It was lunchtime, and I still hadn't been into the office. I had Julee meet us somewhere- us being myself and Janet. “Ms. Simmes. This is Julee Hendricks. She's going to be writing up an expose on your behalf about Richard's... we'll call them fiscal indiscretions.”

“So she's not your hooker. That's a relief. I assumed he had a type.”

“Oh, he does.” Julee smiled as she sat down.  

“Julee, this is Janet Simmes, currently an unconfirmed US Attorney, and, if things go right, soon to be head of my company's legal department.” Julee glared. If the head of legal found out she was a reporter, she would be out the door- of course, that was why I'd said my company, not our. She relaxed; because there was no way Simmes was going to know who she was, even on the off chance that she did come to work with us.

“But you ladies have much to discuss, strategies, and such, and I'm afraid legal, political and editorial strategies are not remotely in my skill set, so I'll leave you to it.” I got up and left.

Julee found me in my office after her lunch. “Bit of a dick move, abandoning me there like that.”

“Janet isn't dumb. If I stayed, she'd have picked up on signals about our relationships- either that we've been romantic or that we work together. Either of which would have adversely affected our plans.”

“Romantic? I'd say we've been sweaty. And naked.”

“And that night with the blood spot, or the one where I put a gun to your head,”

“And I put a knife to your throat. Okay, those were sexy enough they might qualify as romantic. But are you getting all nostalgic on me?”

“Just calling a spade a spade.” She glared at me. “You know that saying has no racial overtones, right?”

“Of course, I'm a writer; but sometimes it's fun to make white people uncomfortable.”

“And we're on for this weekend?”

“Presuming you mean the screwing parts. Because I'm always happy to show up for a sex date.”

“I need you for the other parts, too. You have to be there to 'rescue' Alice. Because you're the only one who can make it plausible.”

“But here's a thought: why do we care about Alice? I get trying to screw her over; I get trying to frame Kierkegaard. But why not just let nature take its course. If anything, Kierkegaard spends even more time in jail for a successful rape than an attempt.”

“Because it's unnecessary. If I were operating on purely pragmatic grounds, it would be easier to just orchestrate break-ins and car accidents- a series of unfortunate events that lead to the deaths of my rivals. But too much violence and these circumstances no longer look like accidents- they start to resemble machinations. And that's how you get caught. But what are the plans for Richard.”

“Janet wanted to wait, make sure she had her ducks in a row. But I pushed to publish tonight. If we aren't the ones who break it, someone else might; and I impressed upon her that you're the kind of slimy bastard who would gladly screw us just to depose Richard a little earlier.”

“Thank you for that.”

“Did you think you had a patent on screwing with people you scheme with? But it was just a ploy. And if we can get it into the news cycle for the weekend, it'll dominate Saturday and Sunday, and by Monday Richard will have to resign.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“You like it enough I should bend over your desk in preparation for being ravaged?”

“I think just normal liking.”

“Should I have worn a lower top?”

“It never hurts. But I'll see you out.”

Body language is subtle, usually. But I didn't want to hope Petra got the message I hoped to convey, so I waited until we were in front of Petra's desk, where I knew she'd take it all in. I shook Julee's hand with both of mine, and took great care to rub it as I did. I smiled, and I stared at her, specifically at her cleavage. And I watched her walk away, barely noticing I'd been left behind with Petra.

“You're still spending time with her,” she said sadly.

“Working together,” I said, half-heartedly.

“Do I get to have you for the weekend?” Petra asked.

“Um, I already have plans.”

“Anything I can tag along for?”

“Sorry.”

“So let me get this straight: you made plans that exclude your fiance on the first weekend after you proposed?”

“I might be the crappiest fiance on record. But not worse than cavemen; those guys were Neanderthals.”  

“It's okay,” she said, though it clearly wasn't.

Julee called at about an hour before the end of the day, to talk to Petra. She wanted to make sure she knew what time her dinner meeting with me on Sunday was. Of course, it wasn't on the schedule. So Petra called me.

“Ms. Hendricks is on the phone. She says she has a meeting with you Sunday, late, but can't remember when.”

I gave it several seconds of silence, to let her imagination do terrible things, before I said, “Nine,” confirming at least some of them.

“And she wanted to confirm where she's meeting you.”

“Breen's,” I said. It was a tiny and terrible little restaurant. Its only distinction at all was being within walking distance of my place. 

“Oh,” she said, neglecting to hide her surprise. “All right.”

I snuck out. I wanted Petra feeling isolated and neglected. And Julee gave me a ride home, so Petra would see my car, and have to wonder.

I took a cab the next morning to pick it up. The rest of the day was spent in preparation, making sure I had all of my ducks in their rows.

I'd set up Grey's date with Alice at Breen's. In the message, I told her I'd passed it a hundred times on my way to work and was curious. Grey waited outside the restaurant, while I was already seated at a table in the far corner.

Alice was wearing what a straight woman would to seduce a lesbian, which meant it was mostly attractive to men- relatively speaking- but less so to the fairer sex. Grey had her phone on speaker on a call to me, so I could listen in. Once inside, Grey took one look around and said, “I think I've got food poisoning just smelling the air in here.”

“Oh, come on, if it's good enough for the rats,” Alice joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“I feel awful. And it's probably too late to get reservations anyplace else.”

“It's okay, we could reschedule, or...” she stopped, because she thought that Grey was trying to put an end to their evening prematurely, that she'd seen her and had second thoughts.

“My apartment's just a few blocks from here, though. I could cook for you, if you don't think it's too forward of me to invite you back to my place before I feed you.”

“To feed me,” Alice corrected her. “That makes us both sound less slutty.”

“Yes,” Grey teased. “I only want to sound the right amount of slutty.”

Grey took her back to my apartment. I'd walked her through everything in the kitchen earlier, and a lemon tofu dish that would fool any carnivore- but wouldn't upset the tender sensibilities of a vegan. I mean, I do research, but eating habits aren't as easy to determine as you might think. Aside from watching someone for several days, it's practically impossible to find out anything other than food allergies, which, in Alice's case, included peanuts.

I stayed at Breen's to eat. Cooking was supposed to take a little over an hour, the eating, seduction and drugging an hour more. So I worked on my laptop while eating something that the menu said was chicken but I would have bet money was some kind of fish- or at least a sea creature of some kind.

After dinner, I went to a coffee shop a little closer to home, and I had a biscotti while I waited. I called Julee. “Are you set up?”

“I made it look like there was an intrusion attempt into our computer system, for a pretext. Then, while investigating, I 'found' Kierkegaard's messages, the ones he was forwarding through the company servers to try and make them look like they originated from Alice's computer. I'm currently reading through them. In about twenty minutes I'm going to go to personnel records to find Alice's home address and number. Then it's showtime.”

“Excellent.”

“After that, victory-sex?”

“Might have to wait for tomorrow, depending on how long you're detained with the police. But definitely tomorrow, even if it's an encore performance.” 

Grey called after another half an hour. She needed me to help her carry Alice back to her car.

Mott was lying unconscious on my couch, with her blouse unbuttoned. I closed the first few buttons before I lifted her up. She was surprisingly light. Grey got the door into the hall, and called the elevator by the time I got there. I only had to set her down once, while we waited for the elevator. 

I set Alice in her passenger seat, and drove her car. It was awkward, because I didn't want to change any of her seat settings, and I was several inches taller than she was. Grey followed behind in my car. She kept it warm, and running, and as soon as I had Alice set up, we drove around the block.

The messages between Rob and Alice had been very specific. Per their agreement, the front door was unlocked, and Alice was in the first room, lying on her couch. No matter what he did, she was supposed to pretend to be asleep.

I got out of my car and walked back to Alice's on foot. Grey stayed with the car, playing Cut the Rope on her iPhone.

Rob arrived exactly on time. He was having trouble walking, because he already had an erection. I texted Julee to wrap up and head this direction.

I watched Rob walk through a heavy oak front window. He set his coat on an armchair, and slid up next to Alice. He tried making small talk, but she was out, He started kissing her, and unbuttoning her shirt. Things were moving too fast; hadn't he ever heard of romance?

But I'd come prepared for this. I picked up a softball-sized decorative rock from Alice's porch, and threw it through a small side window beside the front door. Rob got up off the couch and went to the door to check what was going on. By then I was already around the corner of the house.

Rob came outside, made sure his car was still undisturbed in the driveway, then went back inside.

I watched as he tried to talk to Alice again, but since she wasn't responding he assumed that she wanted him to continue, that broken window be damned.

Then I heard sirens coming from a few blocks away. I jumped the neighbor's fence, and kept walking. I pulled out my phone and texted Julee: Almost here?

She called me. “Few blocks away. I'm right behind a squad car with its lights flashing. So apparently for once dispatch isn't dicking around.”

“That's good, because Rob doesn't seem to be, either- though he's in a big rush to start dicking around.”

“Gross.”

“Too far?”

“I think victory sex is probably out of the question, now.”

“The price we pay to get ahead in business.”