Chapter 5: Phone Calls

“Kidnapping?” Donna muttered into her phone in her office near the top floor of the office building on which Joe’s helicopter had landed the day before. She shared the floor with top executives, like their top lawyers, division heads and chief accountants, one step below vice presidents and a floor below them. Though JAS owned the building and housed staff in the top third floors, it wasn’t advertised as such. Called the Enterprise Building, and its three story high lobby grandly embraced that concept with large commissioned murals and friezes and sculptures, the latter of innovators and inventors inside and a stylized compass, ruler and test tube outside. Joe made sure it was a place affordable to start ups, with the offices overlooking the lobby prime real estate with more established businesses. Donna’s office was probably the most secure place in the building with her checking for bugs every morning and afternoon. Not just vetting high level visitors, she was in charge of cyber security. Even the call to Joe could never be sourced.

“How is she?” Joe replied.

“Good. Very good actually.”

“Does that mean... ?”

“That we fucked? Yes.”

“Uhm okay.”

Donna laughed. “I did have to get her drunk and stoned first.”

“Donna!”

“Better than kidnapping. Honestly she was very horny no thanks to you.”

“Uhm, that’s good isn’t it?”

“Promising, but you realize you did traumatize her.”

“I know. I’m fucked up.”

“You are fucked up, but I love you anyway.”

“Me too.”

“Can’t say it can you.”

“No.”

“You’ll need to say it to her if she decides to be with you.”

“Actually I kind of felt it, the connection.”

“Really?”

“When she wasn’t trying to bore a hole through me with her eyes.”

“Can’t blame her.”

“No. But even then, when I saw her hate, somehow I felt it, that connection with her. She’s a remarkable woman, Donna, even more remarkable than I thought.”

“I agree.”

“Did she like it with you?”

“Of course. She even returned the favor. She’s a fast learner.”

“Does that mean...”

“That she’s lesbian? I doubt it, and you should know as well since you spied on her fucking her ex. She enjoyed it, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a piece of work Joe.”

“I know.”

“She ended up at my place since she didn’t trust you getting access to the VIP apartment.”

“Makes sense.”

“And we went to this club, sort of a birthday present. She actually hit on this guy when we were there, though I doubt she’d have gone with him. I ended up being with this woman, my type, and that might work out.”

“Tell me about the guy.”

“No congratulations?”

“I’m glad for you, honestly. So tell me.”

“I guess he was kind of cute, maybe shy, sitting on his own, but she must have noticed him staring or something because she ended up coming right up to him. The singer of the band we’d just watched ended up his girlfriend or whatever a transsexual would be.”

“Interesting.”

“The transsexual?”

“The shy guy. It was something we talked about.”

“In what way?”

“I wanted her to understand her desperation, hooking up with the first guy she met in order to get away from her family. I told her to imagine a shy guy at a party checking her out, and he’s like the perfect guy for her unlike the guys that had hit on her earlier at the party.”

“The earlier guys being like her boyfriend.”

“Yes.”

“Of course she never found out what a great fuck he was, but at least it was interesting, finding out about this transsexual and such.”

“I suppose.”

“We did get invited to their place where all the roommates fuck each other or something. She declined and I definitely wasn’t interested.”

“That really would have been transgressive against her mother’s repression.”

“Don’t you think having lesbian sex was enough?”

“True.”

“That might have been a road too far. But if the guy hadn’t been attached to that girl/boy, you did plant the seeds for her to maybe go off with him.”

“I dodged a bullet.”

“Could be.”

“Would you have made sure she was safe?”

“She’s her own woman, Joe, you must have realized that by now, but I do still have her stuff.”

“And I did give her a card with unlimited funds.”

“That she could use to spite you.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“I know you don’t.”

“Did she talk to Carol?”

“She did, and Carol sold you well. She says hi.”

“We both got a lot out of our time together.”

“It definitely sounds like she did. What did you get?”

“She was by far the fastest woman I felt comfortable getting intimate with. I very much enjoyed being with her, sexually and otherwise”

“Do you think that helped with Sue?”

“Definitely.”

“Even with her being upset?”

“Weirdly yes. I even felt compelled to hug her, and even though that would probably have been the last thing she wanted we actually hugged, amazingly in both senses. And despite the antagonism, we communicated, awkwardly, which in itself would have bothered me, but it didn’t.”

“Why do you think that is? Just the quicker adjustment with Carol? Or was it watching her have sex?”

“The latter mostly to tell the truth. I realize spying on her like that was probably worse than kidnapping her, because at least I gave her a choice after the fact. I would never force myself on her, but the spying was obviously done without permission. It was much more ... invasive. Nevertheless it did make it much easier to immediately be in her presence, and not just the sex. The whole thing with her ex asking those personal questions helped too.”

“Showing her the video probably didn’t help your case, although maybe it did.”

“How?”

“I’ve reported on her enough I think, but I’ll just say you were at least honest about it.”

“After the fact.”

“Yes of course. Do you plan to call her?”

“I’ve been planning since I dropped her off.”

“Glad you didn’t succumb to temptation.”

“It’s been difficult. I really enjoyed talking to her on the way to dropping her off.”

“You should call her.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay!”

Donna laughed into the empty line, his enthusiasm and his impulsiveness, essentially hanging up on her, amused her.

Joe waited four rings, thinking he’d have to leave a message when Sue finally engaged her phone. “Give me a second Joe,” she said, and then he heard a thud and her muttering, “Shit,” barely heard. A few seconds later, she said, “Sorry. I had my hands full with a bunch of stuff in the changing room. I guess I went a little overboard wanting to try on everything.”

“I really want you to enjoy the card.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s not a bribe. In fact...”

“I thought about that. I could use it to escape.”

“Except purchases would be tracked.”

“Could I get cash?”

“Give me a minute. I should have your pin number.”

“Joe?”

“I’m still here.”

“I could use cash to go...”

“I understand.”

“Anywhere I want. You’d let me do that?”

“You do what you want, Sue.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you.”

Sue sighed. “Did Donna tell you what we did?”

“Some. Not in detail. She said you had an interesting encounter with a young man.”

“I thought about your scenario.”

“I thought so.”

“I don’t know if I’d have gone with him if he didn’t have a girlfriend. I was there with Donna, but she and this butch woman seemed to be getting along, and I guess she’s her type. His girlfriend, she’s transsexual, did Donna say?”

“Yes. She invited you to join them.”

“That could have been wild,” Sue giggled. “Fucking both a girl/boy and that cute guy at the same time.”

“You were interested?”

“No, not really. Even if he was alone, I probably would have stayed with Donna. I like her Joe.”