Exposed (7 page)

We had two rules: no touching by others, and either of us could say “enough” and we’d leave, no discussion or argument.

Neither of us ever said “enough.”

• • • •

It was Claire’s idea that she, Sarah, Lily, and I meet every morning.

“To keep us on the same page,” she said. I’d have a round of coffees and muffins or bagels delivered and we’d catch up.

Claire had a spreadsheet of court and filing dates, and we’d discuss who was where with what. Scheduling was interspersed with other talk. Claire teasing me about not having children or Sarah talking about her partner, a woman we’d never met named Sally, whose possessiveness seemed to cause Sarah more exasperation than joy.

Lily, always the quietest of the group, didn’t participate much in that back-and-forth. We didn’t think about it much, but one morning we found out why.

We’d ended the meeting and gone back to our desks. I’d closed my door to concentrate on writing a brief
when
I heard voices raised.

Then I heard Claire use a voice I’d never heard.

“Listen, mutherfucker, you get back in that elevator and on the street right fucking now or your ass is gonna be in jail in fifteen fucking minutes, you hear me now?”

I opened the door and saw her standing about eight inches away from a stocky man in work clothes, his round face red. When I came out he turned toward me, and Claire moved again right in front of him.

“Where’s Lily?” the man asked over the top of Claire’s head.

“Why? Who are you?” I said.

“I got this, Jessica,” said Claire. “Did you hear me?” She said to the man. “The elevator is that way. You get on it and leave this office. Now.”

“I’m Lily’s fiance. We have to talk,” he said.

“You are NOT my fiance,” came a voice from the other side of him. Lily had come out of the door of the office she shared with Sarah. Sarah was right behind her.

“Aw, shit,” said Claire.

The man turned to face Lily. Claire moved around and put herself between him and Lily.

“We’re getting married in a month!” he said.

“No, Roger! I broke it off!” Lily said.

“We need to talk!” he said.

“No, you need to leave. Now!” said Claire.

“There’s nothing to talk about!” cried Lily, in tears.

Just then, Tony came around the corner from the hallway where he had his office.

“Hey. What’s up?” he asked in a very reasonable voice.

“Who are you?!” said the man, looking for a fight.

“I own this firm,” said Tony. “And who are you?”

“I’m Lily’s fiance. She won’t answer the phone, she won’t answer the door. I need to talk with her,” said the man.

“We are NOT engaged!” said Lily.

“You just want to talk with her? That’s not too hard,” said Tony. Claire started to say something, but Tony locked his eyes on hers and with a shake of his head, said, “Claire, will you make sure a conference room is available for me and Mr…?”

“Hall. Roger Hall,” the man said, starting to calm down.

“Mr. Hall and I will go into my office and I will get his side of the story. Lily, you go with Jessica, and she will get your side. Then we’ll all get together, and if you two need some private time, I’m sure that can be arranged.

“Will that work for you, Mr. Hall?” Roger nodded. As he was leading him away, Tony said, “Claire, will you make sure conference room 911 is available?”

Tony took Roger Hall down to his office. As soon as they turned the corner, I took Lily into my office and locked the door. Claire was calling “conference room” 911 as soon as they were out of sight.

Lily told me a tear-filled and disjointed story about a three-year off-and-on relationship with Roger. He wasn’t a bad man, she said, but  “I don’t want to have his children!” she kept saying. She’d filed a restraining order, but Roger kept lying his way out of violating the restrictions. As I had learned over the years, cops don’t always put a priority on those kinds of offenses.

Within five minutes, the elevator opened, as did the stairwell door. I heard a lot of male voices and opened my door. Uniformed officers filled the room, guns drawn.

Claire was talking to the cop in charge. They all went down the hall, where Claire tapped on Tony’s door and said, “The conference room is ready, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Hall.”

Roger was the first out of the door. He didn’t even see it coming. He was on the floor, his arms tied behind him before he could start to scream “Lily! Lily! Don’t let them do this!”

He was out of the building and in a car on his way to jail before the coffee on my desk had cooled. Lily and Sarah went into their office. “I’ll take care of her,” Sarah said.

“How did you get them here so quickly?” I asked Claire.

“Honey, you don’t think I know what to say to police to get their attention?” was all she said. “You don’t need to know. It’s better if you don’t.”

Tony looked at Claire and smiled. He walked over to her, and they gave each other a small fist bump.

I realized there was an awful lot I didn’t understand about how the world worked. But that was then.

• • • •

“That was really dangerous. What if he’d had a gun?” Mark said that night. “I can’t believe your firm doesn’t have a policy. Max Moore has a full security contingency. People don’t even get to our floor without being vetted, reviewed, and escorted. We’re discussing a metal detector for particularly contentious cases, like divorces.”

It kind of deflated me. I thought what Tony and Claire had done was nearly heroic, and Mark was picking it apart. Not just the idea of it, but the people. His reaction made me cringe, but I didn’t know why. And I was tired of hearing “Max Moore” this, and “Max Moore” that.

Max Moore had apparently taken my Mark under his wing. They worked on cases together, Mark doing fieldwork while Max did strategy. Not too unlike what I had going with Sarah and Lily, but Max and Mark had a full platoon of Sarahs and Lilies, too.

Mark was being schooled with an education no law school could provide. I may have been a little jealous, too.

But there was also something else.

A couple of weeks before all this, Claire had beeped me on the intercom.

“There’s a guy with a three-ball voice on line one asking for you,” she said. “He won’t give me a name.”

“A what?”

“A three-ball voice. He’s got at least one extra, or the two he’s got are the size of lemons,” she said.

“I’ll take it,” I said, curious.

“This is Jessica Love,” I said into the phone.

There was no doubt who the voice belonged to as soon as I heard “Good afternoon, Ms. Love. Would you consider having a drink with me after work? To discuss some business, of course.”

God, Max Moore didn’t even have to announce his name; he knew that voice of his was enough of an introduction.

“I really can’t, Mr. Moore. Mark and I have some plans. Would tomorrow work?”

“Not as well,” said Max Moore, “and I think Mark may change the plans you had for this evening. He and I are on a deadline, and he is going to have to stay a little late. I’m sure he will let you know as soon as he has a chance.”

As if on cue, my cell phone beeped and Mark’s picture appeared on the screen. I read the text and silently cursed the confidence of Max Moore to make things happen as if the world worked on a script written by him.

“What would you like to discuss?” I asked.

“Can you meet me at The Edgewater, say at 5:30? I’d rather go over it in person.”

I agreed to meet Max Moore. Mark’s text confirmed that he would be working late, and maybe he and I could catch a bite downtown after he was done. I texted Mark back to give me a call or text when he was done. XO.

Max Moore already had a table on the water at the bar in The Edgewater Hotel when I got there. He
stood when I arrived and made pleasantries until the cocktail waitress took my order for a vodka rocks.

“Not a martini?” he asked.

“I really don’t care for vermouth,” I said. But then I wanted a martini.

Despite telling myself on the walk from my office to The Edgewater that I would be immune to the man’s effect on me, it was amazing how his presence seemed to have an intimate conversation with every sexual organ in my body. Then there were his eyes that seemed to laugh, smile, comfort and seduce all at the same time.

I knew my Mark was as straight a male as exists, but I could see why the sheer presence of this man in Mark’s life was intoxicating. He could be the ideal role model, father figure, and best friend all rolled into one.

For each of us, Max Moore would be the essence of the dominant male.

Eventually Max Moore looked at his watch.

“I know you’re curious as to why I asked to meet with you,” he said. “I would like you to consider joining my firm. Mark has said wonderful things about you, and so have others in and around the community.”

“Which community?” I asked.

“The legal community,” he said.

All of a sudden I got a feeling of danger, an intense version of the feeling I’d gotten when Tony told me that Max Moore might want me to join his firm. A sense of falling. A feeling that I would be known as Mark’s wife. That my little operation would disappear in that colossus. That somehow, I’d lose my identity, be subject to the will of people I didn’t know and who didn’t know me.

“I don’t think so,” I said to Max Moore.

“You haven’t heard the terms,” he said.

“I have pretty good terms with Tony,” I said.

“Tony is not known for being generous,” said Max Moore. “Maybe this will change your mind.”

He pulled a gold Cross pen from his pocket and wrote a number on the corner of the beverage napkin under his drink. He picked up his glass and turned the napkin so I could read it. I was thankful it wasn’t too much more than I was currently making. When I looked up again, the glass came down and condensation obliterated the figure.

“Well, I’m glad to know that Tony appreciates my worth,” I said to Max Moore, which caused him to raise his eyebrows. “I have to thank you for the opportunity, while I must say no. Tony has been good to me.”

“You are sure?”

“I am sure at this moment,” I said.

Max Moore tore the corner off the napkin and rolled it into a tiny ball as he nodded and changed the subject to the Seahawks or the Sonics or the economy or something completely innocuous.

“Well, I should let you go,” he said at last.

“Does Mark know you were going to make me this offer?” I asked Max Moore.

“No.”

“Should I tell him?” I asked.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, but it’s up to you,” said Max Moore. “I have no plans to do so. There could be repercussions difficult to anticipate.”

He smiled and put a $50 bill on the table to pay for our two drinks. “The rest is for her,” he nodded toward the cocktail waitress and walked to the front door where the valet had kept his Bentley.

When Mark texted me a few minutes later, again on cue, I texted him back that I would meet him for dinner at The Edgewater. I left the bar and got a table in the restaurant where I sat thinking about Max Moore. About Mark. About Tony. About what a strange world I had created for myself.

• • • •

That was an evening Mark and I decided to go to SASSA. I needed the break from my own thoughts, and Mark seemed like he could use a little walk on the wild side as well.

We started by dancing together on the stage on the main floor. It was late enough when we arrived that the club was mostly full. Others were dancing, too. Women had their hands on the front of men’s pants, and more than one pair of breasts were exposed.

Mark and I found ourselves back against the wall, in a bubble of space of our own. The wall had straps for other kind of play on special nights. As we danced, I touched Mark
and
pulled his zipper down. I loved the feel of his hard cock even inside the fabric of his shorts.

He turned me around and unzipped the back of my dress. It was not tight fitting, and as soon as I tipped my shoulders forward, it fell off my arms, off my waist and to the floor. I kicked it to the wall, feeling much better in the moment in my bra and thong. Mark took off his shirt, and he was magnificent. Couples around us gave us a bit more room.

The DJ didn’t let any dead air between songs. Within three more, Mark had me naked on the dance floor. He pressed me back against the wall, facing the room, and pulled my hands up to take straps hanging on the wall. I wrapped them around my wrists in a faux bondage as his hands, then his tongue, went between my legs.

We were the only ones on the stage, now. I looked out on the room, feeling how naked I was, how vulnerable, as my body climbed toward orgasm. Mark had his fingers inside me, and I could see how the men in the room moved when I pushed my hips out and down on Mark’s hand.

Mark found exactly the right spot, and suddenly I came hard, in a torrent, on his hand and arm. It was a good thing I had the straps in hand, because my legs would not have supported me.