Side Bet Bluff Ch. 10

Part 10 – Wednesday afternoon

As I exited the hotel, Glenda Roberts called on my cell phone. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, but this call would be important.

"Good day, Glenda," I started.

"William, how are you?"

"I'm doing just fine. It's already been a very busy week," I answered.

"No doubt," Glenda agreed. "I was hoping you could find time in your schedule to meet with me tomorrow afternoon? I have something very important to discuss with you."

"Of course, I'll gladly shuffle some appointments around for you. But is this a discussion we can begin now?"

"Not fully, William," Glenda answered. "But I do need to test the waters with you a bit."

"Ok," I prodded.

"I am in the process of negotiating with another firm," she informed me. "Obviously I will attempt to bring as many of my clients with me and I fully expect to remain the legal representative for most of them."

Why did I have a feeling there was a bit of a threat underlying that sentence?

"I've already gotten acceptance to bring two associates along with me and I was counting on you being one of them," she continued.

"I appreciate that, Glenda," I answered, "and am pleased that my work has impressed you, but I have to warn you that I already have several offers that I'm entertaining. While I would very much like to continue to work with you, you'll have to give me a competitive offer."

Glenda took a few seconds before responding. "I see," she said. "With the market the way it is, you must know that I'll have my pick of just about any associate out there."

"Yes," I agreed. "Just about any ..."

"I see," she repeated. "Well, would you still like to meet with me?"

"Of course," I readily agreed. "Even if you don't have an offer for me I'll always want to meet and talk with you."

"Fine, then. The Beanery at Maxwell and Greene? At two o'clock?"

"I'll be there," I said.

"Good. See you then," she replied. And that was that. I had a feeling I may have thrown a fly in her ointment. It will be interesting to see what kind of offer she can put together by tomorrow. And I wondered what firm she was joining?

The chauffer who drove me and Karen to the hotel had seen me and was waiting for my call to finish. I waved him off, though. I wasn't that far from my place, maybe a thirty minute walk. It was a relatively nice day out, and I found myself thinking a long walk would clear my head.

Alas, that didn't happen. When I wasn't thinking about my job options I was thinking about Karen. In fact, the second half of my walk was pretty much ruined as I thought of nothing else. I was in exactly the type of situation I swore I'd never let myself be trapped in. If no one else found out about the forged document, then everyone was in the clear. I didn't get the money, the firm wouldn't make a claim against it, Karen wouldn't face any legal complications for forgery, there would be no questionable hidden accounts that could spur an investigation of any kind, and I could forget this ever happened.

But if I had an obligation to report the forgery, either to the SEC or to the state bar, or both, then that would be the first step in a long chain of events that could lead to my complete ruin. And it didn't matter one lick that I hadn't done a thing wrong myself. The mere appearance of wrongdoing would be so strong that I doubt I could prove my innocence. And what if after researching the issues, I found that I had a moral obligation to report but not a legal obligation to do so? Would I voluntarily subject myself to the mess that was to follow when, technically, I was not compelled to do so? And what kind of lawyer would I be if I took the easy way out? What kind of person would I be?

The more I thought about it, the angrier and more distraught I felt. The real possibility of taking everything I'd worked so long and hard for, the sacrifices I'd made, the relationships I'd squandered or missed out on, and the myriad options that would be denied to me in the future, all for naught because of someone else thinking they knew what I wanted or needed better than I did. All of it lost because a proper choice of mine had been overridden by others. It made me want to throw up.

And, unfortunately, that was the mood I was in when I returned home that afternoon.

When I entered my apartment I could hear Jaycee on her cell phone in her room. "Ok, he's here. I gotta go. ... Yes, I'll call you later."

By the time I had hung up my jacket, Jaycee had stormed into the living room and she did not look happy to see me.

"What did you do, Will?" she demanded.

"Leave it alone, Jaycee," I warned. "I'm not in the mood."

"Leave it alone? Karen said you destroyed her for getting you five million dollars. Is this true?"

"Jaycee," I warned again. "Sit down and be quiet. You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, not this time Will," Jaycee argued. "You need to tell me just what the fuck happened at that meeting."

I took a big breath to try to control myself. "At the meeting, it was brought to my attention that Karen had gone behind my back and forged my signature on a document when I had clearly and expressly stated that I would not invest in the Beck Fund."

"So now you hate her for trying to give you five million dollars," she paraphrased.

"Jaycee ..." I started, but for the life of me didn't know where to go in this discussion.

"It's five million dollars, Will!" Jaycee insisted. "Do you know what I'd do to get my hands on five million dollars???"

"No," I answered, "tell me."

"What?" she asked.

"What would you be willing to do for five million dollars?" I demanded.

"I don't know, a lot," Jaycee admitted.

"Really? I'm finding myself in the Jaycee market, what are you offering?" I asked.

"What?" Jaycee responded.

"Let's face it, you agreed to be my sex slave for a lot less than five mil," I sneered. "Plus, I know what dire financial straits you're in, so let's start things off low. How much would five thousand dollars get me? You could really use five grand. You've got a lot of bills to pay and no steady employment in sight. So tell me, how much Jaycee can I get for five Gs?"

"Fuck you, Will!" Jaycee cried.

"I'm already getting that, whenever I want," I taunted. "So you'll have to do better. What else are you offering?"

"All women are either sluts or whores, is that right?" yelled Jaycee.

"Hey, you brought it up. Now we're just negotiating over the price. Unlike you, there are parts of me that are not for sale. Not for any price!" I yelled.

"It's easy to say you've got morals when you've got lots of money and opportunities. The world looks a lot different when those things are taken away from you. So excuse me if right now I don't care about your vaunted moral code!" Jaycee yelled back.

"What? You don't think I knew I was turning down millions when I told Beck I couldn't invest with him? I knew exactly what I was doing! Karen had no right ..."

"I don't care!" Jaycee cried. "I don't. All of that is beside the point. Karen is one of the best things that ever happened to you. You have to go get her back!"

"Have to? Have to?!?" I screamed. "No! You don't have the right to make those decisions for me. Nobody has that right. Not you, not anybody else! Only I say what I have to do. You don't ever get to tell me to do anything!"

After that it got a little hazy. You'll have to forgive me for jumping out of the conversation here. I know that's a writing no-no. But I can't tell you exactly what I screamed back at her. To be honest, I don't think I was fully conscious. I haven't lost control like that since I was a young teenager. While I can't tell you what I yelled, I do know I just kept yelling for some time, not giving Jaycee a chance to interrupt or respond.

A big part of my rage was the unexpressed anger I felt at Karen and what she'd done. I couldn't fully vent that anger towards her at the time because of Beck and his group's presence, and so that anger was taking its first opportunity to escape. Looking back on this event now, I'm pretty sure that a lot of old frustrations from my relationship with Hannah were also boiling up to the surface, finally breaking through after years of suppression. At least, that's my two-cents worth of amateur psycho-babble self-analysis. But I still don't think this eruption would have happened if it had been anyone other than Jaycee confronting me. Because she was my purported 'sex slave,' part of me was enraged that she dared to order me to do anything. That's not what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to tell her what to do. So, again in my after the fact self-analysis, I think the fact that my 'sex slave' was challenging me was the trigger that set me off.

I do need to state right now, before I say anything else, that I did not place a hand against Jaycee in anger. But it was close. And I remain deeply ashamed over how close it was. The fact that I had been 'punishing' Jaycee with spankings meant that a part of me was tempted to 'punish' Jaycee for daring to confront me. I'm rather sickened by that. I now have firsthand experience with the old saying of 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' I was so angry that my 'fight or flight' response kicked in, and some powerful part of me demanded instant physical action. What little control I had over myself successfully redirected that focus away from Jaycee.

I picked up a table lamp and, with a great primal scream, hurled it clear across the room at the glass door leading to my balcony. The lamp had a heavy clay base. Throwing it such a distance is a terribly impressive feat, if I do say so. While the lamp base didn't shatter the glass, it did a good job of punching a hole into it, with cracks splintering out from the impact point like a spider web.

That burst of physical exertion was the last, big expression of my rage, though my mind stayed focused on the essence of that emotion. My 'normal' self slowly emerged to regain control as if swimming up from the deep depths of my soul. I gasped in great breaths of air as the adrenalin slowly bled off.

I suddenly realized that Jaycee was no longer with me.

An image of Jaycee came to the forefront of my mind, her standing in front of me as the target of my emotional outpouring. Jaycee's eyes showing a lot of things: confusion, hurt, surprise even, but mostly fear — fear of me.

I don't know how long I stood there alone. It seemed that if I were to move it would be an acceptance that our fight had really happened, and I wanted to deny that reality for as long as possible. When I did finally take a step forward, it felt like I was dragging a ton of bricks behind me. And suddenly I was aware of all of these sensations when a second before I wasn't. I could feel a cold breeze coming through the hole in the glass door and circling around the room. I could feel a monster headache building right at the front of my brain. And I could feel soreness in the muscles of my neck after they had been clenched tight for who knows how long.

Each successive step was a little easier than the last, and I soon found myself in the hallway outside of the door to Jaycee's room. The still-broken lock meant that the door couldn't completely close. I could see through the gap between the door and the ruined frame that Jaycee was lying face down on the bed and crying.

I wanted to go in and say I was sorry. I wanted to comfort her, to apologize to her. But I didn't. It seemed wrong. The fight was too new, too fresh. And mostly, I didn't feel like I deserved Jaycee's forgiveness. She'd been sticking up for a friend. She hadn't deserved the things I'd said to her. Nothing she could ever do deserved me calling her a whore.

I moved further down the hall, walked into my bedroom and lay down. I stared at the ceiling wondering what I was supposed to do now. For the life of me I had no idea.

I don't know how long I lay there. I may have even dozed off for a bit.

"Sir?" Jaycee asked. It took me a second to realize I hadn't imagined it.

"Sir?" Jaycee asked again. "If you don't mind, I'd like your permission to leave for a bit."

Jaycee stood there in the doorway to my room. I could still see the tear tracks on her lower cheeks and her hair was in disarray. Even in a sweater and jeans she looked awfully cute.

"You can do whatever you want, Jaycee," I said. "You don't need my permission."

Jaycee looked down, and then nodded. "You can call me if you need me," she said, "I'll have my cell phone."

"Ok, Jaycee," and I lay my head back on the pillow. I heard Jaycee move down the hall, open the coat closet door, gather her shoes, and then leave the apartment. I wondered if she'd ever come back.

It seemed like there was something I was supposed to be doing. Or even multiple things that needed doing. I felt a cold breeze come through the bedroom door and waft over me, chilling me. Crap. I broke the glass door. How the hell was I supposed to get that fixed? Well, it was something to focus my attention on.

I had broken two doors in two days. Even if Jaycee came back I don't know if my apartment could survive the rest of the week.

I called downstairs to the security desk and put in a maintenance request. Yes, it was an emergency. I was already starting to shiver. In the meantime I'd have to see if I could come up with some improvised fix. After half an hour of searching through my apartment and brainstorming, I ended up taping a towel sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard over the hole, and then taping the glass door surrounding the fractures in the hopes that more glass wouldn't fall out of the remaining structure. It looked awful, and I had little confidence in its efficacy.

I tried checking email and returning some missed calls, but my heart just wasn't in it. For the rest of the afternoon all I really did was mope around the apartment. When the sky was just about to lose its last rays of sun for the day, the security desk downstairs called again.

"Mister Jennings? This is Scott downstairs. There's a Miss Jenny Daniels here to see you."

"Jenny? Really?"

"Yes, Mister Jennings," Scott said. "And if you don't mind my saying so, sir, she is looking fine."

I looked at my ruined balcony door. There's no way I was letting her up to my apartment. "Could you put her on the phone please?"

I could hear Scott call Jenny over.

"William? Hello," Jenny said.

"Jenny, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"Jaycee invited me over for dinner," she replied. "She didn't tell you?"

"No, that must have slipped her mind. When did she make the invitation?"

"When we talked on the phone yesterday. I'm sorry if this is an inconvenience. I don't mean to intrude," Jenny graciously said.

"No, no. It's just that Jaycee isn't here," I replied.

"Oh. Oh dear. Then this is an inconvenience," Jenny lamented.

"No, not at all. I'm glad you're here," I responded. "But maybe it would be better if we went out for dinner," I offered.

"Well, only if it isn't a bother," Jenny answered.

"Of course it isn't," I said. "Just give me two minutes."

On my way down to the lobby I called Jaycee.

"Sir?" she answered.

"Jaycee, Jenny is in the lobby of my building," I told her.

"Oh shoot, I forgot. I invited her over for dinner tonight. Ummm ..."

"It's ok, I'll handle it. How are you doing, Jaycee?"

"Me, sir? Umm. I'm ok," she answered.

"Good, good," I said. The elevator doors opened onto the lobby. "Ok, I've got to go." And I ended the call.

Scott insisted on taking a moment to talk to me about my emergency service request. Apparently the technicians were balking at a one-day turnaround, but he thought they'd be amenable to a little grease if I was so inclined.

"I don't really care about the money, but my apartment is going to be an icebox until that door is fixed. So whatever you can arrange is fine. I'll even give you a tip to get it done. Oh, but that reminds me. I've got another service request to put in. I've destroyed the lock and damaged the doorframe to one of the interior doors."

Scott gave me a questioning look.

"Don't ask," I told him.

"Ok," Scott said. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

There was a nice Italian restaurant a couple blocks away that I took Jenny to. Just a few months ago you'd need a reservation to get in, but these days the place was only half full.

The reminder of our dire economy didn't improve my mood much. Jenny was rather sweet and got me talking. I'm not normally one to open up and lay my troubles on someone, but tonight it just seemed right. I told her everything.

"Jaycee was showing misplaced loyalty to a new friend, instead of trusting your judgment," Jenny analyzed. "Although I can't say I blame her too much. I doubt anyone but you could fully comprehend the danger that Karen's actions have placed you in."

Just then my phone rang. I'm used to letting my phone go to voicemail when I'm doing something, like having a nice dinner for two out with a beautiful woman. Ok, I have to be honest here. If I thought Jaycee was out of my league, Jenny was out of my universe. She's a supermodel come to life. That being said, I've always had no problems talking with her, because there was no pressure. I knew that she'd never be with me in a million years. Of course, I'd also known that we'd never end up having dinner, just the two of us, at a wonderful restaurant. Where was I? Oh, right. The phone call. I saw the call was from Karen. And she had also sent me a quick text stating 'I'm so sorry.' Yeah, whatever. I wasn't in the mood to deal with that just yet.

I was beginning to realize that every relationship with a woman should be entered into and constantly re-evaluated with a cost-benefit analysis. What were the positives and negatives associated with dealing with this woman? And, more importantly, what were the worst-case-scenario negatives, because eventually they were going to happen.

Being here with Jenny ... was great. The jealous looks from other men throughout the restaurant. The furtive glances from people wanting to look but knowing they shouldn't gawk. Even from women. Maybe especially from women. Being seen as the guy Jenny was with was definitely an ego boost. But what were the worst case scenarios, I wondered.

"So what are you going to do about Jaycee?" Jenny asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. Jaycee. Right. Beautiful, uninhibited, reckless, outgoing, irresponsible, spontaneous, hot tempered, and hot blooded Jaycee. How did the cost-benefit analysis apply to her?

"I have no idea," I admitted.

Jenny didn't push the issue. I changed subjects by asking about her. I got her to talk about what schools she went to, how her parents divorced when she was in her teens and how she still lived with her mother. Jenny had an oddly smug expression on her face when talking about her mother, like she had a secret or something.

"Not that my father and I aren't close. We are, though I think he's disappointed in me," confessed Jenny.

"That's an uncharitable thing to think," I admonished. "What makes you say that?"

"He's very successful, and I was never a very good student. I guess maybe I never had the motivation. So anyway, he supports me financially. He wants me to appear and act like a sophisticated and elegant young lady. On that he and my mother are in complete agreement. But it's like he's doing it out of pity. He's dropped some hints suggesting that by this time in my life I should be able to pay for everything myself."

"Well, have you thought of rejecting his money, and going it on your own? Maybe even moving out of your Mom's house?" I prodded.

"Sure, from time to time. It's kind of hard to do when I don't have a job," she explained. "Speaking of which, though, I've got news. I think my father may have a job for you."