“Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright” by Margaret Ruttan

I passed by the Strip Club on the corner many times, and although women taking off their clothes and dancing naked for a living had always intrigued me, I never felt compelled enough to go inside. That is, until I heard about the tiger.

The long white semi-trailer was parked on the side street next to the club for several weeks. The newspaper said the show was held over for just one more week and featured the lovely Jane Jones and her lovable co-star, Qadesh, a 465-pound Siberian tiger. The act also featured a large python, a boa constrictor and exotic birds.

The python, boa constrictor and birds didn’t particularly interest me, but the tiger. This I had to see.

Maybe it was the writer in me looking for new material for my next novel or short story, but I was determined I wasn’t going to miss my chance to see it before they left town.

My mom, who was in her eighties, was visiting from Toronto for the weekend. Of course, she wasn’t my first choice. I asked a couple of my friends to accompany me, but they weren’t interested, and the more I tried to convince them, the more I feared I sounded like a bit of a weirdo.

So, I thought, maybe I could convince my mom to come with me.

“Aren’t you at all curious?” I asked her.

“Not really.”

“Don’t you want to see the tiger?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, c’mon, Mom. I can’t go by myself.”

“Can’t you get one of your friends to go with you?”

“I would, but they’re busy this weekend.” Which wasn’t quite true.

“Please mom, I’d go alone, but I’d feel better if someone came with me and I don’t have anybody else.” 

Even my husband wasn’t interested in going, which frankly surprised me.

 “I’m too old for this,” my mom protested.

“No, you’re not. I’m sure people of all ages will be there.”

I was right. There was at least one other elderly person, a man sitting to the right of the stage who appeared to be there alone. He gave my mom a welcoming smile when we looked his way. She snubbed him, turning her head in the opposite direction.

There was an admission fee of $5.00.

The man at the door asked us to hold out the back of our hand so he could stamp it, just in case we left and tried to come back in on another night without paying. I watched as the black ink from the ink pad smudged over my mom’s thin, wrinkled skin.  What was I thinking, bringing my mom to a place like this?

The room was dark and I wondered if that was so people wouldn’t recognize one another or if they couldn’t afford good lighting. I read later it was deliberate to create a sense of privacy for the patrons and to lower inhibitions. For whom, I wondered, the performers or the people watching?

We found some seats not too far from the front of the stage. When I leaned my arm on the table, my skin felt sticky when I lifted it off again, perhaps another reason for the dim lighting – to hide the lack of attention to cleanliness.

I looked around me to see if I recognized anybody. I thought I saw a woman I knew and her boyfriend, but it was hard to tell, two familiar silhouettes.

We ordered a drink and waited for the show to begin.

A petite blonde woman who looked somewhere in her late twenties to early thirties walked by our table towards the stage. She was dressed in a buckskin thong and tight top. She stood about 5 feet tall and didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on her small, toned body.

The noise in the room went quiet as she walked on stage, removed her clothes and began painting herself in multi-colours. She then turned on an overhead shower washing all the paint off as she ran her hands over every part of her body.

Once she was dried off sufficiently, she reached into a bag and pulled out a flute. I couldn’t imagine what she had in mind for that, until she raised it to her mouth and began to play.

I turned to mom and whispered, “She’s clearly multi-talented.”

The old man at the side of the stage was jumping up and down in excitement, clapping his hands.

“Look at him,” my mom said. “He’s making a spectacle of himself.”

We watched as the dancer twisted her naked, compact body around a rope hanging from the ceiling, climbing high in the air and slid back down again.

Then she walked to the back of the room and in less than a minute returned, dragging a heavy braided rope along the thin, stained carpeted floor.

At the end of that rope was a nine-foot-long female Siberian Tiger named Qadesh, pronounced Kadesh. I’d done my research and the name originated from an ancient Semitic root meaning holy or sacred.

The room fell silent as all eyes were now on the tiger.

As the beast sauntered right past our table, we heard the sound of its heavy breathing.  It was so close mom could have reached out and patted it.

The lovely Jane Jones, as it said in the newspaper, guided her oversized pet to an area on the stage and instructed it to lie down. Then she lay naked against the tiger, cuddling into it like a giant soft plush toy.           

Across the table, I looked at my mom, her mouth open and her eyes wide. 

We stared at that majestic beast, huge and golden and its naked mistress, the tiger’s solemn eyes staring back at us.

In that moment that tiger truly was holy.

Margaret Ruttan is an award-winning contemporary visual artist, performing artist and published author based in Belleville, Ontario. 

During the past several years, she turned her hand to writing one-act plays, several of which were performed in local community theatres and one even went international being performed in the United Kingdom earlier this summer. Presently, she is working on a novel with the feedback and support of online classes offered by Brian Henry.

See some of Margaret's artwork here. 

For more short stories, poetry, and essays by you fellow writers see here (and scroll down).

See Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, afternoon workshops, and wonderful writing retreats here.

“Manifest Destiny” by Larissa Thomas

"Manifest Destiny" Larissa Thomas

Debra’s figured out the keys to the Universe. She’s practically an expert. Basically a physicist. Where attention goes, energy flows. What you focus on expands. She’s pirated every book and workshop by Hicks Goddard Dispenza Zenkina Frances Hay Hill. Her trailer park comrades don’t realize it, but she’s a fuckin’ genius and doesn’t belong in a place like that. Not with people like them.

Debra’s got enviable pin legs and her C-cups are dynamite. Lady’s a dazzler. A pleasure to behold. She’s the vibration of her dream home. She’s a lilac jacuzzi and a four-poster waterbed. The energetic match to a 1970 cherry red Buick Skylark. Atomic mirror for a dusty rose velour jumpsuit, sapphire piñata, scorpion-shaped fountain that eternally flows with champagne and never needs to be cleaned.  

Leaning back in her plastic chair smoking a Pall Mall, she spies a storm on yonder. Debra intuits it’s not just a natural disaster. She conjured it. Been practicing the Law of Attraction for weeks. A cyclone of yearning hurtles towards Camelot Toe Trailer Park at 88 miles an hour. Just like she scripted. Visualized. 369’d. Defined and declared. Everything she desires is nearly upon her.

“I fuckin’ told ya!” she screams. Ciggie half-spent, dangling from her frosted lips as she stands up, the lawn chair near snapping from the enthusiastic thrust of her thirty-five-year-old hindquarters. The soundtrack of Debra’s Best Life is an arrangement of airborne metal torpedoing single-pane windows, screeching tires on gravel and sticker-covered guitars percussively slapping vinyl siding. 

“Debbay, you shitstain bimbo!” JibJab hollers, tossing beers, tobacco products and binders indiscreetly bursting with his favourite porno mags into the back of his rusty Chevy. “There’s a fuckin’ tornado headed straight for us!” 

A tornado of everything Debra desires.

JibJab shakes his greasy head and spits out a hunk of chaw, going back for one last box of phlegmorabilia. His brother, Biggy Bag, ropes his prized possessions - poorly taxidermied roadkill and a papier mache beer fridge sculpture of their mother - into his matching rust-bucket.

Small minds. They couldn’t possibly understand Debra’s vision; quantum shifting out of a bunkie, wedged between Jib Jab the jumbo jack-off’s trailer and Biggy Bag’s converted car-zebo, into an aspirational micro-mansion subdivision. Transcendental she-bologna in a negative energy manwich, no more. Their jealousy won’t stop her.

She glides into her shanty and gracefully removes her prized mermaid costume hanging on the collapsed clothes rack. Dress for the job you want. Dress for the life you desire. Be your future self now. 

She exquisitely experiences abundance and freedom as she stuffs herself into a shimmering emerald tail and pink plastic shell bra. Deliciously embodies orgasmic lightness as she accentuates the look with a stunning zirconia shrimp necklace, places shimmering pins in still-processing just-permed hair, which burns from the anticipatory sweat. Twelve hours until it’s safe to get wet or suffer the frizziness. Sometimes one is limited by three-dimensional reality. She wasn’t expecting today to be Manifestation Day. 

But

You

Must

Trust

Divine

Timing.

Debra leaves behind her old life, and heads towards the squall with open arms. The constrictive mermaid tail slows her roll, thwarts her rapidity. Hipping and hopping won’t get her anywhere. It’s always toughest right before you get what is meant for you. Darkest before dawn.

“What would you have me do, Cosmic Daddy?” she yodels into the deluge. She struggles for a moment, but the Universe always provides a solution.

“Rip it!”

She follows the signs and tears the mermaid tail seam with her bare hands. 

“I said rip it out of here! You dumb fuckin’ bitch!” Biggy Bag yells from across the way. “Get your pimply ass outta the park, that twister’s gonna eat you!”

Debra snorts. “You see fear, I see opportunity.” 

And opportunity is headed straight for 32 Nirvana Ave in Camel Toe Estates, her dream home; the one with the big pool and peach bricks. The owners are long gone, it’s Debra’s now. 

She runs straight into the superstorm. Her vision board’s coming to life. Sucked up in the interstellar swell. Spinning and twirling; a siren in a frothing sea. Her fantasy smells like grass and sulphur. She barely registers the gravel lacerating her frosty flesh or the microwave that smashes her hip bone or the nail sticking out of her thigh. Obstacles are simply tests. The injuries are a sign that Debra’s about to break through her upper limits.

Everything she yearns for is within reach. 

A brand new Macbook careens into her welcoming arms.

Shovel.

Deluxe lawnmower. 

Hotdog.

This is the moment before the moment she has it all.

Wind stops. Mid-air, everything freezes. 

Debra savors the milliseconds as the clouds part and the sun breaks through, kissing her skin like pieces of broken glass. 

And then she’s falling. 

Into the Universe’s bountiful breast. 

She strikes water, sinking to the bottom of 32 Nirvana Ave.’s impressive in-ground pool.

Debra’s perm is ruined!!!! 

She didn’t think this through. The chlorinated water fills her lungs and everything stings. For a moment she doubts the megacosm, but any manifestor worth their salt knows that’s the kiss of death. Never doubt or limit what comes through. Debra will attract a hairdresser later. She’ll co-create some oxygen now.

Mesmeric ribbons of red casually engulf her; a symphony of disembodied fish dancing for their Mermaid Queen.

The Universe isn’t done, though. More gifts fall from the sky. Just for Debra.

Her dream car. 

Titanium rake.

Spinning clothesline.

Imported trees.

Terra cotta roof tiles.

They’re all hers.

***

Larissa Thomas is a writer, artist, Enneagram aficionado and tarot reader toiling melodramatically in an endless pocket of tornado manifestations in Ontario. She's currently working on an illustrated collection of strange tales. Subscribe to her Substack for work-in-progress here.

For more short stories, poetry, and essays by you fellow writers see here (and scroll down).

See Brian Henry's upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day retreats here.

“Vices and Virtues” by Anne Pittens

Death impacted Jenna’s life unexpectedly. There was no quiet knock to warn of its approach; it just up and took Grandma right in the middle of the Chicken Dance at a cousin’s wedding.

Given a choice, Jenna suspected that righteous old Grandma might have selected a better dropping ground – some place where all her friends and family were not drunk and flapping at the crucial moment. While the morbidly fascinated ogled the body, Jenna stole three quick shots from behind the bar and contemplated the scene from several feet back.

Something about death was personal; not the kind of thing you should be doing in front of a crowd. After all, it was your body’s final craving. The ultimate release. Who wanted to surrender to needs of that nature with everyone gaping at you? 

Apparently, you could live with all the dignity you wanted, but dying with it?  Ha! After making all the right choices in life, the Grim Reaper, with a lascivious leer and a terrible twinkle could yank your final option!

Seeing the old gal flat out like that, Jenna noted that death was not a tidy process, not the way it appears once you see the body in the coffin all spit and polished. Anything could happen. You might lose control of your bladder and stain your skirt, or in the case of dear Granny, you might fall the wrong way and everyone would get to see your granny panties.

Worse things could happen Jenna supposed. At lease she had not crashed from Mr. Crapper’s commode, her poopy rosebud winking at the world. Sometimes you just had to count whatever blessings you were left with.

Jenna watched the body turn from phyllo pastry pale to the gloomy gray of a winter day. Once confirmed dead by all the unqualified, Grandma was unceremoniously dragged, her skirt hitching up under her, to an anteroom.

Thank God they moved her. When she dropped, her ample thighs splayed open under her voluminous dress and a most ungracious view presented itself. No granny panties here!  Whoever knew that Grandma would meet her Maker wearing a black garter belt and sexy stockings topped out with feathery red boas?  That was sure to give Jesus a start! 

Apparently, the stockings weren’t the only thing unseemly about Grandma; Jenna didn’t care to speculate whether the black triangle was pretty panties or a box of Loreal long lasting!

Later, when Jenna and her mother were going through the dear woman’s drawers, they discovered she had something of a lusty craving for pretty little lady things. One drawer was so overloaded, that unmentionables of every color, contour and curious capacity eagerly popped out – once the invitation was issued.

Oh, the things you find in the drawers of dead people. Now that was a lesson worth learning. Be careful what you leave behind; other people will have to clean up your vices as well as your virtues. On the up side, with careful planning, unwary relations rifling your drawers provided a lovely opportunity for a final bit of toying.

Then let the chisel stutter your epitaph!

*** 

Anne Pittens is a writer living in Whitehorse, Yukon with her husband and dog.

“Vices and Virtues” placed 3^rd in Witcraft’s on-line magazine annual contest, 2024. It was published in November of that year. For more about submitting to Witcraft and a few other places, see here.

See Brian Henry's upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day retreats here.

Read more short stories, essays, and reviews by your fellow writers here (and scroll down).

“Roasting” by Marg Heidebrecht

 

Mira is about to check the beets, to turn them over and see if they need a drizzle of olive oil when her phone rings: moss green, wall-mounted, rotary dial. Since it’s 4:55 p.m., the caller will be Ellen, the niece who’s been saddled with the task of keeping an eye on her.

“Can’t talk, sweetie.” Mira stretches the phone cord closer to the stove with one hand; reaches for an oven mitt with the other.

“I can’t either. Just a reminder that Jake and I are coming over tomorrow.”

“Jake?”

“The guy you met at Christmas.”

“The one who kept popping out to the porch? He smokes.”

“No, Auntie Mira. He’s a real estate agent. Business is 24/7.”

“I thought you broke up?”

“We did, sort of, but he’ll get you a good price for the house.”

“Who said it’s for sale?”

“Mom, me, everybody.”

The response to Mira’s, “Everybody but me,” is a dial tone. Followed by the beeping of the smoke alarm.

“Shit.”

Mira grabs the tray with the oven mitt, but the beets are heavy and the metal thin. She steadies it with her unprotected hand in an attempt to prevent a spill.

“SHIT!”

Both the beets and Mira’s hand are burned. The beets she can bury under compost, but her hand? Mira turns on the cold water, lets it pour between her fingers and over her palm. If Ellen notices the blisters or any swelling, she will report this to her mother, giving them proof that Mira should not be living alone. Plans are being made on her behalf. For her own good. And it pisses her off.

Ellen’s mother, Lisa, was born on the afternoon of Mira’s grade eight graduation. While Mira was delivering a farewell speech on behalf of her peers, her mother was delivering the baby intended to reset a marriage that was hanging on by the threads of obligation and routine.  Even a fourteen-year-old knew that was a lot to expect of an infant. Their dad left, their mother crawled under a quilt, and Mira took over.

A neighbour ran a home daycare; an extra child was no bother as long as no one asked for a receipt. Just as well that five years later Lisa’s elementary school was on the university bus route. Mira scheduled classes that allowed her to pick up her sister by 3:45. When seminars or midterms required her to stay late, she set an alarm to remind their mother to pick Lisa up. And gave the school the neighbour’s phone number. Just in case.

On his way to Mira’s the following morning, Jake stops at another client’s house to check that the stager has transformed the guest room into a home office. No need to remove family photos; they were smashed weeks ago, a consequence of Jake’s 6-step method for building a client base:

Assess if a new house is an attempt to reset a relationship;
flirt with the weakest link when touring the bedroom;
place a “For Sale” sign on the original property;
locate separate properties for the shattered couple;
collect the shared commission from three transactions;
repeat.

A young woman is whirling strawberries, yoghurt and chia seeds into a smoothie and doesn’t hear him come in.

“And you are?” Jake waits until the blender is quiet, though he should’ve waited further away.

“Fuck! Who are you?”

“Jake. I’m selling this place.”

“Ashley. I’m the collateral damage. Getting ready to lose not only my childhood home, but also my family.”

“Yeah, heard about that. Sorry.” Jake looks at the clock on the microwave. “Got some clients coming in soon with another agent. Any chance you can, you know…”

“Disappear?” Ashley provides Jake with the blunt word he’d been reluctant to use.

“Yup.”

“Not unless you’ve got a studio apartment tucked up your sleeve. And a U-Haul in the driveway.”

“That would be no.”

 While Ashley slips on shoes, Jake places a travel lid on the smoothie and the yet-to-solve issue at the back of his mind. They both get into his car.

Mira hates to admit it, but she’s looking forward to the company. That’s the part about aging in place that no one talks about. The tasks are easy; she’s made arrangements for lawn cutting and snow removal; downloaded Uber as well as a grocery delivery app. But in retirement, she increases the volume on the radio so it can be heard in every room. Familiar voices, engaging conversation. Who knew she would miss the office banter, the last-Friday-of-the-month cake for anyone who was celebrating, well, anything?

Her pattern of busy days and quiet evenings has the potential to flip due to the recent glut of widows. They plead with her to join them for concerts, for plays, for the dance recitals of their grandchildren; anything to avoid an unfilled calendar and a plate of leftovers.

She accepts the invitations that appeal to her; after years of not tolerating nonsense from men, she’s not about to start accepting it from women who were accustomed to setting tables exclusively for pairs. As if filling up an ark instead of hosting a dinner party.

“Hi Moira, I mean Merna.” Jake wipes his shoes on Mira’s mat, reassured it contains no images of cats. One less item to remove and an indication of reasonable taste.

“This is Ashley. She’s going to hang out here while I take measurements and a few photos.”

 Mira extends her hand to Ashley who notices the burn.

“Ouch. That looks nasty. How did…” She pauses when Mira moves her head a smidge to the left, then back again. Jake is trying to decide if he can add a heater to the back porch, call it a sunroom. And doesn’t notice.

Ellen arrives while Mira is tipping level scoops of coffee into the French press and Ashley is scraping the last bits of fruit from the bottom of her cup. 

“Hi, sweetie. I wasn’t expecting you’d come too. This is Ashley. She’s with Jake.”

With Jake. Ellen has moved beyond rage, but is not yet ready to shrug. She’s been slow to follow the “Fool me once” adage. Forget twice, it took a series of excuses for Ellen to realize that Jake was unlikely to change.

Ashely stands up, takes a few steps toward her. “He’s selling my parents’ house and I was in the way this morning. So, I’ve been sitting here with your fabulous aunt.”

Fabulous is not among the words Ellen uses to describe her aunt. Old-fashioned, stubborn, set in her ways are more apt; cautious and conservative are included in the missives Lisa sends from whatever mountain retreat on which she’s seeking clarity.

“A masters in mechanical engineering, part of the team that pushed the city to add barriers and not just paint to bike lanes.” In less than an hour, Ashley knows more about her aunt than Ellen has learned in two plus decades of emptying out Christmas stockings and gathering up Easter eggs. Side by side.

“And this one,” Mira points to Ashley. “A degree under her belt and all set to fast-track to be an educational assistant.”

Jake has a client in mind for the house; he texts her a few photos and hopes for a quick off-market closing.

While Ellen might take pleasure in undermining the sale, it’s Mira who creates a plan based on a novel in which a ten-year-old suggested his family invite a homeless stranger to move in. He stopped in front of a knockdown-rebuild on his way home from school. “I know someone who needs a house!” he shouted up to the workers on the roof; that someone being the man who stood outside the beer store. Collecting empties and change. A need, a solution. Is this similar?

Ashley moves into Mira’s spare room and begins her program at the local college. Ellen stops phoning every night; Lisa continues to hop around the globe; Jake removes the photos from his website.

Mira sets two plates for dinner every night for a year. She drizzles olive oil on beets, sets the oven to 425, and places the tray on the bottom rack. She trims perennials in the garden before unfolding a lawn chair to rest. Ashley smells the smoke as soon as she gets home, pulls the pan from the oven, and hears the sizzle when she tosses it in the sink. She searches the house before finding Mira in the yard. Drowsy, dozing.

“Shit, did I burn the beets?”

“You sure did. Same as when we met.”

“You knew?”

Ashley nods. “We have to tell them, you know. Ellen, Lisa.”

 “You call them. I’ll call Jake. He can bring over the documents I need to sign.” Mira rubs the raised scar on her hand. “He’s the only one who won’t say I told you so.”

And she’s right. Sort of. Ashley doesn’t say it either. She doesn’t say anything.

Marg Heidebrecht lives and writes in Dundas, Ontario. Her first book of essays, In the Shade: Friendship, Loss, and the Bruce Trail was shortlisted for the 2020 Hamilton Arts Council Literary Awards. Her essay, “Invasions,” won a creative nonfiction prize in the 2022 Hamilton Arts & Letters contest and is included in her 2024 book, Mosaic through East-Facing Glass: A Collection of Personal Essays. 

She’s also published several opinion pieces and many letters to the editor in The Globe and Mail and The Hamilton Spectator. 

Visit Marg at:
https://intheshade2019.blogspot.com/
https://mosaicmarg.blogspot.com/
https://www.instagram.com/intheshade2019/?hl=en

See Brian Henry's upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day retreats here.

For more essays and other pieces about books or about reading, writing, and the writing life, see here (and scroll down).

“The Corporation” by David Bennett

 

Belinda was like a diamond, George thought, looking at her from across the room: very beautiful but very, very hard. And she could cut just like a diamond.  As Belinda ascended through the ranks of the Corporation there were inevitably conflicts with those whose jobs she aspired to. She won them all. Her erstwhile rivals often disappeared completely, becoming corporate un-persons, their names never mentioned again.

One of many rumours about her was that she had secret political influence. Whatever the truth, once Belinda entered the ranks of the senior vice presidents, an aura of fear spread around her: not a good person to cross so people didn’t.

So why was he waiting for her as the conference room emptied out at the end of the meeting?

The simple answer was Belinda had asked him to.  And her requests were not to be denied, at least not by someone as junior to her as George was.

But the full truth was he would have waited for her anyway. Belinda was twelve years his senior but still attractive.  And this attractive woman was interested in him. Nothing public. She was far too sophisticated for that. But there had been a small, nearly invisible current of attraction, especially in those sudden smiles and very brief remarks, all of which were deliberately ambiguous, bestowed on him.

Finally, there were just the two of them left in the room. But engrossed in typing on a tablet Belinda didn’t seem to notice him. Perhaps a remark to remind her he was still here.

“I took the monorail this morning,” he said.

“And you were late this morning,” she said, not looking up from the tablet.

“Wow. How did you find that out?”

“I find out everything,” Belinda said, finally looking up. “I hope I’m not going to be disappointed in you. You’re an attractive young man – though don’t let it go to your head.  And you definitely have intelligence; no one gets the kind of marks you got in business school without being smart. But you’ve just done a dumb thing so I have to hope it’s a one-off.”

“Supporting the monorail is civic-minded.”

“Going anywhere near the monorail is dumb. It breaks down all the time. The thing is completely dysfunctional. As for being civic-minded, that’s just for appearances, as I hope you’ve fully realized by now. The Corporation exists for one, and only one, reason: to make money.”

“Are you telling me not to take it anymore?”

“I’m telling you to smarten up. Start acting like someone who’s bright enough to hang with me.”

Hang with her? That sounded like a definite proposition. Better show some enthusiasm.

“Yes,” he said, and smiled. “I’d like that.”

“That’s better,” Belinda said, smiling for the first time – a great contrast to her former and usual severe expression. She pushed her chair back, stood up, without smoothing down the dress that had ridden half way up her thighs, walked slowly over to him and sat down next to him. Belinda leaned over and put one finger tip on his knee. She added a second fingertip, a shade closer to his crotch. She passed him a business card.

“That’s the address,” she said. “Be there at eight. I know you like good wine and I have some very good vintages. And then we can do some other interesting things.”

The finger moved another fraction closer to his crotch with just a little more pressure

He opened his mouth to tell her how much he looked forward to the evening when he thought of Jackson, her young boyfriend.

“Sounds great,” he said. “I’m just hoping we won’t be interrupted, say by Jackson, for instance.”

“No, no one will interrupt us – least of all Jackson, who is no longer with us.”

“I didn’t know he’d left the company.”

“Jackson had an unfortunate accident, which is why he’s no longer here. Very sad, of course,” she said, not looking at all mournful.

“What happened?”

“He jumped off his balcony. He’d apparently been suicidal for a while, which is why you haven’t seen him around the office. I guess he had a nervous breakdown.”

George remembered Jackson. They had both worked in the same office and would sometimes go out for drinks after work. One boozy evening, after they’d both had far too many margueritas, Jackson let it slip he had a relationship with Belinda, wanted to break it off but was afraid to.

“She’s pressuring me not to go back,” he said, without specifying where Belinda wanted him not to go back to. “It’s all we talk about now. That and her non stop threats. It’s all becoming too much.”

George had told him to keep quiet about it and after that they had by unspoken but common consent veered away from the subject of Belinda.

Jackson committed suicide. Jesus!  This gave him a whole new perspective on Belinda. What the hell was with that?  Jackson was worried and maybe a bit afraid. But he didn’t seem that depressed. Of course, George didn’t know him that well so maybe things were going on with Jackson’s psyche that he didn’t – and in fact, couldn’t – know. Perhaps. Still, the news unsettled him.

“That must have been right after your trip to Turkey,” he said to Belinda.

“Listen,” she said, “I have to go. Appointments and so on. So, see you this evening?”

He was being dismissed. “Absolutely,” he said, getting up to leave.

He was deep in thought during his walk back to his office. Most disquieting was Jackson’s suicide. But something else was competing for his attention. Why was he thinking about Belinda’s trip to Turkey? 

Then he remembered. There had been a brief mention in the news, which was not pursued, about the Corporation being involved in an alleged bribery. Belinda’s name had not been mentioned. The article had mentioned “a junior manager” as someone the Turks had wanted to talk to, but apparently, this junior manager had already left Turkey. 

Could this have been Jackson?  And even if it was, how, if at all, did this have anything to do with Jackson’s suicide?  George didn’t know the answer to either question but he had a feeling – a very uneasy feeling – that they did.

When he got back to his office he phoned the manager of the Turkey project. The manager liked George and had even tried to get him to come and work on the project. So it only took a few minutes of seemingly casual questions to elicit that, yes, Jackson had accompanied Belinda to Turkey as her assistant and that they both had left Turkey very suddenly in the middle of negotiations.

Allegedly, it was because Belinda had, as the press release put it, “pressing health issues,” though she seemed well enough when she got back to the office.

It was, he thought, all he needed to know. The conclusions forced themselves upon him, despite efforts not to think about them. So, given what he now knew, what to do about his evening date with Belinda? 

He couldn’t think of an excuse not to go that wouldn’t antagonize her. And lurking underneath, although he told himself he was a fool to feel any such thing, was his desire for Belinda, unextinguished by his new discoveries. Besides, given her obvious attraction to him, how nasty would she be to him?

There was a concierge at her building, a slightly disdainful Englishman. “You’re not in the book,” he said as though this was a serious offence. “I’ll have phone up.”

“You’re early,” she said when she came to the phone. “I’m still on the treadmill. So give me a couple of minutes, okay?”  This turned out to be nearly ten minutes.

After Belinda finally called back to let him in the concierge suddenly announced: “You have to be wanded before you can go up.”

“It’s just a social call,” George said. “She knows me.”

“No wand, no admittance,” said the unsmiling concierge, standing up from his desk.

After the wanding, conducted very thoroughly, George rode up on the elevator to Belinda’s penthouse suite. When she opened the door, he beheld something that looked like Versailles or the Summer Palace, all white and gold and enormous.

Belinda was still wearing the same business suit she had worn at the office. So much for the treadmill.

“Follow me,” she said, her tone curt and her expression unsmiling. She led him into a pantry off the kitchen. This was not, George thought, where you would receive guests, especially the romantic kind.

“The manager of the Turkey project called me. He said you’d called him.”

“Yes, I called him this afternoon a few minutes after I left you.”  No point in denying it.

“What fucking business is it of yours what I did in Turkey or who I was there with?”  The swear words surprised him. He had never heard her talk like this before.

“Jackson was my friend. I was curious about what happened to him.  So I called someone who might know something. That’s all.”

“You know what I think?” she said, leaning towards him and poking him in the chest. “I think you were checking up on me. That’s not your job. Your job is to do what you’re damn well told. And you didn’t do that, did you?”

He grabbed her hand to stop her poking him again. “We’re not in the army. Obedience, yes. Blind obedience, no. I get to ask questions once in a while.”

“That’s where you’re so, so wrong, George. You don’t ever get to ask questions about things like bribery allegations, suicides or anything else that might cause a scandal for the Corporation. Never!  This is the Corporation. Everything you have you owe to the Corporation. So yes, you do owe blind obedience. That’s how it works. Those who won’t conform to that have to be weeded out.”

“It’s not a religion, it’s just a company.”

“No, George, it is a religion – our religion. And we must serve it just like a religion. I’m sad you don’t understand that but it means we must part company. I’ll show you out.”

***

The email the next morning was sent to all the corporation’s employees:

We have lost a valued employee, George Sands, who succumbed to injuries sustained in a tragic accident last night at the central monorail station. I am sure every staff member joins me in my condolences to his family. George was very well liked in our corporate community and he will be sorely missed. His family request that instead of flowers any donations be made in his name to United Way.

Belinda Lucas, Senior Vice President

***

David Bennett has now retired from the law and has returned to his first love: writing. Among other projects, he’s writing a collection of short stories each of which features a train station.

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