Malcolm

“YOU’RE NOT LISTENING to me, I don’t care about the cost.  I want breakfast, lunch, and dinner catered in the break room every day until Christmas,”  I bark into my cell in the back of the limo.  “Starting today.  Right now.”

I’ve just dropped Randall off and I’m heading back to the office, but I can’t stop worrying that Penny isn’t eating.  That is unacceptable and as much as I tried to fight it, the urge to take care of her wouldn’t stop, so here I am, the Scrooge himself paying personally for a buffet to be in place every day until the Christmas Village closes.

I silently go over my schedule in my head. Tomorrow night, I fly to San Francisco for a week.  Then back on Christmas Eve.

Nadia, my assistant, is talking in my ear but I barely pay attention. My focus is elsewhere.

“Clear my schedule tomorrow,”  I interrupt.

There’s a pause, but she knows better than to argue.  “Yes, sir, of course.”  Another pause and she clears her throat, obviously hesitant.  “But you have the board meeting at one—”

“Push it back until five. Tell them it’s that or we wait until after the new year.”

I know that won’t fly, as several members of the board are flying in just for the meeting.  They’ll accommodate me. They know if I make a change to a meeting it’s for good reason.

Not that they would probably consider my reasons this time even close to good, but that’s none of their business.  And to me, the importance of spending my time tomorrow in Santa’s Village trumps inconveniencing a few board members.

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

“No.  I’ll be back shortly.”  I pause then before hanging up add, “And fire the elf named David Lippencott.”

With that, we end our call and my mind is back in the Christmas wonderland.  My mouth starts watering as my dick hardens over thoughts of all the ways I’d love to celebrate the season with Penny.  My fingers twitch at the thought of grabbing her hair, arching her head back and exposing her neck.  My teeth, my tongue, my lips, tasting and biting into the ivory flesh as she quivers beneath me.

My balls throb and the tension crests as I throw my head back into the seat and bring my hand to rub my full hard-on through my jeans, trying to gain a modicum of relief but knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that nothing will ever bring me relief again.  Nothing except her.

As the limo pulls into the parking garage below the offices of Knight & Knight, I begin to question why Penny has this effect on me.  It’s not that I couldn’t find female companionship if I cared to.  But, even through the years, the dating relationships I’ve managed to hang onto for more than a week have never filled any spot inside of me.  They checked a box that I felt needed a checkmark from time to time, that’s it.

But this is different.  I can’t stop thinking about her. That’s never happened to me before.  As my hand worked my erection over and over last night, thoughts of where she was and if she was safe pounded in my head.  When I lay trying to sleep, I worried if she was sleeping herself.  If she was warm and happy.  What her apartment was like and if it was in a good neighborhood.

If she was alone.

That last thought sent me into a near rage.  Wondering if she was with someone else.  If she’d fucking ever been with anyone.  It took me an hour just for the red to clear from my vision.  Then another hour for me to figure out what the fuck was happening to me.

I shake my head as my driver, Aaron, opens my door and I climb out, barely acknowledging him as I begin to walk to the elevator.  Jesus, he’s as close to a friend as I have and I just blanked him like he’s nobody.  What is happening to me?  Maybe it’s because it’s the first Christmas after Mom passed.  Maybe it’s turning thirty-five this past October.  That’s it, milestones that have my head turned around, it must be.

I fight to rein in the feelings that nearly overwhelm me as thoughts of her come flooding into my mind.  I think of the disastrous relationships I’ve had in the past.  The women who, in the end, wanted the image of Malcolm Knight, the bank account and prestige of who I am and the life I lead, but not the man himself.  My gut tightens at that thought.  The company is my family.  I work twenty-hour days.  A day off isn’t a reality for me.

As the elevator dings and I step on, I battle the opposing forces inside of me. The ones that know the reality of my life and these new unrealistic fantasies that tug at parts of me I didn’t know existed before yesterday.

I scroll through emails on my phone as the elevator whisks me to the top floor of the building and my true home—my office.

I click on an email from Leonard Drake, one of the board members, and read through his confirmation that they are all set to approve the changes to the holiday budget, effective immediately.  Next year, the Knight & Knight Christmas Village will be no more.  The expenditure is just not worth the return, the board has unanimously agreed.  Sure, we’ll carve out a small area where we will still have a Santa for the season, but the elaborate village and the floor it occupies will be turned into retail space once again.

Profit trumps all.  That was my grandfather and my father’s motto, and has been mine as well.  It’s what’s kept this company thriving, even when others went under.  It’s what keeps paychecks in the pockets of the thousands of employees for decades and it’s my sole purpose in life to keep this company moving forward. 

Christmas is for sales.  Numbers.  I must focus.

As I close the email and exit the elevator into the hallway of the executive office floor, the muscles in my neck stiffen.  I draw a deep breath and try to settle the nagging feeling that for once, maybe the family motto isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

My next call will be to my sister.  I’ll need to borrow Randall again tomorrow; I need the cover.  I’m not sure if Penny wouldn’t flee in horror if I showed up alone and requested her specifically for another tour of the Village.  Besides, I want to stay incognito; I don’t want the reality of who I am to overshadow anything.  I want her to know me.  Not the image of me most see.

The irony is, I’m not even sure who I am outside of running this business anymore.  But, one thing I do know – for the first time in my life I’m ready to find out.