Brain Bits To Go

Flash Fiction February Day 15

The High Price Of Doing Business

“We need to bury the axe until after this meeting. If they smell even a hint of blood in the water we are finished.” Alex, tall and elegant in a tailored gunmetal suit leaned against the doorframe of his office. A cigarette angled up from his lips trailing a thin plume of bluish smoke.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot!”, snapped Gail. “I know what’s at stake.” She took a slow breath and forced a calm she didn’t feel.

Alex smirked in his annoying way, thoroughly enjoying her anger.

No blood in the water she thought, but blood on the floor; that’s definitely an option.

“The best thing about this problem,” she said lightly, “is it’s the first one in ages that isn’t entirely your fault.”

“Don’t be so modest little sister. This problem feels like it’s mostly yours.” Alex crossed to his desk and crushed out his cigarette. “After all,” he called to her in the meeting room between their offices, “it was your idea to expand our partnership.”

Gail seated herself on the edge of the meeting table, crossed her legs and placed her hands demurely on her knee. “You of course wanted nothing to do with it. Especially when you found out how much more wealth and power our new partners could help you accumulate.” She gave a nasty chuckle. “You almost sprained your wrist. You were in such a rush to sign the contract.”

Alex was about to counter when they both heard the ping of the elevator outside their office suite. Gail slid from the table straightening her skirt and Alex joined her as the foyer door opened and their admin assistant Aleister leaned in. “The partners are here for their meeting. Shall I show them in, or have them wait?”

Alex smiled broadly. “Show them straight in won’t you.”

“No need for that Aleister, they are our partners after all.” Her smile also showed somewhat more teeth than it normally would.

He withdrew and a moment later the door opened fully and he ushered the partners into the meeting room.

They were the two most normal looking people imaginable. He was slightly below average height but not so much as to invite notice. She was shorter, although not extremely so. His hair was receding at the front and thinning on top. It had been combed in an attempt to minimize this appearance. Her hair was darker and pulled back into a severe, almost painful looking pony tail.

They both wore plain black suits which were clearly off the rack. The only difference being slacks for him and a skirt for her. He carried an umbrella, and she, a small, black leather briefcase. Gail and Alex were both very much hoping she wouldn’t open that briefcase.

The two visitors represented a very old firm which specialized in optimizing the profitability of their partner companies. They did this through a variety of means all of which were, strictly speaking, legal. Not that they weren’t absolutely wrong, it was more that no laws had been written about them. Privately, Gail suspected that was because the very people who would have written such laws were themselves partnered with the same firm.

“It’s good to see,” Alex began. The pair looked directly at him and the words died on his suddenly too dry tongue.

It was the woman who spoke next. “We understand there have been some difficulties of late.” She placed the briefcase on the table in front of her.

The two executives’ eyes tracked it like bits of iron drawn to a powerful magnet.

“Have there been difficulties?”, asked the man still holding his umbrella.

“No!”Alex almost yelped. He made a visible effort to calm himself and managed to look at the partners. “Everything is going fine, just fine.” Normally, he was the one who made other people nervous. But this wasn’t a normal situation and he didn’t want to meet anyone who would make them nervous.

Gail jumped in before Alex could break under the pressure. “Our profits and expansion are both beating our most optimistic projections based on our partnership with your firm.” She was babbling and knew it, but these two brought out the frightened child in her.

The woman turned her flat gaze on her. “We are aware of the numbers. Our firm is responsible for them after all. They are not the sort of difficulties we are discussing.”

She toyed idly with one of the catches on the briefcase unlatching it.

Sweat instantly drenched the two increasingly terrified power players.

“You do remember the terms of our partnership, yes?” The man’s tone was level and reasonable but rage radiated off of him in waves.

“Yes. Yes. Of course we do!”, Gail replied, nodding her head stupidly for emphasis. 

Alex’s echo was only a moment behind. “Of course we do!”

The woman was playing with the second catch. 

Alex felt his bowels turn to water and saw the woman smile as she sensed his increasing discomfort.

“How,” she asked, “are you supposed to meet those terms if the two of you can’t put aside your petty idiocy? You know that you are to provide an heir to this business. That must be done in the ‘traditional’ way. No IVF. No surrogate.”

“You also know,” the man with the umbrella picked up, “the incomplete penalty should you fail to do so on schedule?” He looked pointedly at the briefcase.

“We’re fine!” Gail almost shrieked the words. “It’s just a rough patch. Please!” she fell to her knees and hung her head sobbing. “We’ll deliver! I swear we’ll deliver!”

The second latch released with a click. Alex lost control of his bowels and Gail let out a shrill scream.

“We’ll deliver.” Alex was whimpering in abject terror. “We’ll deliver. We’ll deliver.” He repeated it over and over like a mantra

“I love him!”, shrieked Gail. “I love him! Please don’t do this!”

“I love her too! She will be the mother of my child! I swear!” Alex sobbed as another searing wave of agony ripped through his bowels.

“We believe you… for now.” The woman re-fastened the latches on the briefcase. “Don’t make us look foolish to our superiors. For every punishment we suffer, yours will be a thousand times worse.” She picked up the case.

The two turned towards the door. As they reached it, the man turned back. “Today was only the smallest taste of what price failure would carry. From now on we expect complete harmony. If there are any further ‘difficulties’ we will not be so lenient next time.”

The partners left the office. Gail reached out and clutched Alex’s hand. “We will make this work! We will!”

“We will.”, he said weakly. They got unsteadily to their feet and made their way to the executive bathroom between their personal offices and entered the shower together.

In the foyer, the partners smiled gleefully. They asked Aleister if he had any desire to make his way up the corporate ladder even though they already knew that he did.

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It seems that who you get into bed with in the boardroom could have repercussions in the bedroom.

Cheers,