DISAPPEAR - PART 1
I didn’t want to want her. I despised myself for my need to feel her pressed against me. Even as I pressed her back against the wall, I wanted to be able to stop. I wanted to pull back. I buried my face into her neck and felt her hair fall around my face. Even the smell of her cheap dollar store shampoo was so familiar. It forced the blood through my body and made my breath quicken. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around my waist. I pulled her shirt over her head, smelling the damn shampoo again as her hair fell around me. She leaned back and looked triumphant. Her confidence in my inability to say no was both an aphrodisiac and my greatest vexation. Hungrily, I dug my fingers into delicate lace of her panties and felt them tear in my hand. I pressed into her as her nails dug into the skin on my back, and she pulled me in deeper.
“Fuck.”
“What?” she asked while avoiding my eyes.
She knew I hated that she would just show up whenever she wanted., sometimes spending days at my apartment, other times barely hours. And she knew I was too weak to ever tell her no. She, at least, had the decency to look sheepish.
“You know what. Why are you here again? How many times do I have to beg you not to come back?” I sat up against the metal headboard and looked down at her.
“Maybe I’ll actually believe you when you stop fucking me every time I come over.”
“One time, you are going to come over, and I’ll just walk out the door.”
“Probably. Who was the mousy brunette on the stairs that you kicked out so quickly?”
“A really nice woman from the accounting department. We’ve been on three dates. It was going really well. I’ll probably never see her again. Thanks.”
“That’s your own damn fault. You didn’t have to kick her out so quickly. I would have waited.”
“How the HELL do you keep getting into my apartment? My doors are locked. I know you don’t have a key. I changed the locks after last time. How are you doing it?”
“What was her name? I’ll bet she takes you back. She seems like the quiet compliant type. I bet if you bring her flowers and tell her you ended your date so rudely because your mom was calling, and you were just so distracted with worry, she’ll be putty in your hands.”
“Clearly, I’m not into the compliant type.”
“You don’t have to sound angry about it. You’re the one who keeps dropping everything when I come over.”
I stood up so abruptly that she flinched, but she quickly masked it by adjusting the sheets.
“You think this is what ‘coming over’ looks like? You think people normally break in and leave their lucky god damn Zippo lighter out as some sort of signal they committed a B&E for a booty call is ‘coming over.’ Fuck you.” I looked at the ceiling and focused on deep measured breaths.
“You always notice my lighter on your coffee table when I come over. You would notice anything out of place in your house.” She sounded so casual as she basically told me to get over it.
“What if my date and I had come into the bedroom? What if we had planned to move things in here to continue our date? What would you have done if I hadn’t noticed your little calling card out there and just brought my date in here? What if we fucked right here on this bed while you were in here lurking wherever you hide when you break-in?”
“Trust me, neither of you would have seen me.”
“You would have stayed?” I felt incredulous. My anger was almost a tangible thing in the room with us.
“Probably. If I gave you time, you could have been ready for a second round soon. I doubt Sensible-Suzy with her lavender cardigan would have taken much out of you.”
“Are you even human? What the hell? Can you just be an actual person for once? Don’t you have any emotions in there? I’m so tired of this. This is the last time. I swear, I’m done.”
She slid off the black silk sheets. Finding her panties by the hall door she held them up.
“Well, these are ripped beyond saving.” She casually threw them into the corner by my wastebasket.
She went to my top left drawer and pulled out a pair of my short tight boxer briefs. She slipped them on and grabbed her jeans. I watched her with mounting frustration, but I refused to give her the satisfaction of more reactions from me. She threw on her plain black tee and headed toward the front door.
She stopped at the door to the bedroom and leaned against the frame. “Don’t you want to walk me out like a gentleman?” She smirked at me. My frustration grew again, but even I know it’s a mask for the pain.
“You let yourself in, you can let yourself out.” I tried to hold it back, but I can’t stop myself. “Please,” I can hear the pain in my voice, “don’t come back.” I looked up pleadingly. “You break my heart every time,” I said in a whisper.
She stopped quickly and swiped her lighter from next to the perfectly aligned magazines on my coffee table. I saw the moonlight glint off the scratched silver lighter as she pocketed it. She headed out the front door without a look back.
“What are you doing here? Get out. Now. I’m not doing this with you again.”
I pulled my keys out of the apartment door and ran my hands through my hair. Conflicted. I was so damn conflicted. The war raged in my mind. One part yelling at me that she would never want a real relationship. Knowing that I couldn’t keep doing this with her. The other part desperate to melt into her warmth, knowing that I would always respond to her, no matter how much it hurt me afterward.
“Don’t ignore me.” I slammed the apartment door and moved closer to the couch where I could see Ivy laying down. “I meant it last time, I’m done with this. This isn’t a relationship. You can’t just show up here whenever you want.”
She still hadn’t moved. I stepped closer, and I knew, this time, I was strong enough. I was kicking her out. Out of my apartment. Out of my life. She sat up unsteadily, leaning to one side, holding her ribs. She looked at the ground, her hair hiding her face.
“What the hell happened?” I dropped to my knees and she lifted her face slightly to meet my eyes. “Oh, my God, Ivy! Who did this to you?”
Ivy attempted to smile, all bluster. “Would you believe, I fell down some stairs?” The edge of her smile pulled the deep laceration on her head open more, and fresh blood trickled down her face. Her swollen lips and cheek muffled her words.
“No, I won’t believe you fell down some fucking stairs.”
“It’s not as bad as it seems.” She tried to stand up but stopped halfway. Her back still hunched into a half stoop, and her knuckles tightened into a fist. She held her breath and then blew it out between clenched teeth and stood up all the way. “See, not so bad.”
She swayed slightly and I reached out to hold her up. She looked up at me one last time and I barely heard her say, “No hospitals.” Then she passed out in my arms.
No hospitals? No hospitals? What the hell am I supposed to do with her now? I scooped her up into my arms and brought her to my bed, so much for my silk sheets, I guess! Why does she always show up at my house? Where was her family? Who goes to their booty-call’s house when they should be at a damn hospital?
“Brandon,” she said, sounding surprised to see me. She took a minute to look around.
“How long have you been staring at me?” she asked me, her voice husky from disuse.
“Long enough to know you snort in your sleep sometimes, but not so long that it’s creepy.” I stood up and reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. “Thirsty?”
“Yeah, very.” She gingerly sat up against the pillows. “So, I remember waking up a few times, I’m guessing I’ve been out for a while.” She sipped the water carefully on the less swollen side of her mouth.
“You’ve been here since Monday night. It’s Friday morning.”
“Yeah, that seems right. I remember soup. Did you make me soup?”
“No, you’ve been through enough, I couldn’t subject you to my cooking too. That was from Boxton’s.”
“Do you have any more?”
I smiled and started toward the kitchen. “I’ll be right back. Take the pills on the nightstand.”
She reached slowly over and scooped up the two pills. “What are these?”
“Pain pills I had left over from when I got my wisdom teeth out. You’re lucky I put off getting them out so long. You’ve been taking them every time you wake up.”
“I remember, mostly.”
I walked back in with the soup on a tray, meticulously arranged with a small matching black plate with bread. I set the tray next to her and sat on the chair by the bed.
She picked up the bowl and began to eat, slowly.
“Your face looks a little better. The purples are turning into the most hideous greens and yellows. How bad does it hurt?”
Seeing her face now I can’t help but think back to the first night I met her. I was sipping whiskey, the cheap shit, I don’t have a corporate spending account, watching the clock, waiting for the ice breaker to end at this god awful human resources convention. They have one every year, and as the department head, I have to come. But it is really an excuse for the CEOs and the CFOs to leave town on the company’s dime to drink and compare bank accounts. God, I wanted to be home.
The higher-ups were gathered in small groups, their perfectly tailored suits almost shiny under the hotel bar lighting. I was passing the time by guessing who was going to end up in a scandal before the end of the convention. The group closest to me kept getting louder as the drinks kept coming. My company’s CFO was in that group. I heard him talking about the new car he had just bought. He pulled out his phone to show them a picture. They all gathered in to congratulate him like he just performed some miracle. This began a whole round of everyone pulling out pictures of their latest purchase to impress their power on the others. Watching them cling to their diminishing influence with this pissing contest grated on my nerves. I started tracing my fingers through the gouges on the wooden bar-top.
That’s when she walked in.
There were several at every convention. They walked in dressed in something low cut and too tight, sizing up the wallets on the drunk CEOs before making their move. She fit the stereotype, mostly, but she had an air of refinement that many of the usual women looking for a sugar daddy lacked. She stood taller and walked gracefully in her black, stiletto shoes. Her dress clung to her, but rang more of sophistication than the usual way-too-short dresses that screamed easy. She immediately zeroed in on her target, sauntering up to a pasty-skinned middle-aged man, that, if I had to guess, I would have pegged as a small fry in that group of sharks. It seemed an odd choice. His suit was a little too loose and the sleeves of his shirt were just a bit too short. Like he bought off the rack. He should have been sitting with me. She joined the group seamlessly, laughing at a crude joke and rubbing her prize’s arm. It worked, he was hooked. Sucker.
I turned back to the bar, wondering how much longer I had to stay before it would be appropriate to leave. She plopped down next to me at a bar stool. I looked over startled. Her dark hair was pulled back into an elegant loop. I could smell the light rose perfume she wore. She grabbed my drink and finished it in one swallow without a shudder. I was nursing my drinking because I had to be here, not because I wanted to savor the flavor. It went down rough.
“Wh-“ I couldn’t even finish my thought.
“Sorry, but I couldn’t pretend to laugh at one more sexist joke told by a group of out of touch rich guys on ED meds without a strong drink.” Then she looked over at me. “And not a good drink, at that.”
“Are you judging my drink that you just stole from me? Without asking?” I still wasn’t forming coherent thoughts. Who the hell was this chick?
“Shit whiskey is shit whiskey.” She set her elaborately beaded purse down and signaled for the bartender. “Lagavulin 25, neat. Make it a double. Put it on my tab.”
The bartender poured out the top shelf scotch into a bulb-shaped scotch glass; I stared at her.
“Why aren’t you out there rubbing elbows?” She asked me.
“I’m not interested in playing the game, so it’s better if I sit on the sidelines. Plus, these conferences are really for blowhards to use their wallet as a ruler to compare their dick size.”
“Trust me, there’s an inverse relationship there.”
She caught me so off guard, I couldn’t stop the short, sharp laugh.
The bartender slid the drink across to her and she inhaled, seeming pleased with it. Then she pushed it over to me.
“This is worth sipping.” Then she stood up gracefully and melted back into the group of back-slapping corporate chiefs.
The clink of the spoon against the soup bowl brought me back to the present. I shook my head to clear the past as she answered me.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I told them I had the stomach flu. Don’t change the subject.”
“I hurt all over. My head is swimming.”
“What happened?”
“I really can’t talk about it.”
“Bullshit. You passed out in my arms, you look like someone beat you with a baseball bat. What happened?”
“My last job didn’t end well.”
“Well, that’s a fucking understatement. What job ends with a concussion and a black eye?” Her head hung down, and she wouldn’t look at me. She just kept filling her spoon and letting the soup run off it.
“Mine, I guess. But not normally. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s never happened before.”
I sat silently, expectantly. I was determined to wait her out. Usually, if you leave an open silence, people fill it. I think she would have let me sit there for weeks.
“So, what happened?” I said when I realized I wasn’t going to win this contest.
“He figured it out. He seemed to figure out why I was there.”
“Who figured out what?”
“My job. My mark. I was reviewing the recording I made of him earlier. He was in the room working before I got there. They always think they are safe, these big corporate higher-ups. They never find it odd that a woman half their age is interested in them. I was watching for him to enter his password. I needed to get into his files, to get past his firewall, so I could copy everything. He woke up. He figured out why I was there.”
“You were copying his files? Why?” Her head shot up. She looked me in the eye for the first time since we started talking.
“Oh, grow up. You know why. I was paid to get them.”
“You were sleeping with him to get access to his files?”
“I was doing what I had to do to finish a job I was paid for.”
“Phrase it however you want. It doesn’t change what you were doing.”
“Phrase it however you want. It’s my job.”
“It’s stealing. It’s not a job. It’s corporate espionage. You can go to jail for that.”
That first night at the bar, that under-classed corporate executive comes back to my mind. It started to slide into place. Why she picked him in a sea of much bigger fish. He was her mark for the night. He was an intentional target. In my mind, I see her hand stroke subtly down his chest as she laughs at his joke. He looks at her, captivated.
Her voice brought me back to the present.
“They never report it. It would tank their stock if word got out that someone had gotten into their company files. Plus, they would have to admit they were sleeping with a woman half their age to everyone, including their wives.”
“You think that makes it ok?”
“I think they are horrible people, who take advantage of their employees, and I don’t care if they get hurt.”
“But you hurt their employees. Do you think they take the losses if the company loses money? No, they layoff their workers and cut pay.”
“I do what I get paid to do. Just like you. You think I don’t know about all the meetings you just had last month? You brought all those employees into your little human resources room and laid them off. Because that is what they paid you to do. I get paid to extract information. So, drop the holier-than-thou act.”
The hairs rose on the back of my neck.
“How did you know about those meetings?”
“I know about most things that are happening at the major corporations around America. One of the necessities of my job.”
“Are you the reason we had to do that? Did you cause our last quarter profit loss? Is that why you were at that Human Resources conference last year? Did you use me?”
“No, of course not. You don’t have access to the kinds of high-level information I get paid to steal.” She tried to lighten the mood with a half-hearted joke.
“You didn’t answer my other question. Did you steal from my company? Did you cause those layoffs?”
“No, I didn’t. Really. That wasn’t me.”
She tried to catch my eye. It was so hard to stay mad at her when she looked so damned broken. Her eye was still partially swollen shut. The bruising was less purple and blue, but the unhealthy yellow-green shading seemed to stand out more on her cheeks. Her lips were so cut up that she couldn’t speak out of that side of her mouth. I had never seen her look anything but absurdly confident. Watching her now, avoiding my eye, playing with her food. It broke my resolve to kick her out the second she came around, not that it took much to break it. If I was being honest with myself, I was looking for a reason to let her stay. I’m an idiot.
“It’s not easy to believe you. Why were you at that conference?”
“I was spying for your company. Your CFO hired me. I was there to meet my next target. I wasn’t trying to meet you. I didn’t even know what company you worked for at first. You were just so…real. So genuine. I liked talking to you. And I wanted to see you again. I found out later what company you worked for. It was unplanned.”
I had sipped the scotch she ordered for me the rest of the night. She had been right. It was worth savoring. The smell of the malt was followed by the warmth of the liquid. I slowly relished something I knew I would never be able to order for myself. I didn’t want to watch her, so instead I watched the rest of the room. Most of the guys looked at her like she was something on the menu. She moved effortlessly through the room, brushing off the unwanted attention, but always using it to advance toward her goal. I tried not to watch her but I was fascinated by her movements. She laughed at the jokes and stroked the right egos, but in the unguarded moments, I saw the mask fall. It was tiny, but I noticed it. When her back turned she rolled her eyes. When she took a drink, I saw the deep breaths she would take before looking back up to join the group to laugh at another crude joke. I was intrigued.
“Our CFO? Gregory? He seems so, well, so normal. Boring. Not at all the kind of guy that would hire a corporate spy.”
“Believe me, looks can be deceiving. I know that first hand.”
She looked away from me while she spoke, and I could tell she was about to say more and stopped herself.
“What do you mean?” I asked. She stared back at her soup bowl. Ladling more up and then slowly pouring it back into the bowl. “Ivy, what?”
“I just get the information. I don’t look at it. I copy files or delete data, plant spyware, and I move on.”
“Ok?” I waited.
“Occasionally I see things while I wait for it to copy. File names, flashes of pictures. It doesn’t usually tell me much. Usually, it is so specific to an industry that it is highly technical.”
She stopped playing with her soup and looked at me again.
“That job was different. I saw the files I was deleting. They all had Gregory’s name on them. They were about the company you work for, with information from an investigation. There were pictures of Gregory in meetings. I don’t know who they were with. No one I recognized from your company’s other bigwigs. I was supposed to seduce a man named Philip. Gregory told me he was the CEO of a competitor's company that had a breakthrough in their field. I was supposed to copy the files and delete them off his computer. Then run a program that would launch a virus. It would wipe out his computer the next time he got on. And any computer network he was connected to. I’ve done similar jobs before. I guess Gregory assumed I didn’t do any research after taking a job, and that I wouldn’t question anything he told me. Stupid bimbo for hire, right? Why wouldn’t I trust him totally?” She sighed which made her cough briefly. She cleared her throat with some water.
“But I have to figure out what my target is like. What kind of girl he would go for, what to talk about to get him to let me in. And the target they gave me wasn’t a CEO at all. He was an investigator for the securities agency that oversees stocks that are publicly traded. He was at the conference pretending to be the CEO of a competitor.”
I had seen her around after that first night at the hotel bar. She would be poolside during the day, lying stretched out on a beach towel in the sun, her slim hips barely covered by the thin strings of her black bikini. My eyes grazed across her honey colored skin, drawn to the glint of gold from the thin necklace that hung down between the minuscule triangles of her swimsuit top. She seemed very aware of the attention of passersby, and she didn’t shy away from it. Or at the hotel bar at night, in an expensive cocktail dress. Her dark hair pulled back, exposing her neck, and red lips shining under the lights. She moved easily through the crowds of alpha males that vied for her attention.
It was the last day. We were all flying out the next morning. I found myself thinking about her during the presentations. I tried to shake her out of my head, but for some reason, I just couldn’t. She intrigued me. I found myself sitting near enough to hear when she was around. She held her own in all the conversations she joined. She spoke clearly and fluently about every topic that came up. She didn’t pretend to be stupid to flatter the men around her. So many of the conference bunnies would play dumb to make sure not to hurt the delicate egos of the corporate higher-ups.
Between presentations, I was in line to get coffee. The guys in line in front of me were talking about their conference hook-ups. I was just trying to get my coffee but then I heard them talking about her.
“No, no way. She would never go for a suck-up like you. She would want a real guy to show her who’s boss. I would tie that whore up and have my way with her and she would thank me for it.”
“You’re out of your mind. She would see what a loser you are straight away. I would make her beg me for more.”
“You guys are arguing over a conference whore. She’s a slut. We can all have a turn, just make sure you double bag it.”
They all laughed.
My favorite barista waved me forward, signaling that she had my usual waiting.
“Here you go, Brandon.” Tammy, the barista that had been saving me with caffeine all week, handed me my black coffee. She always saw when I was in line and would have it waiting for me.
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver,” I tell her as I tucked a ten into her tip jar and slid my card to pay.
I turned back to the guys I had just pushed ahead of.
“What the hell man? Wait your damn turn.”
“You three shouldn’t mock a club you could never get in as being too available.”
I turned to walk away from them as they tried to work-out what I said, and I saw her at the back of the room. She was eying me speculatively. I smiled openly at her, but she just turned on her heels and walked out of the coffee shop in the hotel lobby.
I didn’t see her around the rest of the day. I carefully packed my bag in my room that night, folding each shirt into even rectangles. I kept reflecting on the week, really I kept reflecting on her. A knock on my door brought me out of my thoughts.
Expecting it was housekeeping or someone at the wrong door, I only opened it a crack to send them on their way.
“Hey.”
It took me way too long to recover from the shock of seeing her at my door for me to play it off smooth. I went for honest instead.
“….hey. Why are you here? Wait, how the hell did you know where my room was?” It sounded rude, even to my own ears, but I wasn’t sure how to recover it.
She held up a bottle of Irish Whiskey.
“I thought you might want a nightcap.”
I opened the door wide and she walked in.
It took two drinks before I could feel myself relax a little. She walked in without hesitation and sat down at the desk by my bed after pouring out two healthy glasses of Redbreast 12 for us and sipped her drink. She briefly scanned the room, but then calmly observed me. Her even breathing in total contrast to my wildly erratic breaths. I sat on the foot of the bed, the only place left to me, uncomfortably aware of where I was sitting.
I sat in the silence, my mind raced to figure out what I should be saying. But she didn’t seem to expect anything from me. When she finished her second drink, she set the glass down on the desk, the delicate crystal clinked against the wood in the silent room. I watched her, my heart racing as she walked up to me. She looked into my eyes as she stalked closer. I could feel the blood rush into me when she stood before me, heat flooding my body. I slowly traced my hand up the inside of her leg, her silky black skirt lift as I moved to her inner thigh, her skin just as smooth as the dress. She reached down and pushed my hand inside her. My breath came in short rapid beats as she looked down at me. She moaned when I kissed her hips, and I could hear her panting breaths. I slowly worked my lips closer.
“Hey. You seem distracted suddenly.” Her words jerk me out of my memories. Remembering her at the conference, I can’t help but compare that girl to the one that showed up on my doorstep randomly. At the conference, she was never out without her hair and makeup fixed perfectly. She wore designer brands that rang of class, down to the matching necklace and bracelets. The walked with ease in heels that runway models would have balked at. But when she showed up at my door, it was always in jeans and a plain t-shirt. She rarely had makeup on and wore her hair loose and straight. She let me see the real her, without the costume she wore like a uniform at work.
I start to put together the pieces of what she told me about Gregory. I realized exactly why our Chief Financial Officer would need to make information disappear off of an investigator’s computer. They were investigating him. And the company I work for. And Gregory was covering it up. Whatever it was.
“Does Gregory know you figured it out?”
“I didn’t think so. I thought I played it off. But I’m pretty sure I was set up on Monday. My mark, he was prepared. He pretended to be asleep. Then he snuck up on me. I know some basic self-defense. I can get away from most people. It may not be pretty, but I can get to safety. This guy seemed... professional. He had a plan.”
“It could be a coincidence,” I said, trying to be reasonable. “It’s been a year. Why would he be after you now?”
“Maybe, but it’s not the first sign I’ve had.” She paused, looking away again, then taking a deep breath. “Who did you just let go in those layoffs?”
“I don’t know, it was a lot of people, from different departments.”
“Like the IT department? And accounting?”
“Yeah…how did you know?” But I knew how she would know. Those are the people who might be able to see if Gregory was artificially inflating our company’s stock prices. Making our company look like it performed better than it had. Those were the people he would need gone. And I had helped him do it.
“I think Gregory is covering his tracks. I think he fired those people to hide the paper trail. And I think I was supposed to mysteriously disappear on Monday.”
I sat forward in my chair. “That just sounds crazy. Corporate cover-ups I can believe. I have seen evidence of them in the past. I’ve even seen large scale lay-offs to make numbers look better at the close of a quarter. What you’re implying is murder.”
“I would call it attempted murder, but yes.”
“That’s a totally different level.”
“If that’s what makes it easier for you, sure.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“If you think firing someone who then ends up blacklisted and can’t get another job is better than stealing corporate secrets then, fine. I’m sure it’s easier to believe that people like Gregory are evil and you are just doing your job. At least I’m not deceiving myself. I know what I do.”
“I work in H.R. I fill out paperwork and make sure new hires file all their needed forms. You steal corporate secrets and delete files.” I sat back in my seat, arms crossed over my chest.
“Whatever, Brandon.” She inhaled to keep scolding me but began coughing uncontrollably. She sat up straighter, trying to get a full breath. She coughed until she bled. I jumped up, grabbing a towel from the nightstand. Her face went from bright red to light pink and I could see her catch her breath.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She waved me off, holding her side as she took careful breaths.
I settled back into my chair, knowing she wouldn’t let me do anything else. Not even really sure what I should do.
“You should be recovering at a hospital.”
“No hospitals.”
“Yeah, you said that,” I grumbled under my breath. She heard and quirked a small smile.
Ivy woke up two nights later thrashing, sweat poured down her face, she called softly over and over. She was ghostly pale as she looked through me. She tried to catch her breath. I reached for her, but she raised her hands to shield herself from me.
“Stop!” Ivy called out and scooted away from me.
“It’s me, Ivy, it’s me.” I put my hands down and made my voice gentle.
She burst into tears, falling into my arms. As she recounted her story to me, I felt my blood chill.
“Don’t be petulant, Ivy.” Her father sighed heavily, not even looking up from the papers on his desk.
“I’m not being petulant.” Ivy crossed her arms, the pink low cut dress hanging awkwardly off the hanger that was now jutting at a weird angle against her body.
“You are acting like a spoiled brat. I’ve had that dress altered and pressed for you, just for tonight. It’s an important dinner, and I need you to be there. You know Brusque loves you in pink. You charmed him last time so well, and I need you to be on your best behavior again tonight.”
“I don’t like the way he looks at me.” Ivy knew she was pouting, and she knew it wouldn’t change anything. She was the bait her father dangled in front of important men he wanted leverage over. Anywhere he needed control. She would wear the open-backed dress and have to feel Brusque’s hands as he rubbed too low, down past her back, to lead her into the dining room for the five-course dinner her father had planned. She shuddered.
“There is power in the way a man looks at a woman.” Her father looked up at her for the first time, his eyes peered out over spectacles, lips pursed. “You need to learn to control yourself so you can use that power.”
“I don’t want to wear the dress. I want to wear my white flowered dress.” Ivy set her lips and intentionally dropped the pink dress to the floor while she looked into her father’s eyes. Heidi, their live-in housekeeper, quickly swooped down and picked it up. Heidi glanced anxiously over at Ivy’s father and then pleadingly at Ivy. Ivy ignored her. She hated the thought of Brusque’s hands on her body again.
“See, your fit has made more work for Heidi. Now she has to iron it again. Is that what you want? Don’t you care about the people around you?”
“Don’t you care about me?” Ivy yelled at her father. “You don’t care about anything except your business associates.” She emphasized the words business associates. She knew that bringing up her father’s less-than-savory interactions would get a reaction out of him. Anything that implied her father was less than honorable was meant with immediate rebuke.
He stood up, slowly and deliberately, the chair scraped along the floor as the mahogany wood legs resisted the marble and stone floor. Ivy froze. She swallowed hard past the knot that formed in her throat. Her heart raced.
Ivy hung her head, eyes cast down at the ground at his feet. “Papa, please.” She poured out her words quickly, hoping to quell the anger. “I can still wear it. She doesn’t need to iron it again. You don’t need to….we don’t have to go upstairs.”
“Too late, child. Think before you act. I wish your mother hadn’t left us. It’s been five years, and you still need teaching.”
Ivy remembered her mother’s funeral. She had been seven and as her mother was lowered into the barely thawed ground, she felt her own heart freeze over. The last place she had felt safe had disappeared beneath the dirt. She hadn’t even been allowed to bring flowers to put on the grave. Her father looked at her now, his lips thinned and his eyes darkened. Ivy held her breath.
“I’ll wear the dress. I promise.” Ivy backed slowly toward the cold marble stairs that led to her barren room.
“Heidi, come,” her father said in a sharp staccato.
Ivy glanced quickly at Heidi who had frozen next to her with the dress draped carefully on her arm. Heidi’s face drained of all blood and she shook where she stood. Ivy noticed for the first time that Heidi was very young too. She couldn’t be more than twenty, only eight years older than herself. Ivy’s lip began to quiver, so she bit it hard until the taste of blood and the sharp sting of pain helped her master herself.
The three of them walked up the stairs in a line. Ivy trailed behind, running her hand along the smooth cold banister, the touch along her palm soothing. It never seemed to warm up, the marble stayed cold and hard. Never changing, never warming.
“Don’t dawdle.” Ivy’s father saw her lag behind.
Ivy walked to her bed, never once looking up. Her closet was overflowing with clingy dresses with high thigh slits and waist hugging silk blouses. Next to her bed was the soft white cotton dress she had hoped to wear tonight. It stared at her traitorously. Her father pulled down the thick leather strap from its mounting on the wall as he closed the bedroom door behind her. Heidi, knowing what was coming bent over the edge of the bed. She was already panting in short shallow breathes. Her father looked at Ivy as he pulled the strap back.
“I promised your mother that I wouldn’t hit you. But you have to learn when to hold your tongue. You have to realize how your actions effect others.”
He brought the strap down hard across Heidi’s back. The housekeeper sucked in a deep breath but knew not to cry out. He raised it again and Heidi yelped quietly in anticipation before he brought it down. Ivy saw her father’s face darken more. He brought the strap down harder. Ivy sat on her bed and dug her nails into her palm until it was all she could feel. As her father brought the strap down a third time, Ivy jumped off the bed and got between Heidi and the strap. It landed with a resounding thwack across her back. Her father looked first startled and then enraged. He lifted the strap high and brought it down three more times, each time harder than the last, across Ivy’s back and neck. Finally, Ivy curled up in a ball to protect herself.
“Please, Daddy, stop.”
Her father, startled at her small voice, pulled back, and looked shocked at seeing his daughter as she bled under his hand. The strap fell from his hand.
“Don’t test me again.” He said, breathless and white-faced as he left the room quickly, the strap still on the floor where he had dropped it. Heidi reached over and helped her up. As she saw Heidi’s striped back, she knew it was her fault. She knew she was the one who hurt Heidi. Heidi was gone by the next morning and her father refused to acknowledge her any time she brought it up. And Ivy knew that was her fault too.
She couldn’t wear the pink dress that night after all. It showed the marks. Her ashen, colorless face matched the white cotton floral dress as she descended the stairs to take her father’s arm on the way to greet his guests.
“That was your childhood? How did he get away with it?” I looked down at Ivy as she shook in my arms. In the darkness, I could barely see the tears run down her face, except when they caught the moonlight.
“We lived overseas. My father, he was a diplomat. No one questioned him. And he paid off anyone who he couldn’t get leverage over. Or, if he felt they weren’t worth buying off, they mysteriously disappeared. I heard him talking to a police chief he paid off about the charges they had arranged for a journalist that was making trouble for my father. The people who crossed him ended up arrested on some fake charge and rotted away in prison or they died in a strange accident that was never investigated. Whenever we returned home to the United States for brief visits, my father was greeted like a hero for taking all the hard assignments no one else wanted. But he used his position like a hunter uses a rifle and everything he took aim at fell and the spoils ended up in our bank account. And he used me like bait for big game. His company, which was hidden under shell companies and pseudonyms, grew accordingly.”
I sat there in shock. I held her against me, but I didn’t know what to say. I was an average person, with a boring life. I had parents who loved me and a really dull job in HR. This shouldn’t have happened to me. It shouldn’t be happening to anyone. In the moonlight, as she shook in my arms, she looked so young. She would never give me a straight answer about her age, but I knew she couldn’t be older than her mid-twenties. As I softly rubbed her back, my fingertips felt the smooth straight thin lines of long healed scars. She looked so vulnerable. Like the twelve-year-old girl who was hiding from her father.
“I brought you some coffee,” I said, and with a small flourish, and finished, “and a donut.” I placed them both on the bedside table next to her.
She smiled up at me, looking uncomfortable.
“Thanks.” She picked up the donut and bit into it, glaze crumbling down her shirt. She giggled and dusted it off. “I haven’t had a donut in so long!”
She picked up the coffee mug, breathing in the dark roast.
“Listen, last night, I shouldn’t have said any of that.” She was still awkwardly looking anywhere but at me.
“I’m glad you did.” I made my voice as soft as I could. “I had no idea. You never share anything. I like hearing about your life. I want to know you.”
“Look, I’m not the ‘share your life’ kind of girl. I don’t do the girlfriend thing. That’s not me.”
“Why not? Have you ever tried?”
“No, I haven’t. And I don’t plan to. So, just stop looking at me like I’m some delicate piece of china you need to protect. I’m fine, and I don’t need you to treat me like I’m breakable.”
“I’m not. God, do you have to make everything a fight? Can’t we just have a normal conversation. You know, I share something, you listen. Then you share something. Then I listen. Back and forth. Like people? It’s always one sided. I tell you about myself, and you share nothing. Now you shared one thing with me, and you’re acting all defensive. Just stop.” I took a deep breath and started again. “It’s ok to be vulnerable. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No, but I’ll end up hurting you.” She spoke with firmness, with certainty. She wasn’t waiting for me to convince her that it would be ok. She had already decided it wouldn’t. She left no opening for opposition.
“Maybe I’m not as breakable as you’re treating me. Ever think of that?”
“I break everything.” I could barely hear her when she spoke.
I stood there, mouth slightly open. It seemed obvious. She never stayed, not to protect herself, but because she thought she was protecting me.
“I don’t need to be protected from you. I can handle whatever comes my way.”
“I’m sure you think that. But I’ve already put you in harm’s way just by coming here.” She looked up at me again, pleading. “I know I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have come back again and again. But I feel so peaceful here. I love the quiet. It’s so…comforting, here, with you.” She took a deep breath, “But it has to stop. I can’t keep doing this to you.”
We ate our donuts in silence. Ivy looked at me with a sad smile, and then quickly down at the floor.
“Come on, let do some more walking.” I playfully threw some of my sweatpants at her, trying to lighten the mood. “You can’t just lay around all day,” I teased her.
She smiled and dressed. She was already pretty mobile after a little over a week of staying with me. Even her face had returned to almost normal coloring. Her lip was healing, but probably should have had stitches. Any other pain she had she hid.
“How about tonight you go get us Thai food? My favorite place is that hole in the wall on the east side of town.” She looked up at me excitedly, but something felt off. She never suggested doing anything she liked. Never wanted anything like a date. I was the one who always pushed for that. I was the one who wanted a real relationship.
“Sure, want me to get a bottle of wine too? I know you like that girly Moscato, even though you pretend to prefer Jack.” I tried to get into the spirit, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
“Yeah, that will be nice.” She looked at me sideways and smiled. She looked happy, but it was like a layer of paint over the decomposing wood under it.
As I left to go get our dinner, I turned back at the door to my apartment to look at her again. My heart was racing. I couldn’t explain it, but I didn’t want to leave. The whole time I was gone I felt cold inside. Driving back into my parking lot, my anxiety piqued. I felt anxious to get inside, even as I pulled into my parking spot. I wanted to see her face.
I gathered up everything I had run out for, balancing the food and wine in one hand and trying not to smash the flowers in the other. I didn’t want to make two trips. I wanted to calm the anxiety that hadn’t left me since I stepped out the door. As my footsteps echoed in the concrete hallway that led up to my door, my heart raced again. I couldn’t catch my breath.
Before I got to my apartment hallway, I heard the commotion. The sounds of a large crowd, broken by the sounds of walkie talkies buzzing followed by static. As I turned the corner toward my apartment, I felt my stomach drop. My hallway was crawling with police officers and my doorway stood wide open, it’s hinges busted.
“Are you Brandon Wood?” I turned toward the authoritative voice.
“I am. What’s going on?”
“You live here? In apartment 106D?”
“Yes, I do. Why?” I asked, my frustration and fear leaking through.
“Do you know this girl?”
I looked down at the picture of Ivy in the same torn and bloody dress she showed up at my apartment in.
“You still haven’t answered me. Why?”
“Do you know her?” He shoved the picture under my nose again, and I couldn’t help but look around for Ivy.
“I know her, yes.”
“Have you seen her in the last eight days?”
“I don’t understand. What is this about? Why won’t you answer me.”
“You need to come with us.” He looks over his shoulder to another officer. “He’s not cooperating. It’ll be easier to get his statement at the station. Take him in.”
“Am I under arrest? Someone, please, just tell me what this is about.” I looked at the second officer, and seeing more compassion there, stepped toward him. “Did something happen to Ivy? Is that why you’re here?”
“It’ll be easier if you just come with us.” His voice was gentle but offers no further explanation on why they were here.
“Fine,” I say on a barely audible exhale and accompanied him to his cruiser.
