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On a hot afternoon after I’d spilled lemonade onto my pants, my father told me that the ability to hide awkwardness was one of the greatest virtues of a human being. I remembered following his words, ignoring stickiness, stares and giggles as I hung my pants over my shoulder and walked without them. As I was seven at the time, the sight and deed was nowhere near as impressive as it could have been as a teen or older. However, as a teen or older, I would prepare by ensuring never to spill lemonade on my pants in the first place.
I remembered my father’s words, and realized that its inverse existed in the form of the woman sitting before me.
She couldn’t stop shuffling. She creased her business suit three times, adjusted her collar four times, dragged her skirt to her knees twice, and her fingers entered a trademark steeple that could have been used in a body-language book as the picture for nervousness. All the signs of a person who knew very little about interviewee etiquette were painted, nay, engraved on her.
“Miss...” I took a cursory glance at the papers. Thin. I’d seen strippers with larger résumés. “Goldsmith... is it?”
“Y-yes?”
I closed the documents, promptly crossing my arms over them. “The hiring procedure here is unique. Often times, glowing ‘recommendations’ and accomplishments on paper mean less than the parchment they are printed upon, so I’m going to be brief.”
I pulled off my wristwatch. Digital, because my father, and thus, all his sons, could never fathom the obsession with analog devices. I clicked the side of the watch, the numbers changing to a digital 5:00. I turned it towards her.
“You have five minutes to impress me.”
Had I given her five years, she would have still failed. I counted six self-boasts, four textbook-interview statements, three anecdotes, two redundancies, eight pauses and stopped counting after the fifth textbook statement about being diligent and hardworking. The only redeeming aspect she possessed was how much she amused me with the long, aching valuable seconds of silence as she racked her brain about things to say.
The five minutes ended. Sharp, rapid, beeping and Miss Goldsmith flinched at the noise. She stared at the device as if it were pranking her.
“Miss Goldsmith.”
“Y-yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
She possessed a wonderful inability to hide her facial expressions. Her grimace was stunning in its readability.
“Yes, sir?”
“I will be entirely honest with you.” I adjusted my rectangular glasses, taking it off and reaching into my breast pocket for a neatly folded white handkerchief. “You are utterly ill-suited for this job.”
“I –”
“Do not interrupt me.”
She cowed.
“Not only do you lack the necessary minimum qualifications, you are also admittedly, by your own admission, incapable of a utilizing the mandated computer software and your proficiency at secretarial duties is nonexistent.”
I wiped my glasses, slowly, once, twice, smoothly in clean motions. I placed them back upon my nose, adjusting them with my index finger. “Indeed, it seems the only reason you applied for a job that you did not possess the skills or aptitude for, and actually believed that I would not immediately feed your application to the nearest shredder is because...?”
Biting, seemingly subconsciously at her lower lip, her gaze tried it’s hardest to avoid mine. “I- I need this job. My... my financial situation isn’t very good.” She grimaced, again. “No – it’s horrible. I... I’m desperate.”
I folded my handkerchief, returning it to my breast pocket. “If only desperation could grant people employment.”
“Please I –” She bit down on her lower lip. “I’m willing to do anything.”
A stretch of silence followed her declaration. She leaned forward, clearly. I noticed her blouse seemed to have one of the top buttons mysteriously undone. Cleavage bared in my chest, a small tattoo of a bird’s wing popping up as she locked her gaze with mine.
Again, I took off my glasses. Again, I brought out my handkerchief. I began cleaning my glasses in counterclockwise motions with my hanky.
This was either a very deliberate ploy by my brother and father in order to test the integrity of my hiring process, a trap conducted by individuals who possessed grievances against me in order to see me removed from my position, or, potentially the least likely, a woman who believed she could spread her legs and use them to soar across the corporate ladder.
I settled my glasses on my nose. “Miss Goldsmith.” I began. “The word anything is rather damning. Are you certain that is what you mean?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Yes. Anything. I’d do anything.”
“Would you mind telling me who hired you?”
Miss Goldsmith falters. “Hired me?”
“The person responsible for making you put on this façade. Was it my brother? My father perhaps?” Her brows furrowed deeply. “You genuinely seem confused.”
“I don’t understand. I wasn’t hi–”
“Shh.” I stopped her with a palm. “I’m still talking.”
She flinched again.
“It seems you were not indeed hired.” I let my fingers steeple against each other on the desk. “Why are you here then?”
“I need a job –”
“No, you do not.” I corrected her. “Your pitch was lackluster and halfhearted. Your credentials are heavily lacking, and you did not even attempt to do basic spelling corrections on your Curriculum Vitae, which, might I inform you, is spelled with two R’s rather than one.”
“A person truly desperate for a job would have lied tremendously on their application with the hopes that they never get caught. They would be far more meticulous in their design and planning, and would never waste valuable seconds scratching their index finger across their scalp eight times. If anything, I am more inclined to believe that you came in here with the full intention of failing this interview. So, I ask again, why are you here?”
Valuable seconds passed. She seemed intent on paying attention to the floor, as though it were a television set playing an amusing sitcom.
“Very well.” I acquiesced. “That will be all for this interview Miss Goldsmith.” I gestured at the door. “I have other applicants to attend to.”
She rose, stiffly. I paid no heed to her expression as she left, nor did I bother myself with it. Rather, the inconsistency of her performance amused me. Shy, meek and barely confident women did not suddenly turn around and attempt to use sex as a bargaining chip. No professional would make that mistake, so it ruled out the possibility of this being a set-up by my brother or a trap by his competitors.
Perhaps if she had gone for someone more sex starved than I was, with considerably less self-control, it would have been a different matter. However, there was nothing she possessed that I required or could not attain on my own. This night, if I so chose, a visit to a bar could grant me what I needed –
A young fidgeting man in a gray business suit entered next, and the curious case of Miss Goldsmith slipped from my mind. Instead, plans of a new challenge began to stem forward.
/∞/
“Oh – oh – oh god! OH GOD!”
She alternated between screams and whimpers, no doubt unable to accept dichotomy of thoughts and sensations. She found herself squirming and moaning beneath me, if not riding and buckling above me.
Her breasts were firm and nipples were stone. She attempted her best to cover her mouth and prevent her traitorous whines. My hands would come down, ever so often, smacking against sensitive flesh, leaving a red imprint on her cheeks as I watched her bite pillows to hide her shameful mewling.
I gripped at her thighs and pinned her against the matrass, bucking my hips with a frantic roar as I listened to the woman’s voice that was contorted in pleasure.
“Moan harder!” I ordered. “I want to hear you! I want the world to hear you!”
She complied. Her sounds, her voice, her scent, the feeling of true and utter victory –
Our sweaty bodies departed. I rolled her on her back on the bed, and I finished my deed. She seemed to lack the strength to complain, or perhaps she realized that I would not give her the chance to do so.
I wiped myself clean against her stomach and the sheets. My mission complete, I basked in her sweaty panting form for ten seconds. Satisfied, I reached for my shirt and pants.
“Y-you – you’re leaving?” she panted.
“Yes.”
“B-but –”
“Did you think I would stay the night and cuddle?” I mused.
My shoes were on. My shirt, my tie, my jacket, complete. I knew that the smell of sex would be rank on my form, and I wore it, proudly, the aroma of victory. I reached for the door.
“W-wait,” she called out. “T-that’s it? After all sweet-talk and buttering me up at the bar you just put on your clothes and leave once we’re done?”
“I’m afraid social conventions dictate that hugging and kissing strangers is more awkward than sleeping with them.”
She laughs. “Jesus.” She sits up. “Maybe I should have expected it since you brought me to a hotel instead of your place...” Her breasts, hung in the air as her eyes seemed to lose the haze of lust and desire. “...but you really are once callous bastard.”
The words gave me pause. Looking over the woman, I noticed a significant resemblance she bore to Miss Goldsmith I met earlier in the day. No, I could even say that the reason I chose her for this night was because she looked similar to Miss Goldsmith. Coincidences of this nature did not simply happen.
“I assume you are an acquaintance of Miss Goldsmith?”
“Goldsmith?” the woman frowns. “I don’t – oh. That must be the name she used.”
“How fascinating. One sister attempts to get me to sleep with her under the guise of an interview, and the other just happens to be at the bar I occasionally frequent. Fate seems to have pulled out all the stops tonight.”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“Nor do I.” I bow, as gentlemen should. “I can’t help but notice that you did not deny being sisters, nor do you seem confused by what exactly I’m talking about.” I leisurely adjusted my tie. “If it is money you are after, I would sadly inform you that as the fourth son, I am not entitled to my father’s fortune.”
“This isn’t about money!”
“It’s always about money.” I said. “If you wish to beat around the bush, do go on. Tell me. What is this really about?”
“Tom Kingsley.”
“The old man?” I remembered him. “A Former employee; a terrible one. Tardy, always distracted, vanished at odd hours and left before official closing time. He was highly inefficient.” There was one rather pressing detail. “I heard he committed suicide after he lost his job.”
“Don’t you mean after you fired him?”
“No. He lost his job.” It was merely fact. “What part of ‘tardy’, ‘inefficient’ and ‘distracted’ is associated with corporate success? Do I need to draw a Venn diagram?”
“But you knew why.” She argued. “You knew why – and you didn’t care.”
“His sick son, yes.” I shook my head. “Personal reasons are not an acceptable excuse for poor performance.”
“His son had cancer.” She said, her words thick and laced with venom. “He worked, hard and diligent! He – he was doing different jobs and as many as he could just to get enough money to pay for treatments! Every day he’d come home a past midnight, and then wake up six am to go to work again, day after day. He was trying – trying his hardest.”
“I’m touched, however, it does not matter how hard one tries. His hardest was not good enough, for if it were, he would still be employed at my company, and he certainly would still be alive.”
She grit her teeth. I could see the manner in which they grinded against each other behind her cheeks. “Did you even care about his circumstances?”
“This is business. I am not paid to care about circumstances.” I said. “Admittedly, I was not aware of the severity of his son’s illness. If I were, I could have contributed to his cause and provided financial aid, and not-so-subtly spread details of my deed throughout the office. A boss that appears to look out for his employees is more respected than one that doesn’t.”
I frowned. “My apologies for your loss. This was a failing on my part. I missed an opportunity for better PR.”
“Better PR?” she shouted. “My father is dead and you’re thinking about fucking PR?”
“I’m thinking about why you and your sister went to such excessive lengths to try and sleep with me, the man you hold liable.” I paused. “I assume you did this because you have a reason? Or is this some new sexual fetish that I am unaware of?”
She hesitated. Her glare was still on me, but her gaze flickered away for a moment. It flickered to her bag, innocuously kept on the ground, and I gained a suspicion that I should not let her grab it.
I was too slow.
She picked up the bag, and a gun trailed itself in the direction of my forehead. I rose my hands up as non-threateningly as I could.
“A Sig Sauer P238? Interesting gun choice. I’m particular to the M1911 myself –”
“Shut up!” she snarled. “Do you ever listen to yourself talk?”
“It’s one of the downsides of having ears I’m afraid.”
“I said shut up!” she yelled again. Her finger rested softly on the trigger, and I took a step back. She reached into her bag with her left hand, while the right hand held the gun to my face, and she brought out a small packet of white pills.
She slid the pills across the ground until they landed beside my feet. “Pick it up. Slowly.”
I did. I was not ashamed to say that I recognized the pills.
“Swallow it.”
“Usually the date-rape drug is used before you have sex with someone –”
“Shut up and swallow it!”
I took a pill. One pill, and with years of pretending to swallow drugs, I let it slip down my sleeves while making an exaggerated show of swallowing.
“Your hands.”
I showed her my empty hands.
“Your mouth. Raise your tongue.”
I showed her my empty mouth.
“Take off your clothes, and give me your wallet.”
“So it does come back around to money doesn’t it?” I began to slowly unbutton my shirt. “I assume you have a camera in your bag. Is this your plan? Drug me and make it look like I raped you and then blackmail me for millions? Or, are you going to handcuff me to the bed, surrounded by large packets of cocaine and then give an anonymous tip to the police? No – you wouldn’t need to sleep with me otherwise.”
“Do you ever shut up?”
I opened my lips to respond just as three sharp knocks landed against the door.
“Room service!” a voice called from the other side of the door.
She sharply turned to me. “When did you order room service?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean you didn’t?”
“It means at no point in the past did I commit to the action of ordering room service.”
“Well neither did I.”
Three more knocks landed against the door. They were sharper than before. Sharp and impatient. She opened her mouth to tell them off and I rapidly shook my head at her.
“Don’t.” I whispered.
“What?” she turned the gun back at me, holding it with both hands.
“That’s not room service.” I kept my voice low.
“You called someone?”
“No.” I whispered. “We were followed.”
“Why would anyone follow us?”
“Coming from the woman holding me at gunpoint? What do you think?”
Four sharper knocks, almost reaching the sound frequency of angry banging. The door rattled from the force.
“Listen, you have a gun, and they most likely have a gun.” I said quickly, putting my hands down. “You have surprise on your side, so that’s good. Open the door, and shoot them before they shoot us.”
“I – no – I can’t.”
“You can, because they are most certainly going to –”
“You don’t understand – I can’t shoot them.”
She rose her gun, her expression going from uncertain to worried in seconds. It hit me.
“Your gun isn’t loaded.”
She looked away, biting down on her lower lip.
“Wonderful.” I cursed. “Simply wonderful.”
“I didn’t come here intending to kill anyone!”
“No, simply to drug them.” I let the pill slip out from my sleeve and held it in front of her. “Which, might I add, you failed to do successfully.”
Five angry thuds slammed against the door and she grimaced. There was no time for this discussion.
“Get dressed. Quickly. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?”
I pointed to the balcony. I always picked a room with a verandah or balcony.
“No.” she shook her head. “This is the thirty-third floor.”
“I wasn’t asking.” I said. “Get. Dressed.”
The knocks on the door became full bangs, and the knob was moving furiously, followed by the sound of a body slamming against it. I dashed for the balcony, pushing aside the large doors and standing out in the open night breeze.
Searching for someplace to hide or something to use brought my attention to a familiar object off to the side. It was a lift. A lift used by the window cleaners. I was familiar with it. When I was sixteen my father forced me to clean the windows of my brothers offices every day throughout the summer as my punishment for getting suspended.
“Hurry!”
She followed me, dressed back in her sensual nightdress that was part of the reason I chose her at the bar. Thankfully she had enough sense not to wear her heels.
“There’s a cleaner’s lift over there.” I pointed. “We’ll move across the edges and make it straight to it. From there, we can get to the ground floor.”
“Move across the edges? I – I can’t – I’m not a god-forsaken circus act –” she turned to me. “How can you say something like that so calmly?”
If there was enough time, I would have explained to her that walking on the thin edges of buildings was something I mastered because I would never have been able to escape my room as a child otherwise.
However, I’d never attempted it with stakes this high before. The thirty-third floor of a hotel was a bit different from the fifth floor of a mansion.
“Are – are you sure the people after us are going to kill us? Wouldn’t – wouldn’t our odds of surviving be higher if we just gave them what they wanted – I can’t –”
“Then I’ll leave you behind to your fate. I’m sure when they realize that I’m gone, you’ll be happy to give them whatever they want.”
She went pale.
“I – I don’t understand, why – why are people after you?”
“My father’s name has been on the Forbes top ten list for two consecutive decades. You don’t get to accomplish that without making a few enemies along the way, intentionally or otherwise.” I said, turning my eyes to her. “Like women who try to drug you because you laid off their hardworking fathers.”
She bit her lip. “I – My plan was –”
“There’s no time.” I pointed to the nearest foothold. “Just follow my lead. Don’t look down. Press your body against the wall and shuffle. Pretend you’re a spirit that can’t let people see her back or pretend you’re playing a realistic version of the floor is lava.”
“I – I can’t – this – this is too much! All I wanted was –”
The door burst open with the sound of wood shattering. A clap not unlike thunder echoed throughout the room and my ears rang. She screamed at the sound of the gunshot, panicked, and slipped over.
I grabbed her right hand. Her bodyweight slammed my ribs against the protective railing. She shrieked as my hasty catch dislocated her right shoulder.
But at least I caught her. It was a rather long way down after all. Grunting from the exertion of holding her entire body weight with one hand, she was too incoherent with the pain of her dislocated shoulder to realize that I just saved her life.
Why am I saving her life?
It would be easy to just let go –
“I don’t want to die – Idontwanttodie – Idontwanttodie –”
I pulled her up without thinking. I tried to avoid doing more damage to her dislocated shoulder as I did, and ignored the potential threat of an armed man behind me.
I underestimated what people would do to survive.
She grabbed my tie, cutting off my flow of air in her desperate attempt to climb up. It became leverage. Like a see-saw, an exchange occurred. One person went up, and the other went down.
My descent was filled with more surprise than terror. Surprise at the lull of falling, the sensation of weightlessness, and surprise at my own folly. Had I focused on myself and nothing else, left the woman to whatever fate would find her, I would not be weightlessly embracing the wind.
I could not fly or sprout wings to stop the rapidly gaining concrete from making contact with my body. I found myself cursing my tendency to frequent a particular bar to pick-up women for casual sex. Perhaps being in a stable relationship, or changing my habits would have saved me this encounter.
I wondered what her plan with drugging me was. I supposed it no longer mattered.
You could have let her die.
My decent was endless. I felt as though I was falling from space, instead of from a marginally tall building. I was hearing words in a voice that did not sound like my own voice.
Why did you save her life?
“Instinct I suppose. Instinct and the fact that her death would be problematic for me in the long-run.”
You have no value for life?
“I did not state that. Even thieves, conmen and criminals have value; insurance investigators and prison wardens would be unemployed otherwise.”
I was certain that one’s subconscious did not suddenly start asking people questions like these when they were falling to their deaths.
“What exactly is going on?”
Do you believe in the existence of a higher being?
My first instinct was to laugh. “Which one? There are hundreds, thousands, with contradicting faiths and perspectives and arguments even within their own belief systems. No – I found myself sorely lacking in faith.”
“Although, finding myself falling off a rooftop for what feels like several minutes is clearly not a normal occurrence. Are you god? A god? Some god? Am I to believe that some being beyond my perception and form of existence has prolonged the seconds before my death in order to have a casual conversation with me?”
“I am honored. Amused, but honored.”
Amused?
“Oh, yes, certainly amused. Do you do this for everyone about to die or perhaps there is something that makes me special?”
The circumstances of death:
Dying to save an enemy.
To save a person who wished you harm.
To save a person, who, by all means, you did not need to save, but choose to.
Dying to save a person, who ends up killing you, accidentally or otherwise.
“Accidentally?”
Disoriented, panicked and in severe pain, she reached out blindly and pulled you to your demise.
“That... does not entirely make things better. Had I known – ”
Had you known, I would not be speaking with you.
“I suppose one positive thing came out of this.”
One positive thing. Confirming the existence of higher beings. Not that it had any value at this point.
“How many people die in these ways you’ve listed? Dying to save an enemy, to save someone who hates you?”
Not many. Most are martyrs. Others are souls with empathy your world does not deserve. You however –
“Yes?”
You are an oddity. You do not harbor hatred or loathing for the woman, in spite of her actions.
“Should I?”
Had you never met her, you would still be alive. Had you not tried to save her as well, you would still be alive.
“Her brother died of cancer, her father committed suicide and she slept with the man she held responsible because... she wanted to drug him? Honestly? I never understood what her and her sister’s plan was, and considering how badly it ended up failing... I pity her.”
There are few humans so arrogant, or perhaps so sympathetic, they pity their own murderer.
“Thank you.”
It was not a compliment.
“It validates my uniqueness. So I count it as one.”
Do as you will. Your test commences now.
“Test?”
A series of questions and trials that shall determine if you will have a peaceful afterlife or one of eternal torment.
“I’m not interested in either.”
I stopped falling. Time, the world, everything around me froze as I was suspended in air.
You do not desire an afterlife?
“Other than not wanting eternal torment for obvious reasons,” I began, “I am not keen on a peaceful afterlife either. A peaceful afterlife is... pointless. Of what purpose is there in a world where I have everything I already want? Or of a world where there is nothing I want? Or of a world where the things that I desire are not allowed?”
“I would rather take oblivion.”
The things you desire? What makes you believe these things will not be present?
“Even assuming I can have unprotected sex with no risks of children or contracting STDs in this afterlife, I doubt I can possess extravagant wealth and power to laud over others. But more important than my own vanity, the struggle to attain said wealth and power is what I want most.”
“A peaceful afterlife defeats the point of struggle. It defeats the purpose of competition. If I have nothing to struggle for, and no reason to compete... why would I want to keep existing?”
You desire... competition?
“Ask anyone who has ever bested their friend at a sport, defeated a rival at a game, or even so much as lip-synced to a bad song better than their cohorts. Competition is an innate part of man’s existence. Conquering not only your fellow man but yourself, delivers an immense satisfaction that can ever be imitated or replicated in an afterlife – in a place where there should be no need for competition.”
This... is unexpected.
“You can’t expect me to believe I’m the only person who has brought this argument to you.”
Those I meet tend to oft be religious or openly trusting. I suppose it is because there are few pragmatics who would bother saving someone wishing them harm.
“I am honored... and insulted.”
So would deny a peaceful afterlife, because you desire competition?
“At the risk of being smote by lightning, if you are indeed a form of omnipotent, omniscient being, should you not have known this before meeting me?”
I never claimed to be all-powerful nor all-knowing.
“So what are you? ‘God’ would be a bit of a misnomer, and as a being who seems unaware of my responses, thoughts and ergo destiny, calling you a ‘deity’ would be... inappropriate.”
“The manner in which you offered to grant me access to an afterlife almost sounded rather as though I was not having a conversation with a god, as more I was being offered a deal by –”
The Devil?
“Not really. That would be attributing to you some level of omniscient power you do not have. I mean, if you were the devil, you could have tempted me with things you knew I would fall for.”
I thought it over.
“How about I call you Oblivion?”
Oblivion?
“In lieu of your obliviousness, and my preferred method of existence after death.”
I have rendered tests and judgments of millions and none but you have had the gall to give me a name, yet alone call me oblivious.
“Seeing as how I have proved my uniqueness time and again, I take it this means you will grant my desire of eternal slumber?”
You did not bother attempting to plead for a second chance at life. Have you no desire to continue in the world of the living?
“Second chances are on the table?”
They are not. Once you die, you can never walk this world as a living being again.
“So why bring this up?”
Because you did not. Most, would at the least, attempt to know all their options before choosing to forever end their existence. Yet you made the decision hastily, almost as though you have long decided upon it. Why?
“I don’t have to answer that.”
No. No you do not. Nevertheless, I have heard all that I wish to hear.
“Good talk Oblivion. Now, is this the part where I stop existing?”
Earlier, you said you said there was no purpose to living in a world where you have everything you desire, where there is nothing you desire, and where the things you desire are not allowed.
“Where are you going with this?”
I take it that means, a world where you have nothing you want, a world, where you want to gain everything, and a world, where even the worst of your desires are allowed would be suitable to your tastes?
“No – no no no – that is not what I want – you are misinterpreting my words –”
My decision has been made.
“Wait – Oblivion – you –”
Try not to die prematurely this time.
Time continued. There was ne’er an opportunity for me to scream or curse as my body succumbed to gravity, resuming my fall, and the cold pavement appeared before me.
