THE NEXT DAY
I popped Ruby Mansfield’s cherry.
It’s all I can do not to shout it to everyone in the office. I can’t wait until later tonight when I can have her again.
This isn’t like me at all. Part of me was afraid that once I had her, I would get tired of her. The conquest would be over.
But instead, I just want more of her. I want her all the time.
I love how feisty she is. How spunky. She makes me want to tame her. Claim her. Make her mine.
I am really fucking in over my head. How am I ever going to concentrate on work with Ruby so close to me? She’s such a fucking tease, walking around flirting with me all day. All I want to do is touch her, taste her, take her again.
At nearly noon I decide to go to Asher’s office. Maybe telling him about the toy company will take my mind off of Ruby. I could use any distraction at this point.
When I get to Asher’s office, Madilyn is there. She’s getting ready to leave but her clothes look wrinkled and both of them look like they just got caught stealing cookies out of a jar.
“As I was saying,” Asher says to Madilyn, as though it’s clear he wasn’t saying anything at all. He’s just trying to cover up whatever it was they were actually doing. “We’ll reconvene later to talk about that.”
“Okay,” says Madilyn, smiling demurely at him as she leaves the office.
She nods to me on her way out and says, “Cameron.”
I shut the door behind her.
“You really couldn’t wait until after work?” I chastise him, nodding in the direction that Madilyn had just gone.
“Oh, look who’s talking,” Asher says. “I see the way you look at your new secretary. Ruby, is it? It’s clear you’re on the ‘Ruby Don’t You Wanna’ bandwagon like all the other single partners are. I’m starting to wonder if it’s not a little too coincidental that she’s your secretary now.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I’m pissed that he’s implying I promoted Ruby to secretary to sleep with her. But more than that, my fucking possessive streak is coming out. How dare he mention her nickname among other guys.
“For your information, it was your little Flavor of the Week who decided to hire Ruby, not me,” I tell him.
“My Flavor of the Week?”
Now it’s Asher’s turn to look offended.
“Look, Cameron, you know I’m not as much as a player as you are, but that I do like to rotate my… longer- term commitments,” Asher says, straightening the knot in his crooked tie. “But I have to tell you. You aren’t going to believe this but Madilyn is something entirely different. I don’t think I’ll be rotating this one.”
“Yeah fucking right,” I scoff.
Asher has tried to tell me similar bullshit about Madilyn for a while now but I don’t believe him.
“You’re just in the throes of the honeymoon stage,” I tell him. “You’ll get tired of her like you do all the rest.”
“It’s been months,” Asher says, as if that’s a long time.
And I guess for a guy like him, it is. His former pets had probably started losing their luster long before this point.
“What’s so special about that?” I ask him.
“Are you kidding? She’s the hottest girl I’ve ever seen. Tell me you don’t think she’s hot. No, wait—” he holds up a finger— “Don’t. I don’t want to know you think she’s hot. I don’t want to even think about that. I know every guy around here wants to do her. But I don’t need to hear about that. Because she’s all mine.”
Asher certainly is sounding like he’s more into this girl than the rest. Usually he’d be bragging about his conquests and talking about who is next in line. And sure, Madilyn is attractive but he’s talking about her as if she’s a supermodel.
“So really,” I ask him. “What is it? Why are you so into her? Aside from her looks”
He shrugs.
“There is no aside from her looks, for one thing,” he says. “Those curves. That ass. Those breasts. Everything is amazing.”
I can’t help but feel like he’s describing Ruby. I feel exactly the same way about her. But I’ve never heard Asher say the word “breasts” instead of “tits” when describing a woman, so he really must be into Madilyn.
“Second of all,” he says. “She’s just so refreshingly different. She challenges me. But she won’t let me go. You know I tried to replace her with another associate because she wasn’t letting me have my way with her and it was like night and day. That other one thought she was hot stuff and tried to make fun of Madilyn for not being a size 0 or whatever and Madilyn basically just blew it off. She isn’t concerned about superficial things or getting into drama with other women. She’s confident in how she looks, as she should be.”
I just look at him, thinking, what the hell have you done with my friend?
“Well, I’m happy for you, that you really think you’ve found the one and all that,” I tell him, with a shrug. “I really am. I just worry how this will affect the firm. You and your former mentees used to have a certain… understanding. Afterwards you’d go your way and they would go theirs with no hard feelings or any of that. But now what will happen if you’re in an actual relationship and it doesn’t work out? That could really affect things here at the firm.”
As I’m talking to him, I fully realize I’m talking to my fucking self. I’m not that oblivious. But unlike Asher, a work “relationship” of any sort is new to me. I don’t know how things will end up with Ruby or how it could affect me at the office. This is the exact reason I’d sworn never to do something like this, and I know I’m just taking out my frustrations on Asher to ease my own fears.
“Don’t worry about me, Ron,” Asher says. “You know I’ve always been just fine.”
And he’s right. He has always been more than just fine. He may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he has sure turned that silver into gold. And I’ve turned the old, broken plastic spoon I was born with into something a lot shinier and valuable myself. We’ve helped each other. I should just be happy for him.
“Okay, well then don’t worry about me or my decisions either,” I tell him, handing him a print-out of the financial information that Ruby had put together for me on the toy company.
“What is this?” Asher asks, reviewing it.
“That’s Damien Hudson, the toy company owner’s, businesses and his total revenue,” I tell him. “He’ll definitely have enough money to hire us. It won’t be pro bono like you were thinking.”
“Where did you get this?” he asks.
He looks a bit skeptical but overall, he looks impressed. Good old Ruby.
“One can find out a lot about someone online,” I say cryptically.
“Well congratulations on landing such a huge client,” Asher says. “Now we just have to get Judge Baez off all those cases and we’ll be fine.”
“All the motions got filed this morning,” I inform him. Another good deed of Ruby’s.
“Really? That quickly? Even with Shirley just leaving?” he asks.
“Her replacement is quite talented,” I tell him.
He raises an eyebrow at me, wondering if it’s a double entendre.
I’m not going to confirm or deny. Asher can have his fun at work and his not so hidden secrets, so, why can’t I?