by Cynthia Dane
So to suddenly see Eric Mann’s face when he stood up from his desk and want to hurl from shame and embarrassment? Not the foot I wanted to present first.
I had been attracted to people before. Wanted to kiss them, fuck them, whatever. I had my fair share of relationships since I was fourteen and deigned to lose my virginity when I was eighteen. After four somewhat serious relationships with men, however, I had given up dating for the rest of my twenties, if I could help it. Sex would be one thing. Purely functional. I was, after all, in my mid-twenties and dealing with the hormonal urges that came with it. My stressed-out body couldn’t understand why we were not having sex at all hours of the day. I had simply become a pro at suppressing those desires until it was appropriate to express them with someone from my grad program or some decent-looking sap I picked up from a bar late on a Friday night.
Functional. Purely. Functional.
My brain joined my body in wanting to do nothing but screw Eric Mann’s brains out.
There were a ton of rumors about him. He was gay. He was a eunuch. He was an asexual virgin who would give his sperm to a doctor before sticking his cock into the wife his family chose for him. Basically, every rumor was born from his reclusive lifestyle… and the way he looked.
I do not mean to imply that people didn’t see him as masculine, per se. If you ask me, there was no man more masculine than Eric Mann. (See? It was even in his name!) If anything, I think people were jealous that he could get away with a softer face and a shorter stature than most of his omnipresent peers. I know what men top the Forbes and GQ lists for sexiest, most handsome billionaire CEOs in America. Men like Ethan Cole, Damon Monroe, Julian Marcus, and Vincent Lane. All athletic, sophisticated, and likely to sprout a full beard if they forget to shave for a day. Pinnacles of American alpha-minded masculinity. The kind of men women stupidly throw themselves at because their panties are on fire and the money is so sexy that they swear they’ll die without these men in their sorry lives.
Eric Mann didn’t get that reaction out of people, let alone women. Whenever the other women in my grad school program would gossip about who they would have a one-night stand with, Eric’s name rarely came up. Either they had no idea what he looked like (and then we would gush over his GQ spread from five years ago) or they claimed to not be turned on by “feminine men.”
But I didn’t think he was feminine. He was 100% the kind of guy I always pursued.
“Ah, Ms. Pentecost. There you are.” Eric’s voice warmed the room as he stood up and rounded his Colonial desk that had been handed down in his family since 1822. (Occasionally refurbished, of course.) He wasn’t the tallest man in the executive offices of Mann-Garrett. Hell, Aiden was a good three inches taller than him, and Aiden barely broached six feet. But Eric Mann knew how to carry himself and his presence through a room. There was never any doubt that he was the one in charge, based on how people parted to make way for him whenever he put one foot in front of the other. We did that back then. As soon as he approached, Aiden and I separated as if our boss wanted to pass between us. Brooke did not budge.
“I brought the two new interns who start today, Mr. Mann.”
“So I see.” He stood before us, arms crossed and legs slightly spread. His impeccably tailored trousers and dark blue dress shirt sent chills down my spine. It wasn’t often you came across a man of his standing who forewent the full suit and tie. Yet somehow he out-classed us in such a simple getup. “I had forgotten that was today.”
“I knew you would.” Brooke spared us a tired smile as she pulled out two pieces of paper from a folder. “Copies of their files, because I also know that you don’t have these on hand.”
“What would I do without you?” The papers snatched from one hand to the other.
“Completely collapse.”
He looked both Aiden and me in the eye. “You hear how she speaks to me? Insubordination.”
His joke wasn’t anything to laugh at. Normally, I would have given him one of my many practiced smiles to acknowledge his wit and humor (and how magnificent it was,) but when his cold, blue eyes locked on mine, I forgot how to speak.
All I could do was guffaw like a donkey.
Aiden’s eyes widened in my direction. Brooke jumped in her stilettos. Mr. Mann expanded his grin into a toothy smile. All white. All perfectly straight. Genetics be damned. I wanted the name of his dentist.
His smile reminded me of someone I used to know. Someone I hadn’t thought about in a long time.
If my stomach wasn’t doing flips before, it was competing at the Olympics now.
“See? She gets my humor.” That was directed at Brooke, who had regained her composure after my embarrassing outburst. “I like her already. Ms. Chen, right?”
“Y – yes.” My mouth was dry. Those eyes were back on me, and I swear to God my face flushed like I had been drinking alcohol. In due time, I would come to think of that gaze as more than a mind-altering, inhibition-lowering substance.
It was the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world.
“Natalie Chen.” I held my hand out. “It’s a pleasure to work here, sir.”
He clasped my hand and gave it a solid squeeze. I had fully intended to give it a firm shake back, but I’m afraid the only thing I could accomplish was a sweaty grip.
What the hell was wrong with me! This wasn’t me! Floundering, clammy, dry-mouthed… I hadn’t worked my ass off in high school, college, grad school only to come tumbling down because a hot guy touched me!
Jesus! So embarrassing! My mother was somewhere cackling at my misfortune!
“It’s a pleasure to have you here, Ms. Chen.” He withdrew his hand and clasped both behind his back. “How does my morning look, Ms. Pentecost?”
Brooke didn’t even have to look at her iPad. “You have a meeting with Carlisle Group at 9:30. Teleconference. Mr. Carlisle has requested that his fiancée be present.”
Mr. Mann didn’t skip a beat in offering his opinion. “Which one is this now? The sixth one since I met him?”
“Mr. Carlisle does enjoy being engaged, sir.”
“Don’t we all.”
They shared a brief look that extended beyond my comprehension. All I knew was that they were definitely fucking.
Oh, well. I’d learn to curb my jealousy. It wasn’t healthy to have that kind of attraction to my boss, anyway. Even if my boss was Eric Mann.
“Tell him he can bring his mother if he wants, as long as they mind their manners. I’m assuming you’ll take the notes for the meeting, Ms. Pentecost?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Take notes from her.” He returned to his seat. “She’s a wizard at shorthand. Makes her worth her weight in gold, not that she’ll tell me how much she weighs so I can give her that much gold for her birthday.”
“A lady never divulges, sir.” Brooke pivoted on her left foot. Her heel squeaked against the hardwood floors. “Why don’t you two come out with me and I’ll get you situated with some tasks. This meeting will take a while, and you two aren’t going to be left listless.”
We followed her without a word while Eric stayed behind, clicking through Excel files on his monitor. He cocked his head up on one hand, his cushioned elbow grinding against the antique desk that his forefathers had sat at for generations.
There was something humble about that image. Too bad I was soon thrust into too much busy work to enjoy it.
I spent most of my first day at Mann-Garrett Enterprises thinking about that short interaction. I knew I was in trouble when Brooke brought our boss’s lunch into his office and stayed in there to eat with him, their devices off and tired laughter filtering through the ajar door.
I had to get a hold of myself. Not only for my own sake, but for my future’s.
Chapter 3
ERICA
“Someone’s in a good mood.”
Sherman’s voice caught me off guard as we rode home in the back of my Mercedes. Twilight had long covered the city in a cool darkne
ss that couldn’t bring down the spirit in my heart. “What makes you say that?”
He chuckled, sunglasses still strapped across his face even though he didn’t need them at this time of day. People would make fun of him for it, except nobody made fun of a former serviceman who could crack skulls with a snap of his fingers. “You’re at least a little more jubilant than you were this morning. Dare I ask what’s brought it on? It can’t be the deal you made with the Carlisle Group. Work doesn’t make you this giddy.”
“I’m not giddy,” I insisted.
“Far as I’m concerned, you’re as giddy as a tween girl getting ready for the Sadie Hawkins dance.”
“What the hell is a Sadie Hawkins?”
“Oh, right.” Sherman snorted. “You’re too rich to understand.”
While it was true I had been too privileged to have a normal life regardless of what my father did to me, I also knew what he meant when he used a coded message like you’re too rich. It meant that deep down I was a freak.
Thanks for bringing me back down to Earth, Sherman.
“I’m not excited about anything in particular.” I certainly couldn’t say what I had been thinking about all day. Natalie. Ms. Chen. The intern who had already turned my head and made me memorize her name for the rest of my life. Had I really interviewed her myself? Because I barely recalled that divine visage from a few months ago. “Perhaps a little infatuation has livened up my mood.”
“Infatuation?” Sherman turned toward me. “Who has caught your eye?”
While there was a layer of friendly curiosity to that, I couldn’t help but notice the panic in his voice. Sherman wasn’t a man prone to jealousy around me, even though I had often suspected that he fancied me as more than a friend. In a perfect world, I would have been attracted to him. Who better to marry than the man who swore to protect my life… and knew my secrets? But as it so happened, whether by natural inclination or gendered socialization, my lust was reserved for women.
I had to think quickly, before he suspected I admired someone as dangerous as Ms. Chen. “One of the delivery girls this morning. Don’t know if you noticed while you were in conference with your security team. But the shipping company has a new girl, and she’s quite cute.”
“You flirted with her?”
Had I flirted with Natalie? Perhaps. Not my intention, but sometimes a man cannot help herself. Nor can a woman help himself.
Themselves.
“Be careful, Erica.” Sherman looked out his window. “If you need me to, I can go with you to…”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. I knew what he wanted to say. Where I went whenever my sexual urges overcame me and I needed to shove my face into pussy or explore when it meant to have an eager lady explore mine. (With an ironclad NDA, of course.) “It’s not like that.”
Wasn’t it, though? Didn’t I want to fornicate with a woman I could never have? Because it was too dangerous?
Sometimes I felt like such a rebellious teenager. Danger dangled before me. It took every drop of self-resistance in my veins to not grab it and run. Like I wanted to grab Natalie and run off with her into the sunset.
Jesus. I had only known her for ten minutes, and I was already conspiring my self-sabotage. I needed to get a hold of myself. I needed to compartmentalize my attraction to Natalie Chen like I compartmentalized everything else.
Including my identity, and my soul.
***
If I ever thought I could continue to work without interference, I was a fool.
You see, Natalie Chen was a constant in my office. From her first day at work, I was hyperaware of her presence, whether I was in my office, in one of the board rooms holding a meeting with associates and investors, or in the back of my Mercedes going to and from work. There were days she was there before me, the person who showed up as early as possible so I could avoid contact with others. On those mornings, when I walked into the office with Sherman trailing off to brief his team in the smallest conference room, I encountered the brightest star in my company already at her desk typing, filing, and cheerily stamping my company’s seal on inter-office mailings.
I don’t merely call her the brightest star because she was beautiful. Even if I did not find her physically attractive, I would still admire the shine that stole my heart every time we crossed paths or a piece of her paperwork landed on my desk. She was so efficient, so proficient that I would have praised her for her work ethic alone. There was no doubt that she was more than qualified to be one of the interns in my executive office. I was already debating what position she could fill in my office when her internship was finished.
One week. She had been in my office one week and I wanted to scream.
At first, I told myself it was mere infatuation. More than two years with Brooke had confirmed my desire to live my life with a woman, but I still wasn’t often sure if what I felt for beautiful women was nothing but sexual or something more. While I understand that many women go through these conflicting feelings when they face their same-sex attraction, few have faced it the way I have. The world thought I was a man. Natalie thought I was a man. When I strolled through my office, I was like a peacock on patrol, flaunting my iridescent feathers and hoping she’d notice me. Me. The person always shirking attention, because too much attention might mean someone found out the truth that could destroy me – and my company.
I knew what made an attractive man. I had been studying men I found attractive and men society agreed were the cream of the sexual crop. It was a part of my training to pass as a man. It was also the key to my precarious love life, especially if I wanted to have “real” dates with women I didn’t pay to go out with me (and to keep my secret, should things get heavy in the bedroom.)
Until then, my romantic life had been a joke. Brooke was the only woman I had ever truly loved, let alone loved me back. I was so relieved to have her in my life, because it meant the end of many of the inane games I played to sate my sexual desires and to show the media that I was a red-blooded, heterosexual male – the amount of rumors that I was a gay man was ridiculous, and based purely on my lack of public female companionship and more “effeminate” qualities. It would’ve been an interesting experiment had I been attracted to men. But I wasn’t. From the age of thirteen, when I first encountered a girl that made me tingle, I was both relieved and horrified that my attractions were for women.
I was relieved, because it would make it easier to pass as a man. But I was horrified, because what did this mean for my future? For my identity?
Am I a lesbian? I often thought, alone in my bed at night. Am I a trans straight man? What am I?
I envied people who had more opportunities to explore these thoughts. I envied the ones who had never been put into my position.
So, I envied everyone.
Natalie could never know the truth. She had to continue to get up from her desk and greet me with, “Good morning, Mr. Mann,” thinking the bulge in my pants and the way I carried myself was my real physiology. She must never question it. She must never get close enough to see the real me. Whoever that was.
Even though I wanted her. That became more apparent every time I saw her. The outfits she wore – conservative, yet complementary to her natural beauty – made me go mad. I remembered when I used to stare at Brooke’s wardrobe, in awe that one body could go from cocktail dress to pantsuit and show so many sides of a fierce, intrinsic femininity I could never hope to achieve. Natalie was shorter, darker-haired, and more soft-spoken than Brooke, but she evoked that same reaction in my imagination. I was captivated by the way she maneuvered her long, thick hair when she bent down over a desk or prepared to meet someone important. I was entranced by the quick and dirty makeup routine she performed at her desk when nobody important was around. Whenever Natalie caught herself slouching or frowning for too long, she snapped up, looked around, and stretched her arms before getting right back to work. I barely remember the male intern we paired her with, because he was a lazy waste of offi
ce space compared to her. She did the job of two people, and well.
Tell me… was I more attracted to her body, or to her work ethic? The Lord knew I appreciated both almost equally.
Almost.
Sometimes I swore I caught her looking at me, too. That way. I would suddenly come out of my office or turn to her in a meeting, making sure she was busy taking notes, and catch her bright brown eyes swallowing my aura. A tint of blush would touch her cheeks, and she’d be back to work, as if the teacher had looked up from his desk during the final exam.
Wondering if our attraction was mutual was the most damning thing. It was also the most heartbreaking, because I knew she was attracted to someone I wasn’t sure existed.
“Don’t suppose you have any advice for me,” I asked my empty office one morning. My pen signed documents, but my eyes were locked on the childhood photo of my brother and me on the edge of my desk. A part of me believed that my brother Eric was still with me, had grown with me. He wasn’t a five-year-old boy anymore. He was a thirty-year-old man with needs and ridiculous opinions like any other. If it were him sitting in this seat, as was his birthright, I wondered if he would feel the same way about Natalie. I had always been convinced that he would’ve stolen Brooke for himself first.
Or maybe he would’ve been gay. Who knows? Even with our twinly bond, he died much too young for me to remember or really understand.
“Don’t give me that look.” I sighed, opening the top drawer of my desk and pulling out a stack of silver paperclips. “You know what I’m thinking.” I was always careful to not call him by name. If someone caught me talking to this picture, they had to believe I was talking to my sister. The one who had legally died. “She’s got to go. To some other department.”
I sipped my warm coffee and closed my eyes, head resting against the back of my leather chair. The ticking of an antique grandfather clock and the hum of the air conditioner lulled me into a one-minute power nap that would help me reset my brain and get back to work. I had much to do before lunch.