Abigail Slaughter was a woman of passion. Many of Abigail's co-workers thought she was temperamental, the more charitable amongst them said, fiery, those that had disliked her from the get go said psychotic. None of these people had ever noticed that Abigail's signature on any and all documentation carried an apostrophe after her given name and, that she never left a space between that and her family name. Most of Abigail's friends would not have been surprised at this open secret, because they knew too, that those faint silvery lines around her eyes (such a shame, and her only 34) had been, and were being, finely drawn as a living testament to her laughter. Abigail's laughter.
At six feet and two inches, in her toenail-polished, shapely, stockinged feet, Abigail (never Abi) stood head and shoulders above each of her workmates. In her sensible, expensively impressive, day shoes she barely cleared the lintel of the door to her office. Actually, she had chosen the shoes for exactly that reason. Every time Abigail walked through that doorway, head high, as her mother had taught her, the top of her red, ringletted hair, which cascaded down her shoulders, would brush, caressingly, the underside of the frame, sending electric Morse code through her readily charged nerves. The message was invariably sensual.
On rare occasions, if they had been observing, Abigail's staff would have noticed that when she entered her office, her stride would be markedly longer and they may even have noticed a definite droop in her shoulders. On these days, Abigail unconsciously, but deliberately avoided that usually welcome tingle from the doorframe. Those were the days when there was work to be done and her morning dalliance, under the guise of a protracted telephone discussion, punctuated visibly with swaying shoulders and a subdued finale of quivering locks would not take their course.
Today was not one of those days.
Abigail walked slowly across the bare, wooden, click-clack floor. As she passed the threshold of her office at the end of the room she paused, then turned as if she had just remembered something she'd left behind. But Abigail didn't take any steps out from under the doorway, she simply shrugged her shoulders, as if dismissing the annoying thought then turned on her heel and continued into the office. As the door closed behind her, a muscular ripple ran from her shoulders to the pit of her stomach making Abigail blink slowly and quirk the corners of her eyes into the beginning of a smile, which was too relaxed to make the effort of curving her mouth to complete itself.
Venita, Abigail's personal secretary, had passed on only two pieces of mail for that morning, efficiently consigning the bulk of it to the round filing cabinet under 'b1n'.
Following the maxim 'first things first' Abigail lifted her first cup of the day to her lips to pay homage to Earl Grey, bless him. The second and successive refreshments would be 'ordinary' sweetened tea from the same cup bearing the legend: 'shit happens is not Irony.' Then, following the inevitability of the original maxim, Abigail let her frame sink into the leather of the most comfortable chair she had ever had the good fortune to happen upon, in a garage sale no less, and began the 'second thing'; mail.
Venita Prasad was an industrious woman. The vast majority of her workday was concluded by 11.30 am, which gave her ample time, and opportunity, to indulge in her most favourite pastime: a long lunch break.
Abigail knew Venita's worth. (She works like a slave; you wouldn't catch me doing that.) Venita knew that Abigail was perfectly aware and proudly, yet discretely, luxuriated in her benign slavery.
Browsing. There's a soft word. Not a furtive word like glancing or peeking. It's not a hard word like staring or even just looking. Browsing. You can't browse if you have to be somewhere else in half-an-hour. Browsing is a leisurely occupation. Like grazing, you never see cows running for their next appointment. Venita was a browser; she was a big, fat, brown cow with nothing else to do but chew on greenery. Window-shopping. Who shops for windows? Young, enthusiastic couples with no time to spare, that's who. Venita was single and had all the time in the world.
Venita browsed. Often she would have to buy sandwiches on the way back to work because she had given no thought at all to the complaints of her growling abdomen, immersed as she was, in her browsing.
Weather permitting, Venita would spend the bulk of her long lunch break in seeking out new shops, stalls and stores to gaze, never longingly, at items for sale. "Oh that's nice" she would think to herself "I could use one of those." And if those secret service men were paying very close attention they would be very interested in the items that Venita, very occasionally, demurred to purchase. Perhaps a trilby or maybe a pair of gaudy red braces, to hold up a pair of Baggies. Gifts perhaps, for her boyfriend or father. How would they know? And if the C.I.D or MI6 were following Venita, they would be highly suspicious of the inordinate amount of time she spent gazing in shop windows. However circumspect the agents were, they would believe she was being evasive and that she had somehow discovered her covert surveillance. She was trying to put them off the scent by innocently window-shopping. They would never discover her secret life.
"Venita, look at you. You spend too much time in the sun. You should cover your head, look at that skin. How can you expect a boy to marry someone as dark as this?"
And, remembering, Venita would move out of the shade of the awnings to defy any boy who would take an interest. Then she would move down the street, to the open market to browse some more.
Today was not one of those days.
Ranjit Persaud was a man without history. If questioned he would provide a very detailed background to his life. His early years in Northern India (nowhere specific), his educational scholarship to Oxbridge (the contraction was sufficient) and his freelance work for many Bangladeshi publications in later years culminating in a small but profitable consultancy.
Ranji was proud of his boyish good looks and his excellent command of the English language, even though he had been unable to shake off the accent entirely, pronouncing his 'W's with his tongue instead of his lips and making his 'T's plosive instead of guttural. He was meticulous with his grooming, never a short black hair out of place and never a stubbly, shorter black hair on his face, excepting the mono-brow, which he had the habit of delicately stroking in the middle, in times of stress or meditation, as if to make sure it was still there.
Today, Ranji had a very important meeting, crucial even. He had managed to convince Slaughterhouse VI of their need for a radical but gifted and extraordinarily beautiful raft of illustrations for a forthcoming series and this interview would make him. There was no question of breaking him, because rejection would merely mean dissolution, to recombine at leisure.
A bluff and hearty exterior hid a sensitive and caring nature dwelling inside Ranji. Some would call it empathy; those less charitable would call him effete, though all would readily admit that Ranji could almost tell what a woman was thinking. This made him really quite popular with those ladies of his acquaintance, or at least those who weren't fully acquainted with the reality.
Ranji had enjoyed talking to Abigail just once, socially, in a down-market but increasingly popular wine bar, where he had delighted in mild flirtation, as had she, and he had convinced her to accept an interview to explore a proposition involving erotic art for erotic words.
The intercom on Venita's desk plainted her attention, and with barely a flick of her wrist, without pausing for a second on her keyboard, responded "Abigail?"
"Do you have a minute Ven?" Twin thrills of illicit secrets and ingrained (beaten in) shame vied to deepen Venita's complexion for a brief while at this use of the male diminutive. Use, which she encouraged in the workplace and shunned outside as one of her own open secrets.
With small, efficient movements, Venita poured boiled water into the tea-pot and made her way, with her own cup hanging carelessly from her little finger, to Abigail's door, across the carpeted space from her own desk.
"Oh, you're a life saver Ven, I'm gagging." Abigail slumped backwards in her chair, releasing a card bearing hearts and flowers to fall, slow-motion, onto the desk top, where it struggled briefly, flapping as if to regain its feet before giving in to gravity and abandonment. "Venita. You're an artist." Said Abigail in flat statement.
