CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REBECCA
ONCE HOME, THE SECOND-GUESSING starts.
Why did Evan hire me? Was it for my ideas, which seem nebulously considered — or for sex, which is straightforward and already given?
I know what my mom would say if I were still talking to her. And I know what my girlfriends would say, if they hadn’t already said it so many times that they’re all getting tired of banging their heads against my wall.
Of course it’s for sex, Becca. Why is this even a question?
It’s hard to argue. I don’t have the best track record. Steve wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing; he was an ass from the start. His modeling name was Chase Phoenix, for fuck’s sake. Did I think I was going to build something amazing with a guy who’d make that choice?
Evan is different.
My internal girlfriends laugh.
But it’s true. He’s successful; he’s smart; he’s a gentleman. He even mentioned, during one of our chats, that he does this thing within LiveLyfe called Project Angel, where he finds worthy employees and anonymously gives them gifts when they need them most.
You mean his secret project? And there’s more internal laughing. The one he tells nobody about. Except, conveniently, the girl he’s trying to stick his dick into?
I have reasons why he’d tell me that don’t involve his penis, but I decide the saner choice, for now, would be to set it all aside. I’ve argued with the voices in my head too often. We’re a big, loud Italian family in there. Sometimes, a girl needs her peace.
But by evening, the feeling hasn’t subsided. This isn’t even directly about Evan. It’s about me. I know who I am; I know how reliably I make poor choices. Given any decision — especially where men are involved — I’m a backward kind of compass. Anyone looking for the right things to do would need only to watch me and make the opposite choice.
I sit and write a post on my blog. About one of the times Steve and I were broken up, and he connived his way back into my pants. He was out of money; people did not want to hire a Chase Phoenix who was getting fat and going bald. I told him to go away. We had sex instead, and sometime before he left, he stole the wallet right out of my purse. Not just the $120 in cash, the whole damn thing. I went to dinner with an important client and had no way to pay. The client covered it, and I lost the account. On the way home, I got stopped by a cop and got a ticket for driving without a license. I called Steve to bring it to me, but he said he was playing darts.
The post is funny in the way SteveHasATinyDick.com posts tend to be. Within minutes of posting it I’m getting replies from fans who say it’s one of the best yet. But it doesn’t scratch the itch, and when I’m still up at midnight, neurotic over the stuff with Evan today. The only way to still the demons is to pull up some more photos of Steve with his tiny cock in Photoshop then add speech bubbles and a face, so it looks like his skinny mini is saying embarrassing things.
A picture with his soldier flat on his stomach. I add arms and a face looking up, so it looks like his cock just fell back with exhaustion. The speech bubble says, “I’m so tired of dwarves laughing at me.”
One where it looks like the penis is carrying his balls with the drawn-on arms, and it’s saying something about going bowling.
And one I’m particularly proud of: a shot of Steve gripping his thing as if it’s a monster, but it just looks like he’s caught a rogue toadstool. I add a straining, out-of-breath face to his dick’s head, tint it red, and add a bubble: “AT LEAST LET ME CATCH MY BREATH BEFORE BEATING ME AGAIN!”
I collapse more than fall asleep. The first hour happens at my desk with my face on the keyboard. When I awaken, it looks like I’ve inadvertently sent a few emails. I go to bed. I’m still wearing my skirt, which I put on backward as I rushed to leave the conference room. No time for afterglow. I just realized I was being a whore and got the hell out of there.
The next thing I hear is the alarm. I don’t remember setting it. Evan asked if I could be back tomorrow (now today) at 9 AM. I said yes. This is starting to feel a lot more like a real job than he’d promised.
I shower. I dress down. Then I look in the mirror and dress down further. The feeling that I’ve acted like a call girl thus far is a lead necklace. I’m trying to remind myself of all the flattering things Evan said about my instinct and ability to bond with people, but what keeps coming back to me is the feeling of his hands on my ass, his big cock sliding in and out with no resistance. What I keep thinking of, while I try to pack my bag for the day’s work, is the taste of Evan’s flesh in my mouth, the feel of his tongue between my spread legs.
I dress down one more time.
When I arrive at LiveLyfe’s office, I do the same thing that I did yesterday. I go into the bathroom. And goddammit if I don’t look kind of slutty again, despite all the dressing down. I put on pants instead of a dress or skirt, but they’re tighter than I realized. My blouse is clingy and shows my boobs too much. And the fucking thing doesn’t have buttons above a certain point, and I’ve worn that bra that promises to lift and separate, so it looks a little I’m walking into the room offering tits on a platter.
I need to go home. Screw the job. Screw the million. He can have it back.
I’m halfway to the elevator when a woman shouts after me. She catches me and extends a hand.
“Rebecca?”
I nod.
“I’m Taylor. Evan’s executive assistant.”
“I dressed down today.”
This isn’t what Taylor expected me to say. I’ve got such a loose verbal sphincter; I just poop words out without even meaning to. My lack of filter does have some use, at least: I checked my website stats before leaving my place, and the doctored dick pics went over like gangbusters. “Strangled Cock” has even started to go viral. 113 people joined my email list this morning before my teapot boiled. It’s like I’m allergic to failure. I just drunkenly stumble my way into success.
“That’s nice,” is all Taylor can say.
We shake hands.
“Evan is waiting for you.”
I manage not to say, … naked, on silk sheets, with a giant boner and a red bow tie?
“He’s in his office.”
“Not the conference room?” You know, the scene of my crime?
Taylor takes my hand and starts to lead. I drag my heels like a dog reluctant to visit the vet. Taylor looks at me like I’m crazy. Or perhaps six years old.
“Is everything okay?”
“I saw a Hill of Beans downstairs. Could you ask him to meet me there?”
Taylor stalls like a robot chewing on bad input. I guess most people do what Evan wants rather than making suggestions of their own.
“Please?” I add. “I’d really like some oatmeal.”
“Hill of Beans sells oatmeal?”
“I was surprised, too.”
I know this exchange isn’t logical. It’s like she’s speaking one language and I’m speaking another, but we’re both trying to pretend it’s all good and we haven’t noticed.
“O-okay.”
“I’ll be down there.”
I leave Taylor baffled.
Ten minutes later, Evan and I are sitting in two uncomfortable chairs with a wobbly round table between us. I don’t have the confidence to put my tea on its top, for fear of spilling. I didn’t get oatmeal. I don’t like oatmeal. I hope Taylor didn’t lead Evan to expect it.
I let Evan lead the discussion. We don’t talk about yesterday, though he tries to bring it up several times. I’m not sure how I feel. My mind keeps revisiting our conference room encounter, and the word he said that started us groping: “Maybe.” In response to my question about whether he hired me for any reason other than my brain.
At the time, it seemed hot. It meant he was into me for reasons unknown.
Now, I can’t help but hear it like a whore’s dinner bell. Oh, I need to perform for my pay? Okay, here’s pussy.
Not that it was that way. Not that Evan meant it like that, because I’m sure he didn’t. But I’m already unsure about this whole thing, and the fact that I dropped my panties on my first day of work isn’t exactly helping me to feel like an all-star.
I look across the table at Evan. There’s heat on my body, in all the right places.
I look away when he looks directly at me because I’m not sure what any of this means. At this point, it needs to be work first, “bonuses” second. If at all. I do have some self-respect. Let’s get this project up and running, and never mind the way Evan keeps looking at me: like he’s a wolf on a tether, held back only by civil restraint. Thank God I chose Hill of Beans. We’d be interfacing like bunnies right now if we were alone in his office.
On the whole, I’d rather not think about it.
I think about it after I go home again. I think about it once in bed, then again in the shower. I think about it again in the morning, remembering the way Evan’s eyes drilled into mine while his cock drilled somewhere else. Then I force myself to pull my panties back up and stop thinking about it. If I think about it much more, I’ll develop a callus.
The next day, we meet in the Hill of Beans again.
Then the next day.
We work right through the weekend. Evan eventually vetoes the coffee shop, so I order up. The delivery guys come into his office right after the door closes and we’re alone together. I tell them to leave the door open on their way out because I have a medical condition and need the fresh air.
The project goes nowhere.
At all.
This doesn’t seem to bother Evan. Most of the time when we’re together, we don’t even talk about anything that feels directly like work. He asks about me, but that’s not strange because my business (which is relevant) is braided with my personal life (which is none of Evan’s business). He asks how I got started. How I learned what I learned. What signals I use to help me make decisions: do my choices come purely from instinct, or do I watch statistics and indicators? He wants to know what kinds of sales funnels I’ve built and how I built them. He asks about my facility with LiveLyfe ads: how I choose exactly the right image, exactly the right text, and target exactly the right demographics.
Even I can’t place LiveLyfe ads as effective as yours, he tells me.
Time passes. It feels like we’re on an enormous, week-long date.
Evan keeps trying to get me alone. I resist. He keeps looking at me in that way of his, and I try to resist looking back. I usually fail. I’m having dreams about Evan. It’s not just fucking. I imagine us building a great unseen thing. I don’t know what the thing is, but in my dreams Evan does. I ask, and Dream Evan tells me to be patient. Answers will come.
More days. More nights.
One night I dream I’m on a three-way date with Evan and Steve. We all walk down a boardwalk arm-in-arm-in-arm with me in the middle. We reach the end, cross a stretch of beach, and wrap around so we’re under the boardwalk, which looms overhead. Our arms separate, and Evan beats Steve until he apologizes to me. For everything.
Day ten or eleven, we’re in a Cheesecake Factory down the block from Evan’s office, and I’ve insisted on paying so hard that I’ll fight him if I have to. We’re at a square table in the restaurant’s center. It’s too loud, but that’s the idea. I’m afraid to be alone with Evan. I’d hoped what was between us would go away, but it’s more like an obstruction building pressure in a hose. It’s been hard to think of anything but Evan. And I can tell by the way he watches me and tries to touch me that he’s been thinking of me.
It scares me. A lot.
“This isn’t working,” I say.
Evan kind of shakes his head. “What isn’t?”
“I’m not helping you at all. All we do is sit around and talk, and you’ve paid me a million dollars.”
He looks relieved as if he thought this isn’t working meant something more dire. “This is how the process works,” he says.
“It’s not a process. It’s just discussion.”
“That’s the process.”
I sigh, exasperated. I meet his eyes. Hard. “Evan,” I say. “Tell me the truth.”
“Okay.”
“Do you plan for this to become something, or did you just want to sleep with me?”
He fumbles, but recovers quickly. “Of course I have a plan. I contacted you about it before I’d even met you.”
“But it’s been two weeks. More if you count those first talks. And we have nothing. Not even a speck of an idea. I don’t mean to beat it to death, but … a million dollars, Evan. That might be pocket change for you; I don’t know. But to me it’s a lot of money.”
“It is for me, too. For LiveLyfe. For my CFO, who’s pissed that I spent it.”
“I can give it back. I haven’t touched it. I don’t want money I didn’t earn.”
“I said I spent it,” Evan repeats, as if “spent” is forever.
“I’m not earning it. I’m not doing anything.”
“By the standards of pure ideation, you’re doing a lot.”
This baffles me. I’d accuse him of lying, but I’ve known Evan a while now, and he doesn’t strike me as a liar.
“Pretend you’re building a mansion,” Evan says. “In one part of the mansion, there’s a spectacular room. You build every inch of it. You hang the chandeliers and lay the rugs and paint the walls and choose the furnishings. But until the room is mostly finished, you can’t turn on the lights. You can’t install windows. So, you work in the dark, operating by feel. Only when it’s done can you install a door, open the room, and see what you’ve created.”
“This isn’t the same,” I say.
“It is. We build beneath the surface first. Whatever this is, it’s growing. I can feel it. It’s in my subconscious, and in yours. At some point, we’ll find the door and peek inside to see what we’ve made.”
“I’m not like you, Evan. I can’t work in abstractions. I’m the queen of transparency. I’m the opposite of what you’re describing. I start with what’s in front of me. My own two hands. If you like what I do so much, you’d know that: all my success online has been about restating what’s personal, present, and obvious.”
“You have to try.”
I shake my head. “You have to explain it to me. Don’t leave it all to mystery. Maybe you can do alchemy, but I can’t. If you want my help, I need to know the shape of the machine behind the curtain.”
“I can’t tell you,” he says.
I send his own words back to him. “You have to try.”
Evan thinks. Looks around.
“If you had to start all over,” I say. “If you had to burn LiveLyfe to the ground, and do it all again from the beginning, what would you build?”
A long moment passes. Then his eyes light up.
It’s intense. Seductive. Mesmerizing. It’s impossible for my soul to resist, and I feel the way it slips through my fingers as it streams across the table to find him. I feel me bleed into him, drawn by the idea’s birth like a moth to a flame.
But instead of telling me what’s on his mind, Evan stands. “I’m sorry about lunch. I need to think. But meet me for dinner.”
“Here?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll send a car.”
I know I should resist.
But before Evan leaves the restaurant, I nod my yes.