in my arms, wet in the rain, warm from an explosive orgasm was anything but a construct. That person . . . she . . . was real. The passion I was subjected to was real.