The Call Girl and the Businessman

Authors Note: Once again, this story would not have been possible without the encouragement and support from my readers and fans. I thank you all. I have tried my best to convey feelings and ideas in my head. I hope that it translates well into words. Feel free to let me know what you think about this story.

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Chapter 6 - A Glimpse into Me

It was the darkness of the sea which caught my gaze as I peered out of the window. Its darkness was encapsulated into a singular massive entity which stayed the same throughout the ten kilometres drive. I could not make out where the line of horizon ended and where the expanse of the cosmos started. As the muted hum of the car engine droned on along the straight boulevard, I noticed that the sea itself was like a smooth blanket flapping in the distance, having borne wings of its own. It seemed to me that it summoned me, and I acutely felt a point of no return.

Darkness had always been easy on my eyes. I was fully aware that I was not able to make out anything in the darkness; and in it I had dwelt. Its vastness was so comforting to the extent that it smoulders the volatile stir of emotions. Darkness; far from vanquishes anything, merely balms the surface with its quiet dignity of an end. It was darkness which gave me a temporary respite from pain. No form or likeness could emerge from what was deprived the essence of light.

The perception of time and space was lost on me. The darkness offered me nothing in return yet it was everything which my eyes needed to feast upon. I felt my inopportune senses calm down by notches. There was nothing to experience; nothing of pain in this realm. I felt the last, uncontrolled tears surging in on me, they had come to me unguarded. I let them flow down my cheeks, brushing them away quickly with my fingers. Silently I begged for the indiscriminate darkness to take me to my place of refuge where alone I could be once again, as I always had been and always will be.

In Mr. Boardmann's presence, I was not exactly projecting the delectable wit enough to keep him occupied in pleasantry. I had failed to emulate my role model, the Madame de Pampadour. I was also sorely lacking in my projection of the high society call girl's alluring image. I could not, and would not bring myself to perform the duty which was no kept secret. I had failed spectacularly in all aspects of the duties expected of me. Apart from a few minor glitches at the start of my career, this had never happened before. There was no precedent which I could refer to.

The only thing which I did well was by helping him out. The business proposal was the only thing which did not fail me. I was glad that it turned out the way it did, but not that it had caused him to doubt his own mind. I had pulled an amateurish stunt at his expense and pacified myself that it was for his own good. I clung on to the Machiavellian dogma that the end result justified its means. The worst part though was that it was unclear to me if Machiavelli was being completely serious when he wrote in The Prince. After all, it was meant to be a satire.

I was well read in jurisprudence and ethics. When I had time, I debated myself senseless to no end. I was pretty indecisive when it came to my own ethical performance. I felt guilt very easily. It stemmed from my dark past. Therefore I needed some authority which I could follow by the book because deep down, I know that such guilt was unhealthy and that it would devour me eventually.

In my entire adult existence, the only guiding light I trusted were universal rules which withstood time. These rules formed the core of my standard answers in the many notebooks I had. Mr. Boardmann had been in awe of this, but on that same night, he had no qualms of calling me, in his own words, a "strange and mysterious creature." Internally, I could not rebut him on this presumption because of its truth. I did consider myself a strange and mysterious creature. I was an oddity to existence. I did not fit in anywhere. He could see through me although he barely knew me. That was why I had cried when he first uttered these words. They not only hurt me; they pierced deeply into my soul.

But I did defend myself like most people did in the face of an adversary. He was not my friend then. He still did not qualify to be so, but I had taken him under my wing now, and it made all the difference. Of all people, why did it have to be him to awaken my consciousness though? He was so troubled and disturbed himself. Then again, did they not say that it took one to know another? We were both oddities in this regular world with regular people. How I wished I were one of the latter. One of their kind. I hated this phrase. It sounded terribly unappealing, but I wanted in.

By awakening that consciousness from within my soul, he had caused me to question my own sanity. I was quite sure I bordered on neuroticism. Either that or I was a walking disaster. It seemed that darkness could not afford to be my refuge anymore because he somehow managed to wiggle his way into it. Even yesterday, in the moments of my innermost tranquillity under the sturdy willow, his likeness had appeared. He had gradually encroached into the sanctums of my life. He was like a wave which came gushing in. In the beginning, I had my fifteen minute thinking session where I thought after which, I would surely not think about him anymore, simply because all thoughts about him would have been exhausted by then. I could not be more wrong. His form and likeness kept coming back.

I saw it crystal clear now. I was being unfair to him. I highly doubted that he knew the extent of his influence over me. My thoughts were entirely my own. It was my thoughts that needed fixing. I had known this this since day two of our acquaintance. I had yet to solve the puzzle of Mr. Boardmann, but I have to keep a clear head before I could read him like a book and categorize him into the "uniquely-natured" client category.

If humans had the ability to hear thoughts, then I would have died in shame for the possession of mine. Through all my ruminations, Pablo was his usual quiet self. He had never spoken much to any of the call girls. Together, Fiona and I had wondered about that. Fiona had thought that he was really shy around beautiful women. I just thought that it was in his nature not to speak much. Furthermore, he played the dual function of security personnel and driver. He had to be alert, and that meant minimal conversation. Looking at Pablo though, I felt the urge to speak to him. We managed a cursory conversation about the weather and about Fiona's whereabouts. Speaking to him made me feel calmer. It took my mind off Mr. Boardmann and the golden key to his penthouse suite which I kept clutched in my hands.

"Lila, do you have an appointment with Penelope tomorrow?" He asked me after we had broken the ice.

"No, I don't." I said, very sure of my plans with Cherie at the library.

"She is free tomorrow and can come to your place." He said, looking at me fleetingly through the rear view mirror.

"Did she tell you that she wanted to drop by?" I asked in surprise.

This meant that I would have to wake up earlier in the morning, instead of sleeping till noon, which I had intended to do. It was perfectly fine with me, but just in case I overslept, I would have to set my alarm.

"I thought you might like to do with her company." Pablo said.

I eyed Pablo curiously. What made him think that I could do with some company? Did I really look like I was in need of company? In all honesty, I wanted to be alone, by virtue of my own choice, especially after tonight. I lived a solitary life. I must admit that I got lonely often, but I chose to put myself in this position.

"Is something not quite as it should be?" I asked now, feeling uncomfortable.

Firstly big, burly Pablo was one who had never spoken much, and now he was going out of his way in setting us up for an informal appointment.

"No, Lila. Everything is fine." Pablo said, keeping his eyes to the road when he realised me staring at him through the rear view window.

"I appreciate that you think about me, but I am fine, honestly. How are you doing, by the way, now that we have started talking more to each other?" I asked, in as amicable a voice I could muster.

Peering at the mirror, I saw Pablo smile broadly.

"Couldn't be better." He said.

He did not elaborate though, and as I waited for more, I realised that there was nothing more that he wanted to say to me.

I shall not attempt to elaborate further on the night following my departure from Mr. Boardmann's penthouse suite except that it was in the ungodly hours of night when I arrived home. The night was quiet and calm; the same could not be said of my heart. I now lack the coherent objectivity to narrate my turbulent feelings with precision that it was how I felt. I was not given to bursts of passion and would rather that it stayed that way. I would rather live the passion through heart-breaking stories; following the feisty protagonist all the way through till the end. To experience something second hand was always the best. You can imagine how it feels. You can pour all your heart and soul into it. Yet however much you think about it, it will never take a life of its own to affect you directly, not in the things which matter for real anyway.

I was emotionally and physically exhausted from tonight. I skipped my long soak in the bath, and that was itself an indication of how tired I was. I went to bed, but not before swallowing some sleeping pills. I knew myself too well. I never slept soundly no matter how tired I was. In this mind frame, I needed the pills to knock myself out more than ever.

The following afternoon the heatwave set in. The blue-bricked boulevard all the way to the library was a journey of perspiration and irritation. Autumn had started warm. I did like the balmy scent of trees at their peak prior to the shedding of their leaves. The scent was somewhat like crispy toast with marmalade spread. It was heaven to be catch whiffs of breakfast toast during my walk to the library. This was as my mood should have been, in better circumstances.

Despite my mild temperament for all types of weather, I was in a mood where I felt irritation which burst out from the daily encounters which would not have bothered me at all, had I been in a right state of mind. I thought that I should have cycled the five kilometres or I could have taken the bus. How I wished I knew how to parallel park as well. Then I need not have complained about the heatwave.

I was starkly aware of how my feelings had plummeted for the worse in the past five days. The only certainty I knew was that there were scores of them making way into my heart. The spirit which had arisen from the crypts of my heart could not relate to me, and did not adhere to my logical judgment. Prior to Mr. Boardmann, I was in a perpetual state of pleasantness. I was always obliging. I accepted circumstances as they were, and did not seek to remedy anything. Therefore the weather, of all things, had never bothered me. Now I was a changed woman. I felt an irritation about the weather.

I sought to correct my feelings like a teacher would a student. I had the willpower in me, and I should be able to will myself into subordination. Irritation was a negative feeling. I remembered my notebooks over the years on dealing with negative feelings. I wanted to follow these techniques to the letter. Thus I breathed in and out as deeply as I could. Given the fact that I was already on my way to the library, it was the only technique I could resort to. It did work for now. I felt calmer and I felt my thoughts gradually slowing down.

At the library, Cherie brewed me a cup of bergamot tea. I could not help but smile when I noticed that the cup she gave me was twice the size of the one she usually used.

"If you continue doing this, I will come here just for the tea." I said, feeling well enough to speak in jest.

Cherie smiled back warmly.

"It's my modus operandi to lure you into my plan." She said, gesturing me to the papers on the table.

We then worked on the advertising and ticketing of the concert. I offered to hand out flyers to the hotels, malls and restaurants all along the boulevard. The crux of library visitors came from the boulevard area after all. For areas beyond the boulevard, together we created a website to promote the piano gala concert. One could buy tickets for the concert at the library or online. For two whole hours, we worked together with such enthusiasm that I was positively convinced that I had never felt such excitement over anything before. I felt that what we were doing really mattered. We were working for a cause- to save the library for the community. I wondered where my heart was all this while. Why had I felt so little in the past three years? My existence was pretty mundane but it was calm nonetheless.

He had opened doors to my heart with his inquisitiveness. He had made me feel waves of emotions; some of them I never wanted to feel again and some of which I never knew existed. I felt the world anew again, from irritation of the weather to excitement for a cause. I was amazed at the emergence of my own feelings. How could I feel so much about everything which did not bother me before? It was not as if I were hibernating the years away, or perhaps I was?

I think that part of the key to my peace of mind now lay in revisiting the past. There was something about my past which was not quite right, despite knowing how bleak it already was. Something should have never been there, never existed in the first place, but I was not sure what. My memory betrayed me.

Mr. Boardmann had paved way for this the second night when he asked me whether I was generally self-depreciating and compliant. I figured I was, and without my job, I would have been so too because circumstances shaped me this way. From a very young age, I had learnt how to survive on my own. And that survival meant giving in, knowing that I was the weaker sex. My mother was the one constant figure but she barely figured in any of them.

After the technicalities of planning for the concert were done, irritation took over again. I came to the conclusion that I was irritated with myself. It was not so much the trivial things which caused me distress, but rather my unresolved feelings which I had swept under the carpet. Ironically I smiled upon realising that the weather was not pulling me down. It was never the weather. The scents all around me, especially the musky saturation was not be blamed.

Still I refused to give in to "moments of passion" as I had termed it. It was painful but I felt something more than pain. It was insecurity and an uncertainty of things. I was not in control anymore. And I always wanted to be in control of how I led my life. If I could not jot something down in my notebook as a standard answer, then it was not worth it, simply because unpredictability was almost certain to cause pain. I dared not count my lucky stars as I was never close in its vicinity. Throughout my life, misfortune had always been hovering above me like a dark cloud. There was no reason to believe that suddenly everything was about to change.

My negative emotions caused my confidence to dip significantly. It had seemed alright to me two days ago but now I thought that I had agreed too soon because I was in a good mood then. I was feeling stifled now. I spoke to Cherie about looking for a real pianist; be it a rising star from the conservatory or someone who was already in the business of piano-playing. Cherie brushed it off and said that bumbling students were a walking disaster. Furthermore it was too expensive to hire acclaimed pianists; and with a twinkle in her eyes, mentioned that I was to play for free.

There were a few visitors in the library today. They came mostly for a respite due to the scorching weather. I was extremely self-conscious to the extent that I refused to practice my pieces. I did not think that they would sound good. What more, in scorching heat. I thought piano playing always sounded better during cloudy weather. The heat provoked me to find fault with the sun, and with sun, I was reminded of the raging fire and danger of Mr. Boardmann's disposition. His raw strength, both physically and emotionally, would have been the undoing of him.

Cherie looked at me rather exasperatedly.

"Did work not go on smoothly yesterday? You seem far away." She said.

"What does work got to do with my piano playing?" I asked in reply.

"Long hours?" She asked.

It was quite true. I did stay with Mr. Boardmann long enough.

"Yes, I am sorry for being cranky today." I said.

"We all have those days. You bore the brunt of mine." Cherie said.

"I don't remember you being cranky. If you were cranky, I did not realise it." I said.

Cherie smiled.

"In certain aspects, you are clueless. Sometimes you don't realise things right under your nose." She said.

Now that got me feeling crankier.

"I do realise things. Everywhere and anything." I said, covering all circumstances imaginable.

I foresaw that the longer I stayed in conversation with her, the crankier I would be. I took my leave early with a whole set of flyers, telling Cherie that I would distribute them at restaurants and hotels at the other end of the boulevard. Walking the whole distance of ten kilometres would do me good.

I was walking on the boulevard sweating again for the next five kilometres with a whole stack of flyers; feeling cantankerous all anew because I had blatantly overlooked how horrible the first five kilometres were. My mind was restless and so were my feet. I just needed to shake something up but had no idea what. I had a fabric-woven shopping bag slung over my shoulders with piano books borrowed from the library together with all those flyers.

It was not that my shoulders ached from the weight of the books. It was that I found fault with the straps of the bag which seemed to fall off my shoulders every few minutes. I had to yank them up again on my shoulders. Of all days, why did I not take my trusted backpack? At least its straps gave my shoulders equal, balanced pressure. Yes, perfectly symmetrical!

Kisses have to be symmetrical.

His seductive whisper trespassed into my head. Exasperated at myself, I yanked the straps out from my shoulders and carried the whole bag in both my arms, hugging it right in front of my chest. How's that for symmetrical now?

I was aware that such irritability had to subside somehow. When I finally reached the touristic part of the boulevard, I went to the restroom of one of the five-star hotels and freshened myself up. I practiced smiling sincerely. I knew of fake smiles and I wanted to avoid that. I thought that I would be smiling grumpy smiles the way I was looking right now. When I was done, I spoke to hotel reception and gave them a stack for guests. I handed flyers door to door from hotels to restaurants to malls. Upon explaining that it was a council effort to save the library, the response was good and all personnel seemed happy to oblige.

Online advertising had also been done to reach a wider section of the suburbs. Cherie just wanted flyers to cover the whole boulevard area as this was the concentration of the crux readership of the library. When my self-imposed task was finally done, I was quite satisfied with myself. When I looked at the time though, I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was seven, and by this rate, I would have to rush home to have a shower, do my make-up and head to his penthouse suite by nine.

I started to hail a cab and was about to fish out the fare from my pocket when I realised that I did not bring my wallet. Of all days! Maybe my irritability was due to the universe trying to tell me something - my wallet was at home. There was no way I could walk the ten kilometres home in time to meet Mr. Boardmann.