Chapter Nine

When the sound of the alarm clock mercifully tore Natalie from the sticky grasp of her ominous dreams, after her first exhalation of relief came the first cough and the realization that she could not breathe through her nose but only through her sore throat.

She stood up gingerly from her bed and noticed that her head felt like it was filled with cotton, thoughts struggling sluggishly like flies drowning in syrup, and that her movements were somewhat off the mark, clumsy as if she was thirteen again.

As if she had the flu.

Her breasts and buttocks still hurt from the strong grasps and spanks they had received the night before, her vagina and anus were sore, but the general ache of all the muscles of her body was on top of all that.

She was devastated on all levels.

What’s worse, she had known that it would be like this, but had gone through with it anyway. Was it worth it? That was a difficult one.

At the time she had called the gigolo team to come and do her, it had made perfect sense. She had felt the need deep inside her, stirring, trying to find an outlet, but instead knotting into sickly lumps of vibrations in her upper stomach and solar plexus.

Now...now the pressure that built up in the last months had dissipated, or at least her amount of energy to react to the pressure plummeted, which to her seemed to be the same thing. She had felt terrible last night, and now, although she did not feel so obviously stressed out as she had been before the domination session, she was quite ill.

One good thing: experience suggested that this was not quite a real virus, but more of a shock reaction that should subside in a day or two. Natalie took three painkillers, two ‘flu-non’ tablets, and drank a fizzy vitamin drink. Then she went out of her home and hailed a cab.

As the car darted through the morning traffic, she gazed absently through the grimy window, periodically straining to clear her nose by unsuccessfully blowing it into a paper hanky, and thought about the presence in her room, and the devil walking about her apartment.

Were these dreams?

It never felt like she was dreaming. Each time these nocturnal visitations took place, she was wide-awake, but didn’t dare to move or make a sound. Sometimes quite literally, she wasn’t able to move or make a sound even when she wanted to.

Perhaps this is what people who said that they had seen aliens and UFO’s felt. To her, it had not felt like the presence of spacemen from other planets, it had always felt like a much more sinister, much more primitive affair.

“That will be five-seventy, lady,” said the driver as the taxi halted by the sidewalk near the entrance of her office building. Natalie fumbled with her fashionably studded brown leather handbag and fished out some notes. She gave the driver a tip and climbed out of the back seat and onto the street.

That hint of nausea, which hovered at the fringes of her mind when she traveled in a car in a weak state, gave way to a slightly more stable world.

Her mind was still quite foggy and in spite of already being five minutes late for work, she decided to have a smoke before entering the building.

She rummaged again in her bag, took out a packet of ‘FLaydies’ and plucked from there a thin cigarette, observing in the process that her hands shook slightly.

After the first three inhalations, Natalie felt her mind focusing. Well, not really focusing; it was still a churning sea of oozing murky gunk, but at least the peripheral thoughts concerning the everyday obligations snapped to discipline and formed chains of coherent plans.

It was an otherwise splendid autumn morning, with a gentle hint of muted sunlight trying to glow through the light gray sky; a certain pre-drizzle moisture maintained a freshness in the city air. Among the pedestrians, the first scarves and long coats were observed.

Natalie scanned the people, letting out wisps of smoke, tapping one shoe, and staving off going up to the office. However, she quickly became aware of glances darted at her by the passing men.

Greedy, predatory glances.

Her thinness, her whole look of a schoolgirl and a teacher’s pet, attracted men—especially middle-aged men for some reason—and it attracted them almost irresistibly. She made them jump through hoops since she was sixteen.

Today of all days their glances were not welcome; today they made her feel neither wanted nor attractive.

She squirmed uncomfortably. Now the glances of the men seemed to her as promises of nothing but violent pawing, repulsive warm sweat, shame, nauseating recollections of nauseating actions.

At least the rules of the city in daylight stopped these slimy apes from trying anything.

With a shiver, she threw down her half-finished cigarette, mashed it with her sole, and went inside.

In the elevator with her were three young men, whose offices were one floor above hers. They did not say anything, but she felt them feeling her up with their eyes as she waited for the lift to stop and open its doors.

Finally, it stopped and with a ridiculous sense of relief, she went to her office.

Immediately, the hum of various electronic machinery, the familiar voices, the bursts of typing, the comforting smells of paper, warm plastic, perfumes and aftershaves, all that combined to lower the general anxiety considerably.

At least here everything followed a specific routine; there were clear objectives and clear criteria to measure them, clear-cut relations, and an obligation of mutual politeness.

With an effort she straightened out of her slouch and mouthing a grateful “Hi” to Bob—grateful just for him being there—she sat on her desk and switched on her PC.

While the computer warmed up, she quickly arranged her piles of useful things on the desk: her phone, her wallet, her notebook, two pens...then the monitor lit up and she typed in her password.

As she was checking her mail, Bob came over to her desk, put a printout on her keyboard, as was his manner, and gently massaged her shoulders, as was his manner.

“Please, Bob,” she said, shrugging his hands off. A second after her instinctive reaction, she remembered that this could hurt his feelings and turned to look at him.

He appeared to be unperturbed, and just said, “Okay, little lady,” as he met her gaze. She felt him take in her crumpled and deflated appearance.

He also noticed that she felt this, and said his part, “You ill, Natalie?”

“No, no, just a little cold or something,” she said brightly, opening her eyes wide to show how awake and adequate she was.

Having sorted this out, he waved at the papers on her desk, “When you’re done reading that, call me so that we can work on it.” Then he retreated to his own desk.

“Okay, Bob,” she said with a half-smile to his retreating posterior and tried to concentrate on the text. She blew her nose again, with some success this time, rubbed her face, shook her head, and tried to concentrate again. The letters swam only a little and she was able to make out the general idea.

Apparently a new party, called the National Patriots, wanted an analysis of their potential ability to enter the Parliament in the coming elections, which was in only two months.

That’s cutting it a bit short, Natalie thought to herself, twiddling her blue pen. She read the mission statement of the party.

As usual, at first glance it looked like semi-articulate rabid Saddam revivalists had written it.

This happened half the time.

If the mission statements of various parties, candidates, and organizations did not in their unedited forms look like crude variations of Mein Kampf, then they made one think of abstract left-wing poets inhabiting faculties of provincial universities.

She took her pencil out of her mouth and directly started crossing out sentences and writing more acceptable substitutes above them.

In order to survive in the field, her boss not only offered slightly lower prices than his bigger competitors, but also always made it a ‘two in one deal’, public relations advice thrown in with the market data, and Natalie had learned very quickly the basics of how sentences should be worded in order to not immediately alienate everyone.

Unlike, apparently, most politicians and their think tank pals.

She called Bob. He smiled and rolled over to her on his chair. “So, little lady. I see you’ve already crossed out the more horrible stuff, eh?”

“Yes,” chirped Natalie. “I wonder what they are thinking of when they write their mission statements.”

“Indeed.”

Having participated in these quick mutual congratulations of what swell professionals they were, Bob got down to business, “Now, we have only two months. This means we have to start next week at the latest.”

“Yup. First we need to see what chances they have.”

“If you ask me, they don’t have a chance in hell.” Bob was a man; he had the right to say such things.

“Ah, but we can’t tell customers that.” Natalie was a woman; her obligation was to tone things down.

“Yes, but they don’t have anything. They have no recognition, no famous people, no one knows who they are or what they stand for.”

“Quite right. So, first of all…” Natalie drew intersecting circles in her notebook to drive her thoughts along. “We must advice them to try bring over some musicians, artists, or something over to their camp in order to be associated with someone people have heard of.”

“Yes.” Bob bobbed his head. “Even a has-been actor or journalist remembered only by people over fifty will make them more recognizable than they are now.”

Natalie and Bob settled into their brainstorm routine. Bob would say disparaging things, forcing Natalie to, in turn, try to locate the available options. They were a good team.

Natalie’s brain was already back on track and working in full throttle. “Also, they need to start staging events. Protest against something, or support something, and give out some leaflets about something. Visibility.”

“True...” Bob’s eyes widened. “They can also choose a special day, you know, like the days of the saint of something patriotic, like Saint George, and use it to stage their event.”

“Well, Saint George’s day has been and gone for this year, and it’s been claimed by almost everyone already, but you’re onto something.” Natalie smiled generously.

Bob thought a bit more and then apparently gave up. “Enough with that for now, it’s obvious some things can be done. We’ll work them out as we go. First, we have to know where we stand sociologically. What’s our latest data on the three big parties?”

Natalie rolled her eyes upwards as she counted, “From two months ago.”

“It will have to do for now. Do you have the file on your computer?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see which of the parties has a periphery of voters who can possibly be cajoled to join the ranks of our customer.”

Natalie tapped Bob’s knee with her pen to show agreement. “After that, we can see which people in government are the least liked by the voters right now, and we can figure out how the National Patriots can attack them publicly.”

“Little lady, you and I think like one person.”

Natalie opened the file with the political support data. The buzz of working and the knowledge of being one of the best, or at least one of the very good in the field, helped marvelously to hold at bay the disconcerting half-formed anxieties that circled hungrily around her.