The hot water poured over my body, slowly bringing me back to life. I was exhausted from my fitful night’s sleep and the lusty dream that was still dominating my imagination. The water ran down my breasts, washing the film of night sweat from the pert, proud mounds of my womanhood. I’d blossomed in my teens, developing a tight gymnast’s body with strong legs that were womanly and inviting and the subject of fantasy for countless schoolboys and schoolgirls in my classes, plus teachers and coaches and my martial arts instructor. But those people were all in my past, and at twenty-three I still didn’t know what my future would hold.

I looked myself over in the bathroom mirror as I applied just the slightest bit of makeup. I would never brag about myself—because I wasn’t so sure there was all that much to brag about—but I wasn’t complaining about the gifts I’d received, either. Boys had always liked me, found me pretty; with the big blue eyes and button nose, I had a body a lot of girls envied. I’d always wished I was a bit taller, but I also considered myself lucky to have ten fingers and ten toes.

I put on one of my better business suits, a gray skirt and jacket with a white peasant blouse and stockings. Grabbing a heavy Eddie Bauer coat to protect myself from the New York winter’s chill, I headed out into the living room of the little Brooklyn apartment I shared with Ricardo Tellez.

Must still be asleep, I reasoned. It was easy to imagine the night of rave dancing and ecstasy he’d enjoyed.  He’d earned it, as far as I was concerned.  If it hadn’t been for Ricardo, I’m not sure I ever would have survived my first few months in New York, let alone the following year.  He’d befriended me when I was alone and vulnerable, taught me things I needed to know about life in the Big Apple.  And I was so grateful for his friendship, his protection, that I couldn’t stand to tell him how sad I thought it was that he raved every night, slept all day, and didn’t get nearly as much work as his photographic skills deserved.  I’d gotten him what I could through Alister Fashions’ Powerplay magazine, but he’d need more.

We all needed more.

Not sure whether to envy Ricardo or pity him, I took a deep breath and stepped out into the morning rush hour of one of the most challenging cities on Earth.

The subway rattled across Brooklyn toward Manhattan, the clattering of wheels and gears shaking the train as it pushed forward.  The train stank of urine, and so did much of New York, something I thought I’d grow used to one of these days.

Advertisements were defaced with mustaches and ink-drawn spoken word bubbles, turning smiling models into hideous, black-toothed molesters.  Beneath them, dead -eyed passengers sat staring out into some imagined distance ahead of them, bodies lightly jostled by the ride but senses too numbed to be irritated. What are they thinking, I asked myself as the train sped on, what are they seeing in their imaginations? They all look so sad, so beaten down. I suppose they’re thinking about their tragedies, spouses deserting them, children dying from accidents or disease, the slow encroaching cancer of loneliness? Or are they reflecting on their own mistakes, the tragedies they brought upon themselves? Don’t we all do that eventually, given the opportunity and despite our best efforts to make the very best and the very most of our lives? Are they sitting there regretting the day they quit their job, the day they took that risk or asked that existential question, “What am I doing with my life?” Those are the questions that can do the most damage, the kind that can’t be undone.

I couldn’t help but think about my own life. I’d been in New York for less than two years and had secured a job working directly for the CEO of one of the world’s leading fashion design firms. True, I wasn’t a designer, more like a personal assistant, but I was on a fast track to success. I hadn’t made any life-ruining mistakes.

Yet.

But I understood doubt. I knew the lingering echo of those ultimate questions: Who am I, what am I doing here, is this what I really want? Will I ever find that, or even know what it is?

Luckily my stop came up before I got too deep into my first existential crisis of the morning. I had to push my way out of the car with the others before the tide of waiting passengers pushed themselves in. The rudeness of the crowds in the city always irritated me. Being five-foot-four in a five-ten city was bad enough; getting shoved around in a stampede made every journey a challenge, not to mention a complete pain in the ass.

Manhattan was sheeted in snow, but the grime of the gutters had pushed its way up into that virginal white to create oily gray sludge caking the streets and sidewalks between mounds of shoveled powder. Cars belched toxic gasses into the air, which mixed with the reek of pee and body odor, moldering under wool coats, to create a nauseating mist. Pedestrians pushed on in each direction, shoulders up, scarves wrapped around their necks, breath clouding up in front of them. I held my own coat closed, legs chilly as I walked down Fifth Avenue. Homeless men and women sat crouching against the feet of grand marble buildings, the palaces of billionaires. I stopped to give one man a five-dollar bill, but it was too cold to share a smile. He didn’t seem interested in that anyway.

“You really shouldn’t do that.” I turned to see an old woman glaring at me, wrapped in a fur coat and matching hat. She wore a snarl that was coated in lipstick. Her wrinkled cheeks barely supported the weight of her base and rouge, and her withered old eyes were hardly strong enough to support her thick, black fake eyelashes.  But she had a bitterness that seemed to give her the strength to carry on, not to mention meddle in somebody else’s business.

“Excuse me?”

“Give them money like that,” the woman said, her emerald ring catching a glint of light. “It only encourages them.”

I had to smile. “But that’s just what I’m trying to do.” With that, I left her, but I could feel the old shrew glaring at me as I walked away.

I arrived at the Alister Fashions building on the corner of Fifth and East Fifty-Seventh Street. It was a tall steel-and-glass skyscraper, modern and sleek, a fortune made manifest. This was where I’d caught my lucky break, and this was where I’d make my future, I was sure of it.

But just how I was going to do that was anybody’s guess. I’d thought I’d make it as a fashion designer, but that dream was beginning to seem every bit as real as the one I’d had the night before.

Don’t complain, my inner voice chided me, always ready to put me in my place.  You’ve got a job with a future and a roof over your head.  You’re making ends meet and, most importantly, you’re still here.  They haven’t sent you back to Oregon with your tail between your legs just yet! 

I threw my shoulders back and stepped into the lobby, which was warm and plush, guarded and elegant, with a delicate pine scent to bring out the charm of the holidays.  The lobby, and in fact the whole building, was so different from my apartment in Brooklyn, my life back in Oregon, that I wondered if this was really my life, if I was really meant to be there.

But that’s where I was, and that’s where I’d stay for as long as humanly possible.

Five minutes later I was sitting next to the great man himself.

“We were up ten percent in the last quarter,” John Alister said, sitting at the head of a long conference table, posture impeccable, shoulders back, graying black hair combed back to reveal his handsome, weathered face. His body was still strong despite his receding youth, and he had a kind of power, a gravitas, that younger men I’d known had been sorely lacking.  Behind him, a flat screen TV mounted on the wall was dominated by a colored pie graph. “That’s two percent down from the previous quarter.”

The smiles on his board members’ faces quickly melted away. Sitting at John’s right hand, I had the luxury of observing the others without being subject to the same scrutiny they were. It was one perks of being John Alister’s assistant—one of the few.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is unacceptable.” John’s voice took on an authoritarian tone, filling the conference room with seemingly no effort on his part. The natural beast that was always there within him, swimming just below the surface, was ready to break out and devour its prey without a second’s notice.

“I want those two points back,” John said, “plus another fifteen percent by the end of this upcoming quarter. That’s seventeen percent, ladies and gentlemen, or this will be your last Christmas at Alister Fashions… or anywhere in New York if I have anything to do with it!”

He was so strong, so forceful, and I couldn’t deny a stirring which was altogether too familiar. I’d developed a little bit of a crush in the sixteen months I’d been working with him—his power, his money and his handsome charisma made for an irresistible combination. John Alister was an alpha male, the CEO of a company he had founded and which bore his name and his alone. He was the master of all he surveyed, capable of facing any adversary to protect his domain. He was powerful, he was dangerous, he was thrilling. But he wasn’t mine, and he never would be.

He was married and had a daughter, an adorable seven-year-old named Bailey, and I would never interfere with a situation like that. And say what one might about John Alister (and a lot of people did!), he was a dedicated family man who was above the kind of low-rent scandals that plagued so many high-profile figures. So John Alister was forbidden fruit, a man I could never have—and I had to admit that made him all the more attractive.

“Moving on,” he said, clicking a small black device in his hand.  On the screen behind him, the TV was dominated by the photograph of a man with a shaved head and a craggy, handsome face the color of milk chocolate.  Though it was a close-up, we could all see that the man was wearing a suit and tie.

“This is Sherman Mathers, of the Federal Trade Commission.”  John sighed and turned to look at the big picture of his new adversary.  “Mathers is a good man, a conscientious public servant, and right now he’s being a complete pain in my ass.  Between these guys and the IRS, it’s amazing we’re able to do any work at all.”

The board of directors chuckled just a bit, but a glare from John shut them up quick.

“Anyway,” John went on, “if he comes to you, I’m not… I am not… suggesting you tell him any lies or obstruct his investigation in anyway.  We’ve done nothing wrong; we’ve got nothing to hide.  And if we have in some way inadvertently overstepped one line or another in our pursuit of excellence, we’re open to the opportunity to correct those oversights, even eager to do it.  But I do ask that you let me know if Mr. Mathers approaches you.  He’s a very… determined man, it would seem, and he seems comfortable enough using unusual methods.”

I asked, “How do you mean, sir?”

John rubbed his forehead.  I could read his impatience, how the stress of the situation was compounding his other worries.  I regretted asking, worried that I was revealing my ignorance, my incompetence, but it was too late.  “These people pull all kinds of dirty tricks, Sheryl, from pretending to have information they don’t have, to coercion, to extortion, to blackmail.  Sometimes a person sets out to do the right thing, but… but they get caught up in things, carried away by circumstances, corrupted by power.  Let’s just keep our eyes and ears open, that’s all.”

The conference room door flew open, grabbing everybody’s attention. A woman I didn’t recognize stormed in and slammed the door closed behind her with one hand. The other held a semiautomatic handgun which she pointed at John, at me, seemingly at the whole table at once.

John said, “What the—?”

The woman’s Asian features bent in an angry frown. Her hair was short and black on each side of her broad face. “Shut your mouth, you lying son of a bitch!”

I couldn’t help but look over at my boss. “Mr. Alister?”

“S’okay, Sheryl, s’all right—”

“No, it’s not okay, Sheryl,” the woman said, snarling out my name. “I guess you’re the one he’s fucking now, am I right?” She looked me over, hate in her chilly, almond eyes. “Of course. So obvious.”

John said, “Lisa, take it easy now.”

“Take it easy,” Lisa repeated, “is that what you said when you had me bent over your desk last week? Is that how you wanted me to take it then, nice and easy? Or was it more like, ‘Oh yeah, you take it, take it all’?”

A palpable tremor passed over the table, a shared fear than any of us could instantly be slain by this crazed woman without ever truly knowing why.  I could see in the board members’ faces that they were each recalling the last thing they’d said to their husbands or wives or children, thinking of the Christmas holiday they were all looking forward to sharing.

But this year they’d be having funerals, not Christmas morning, condolences instead of presents.

John looked around the conference table with an awkwardly innocent smile as Lisa began circling the table, coming directly toward me. “I don’t even know this woman,” he said to us all.

She managed to sound both incredulous and snide. “Oh, no? No? Then I suppose I should introduce myself. Everybody, my name is Lisa Ling, and this lying prick has been stringing me along for months, promising to leave his wife, buying me off with cheap gifts, keeping me in a hovel like some ready-made whore just waiting to service him! I was going to be a writer for one of your stupid magazines…”

I couldn’t help but feel for her, even as my fear grew as she got closer to me and to John on my left side. She returned her attention to John. “But you’re never going to leave that harpy for me, and you know it! How can you let that bitch raise your beautiful little girl?”

I had to admit, I agreed with her on that last point.

Lisa stepped to within a few feet of me on my right and just a foot behind. I could sense that her attention was more fixed on John than on me, and I felt like that gave me my opening. She took another fateful step closer.

“Now she won’t have a father at all,” Lisa said, “and that thing you married is next on the list!”

She was in the perfect position behind me, just to my right. I threw my right hand up and behind and grabbed her gun hand, my fingers locking around her wrist. I stood quickly, forcing her hand up like the Statue of Liberty. A hard squeeze compressed her artery against the tiny bones of her wrist, nearly crushing it, and bent her thumb back in one swift move.

The gun fell out of her hand and clattered onto the conference table, where John scooped it up. What had seemed like a slow-motion moment suddenly flashed forward, and no sooner had John grabbed the gun than I’d spun around, still clutching Lisa’s hand, and flipped her deftly over my shoulder. Like the gun before her, she landed on the conference table, but with more of a thud than a clatter. She let out her breath with a wince.

But she wasn’t done yet.

Lisa reached up and grabbed my right arm with her free hand. With a strength I hadn’t anticipated, she pulled me onto the table on top of her and flipped me over the other side. I fell into the arms of two members of the board of directors, the three of us tumbling onto the floor while several other members of the board grabbed Lisa and pulled her kicking and screaming off the table.

The door flew open again and four uniformed security guards raced into the conference room. Beefy men with confounded expressions and short, military haircuts, they fell upon Lisa Ling and cuffed her.

“Where the hell have you been?” John hollered at them. “How did this woman get up here?”

“Sorry, sir,” one man said as they wrestled Lisa up and out of the room.

Lisa hissed at John, “I’ll kill you, John Alister, I swear I will!” Then she looked at me, fingers clawing like some animal. “And you, you little bitch, I’m gonna take you apart piece by piece, you hear me? Piece by fucking piece!”

The security guards dragged her out of the conference room, leaving a stunned silence and shocked expressions. John turned to me as I rose to my feet. “Are you okay, Sheryl?”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”

“That was… amazing, Sheryl, really. Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Folks made me take self-defense before coming out to the Big Apple.”

John sighed and nodded. “Smart.” He turned his attention to the others. “Okay, I’m going to have to go downtown and take care of this. The rest of you just go about your day, not a word of this to anyone. This didn’t happen. Understood?”

They all shared nods and mumbled assurances before John added, “Alright then, meeting adjourned.” They filed out, but he said to me, “Hang back a minute?” I nodded and waited, eager to hear what he had to say.

Once we were alone, John began pacing around the conference room, running his fingers through his graying black hair. “I swear to God, Sheryl, I never slept with that woman.” My silence couldn’t help but challenge him, even though that wasn’t really my intent—not completely, anyway. “I know her, from the magazine I guess, maybe we met once or twice. But the rest of it? She’s either delusional or… I dunno, on drugs? You know how it is with gun violence these days, Sheryl, people have all kinds of twisted reasons for doing what they do, taking innocent lives… innocent lives, Sheryl, like yours, like mine.”

I couldn’t disagree, but I also knew very well how charming and conniving John Alister could be. Those traits had made him several vast fortunes and were helping him preserve them for as long as he could.

“But of course I have to keep this quiet. My wife won’t believe me.” He huffed, shaking his head. “My wife. I… I know I didn’t marry very well, Sheryl, I… I tried to make the right decision.”

I had to say, very softly, “I know, Mr. Alister, I do.”

He kept pacing, lips pulling tight as the curtains of his memory drew back to reveal images he would rather not see. “When Lori, Bailey’s mother, died… in childbirth, no less, I… I felt I had to find a mother figure for her. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Mr. Alister. Any good man would feel that way.”

John Alister smiled, but there was no joy in it. “You’ve always thought too much of me, Sheryl. But I have tried, and Margaret’s a good woman, really, deep down. She’s had disappointments, the way we all have, she’s been hurt. And hearing this, even though it’s not true—”

“I understand, Mr. Alister. I won’t say anything, of course.”

“No,” he said softly, “I know you won’t. S’funny, of all the people in my employ, and that includes hundreds of people, you’re the only one I feel that I can really trust.”

I wanted to take that for more than it was, but something in me just couldn’t resist saying, “Well, you don’t really know most of those hundreds of people well enough to trust them.”

After a moment of consideration, he released a knowing little chuckle, setting his hand on my shoulder. “Very good, Sheryl, very good.”

“Are you going to want me to come to the police station with you?”

“No, that’s… that’s something best taken care of behind closed doors, Sheryl. Besides, I need you to take care of a list of things for me, extremely important.”

My heart and stomach sank. Memories of the previous year’s list surfaced in the back of my head; groceries, dry cleaning, buying gifts for his family and friends, buying a puppy for Bailey and delivering it at five in the morning without getting caught.

I tiredly asked, “Santa’s list?”

“The bossman’s list,” he said with an unyielding baritone as he handed me a thrice-folded piece of paper from his breast pocket. It listed errands similar to the year before, the little things a man ought to do for his family personally.

But there was one item on the list I didn’t understand. “Langdon Cane? What’s that, a fancy brandy or something?”

John chuckled. “CEO of AussieGarb, coming in for the week to talk about some joint projects. I need you to pick him up at the airport, see that he’s got everything he needs, get him to the meetings, things like that. Think you can handle it?”

Think I can handle it? I’m capable of being a lot more than some errand girl or chauffeur. I just saved your life; I think I can handle a trip to the airport! How long are you going to keep me on the short leash? When do I get my chance?

“I’ll do my best, Mr. Alister.”

“Good girl,” he said in a low growl, as if I were his obedient pet. And I couldn’t at that moment lay claim to being much more than that.

John stepped out of the conference room and left me alone. I felt as hollow and empty as that big room with cold bare furniture and hardly a breath of life. I’d very nearly died, and now I had to pretend as if nothing had happened. Blood was still pounding in my veins; my brain was swimming with confusion; adrenaline was making my limbs quiver. I felt like I was feeling everything I’d ever felt, all at once. I was flush with strength, a sense of my own undiscovered power.

Now I was going to squander it running errands and driving some Aussie to and from the airport.

On my way down the hallway, Flynn McGinnis slunk up behind me, green eyes wide on his pale, freckled face. “Sheryl, what’s going on? What happened?”

Keeping an even pace down the hallway, I said without looking at him, “Nothing, Flynn. I don’t know what you mean.”

“C’mon, Sheryl, that woman the security guys dragged out of the conference room. You were there. What happened?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Flynn.”

He kept up with me down another long corridor, his tall and lanky frame loping behind me like some eager Irish retriever. “Oh, I get it,” he said, “it’s on the D.L., I get that, sure. Hey, secrets, I like that… sexy. How about dinner this weekend?”

“Flynn, I really can’t—”

Flynn rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Again? C’mon, Sheryl, we had a good time in Central Park. Let’s do it again. Or I could take you to the Guggenheim, or… apple-picking in Amish country? That’s romantic.”

“It is, and it sounds wonderful, but… I have a list of things to do for Mr. Alister, and with just two weeks till Christmas, I really don’t have a second to spare. I’m sorry, Flynn, really.”

He kept following me, glancing around as he tried to reason things out. “Okay, well, that’s all right. We’ll plan on something after the new year, then. Hey, what are you doing on New Year’s Eve? We could check out Times Square, maybe they’ll put us on the Kiss Cam or something.”

“Flynn I…” I looked into his eyes, a small-town glint barely surviving the soul-crushing New York lifestyle. I knew what he was thinking and feeling, and I knew I didn’t share those thoughts or feelings. I didn’t want to hurt him, but although I kept hoping he’d get the hint, he just didn’t seem interested in or willing to do so. “I was thinking I might head back to Oregon for New Year’s,” I lied, not feeling good about it but finding little practical alternative. I’d just endured the results of unrequited love between Lisa Ling and John Alister, and I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation with Flynn just ten minutes after that disaster.

“But if you don’t?”

“Then we’ll see, Flynn,” I said, quickly and tiredly, and ducked into the ladies’ room which appeared miraculously to my right. “We’ll see.”

I wasn’t sure, but as the door closed I thought I heard him say, “It’s a date, then!”