Camille growls at me like a wildcat. She claws the air with glossy black fingernails.
"What are you, some kind of Neanderthal?" Her famous French purr has risen to a screech that could shatter glass. Maybe even the half-ton of glass cabinet I just spent the night installing in the wrong place.
She shakes her razor sharp, silky black bob like it's full of wasps. "How much we pay you, Truck?"
Not enough for this shit. "No problem. Just show me where you want it."
"But I tell you already!" She swings her arm around her private office, the control room of her own multi-million-pound fashion empire—all riverside views and polished concrete and raw oak. "Anywhere!"
"Just not here."
"Just... not where I look at it all day."
"I thought the shelves were for your awards. You don't want to see them?"
The petite powerhouse lunges. Never has a minidress looked so scary. I actually cover my bollocks. She thrusts a snarl at my face even though I'm two feet taller than her. "Yes! Argue with me motherfucker! Give me a reason to sack your ass!"
Yes, the woman is a nightmare, but it's a nightmare that covers my mortgage, not even counting the work I get because I work for her. Suck it up fella. "Right. How about behind your desk, like, against the window?"
"Will I see my awards, there?" She's on tip-toes, pushing her face into mine like a demonic, dainty drill instructor. "So they can bully me with my reputation? Pile their shitty pressure on my head? Remind me of the hundreds of people depending on me?"
"Umm. No?"
"Non! Of course not! Neanderthal! Too bad you don't work out your brain like your pecs, eh?"
I fake a laugh. Salute. "Whatever you need."
A thanks would be nice. Instead, Camille jabs her nose at my chest and arms, sniffing. "You smell of me. Why?"
I skulk over to my tools. My ears blaze. I secretly used her private shower earlier.
"You used my shower!"
"Course not, love, I—"
"Don't 'love' me." At least her voice has dropped from dentist-drill to husky again, albeit the biting kind. She wedges hands to the small of her back and loses herself in a row of gold fabric samples on her desk. "You know the soap in there, it is too expensive for someone like you."
I take a deep breath, hold it, start dismantling shelves.
A unique, knockety-knock on the door is her Aussie PA, Justine. "Camille, can I—Hey Truck, you're still here!"
I give her a wink. Justine is a coppertop bundle of irrepressible joy. All Camille's employees are models, just like Camille when she started, but unlike her boss, Justine's a laugh. It was her that started calling me "Truck" instead of "Laurie." The cheekster flushes and tucks a red curl behind her ear.
"Don't look at him, he's shit." Camille steps between us. "What you want?"
I focus on my work, watching in the shelving unit's reflection as Justine presents her boss with some papers. Camille flips and signs and flips and signs, muttering in French. When she's done, she clicks her fingers in front of Justine's face, who seems fascinated by my demoralising labour. The PA jumps as if woken up.
"Cool! Later, Trucky!" She bum-bumps me as she sashays by.
I'm undoing number ten of like two hundred little brass screws, but distracted by Camille's reflection. She sits on her desk facing me, watching me work, twirling a strand of hair. My client looks lost and tiny silhouetted by the city and the Thames flowing past her monumental windows.
I still feel trapped with a tiger, though. She crosses her legs, flicks a foot. I try not to fumble under her vicious stare.
I've known Camille since she left college and first got famous, like ten years ago, and seeing her so stressed—even though she takes it out on me—knots my gut. Her film director hubby got caught by the paparazzi fucking a starlet last week, but Camille's been fraught for weeks. And because she's all about fashion, she makes it pretty clear when you need to keep out of her way. Her dresses get sharper, stiffer, cover more of her, until some morning she'll turn up in nothing short of a gestapo uniform.
I'm a handyman who works in fashion, I notice this shit.
Today, for example. she's wearing her best-selling Trekkie dress—an ochre velour, A-line thing with thick black bands at the neck, sleeves and hem. OK it's short enough to show off her (neat and lovely) knees, so it's hardly a uniform, but with its figure-hiding, geometric shape, its high collar and long sleeves, it's definitely not an invitation either. First time I saw it, I said I loved it, but it made me think of Captain Kirk. Camille laughed her tits off at that, then named it the Trekkie dress. Sometimes she accidentally calls it "Trucky's dress."
She's worn it a lot recently—like three times this week, dunno why—but now with opaque black tights, and little black boots. That's how it starts, the uniform. Bits of black pop up, then spread like a mould of anger.
Her reflection folds its arms. "How long will you be?"
I turn to her. Scratch my head. "Rest of the— "
"Where'd you get that shitty T-shirt, Truck? Primark?"
I shrug.
She kicks off a boot, and levers at the other. I tense. She's a marksman with her footwear. She got me on the back of the head from across the office, once. "It is offensively blah, you know this? I believe the way you dress, it is toxic to me."
Her massive, electric blue eyes crackle. "Take it off."
"Ah..." I draw her attention to her monolithic office door, still slid open to the rest of the office.
"All women, or gay. Believe me they will only thank me." She tosses her shoe away.
Fuck it then. I yank my toxic tee off. Chuck it onto her desk. Fold my arms.
Camille leans back. Her cheeks look slapped. She bites the inside of her lip and her feet curl around each other like wringing hands.
I spread my arms. "Levi's OK?" I snap the band of my boxers. "Calvins?"
Her eyes fill the room. She twitches. Shit, was that a tiny shake of the head?
I gulp, reach for my waistband.
"Knock-knock!" Julian marches in. "Yay, Truck!" He clocks my toplessness, and grimaces. "Oops. In trouble again?"
"What." Camille barely moves her eyes to greet him.
"I'm sorry, Boss. We need an answer on those samples? The guys say if we don't order the spider silk today they're gonna sell the lot to Versace"
"Ten minutes."
"Brill." He waggles his fingers at me and disappears on a puff of Le Male.
Camille mooches back behind the criminally expensive honesty of her concrete desk, with its two hundred-year-old, slab-of-oak worktop. She's like a cat returning to its cage.
She clicks her fingers at me. "You. Get to work."
I turn to my task.
"Not there, idiot. Here." She taps the samples. "I need the eye of the common man. Which of these would you like your girl's ass wrapped up in? Come sit. Sit." She pulls out her Eames chair. "This morning you are the boss."
So I take her ergonomic throne and peruse the five scraps of identical silk.
Camille hovers behind me. Her shadow, cast from a half-assed, cloudy sun, fidgets across the desktop. The skin of my back prickles. Then she suddenly steps so close her hip rests against my arm. I won't lie, I flinch. Her presence beside me is like a sprung coil. I wonder if she even knows which way she's gonna bounce. How'd you get in such a state, love?
I strain to spot the difference in the samples while Camille leans into me. "Touch them, then!"
I take each piece between finger and thumb. Fucksake. They feel identical. My fingers are too rough, they snag and scrape the delicate fabric. I feel dumb. This woman can even beat me up with silk scraps.
Meanwhile, Camille's heat soaks into my shoulder like a secret whispered from her skin to mine. So I let my body answer the call. I drop my arm to curl it around her leg. My fingers rest against her calf.
If she screams, so be it. I'd rather be walloped for misunderstanding a cry for help, than ignore one.
Camille moves even closer. Her velour draped, tights-wrapped bottom wedges in the dip between my naked shoulder and chest. She smells of her fancy soap and a dry, lemony perfume. The tights stretched over her calf are powdery soft and warm under my fingertips.
Camilla clears her throat. "So? Which would your lady friend like?"
"Don't take the piss. You know I don't have a girlfriend." Too fucking busy.
"Oui, obviously, you are MY Neanderthal. But imagine your fantasy girl. What would she like?"
I brush knuckles up and down her calf. She shivers, but stays put. I run my palm over her. "That one." I pick up a random scrap. I don't fucking care.
"Bon." She keeps staring at the silks, biting her bottom lip. I wander more boldly, up the back of her knee. She catches a breath. We don't look at each other. Like our differences don't count if we don't look. I stroke up the inside of her thigh and now we're not boss and worker. All that status bullshit drops away when our bodies do the talking. All we have to do is keep our gobs shut.