Page 5 of Five
“Is he involved in this?”
“Don’t know yet. But he’s definitely good at hiding his dirty secrets—as I told you a few days ago, his background is immaculate. I’ll look more into his pathetic life. In the meantime, tonight is anyone-in, which means that non-members can enter the club. Well, non-members who know about the very secretive sex club. But you have to have the red ticket—the courier must have delivered it to your office this morning.”
My eyes fall to an unopened envelope on my desk with my name written on it near a ludicrous cartoon of a robot—clearly made by Rami. A red square card with the name of the club and its address written in gold letters slides out when I tear the edge open.
“Got it,” I let Rami know as I turn the card between my fingers.
“Show it at the club entrance, and it’ll get you in. Bailey is always there after ten. He’ll probably welcome you and show you around. See if you can get some information out of him. Oh, you got the red ticket from another member of the club. Members want to keep their privacy, so he won’t ask for names. But just prepare a backstory like you were bored, wanted something more exciting, more illicit.”
“Don’t need your help,” I remind him. It’s not my first undercover job. Also Linda thought us well how to blend in.
“I’m just being thorough, C-3PO.” My brother uses again the nickname he gave me when we were kids.
C-3PO, always hilarious, Bez chuckles.
A loud scream comes over the line, and then Rami’s abrupt yelling makes me jerk the phone away from my ear, “…Yeah, that’s what you get when you piss my bear man off!”
I hang up, finally getting away from the endless call. I got everything I needed from my brother, and if there’s more, he can email it to me. I slide the red club card inside my jacket and leave my office.
My PA’s desk is empty once again, and as I cross the floor to get to the elevator, everybody quiets, quickly looking down and away from me. Only the sound of the phones ringing from the reception desk echoes in the air. A client greets me from one of the conference rooms, and I tilt my head their way without halting my steps. I command with a firm fist. I’m a tough boss, but a fair one—as long as I give a damn, which usually I don’t. I don’t allow mistakes and rarely give second chances, but if my staff works hard, they get rewarded.
You fucking bumped your donor to go check out a sex club, Bez hisses as the doors to the elevator close.
I grit my teeth against the feeling of my skin crawling. He can feel it too, obviously, that’s why he’s pissed—not that he has any kind of self-control usually.
Bez and I are completely opposite. He’s impulsive, boisterous, irrepressible, remorseless, relentless, and with no care for rules or anybody but himself. His only purpose is to protect us.
We’ll find another one tonight, I reply.
Right, he huffs with incredulity,orI’ll find a tight hole to pound at that club.He doesn’t add anything else. For that, I’m grateful. He’s not a very talkative person, which is fortunate since co-fronting impacts my relationships and everyday conversation.
Having two distinct identities at the wheel makes living a delicate dance between managing inner conversations and external interactions. It took me years of therapy with Meg to learn how to juggle multiple conversations at once, maintaining coherence while staying present in the moment without disrupting the flow of dialog externally. It can still be disorienting. I pretend to be on my phone at times to avoid awkward situations and the following questioning.
That’s why Bez’s few, short comments here and there don’t bother me. We are very different individuals, but there’s a layer of respect between us encouraged by self-survival.
The elevator stops on the twentieth floor with a chiming sound. The lobby of the HR office is filled with people holding resumes and chatting, hoping to find a place in my prestigious law firm. The receptionist smiles at me a little too eagerly.
I assume my work-stern look, and without making eye contact with anybody, I move toward Evelyn’s office with confident strides.
I turn into the corridor on the left and stop in front of the manager’s door, which is slightly ajar and allows me to see inside. My gaze zeros in on a waterfall of light caramel hair, a stripe of golden skin revealed by a loose pink shirt falling down a delicate shoulder and a pair of black high-heeled ankle boots.
Lori Boone.
He’s sitting with his back to me in front of Evelyn’s desk and near my crying ex-temp PA. He’s slightly turned to the right in his chair while talking, and I can see the profile of his upturned nose, the pinkness filling his cheek, and the shiny lipstick on his red lips—the upper one forms a round arch, while the lower one has a dip in the middle that makes me think about softness and bites.
I can’t stop my eyes from wandering over him. He’s different from anybody I’ve ever met and I feel ambivalent toward him. I don’t know how to deal with him. Usually, people are quite predictable in my experience, while he’s a mystery I cannot pin down.
It gives me headaches. Which means that he affects me. Which in turn is preposterous.
He looks petite and overly flamboyant, but he has an understated strength to him and such confidence in himself that charms most people and intimidates the rest. I’m not in either group. While Bez…
Little Wasp looks edible today, he growls darkly.
Little Wasp,that’s what Bez calls Lori. He. Likes. Lori. When he never likes anybody. He can barely stand me, and I’m his headmate. I cannot figure out why Bez is interested in him. I know he wants to fuck him, but there’s more.
He wants sex, especially with men, while I’m not a very sexual person. When I feel the need to fuck, I veer toward women. I only had a couple of encounters with men in college. I was curious, I scratched the itch. Bez, on the other hand, gets his quickies often, but he’s never expressed an ongoing interest toward any of them.
Why Lori?
