Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [12]
I ran back into my office and slammed the door behind me. Even more frustrated I began pacing, which only added injury to insult because all my thinking about the potential nearness of Ms. Nuckeby had brought the little general to attention again, and it kept bumping objects, getting caught in things and knocking breakables off my desk. It was like it had a mind of its own and was trying to do it, the little prick.
Heh. Funny. I didn’t mean to do that.
I was just about to call security and have Ms. Nuckeby physically restrained from leaving the building when Grandfather burst in, an apoplectic Yosemite Sam in a tailored business suit with a face like a cherry red, out-of-tune piano.
“What’s this I hear about you fucking a water bottle in public?” he yelled, not really asking—other than rhetorically.
“It’s not…”
“Is it true you performed some kind of sordid sex act in front of one of our models?”
“Sordid? Nooooo… ”
“Trying to impress some young hottie who’s modeling for us?”
“Trying to impress? If I were endeavoring to impress some ‘young hottie’ as you so eloquently put it…”
“’Endeavoring?’ ‘Eloquently?’ Speak English, you damned re- tard! This is what I get for sending you to Oxland.”
“Oxford.”
“Shut up! I gave you this job because you were the one person I thought I could trust not to cross the line! You know: The line!”
“I am aware of the line,” I said, staring at him and seething a bit myself. The only reason he thought he could trust me with the models was because he—and everyone else in the company, apparently—still thought I was a homosexual. Or at least bisexual with a leaning toward men. Damned Miller Lite. “And I haven’t crossed any…”
“Oh, you’re a lawyer now, are you?”
I didn’t answer. He knew I wasn’t. Or was fairly certain. He was never really clear on exactly what I’d achieved at ‘Oxland’.
“We can’t afford another lawsuit, Corcharan. I made that clear when I gave you the job, and I thought that you—of all the family members available, including that damned, bush-diver you call a sister—could control yourself!”
“I have it on good authority she isn’t planning to sue. And until now, I think I’ve controlled myself quite admirably considering the circumstances, thank you very…”
“So you’ve been good up till now, and you figured it was the perfect time to start sticking your dick into water bottles…”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“…in some sordid, attempt at foreplay?”
“Foreplay?”
“You’re not intending to date her, are you?”
“What? Date her? I’d be lucky if she could think of my name without laughing, let alone…”
“As a beard, or something?”
“I am not a homosex…”
“Lawsuits are one thing. It’s to be expected when you’re rich, though we’d obviously prefer to avoid it. But dating? Potentially marrying away significant portions of the family fortune to a commoner just to hide your perversions? You know the rule!”
I choked. The ‘rule’ was the only thing that thus far had managed to keep my oversexed family truly in line. We all knew the rule: ‘Date outside the accepted, social circle of the equally rich,’ and earn instant disinheritance. Immediate pauperdom’. “I know the rule. I would never…”
“I’d also hate to lose this model. I hear she’s good. Professional. Not like the prima donnas and flakes we usually get.”
I squinted at him, wondering. That was almost exactly what Manschingloss had said just moments ago. “Were you in the room when I called Henri…”
“Manschingloss.”
“…Manschingloss? Because he said something…”
“I was trying to sort out your nonsense before it went legal!”
He said ‘legal’ as if he were saying ‘nuclear’. Or ‘nuke-yular’ if you’re from Texas.
“Were you in the room?”
“Waiting outside. I met with this Nuckeby girl as she was coming out. She’s a real looker. I can understand how you’d falter—even outside your own preference.”
“It’s not outside my preference…”
“All right, outside your ‘genetic determination’ then. Your ‘sexual orientation’. ‘Need for speed’. Whatever the PeeVee term for it is these days.”
“P.C. term.