Banksters 40: Proposals

Grey called me back around 4. “I couldn’t find you, so I had to hire a whore.”

 

“You couldn’t masturbate, like a normal person?”

 

 “George Morgan is eyeing a political run. And what does every politician need on his arm?”

 

“A patrician matron to smile vacuously while whoring her children for votes?”

 

“You were partway right- specifically the ‘whore’ part. She has a record, and she’s pretending to not be a working girl.”

 

“An undercover whore. That’s a weird wrinkle.”

 

“Richard wants to protect his little brother. But little brother is mounting a takeover of the company. So I’m going to try and get him to chase his fortune.”

 

“Only to run him into a bear trap.”

 

“Um, yes, unfortunate vagina dentata connotation at all.”

 

“But I didn’t need you to just seduce Teryl the one time. She has to want to leave her husband. She has to sign papers. Preferably before I need another vaginal rejuvenation- shit’s expensive.”

 

“Richard tearing it up that much?” I asked with a smile.

 

“He’s not the only one.” My eyebrows went up. “I meant you, jackass, though I note the sexism, there; when you wanted to whore me out it was fine, but the moment I mention possibly having more than two sexual partners, to a man without enough fingers and toes to count all of his, suddenly the eyebrows go up.”

 

“I apologize for my wanton use of eyebrow expression.”

 

“Jackass. But Teryl?”

 

“I’m handling it.” She furrowed her brow; apparently that wasn’t good enough for her. “Do I really have to explain this to you? Okay. Today, she’s euphoric. She’s been single since she became estranged from her husband, and they stopped loving each other years ago. So she’s thrilled, and believes in romance again. By tonight doubts will set in. Was it a fling? A one night stand? Was I using her, the way her husband did? Is the world the wretched goddamned place she’d been convinced it was? She’ll spiral into a darker depression than ever before. And then I make my dramatic reentry into her life, and because of the proximity to her valley, even if I only return her to how happy she was before, it’ll feel like a peak.”

 

“Someone thinks awfully highly of his dick.”

 

“It’s not about the sex. The sex really only factors in because endorphins almost make it addictive. It’s about getting someone to need you. I think that’s where you failed with her. You were dependable, so she came to depend on you. The trick is to get someone to depend on you even though you’re not dependable; you become their foundation, even though they know you aren’t stable ground. So their whole world takes on a fragility, revolving around you. Long-term, it’s a recipe for bitterness, but short-term, it creates dependence, and need, especially in combination with the sex.”

 

“I feel like I’m your padawan learner- which does make what we did in that alley even filthier. But maybe I should get myself some jedi robes.”

 

“Could be hot. I’d probably gravitate towards slave Leia, myself, but”

 

“She was being sexually exploited by a massive slug. How is that sexy?”

 

“It had nothing to do with Jabba; Leia was wearing stylized and revealing fetish gear with a slight but safe hint of bondage. She was a whore, but she was forced into it, so she was also innocent; it’s the distillation of the Madonna whore complex into a single moment. Do you really not get men that much?”

 

“I get men just fine, at least the parts I need to get.”

 

“But my main point is Teryl’s taken care of. Right now she’s simmering on the back-burner, which is exactly where I want her to be.”  

 

“And that thing you needed from me?”

 

“It’s probably better that I used an actual hooker. It means I don’t have to be discreet later, if I don’t want to be.”

 

“A lack of discretion? From you? Color me intrigued.”

 

“I don’t have a body paint that color. I have periwinkle- which I think is close.”

 

“Periwinkle? Someone actually sells a periwinkle body paint?”

 

“No. I had the periwinkle custom-mixed.”

 

“I think you’re lying. I think you just like saying periwinkle.”

 

“It is one of the most fun colors to say.”

 

“It’s disturbing that you get me- because I don’t understand you at all.”   

 

Petra knocked on the door, then opened it. “Dinner?” she asked.

 

“Gotta go,” I said into the phone. I packed up my laptop, and threw on my coat. When we got to the elevator I said, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe I should just cook for you. A quiet, intimate night in. What better place to talk?”

 

“That sounds nice,” she said. “But if I’m coming over, I need to stop at home first to feed my cat.”

 

“That’s okay. It’ll give me a head start on dinner.”

 

I made tofu with a sesame ginger sauce, rice and some vegetables. She changed into something soft and floral-printed, pretty, but not especially sexual. We ate almost silently. Until she put her fork down, rather loudly. “I don’t want to pressure you. At all. But if I’m pregnant, that kind of puts pressure on both us.”

 

“I know.”

 

“So, how do you feel about kids?”

 

“It’s never come up.”

 

“Well now it kind of has.”

 

“My parents were bad at it. I can’t imagine I’d do any better.”

 

“Oh, come on. You’d make a great dad.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re crazy about me. Your new passenger, and his or her army of therapists would not be nearly so biased in my favor.”

 

“What do you think about marriage?”

 

“This is you not pressuring?”

 

“It’s me holding back as much as I’m humanly able. This is kind of the first time I’ve ever been knocked up.”

 

“Marriage is… complicated. But mostly, it’s a way to make it less socially acceptable to end a relationship. Not impossible, it just adds a layer of stigma to prevent people from hastily breaking up; at best it’s relationship insurance.”

 

“Wow. That’s cynical, even for you.”

 

“I’m just speaking practically. That’s what marriage is, on a fundamental level. That doesn’t mean it can’t be meaningful to the people involved; to some people, it can be everything.”

 

“But what might it mean to you?”

 

“Depends on the circumstance.”

 

She took my hand. “And in this circumstance?”

 

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She dropped my hand. “I don’t. We’ve only been together a few months. I’ve barely gotten used to having you in my life, and now we might be having a baby. And I think of our future together, and that all makes me happy. But I can’t help but wonder if I’d be as bad at marriage as my parents. I don’t want to spend years making you unhappy just because we picked out a pair of matching rings.”

 

“It’s okay to be intimated by all of this. I’m scared. This is life-changing stuff. I mean, our lives are changing. If I walked out of here and never looked back, it wouldn’t matter, because our lives have already changed. And, you know, this isn’t the 30s, people have kids out of wedlock all the time now; it’s almost the norm, now, rather than the exception. I wasn’t trying to pressure you into anything. I just… we’re having a kid. I wanted to know how you thought about all of this.”

 

She picked up her plate, and set it on mine, but she wasn’t quite fast enough to get them to the kitchen before a tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away, trying to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

 

“Wait,” I said, and slid out of my chair, and into a kneel.

 

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. 

 

“I want to. It’s true that I hadn’t thought about it before. But now that I have, it just feels right. Like it’s the right thing, for me, for us. And it feels like this is the right moment, like a better one is never going to come. Because I don’t want you to be sad about this, not ever; I want you to remember tonight as the night I asked you if you would marry me.”

 

Her mouth hung open for a moment before she could force out the word, “yes.” She nearly dropped the plates onto the table, and when she set them down I still was surprised when they didn’t chip.

 

“I don’t have a ring, right now, since this wasn’t planned. But there is a jeweler down the street.”

 

“You think they’re still open?”

 

“Probably not. But we can window shop. And I know they’ll be open tomorrow.”

 

Since we couldn’t get in close she couldn’t decide, but she found several good prospects for the next day, one a traditional diamond on a white gold band, another with rubies inset, and one with sapphires, her birth stone.

 

The post-proposal sex was excellent. She’d been holding something back.   

 

The jeweler didn’t open until ten. She tried on several rings, but liked the way the sapphires looked against her pale hands. She wore it in to the office, and showed it to everyone she passed.

 

There was an unscheduled board meeting going on when I arrived. I slipped in quietly, and Richard glared at me for not being there earlier.

 

“As most of you know by now, he said, we had a problem in Admin yesterday. There was a coding error in our computers during a system update. This caused a bank error in customer’s favor. And it got a lot of press. The actual cost to us was a few hundred thousand dollars. But the damage it did to our image was substantial. Our stock lost 15% of its value. Overnight. We can’t survive with investor confidence as low as it is right now; this is crunch time, people. We fix this, or we die.”

 

“And it’s the worst possible time for it, but our General Counsel has taken a personal leave of absence. Filling in for him as our acting GC will be the formidable Henry York.”

 

“And I’ve discussed it with my brother, and despite my protests, he’s resigning, effective at the close of business Friday. He’s decided to pursue a career in politics. We’ll miss him around here- though it might be nice to have someone in Washington actually working for our interests.”

 

Admin. Alice’s department had screwed the pooch. And a fifteen percent fall in stock prices meant anyone looking to vacuum up extra stock just got a huge discount. But that had to be unrelated.

 

Except Alice didn’t look chastised. She didn’t look upset. She looked victorious. She was marinating in the fact that she’s hit Richard Morgan where it hurt him the most: his overstuffed wallet. And she was relishing the fact that George Morgan, who really only wanted to be in charge, was now moving on for greener pastures, clearing the way for her to take over Richard’s chair.

 

Son of a bitch, I never saw it before. Alice was the new inside man.