Night Angels Ch. 1

"Look, John - I got to go. I will see you later." She left my table with a quick squeeze of my hand, and drifted off, suddenly the seductive and self-possessed stripper again. I gazed at her departing form, lost in thought for some time before I realised. She had used my real name.

* * *

The next Monday at the office Lucy was her usual calm, brisk and efficient self. I was not. Images of her beautiful body overwhelmed me whenever I was close to her, and her brilliant smile and her dark eyes were enough to leave me tongue tied like a schoolboy. The pretence of distance, which I had earlier felt to be so necessary, seemed like unbearable torture. I wanted to talk to her, and yet I did not know what to say. I kept to my office, and the rest of the office staff, familiar with my dark and abstracted moods from earlier times, kept a respectful distance. At 4 PM she came into my office for a reason, and plunked a mug of tea down on my desk.

"Thought you might want some, and I was making," she said. "You been in here all day!"

"Thanks," I said, disconcerted by her presence, by the beauty that even the lumpy jersey she wore could not conceal, by her obvious concern.

"You got to take care of yourself, OK?" And she left as quickly as she came, leaving behind a faint cloud of perfume.

For some weeks after that life passed uneventfully - at the surface at least. Lucy was friendly but kept her distance, and I tried to keep my mind focussed on the work before me. Thankfully there was plenty of that - our company was tendering for a big job, one of those huge jobs that you just know will change the company's history if you got it. We were trying for the big league and it was make or break. It stretched us to the limit - and that suited me fine. I could lose myself in the technical details and forget my feelings for hours at a time.

Lucy and I had to work together quite a lot, and after a week or two, I had a hard time remembering that this quiet girl who fired off emails and churned out reports with such efficiency - God, what would I give for a PA like her - was the girl whose warm skin and heavy breasts had filled my hands so enticingly at Happy Joe's. For the first time, the job of preparing a tender with Charles Gaunt's department was not complete torture. I had a colleague who could be relied on, and who could go the extra mile. And yet, from time to time, as I walked into the legal department on yet another late night, to receive yet another stack of staggeringly detailed and competent docs (the first time Charles's department had actually done its job for years), I found myself wondering about this baffling young woman. What was up with her? In vain did I look at her for a spark of recognition, a hint of shared knowledge. She treated me with the same friendliness she treated everyone else. Was she simply a tease? Had I alienated her for some reason? What about the rumours that she was a lesbian? With these thoughts I haunted myself as a trudged back to my empty flat downtown.

So the weeks passed, and it was early spring by the time that the news arrived: we had won the contract. For a day or two the office basked in the glory. Charles tried to take the credit, but everyone knew that our success had been in spite of him: we'd succeeded only because we had twice ignored his addle-brained advice, and that had been possible only because of Lucy's assistance in penetrating the dark veil of obfuscation and secrecy that had enveloped the legal department. Charles was angry, with the special bitter fury of a man who knows he's snookered. He could not fire Lucy, because without her he could not get on top of the details of a deal he barely understood, and he was terrified of keeping her. And now, as was traditional in our office, he had to take us out to celebrate.

It was a perfect night for celebration: soft and balmy, with the sea glistening in the full moon. Lilting jazz from the Cape Verde islands played on the bar's sound system, and all my senses felt alive. I had hesitated about coming, but in the end another night of isolation in front of my TV had seemed too depressing. I had a sense that things were about to change. I could not live this isolated life any longer. Tonight I had to make things happen. Either I would alienate Lucy forever or I would take her home. I allowed myself to feel the cool night air and taste the salt on the breeze. The café Riviera was the centre of the world, I felt, and I was at the pivot, ready, for the first time in years, to take risks, and to love the sweetness of life.

And when Lucy showed up - God, looking stunning again even in her drab jeans and denim jacket - I could look her full in the eye, and publicly toast her, thanking her for her lovely spirit and the pleasure of working with her. She smiled brilliantly at the applause and then, to my surprise, gave me a brief, tight hug and a peck on the cheek. All my cool vanished at the smell of her perfume. I felt an erection stirring in my pants (fuck, I was getting a hard-on even at the touch of this girl) and hoped nobody would notice.

She seemed oblivious of the effect she was having on me, and kept her arm linked through mine while she accepted a drink from someone - a whiskey sour, I noticed - and chattered animatedly with Vanessa, our HR manager. I was overwhelmed with conflicting feelings - desire on the one hand, and embarrassment and fear on the other - but somehow I was able to keep up my end (as it were) of the conversation, responding in kind to their jokes and gossip. My erection was now a complete reality, and I had to keep my jacket clumsily folded over my lap. Her arm was soft within mine, and her hip nestled against mine, friendly and warm.

Then she excused herself - she had to go to the bathroom, she said - and she let go. For an instant, as she brushed passed me, her thigh was firmly pressed against my groin, and I found myself looking into her unfathomable, cool, deep dark eyes. This was a woman, I realised, who could make me feel I was alone with her even on a crowded patio. And then she was on her way, as if nothing had happened.

"Beautiful girl, eh?" Vanessa commented a few minutes later.

"Eh?

"Claudia. She's beautiful."

I stared at her dumbstruck. Had she just called her colleague Claudia?

"I wonder what's up with her", Vanessa continued. "I can't make her out. So sweet. But separate. Keeps her private life private." She noticed my silence. "Don't look so amazed, John. I've met Claudia, too. And her girlfriend. Liu Mi, she's called. Such a lovely couple. Makes me quite envious, sometimes." I continued my imitation of a man struck by lightning. Was Vanessa gay, too? She talked on, oblivious. "But it's not something that comes to everyone. Finding the one for you..." She sighed. "You know about that, don't you. You stuck by your wife even through the most difficult times. I admire that."

"Th - thank you."

"Sweet man" she said, and for the second time in a night I got a peck on the cheek and a friendly touch from one of what seemed to a growing number of gay female colleagues. But there must be some kind of pheromone for platonic touches, because this time my loins did not stir. We stood for a while nursing our drinks and continuing with our gossip.

And then I noticed two things.

Lucy was gone. And there was a slip of paper in my pocket. A note of some kind. She had slipped in there while she had stood next to me.

I excused myself and made way to the toilet. My mouth was dry again. The place was empty. I looked at myself in the mirror. A tall, hawk-nosed man with greying temples looked out at me. His face was sad, and there was something grim about his eyes. Something was going to happen to this man, or he was going to make something happen. What was it? Where would he be in two, in three hours' time?

I opened the message. It was a red slip of printed paper. One the one side it had a simple design of what looked like a flame or a fire, and below it, printed in small, elegant letters, the words Republic of Desire. There was also an address - in an upmarket part of town, I noticed, not far from my own apartment - and what appeared to be some numbers. On the back of the slip was written, in Lucy's handwriting

Midnight.
I need you.
C.

I looked at my watch. It was ten PM.

To be continued…