Lavender Is a Harsh Mistress Page 13

  “Marcus you have captured the very essence of the place. It’s nice to see that after all of these years you remember it so well.”

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  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress Marcus pointed out to her the seven lights that circled the wall.

  Each light was in the design of the flame of the Olympics. Above each flame was the sculptured face of the first seven Roman Caesars.

  “Marcus you need more light in this room.”

  “I know grandma, next week I am having a large red chandelier put in the ceiling.” Mrs. Peterson muttered loud enough for him to hear her.

  “Are you planning all of this for one girl or do you intend on having a harem? Still waters sure do run deep. Well just as long as I see some great grandchildren running around here I don’t care!”

  “Don’t worry grandma, you will have plenty of them. The only problem is that I don’t know when or who by.”

  The last thing that Marcus did before he moved from his Grandmother’s house was to go up to Maine, and visit Roger. For the entire time that he was with Vinny, they would always call or write. Marcus spent the weekend with Roger and got an update on how he was doing. The reports from his doctors were not great. But they were holding out hope that this new medication would bring better results. The problem was that the facility was having trouble contacting anyone in Roger’s family to come and sign the permission forms. Since he had been at Latham, no one in his family had come to see him or even call. Even though it was highly unusual the doctor let Marcus sign the permission forms for this new medication. As Marcus signed the papers he noticed that Roger was still being referred to as “William Natty.” So he signed the same way.

  Marcus had been living in the city for five months and his regular weekly pattern was starting to get boring. He was getting tired of the party scene and hanging out at the same hot trendy night clubs. He was running with a group of rich trust fund kids who only lived for the party scene. The idea of doing something meaningful and constructive was foreign to their way of living. In reality they were just a group of spoiled brats living off of their parents money.

  They tried desperately to convince themselves that they really mattered in the grand scheme of life. That they could hang out all night and wake up in the morning and eat the world for breakfast. Marcus began to slowly drift away from them and then completely avoid them altogether.

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  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress It was almost time for the second hand to tick forward and push the city into a new day. When a soft fog began to rise over the streets and quickly creep upward over all of the tall buildings. Marcus was standing at his huge picture window and wondering how long it would take this stealthy fog to rise above his building. He had already watched it engulf Central Park, as if it was a rising ocean being pushed upward like a rising tidal wave. He heard a knock on his door and was startled because other than his grandmother no one had ever come to visit him. He opened the door and on the other side stood Vinny. The quickness of his mind made a quick deduction.

  “Vinny wouldn’t be here if something was wrong with Janice or the kids. Then his coming here at this time of the night could only have to do with one other person, Roger.

  It was a sleepless night for both men as the fog seemed to creep into Marcus’ Penthouse, and then into his and Vinny’s hearts.

  Roger had found a way to sneak off of the grounds and had been missing for three days. He was found in a wooded area that was six miles from the sanitarium. The medical report estimated that he had died on the second night of being outdoors. The temperature for that entire week never got above eight degrees and dropped below zero at night. This was the first time that either of them had experienced losing someone so young that was close to them, and it was very hard. Vinny was too much of a mess to handle any of the funeral arrangements so it was left to Marcus and his grandmother to take care of everything. Vinny and Marcus agreed that no one from Roger’s family would be invited to the services. They did not even notify them that Roger had passed away. Roger had always confided in them how much he disliked his family. He considered the “Natty Boy’s Club” to be the only family that he had. The only people that attended the burial was Vinny, Marcus, Mrs. Peterson, and Roger’s primary doctor. Roger was buried in a private cemetery under the name of “William Natty.” Marcus wrote a simple epitaph that read.

  To those that knew him he

  was the most cleaver boy

  of us all

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  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress

  Vinny returned to California by plane and Marcus, and Mrs. Peterson, made the sad drive back to New Jersey.

  Marcus stayed at his grandmother’s house for a few days still in a state of grief. His mind was still having a hard time getting to accept the fact that Roger was really dead. His grandmother asked him if he would move the bed in the upstairs bedroom into the center of the floor. She was having the painters to paint the upstairs and she wanted it moved out of their way. As soon a Marcus moved the bed away from the wall he noticed some writing on the wall. It couldn’t be seen before because the mattress was blocking it. Marcus walked over to the wall to see what the writing was. He picked up a lamp and brought it closer to the wall so that he could see it better.

  He could now clearly see that it was some sort of chemical formula. Suddenly he remembered that this was the bedroom that Roger had stayed in. This must be what Roger was talking about when he mentioned about doing some writing when he was being driven up to Latham. Marcus sat on the floor and went into deep thought.

  “This must be the formula that Vision Industries had been searching for.” He picked up a piece of paper and wrote the formula down. He had a bit of a hard time making it out because it had been written with a lavender marker. He tucked the piece of paper into his wal-let then found some cleaning products to scrub the writing away.

  “When I get back to the city I will put this into my safe deposit box.

  Then I will call Vinny, so that we can decide what to do with it. I know that whatever we decide, giving it back to Vision Industries in out of the question. For the rest of my life I will personally hold them responsible for Roger’s death.”

  Carney was in town, or as Amanda liked to say “Hurricane Carney” was in town. Amanda was in her office when Carney blew in. “Hi Mandy, I just got off the plane and I am starving. Can you take an early lunch so that we can go eat?” Amanda got up from her 99

  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress desk and kissed her friend on the cheek and hugged her.

  “Sure, have a seat. I only have to correct these lines on these dresses and we can go. How long are you going to be in town for.”

  “I will be a pain in your behind for awhile, then I am off to Japan.”

  “Carney don’t you ever stay in one place for more than a few days?”

  “I can’t Mandy. I love the money and I love the action. I also love the....” Just then Marcus came out of his office and walked over to Amanda’s desk.

  “Miss Wilcox, will it be alright if I took the entire spring line with me to Paris?”

  Sure Mr. Peterson. Oh by the way I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine.” Carney offered her hand and Marcus took it and gave her a curt bow.

  “I am pleased to meet you. Now if the two of you will excuse me I must get back to work.” He stepped back into his office and closed his door. There was a moment of silence between the two women before Carney looked at his door and asked.

  “Michelle Amanda Wilcox, why are you hiding a man in your office?”

  “Carney he’s not hiding, he’s working.” Carney looked back at Amanda.

  “You didn’t happen to mention that he is also gorgeous. But why isn’t he working in the general part of the office like the rest of your employees?”

  “Carney his office is being repaired. It will be ready in a few weeks, then he can move back in.”

  “Mandy you are going to let him move back in? When you have a gorgeo
us man locked away in your office you keep him there! Why share him with anyone? I bet that Raz has already tried to get her claws into him already.” Carney stood up and started to walk around the office and dramatize her next point.

  “Just imagine Mandy, you put a lock on his door that only you have the key to. Then whenever you get a free minute you unlock the door, rush in and have passionate sex with him. Then you rush back out, lock the door behind you, arrange your clothes and rush off to a meeting.” Amanda banged her hands on the top of her desk.

  “Carney, please I am at work! Is that all that you can talk about?”

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  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress Carney walked back over to the desk and sat down and folded her arms as she thought for a minute.

  “How about this! He kicks open his door and runs over to your desk. He throws you onto the floor in a rage and puts his penis into your mouth before removing your clothes and screwing your brain out. Then he returns back to his office and shuts the door behind him. Then you say Mr. Peterson, this is the tenth time that you have done that this month. If you do that again I will definitely report it to the Police! Do you like it better that way Mandy?” Amanda stopped working and looked at Carney like she was a crazy woman.

  She threw her pen into the air and grabbed her handbag.

  “You said that you were hungry right?! Then let’s go and eat!”

  They took a cab over to Thirty Second Street and Second Avenue, and found a Chinese Restaurant.

  “Mandy I hope that you don’t mind but I dropped my things off at your place. As soon as we finish eating I am going there to sleep for a week.”

  “Of course I don’t mind but I might be a little late getting in”

  “Why, are you going out with “Little Dick Patrick?”

  “Don’t be so hard on him Carney, all men can’t be hung like a horse the way that you prefer them.”

  “But Patrick’s problem isn’t that he only has a little dick! He also has an even smaller brain. That means that he was cursed twice! Honestly Mandy why don’t you shoo him away like an annoying gnat?”

  “Carney you know very well why I am with him. I have him trained to do whatever I tell him to do. If I have to go to an affair or someplace in public. He is the perfect prop on my arm and all I have to do is spread my legs for him a couple of times a month. No problems, no hassles, it’s perfect. Now tell me about your client in Russia.” Carney downed her drink and ordered another. “Mandy what a disaster, I thought that I was going to meet him in Moscow, or one of their other big cities.

  Even though I stayed in Moscow, his place was about fifty miles away.

  As it turned out he lived in a small village. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough he wanted it all done in a barn!” Amanda’s mouth flew open.

  “Carney, in a barn!”

  Mandy there were live animals all around like, chickens, goats, sheep, ducks, a horse, some dogs. I even thought that I saw an owl up in the 101

  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress rafters. The smell was horrible!! So there I was setting up all of my equipment like my love ball, the turning cross, the handcuff rack, the spiked needle, and all my other stuff. The contract called for me to bring everything. All the time I am dressed up in my tightest leather outfit and my six inch spiked heels. Mandy it gets worse! The entire floor is covered in animal crap!” Carney quickly guzzled down her fresh drink and started shaking her head.

  “Mandy, have you ever!! One minute I am tooling around in a Bentley, staying in five star hotels, shopping at some of Moscow’s top stores. The next minute I am ankle deep in animal poop and feeling like I have been transported into the barn of Charlotte’s Web. Here is the best part, he wants to hire me again. I was saying to myself all along that there was no way that I was ever coming back here. So I gave him a crazy price of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, hoping that he would never go for it. Mandy he went for it! Our billionaires over here don’t have anything on their billionaires there.

  They are all totally nuts and messed up.” By now Amanda was laughing so hard that she had to stuff her table napkin into her mouth in order not to create a scene. Finally her laughter subsided so that she could take the napkin out of her mouth.

  “I can’t believe that you went through with that even after you saw what the conditions were.”

  “What else could I do? I had already deposited the money into my bank account. Once I sign the contract and accept the money as far as I am concerned the deal is done.”

  “Carney you know the world’s strangest people.”

  “I have told you a thousand times that one half of the world is crazy.

  The other half is just totally screwed up. Look this was a guy that liked getting his kicks by being surrounded by silly animals. Believe me, I have had worse.”

  As soon as the food came Carney dug right in and looked up long enough to ask.

  “So what do you know about the man in the steel cage, you know

  “Mr. Beautiful?”

  “I dont know much, he’s very good at his job and he’s very rich, that’s about it.”

  “You forgot to mention again that he is also very handsome. Don’t 102

  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress tell me that you have been with Patrick so long that you forgot what a handsome man looks like?”

  “I haven’t looked that close.”

  “You said that he is rich. Why would he work for you?”

  “I don’ know.”

  “Is he married? Does he have a steady girlfriend? Does he even like women? Amanda pushed her chair away from the table.

  “To answer your questions in the proper order the answers are.

  “I don’t know, I don’t, know and I don’t know!”

  “I am just asking Mandy, don’t get so defensive. Now just one more question. Have you even tried?” Amanda held onto the edges of the table and spit out her answer.

  “No I haven’t tried, and I am not the least bit interested.”

  Amanda arrived home after ten o’clock and was surprised to see Carney still up.

  “I thought that you would be sound asleep by now.”

  “I was but I got up a little while ago. Do you have anything to eat?”

  “Something to eat! You almost ate a whole cow at lunch!”

  “Yeah I know, now I am looking for the other half. What kept you so long?”

  “I have some cold cuts in the fridge. I was late getting in because I was trying to come up with someone to go with me to the Fabric Conference, in Albany. Joy was supposed to go but her son is sick and may have to get an operation on his throat. I will be back in a minute after I shower and change. “When Amanda came back into the room Carney was sitting on the bed finishing her sandwich.

  “Mandy if you are not too tired we can stay up and talk for awhile”

  “Sure, I don’t have to be in until late tomorrow.” Carney put her sandwich on the night stand and took a sip of soda.

  “I think that I have come up with the answer to your problem about finding someone to take to Albany.”

  “Who?”

  “Ask the man in the cage to go with you. You said that he’s very good at his job didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know how to ask him he’s been such a jewel already.”

  “Mandy you don’t know!” Carney got off of the bed and put the phone to her ear.

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  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress

  “This is how! Hello Mr. Peterson, this is your boss speaking. Now listen here you rich, sexy, beautiful bastard! I am ordering you to go with me to the Fabric Conference in Albany. While you are there you will be on company time. That means that you will screw me as many times that I tell you to, and let me suck your dick as long as I like. If we get around to actually doing some work ok. If we don’t then what the hell! This is your horny boss speaking. Goodbye!”

  Carney casually picked up her sandwich, got back onto the bed and resumed eating. Amanda felt as if someone had just
hit her in the head with a baseball bat.

  “Now I ask you Amanda, how hard is that?”

  “You are sick! How can you come up with such an idea like that?

  What kind of brain is up there in that demented head of yours?

  How could I even began to think like that?”

  “Oh Mandy please don’t sit there and tell me that kind of thought in some sort or fashion has never even crossed your mind at least a hundred times! That you have sat at your desk and looked over at his door knowing that he was sitting there and not wanted him sexually.

  I only saw him for a few seconds, and I want to go to bed with him!

  True, he could be an ax murderer. But with the way that he looks I don’t give a damn.”

  “I don’t allow myself to have such thoughts.”

  “Mandy no one allows themselves to have such thoughts, they just happen to all women.”

  “Even if I did have such desires about him, I don’t think that he’s that kind of man. not Marcus Vipsainus Peterson.”

  Carney put down her sandwich again and asked in a dream like voice.

  “Is that his middle name Mandy, Vipsainus! Mandy even his middle name oozes sex. Mandy you just have to make a try for him now.

  Forget it Mandy we are just like two college coeds talking about finding a Prince Charming. On second thought why don’t you take Willis Paige with you? You won’t be tempted to suck his dick, but he does know fabrics.”

  Amanda always believed that in business something was always falling out of the sky at the worst time. But today something fell out of the sky at the perfect time. It was the day before she was 104

  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress to go up to Albany, and she was waiting for Willis to return from vacation. She had decided to take him with her to Albany. Marcus had just arrived for work and he was passing her desk.

  “Oh Miss. Wilcox, Joy just told me that she won’t be able to go with you to the Fabric Conference because her son is in the hospital. If it is alright with you I would be delighted to go with you. Maybe I can be of some help.” Just for a second her mine drifted away before she was able to bring it back.