AUTHOR'S NOTE: PLEASE ENJOY PART 7 OF THIS WONDERFUL SPICY SERIES. IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME READING CAMILLA. YOU MAY WANT TO GO AND READ PARTS 1 - 6. THEY HAVE ALL BEEN RATED ABOVE 4 STARS BY READERS.
SINCERELY,
Zola.
***
I woke up the second time with Kata there and Camilla gone. The morning seemed like another dream. I seemed to be having so many lately. This one had fractured images of me walking into the park, seeing Camilla exactly how I'd fantasized about her, sweating profusely in my suite. Camilla was speaking with me and - of all things - me not giving a damn. The actual sound of her voice was more tinny and strident than the soft baritones I expected. Then Kata, above me after I passed out on my kitchen floor. It was too much to believe. My work life was clean and simple. Do a job and get paid. Do another job and get paid again. Keep your head above water. My private life was filled with tawdry fantasies of me doing amazing things, stiff, smelly towels, leftovers in the refrigerator, and all the dirty sour clothes needing to be sent to the dry cleaners. Today they came together, and all the insecurities, the truths Kata and Camilla would need could be found by looking at my apartment. Kata had probably seen my unmade bed, gotten a whiff of my dirty laundry, and seen the clothes hung haphazardly in my closet. I was laid bare and vulnerable to her.
But she was here.
Still in my shirt and slacks from two days ago - was it really Sunday? I woke for a second time now on top of my bed. I felt like I just beached there, swollen and numb. I heard the news on the radio, and someone was typing away on a keyboard.
Kata had herself comfortable in my place. I was relieved; you don't help a man to bed because he partied too much, then stay and not get comfortable. If she had been hovering and not touching things, it would've meant she had fidgeted for the entire time I was asleep. She made her presence a bit more palatable.
I had a simple couch, a coffee table, and a television in my living room--one of three small rooms in my apartment, not including my bathroom. Like probably every man my age, who had a mother, then a wife, and then lived alone, the table had become the only place where all the artifacts of my life were placed. Everything I had in my pockets, from the post, crumpled takeout receipts, and the knick-knacks I gathered while out, would be dumped on the table in various piles and stacks. They would exist until I got the nerve to throw them away. It wouldn't take long for my living room to look like the only room I lived in.
Kata had mercilessly piled all the errant documents and trash in various corners of the living room, clearing the table for her laptop, a stack of papers, and a to-go coffee cup.
"Hello, Ed. You need to wash that gash on your forehead again." She said after a minute glance over to me - then snapping back to the screen.
I went to the bathroom without saying another word. I couldn't help being a shambling mess. Bruised by my face diving into the floor, a gory cut on my forehead, my face grey and stubbled. My nose and mouth were filled with dried blood. I didn't recognize myself. I had an image of Kata coaxing me up from the kitchen floor and helping me to bed. She had the advantage.
"I'm going to take a shower."
"Fine by me. You need one."
"Yeah, thanks for that."
I found some decent casual clothes, underwear, and socks, all things I'd never wear alone in the apartment. I gathered them up and carried them into the bathroom, setting up camp there like a kid on his first sleepover. In the shower, I cleaned the dried blood off my face, scrubbed, soaped, and shaved. I even went to the bathroom under the cover of the shower water. I came out feeling more composed.
She had not moved from her place. Now that I was awake, was she not planning to leave?
The answer was piled around her feet and covering the living room floor. Kata took all the documents from the office, about 20 cardboard moving boxes, and brought them to my apartment. She was dressed in baggy cotton pants and a white long sleeve cotton top that hugged her. A far cry from the severe office style I knew, but nonetheless stunning on her.
"We're going to finish what we started, Ed. This needs to get done. Party or no."
"I'm sorry for missing - "
"That's passed us. We're here now. We're committed. I'm fine with making... concessions... based on your needs and lifestyle, but this is my commitment as well. We're completing this."
She saw me as an alcoholic and most like concluded this was why I was a worker drone late in life. Why my wife had left me, why I was what I was. For her, I'm sure, it all made sense. I was a risk and this measure - her coming to my house and nursing me back to health wasn't anything but a short leash. It wasn't even worth trying to explain my side of the story. I had made a promise never to whine about my life again.
"What row are you on, Kata?"
"Ninety-four - only eighteen hundred left." She said with such disdain I couldn't help but feel ashamed. I slunk into a corner of the room usually meant for unwanted books, extra extension cords, and magazines I'd read a dozen times but wanted to hold onto them for the pictures, and carved out a place among them for my laptop, a notepad, and a cup of instant coffee.
The television was off its stand and tilted on the floor, fallen like a soldier in a war. The victor had given herself all the available space needed to stretch and make herself absolutely at home. She had the whole couch to herself. I was tucked away in a corner - of my apartment. Her feet were up on the table and the laptop on her lap. Her conquest was complete. My apartment was hers now. My time taken - for however long she wanted.
The work began with a lot of tension between us, of course. Her disappointment was palpable, thickening the air. Periodically, she'd get up to get a drink from a bottle of water she must have bought from the nearby store. Its premium gold and white label clashed with my more subdued, blue and brown economic surroundings. The tension clung on for ours. Our conversation was painfully transactional.
"Row 120 data?"
"TXY."
"Thank you."
A half-hour of python code, data entry, and crunching later.
"Row 240 data?"
"AGF."
"Thank you."
The silver lining was we moved very quickly. The lack of human communication was made up for in concentration and speed. Sparing pleasant conversation had us focused on the work, which, in the end, most likely was one of the factors that saved us.
Over time, our progress began warming Kata up from rageful to hateful, then to just morose. I'm sure she felt what she started as my-project-in-ruins-because-of-her-fucked-up-team-member turned into perhaps-we'll-actually-delivery-this-project-on-time.
By hour four, after being nailed to our chairs, Kata asked about dinner. We chose pizza delivery - just one cheese and one onion and pepperoni - her choices - and kept working.
I bought from an artisanal pizza place just about to close for fear anything less would regress her back to hateful - or worse, uncompromising disappointment.
The pizza arrived. We drank water with it.
"How did your Saturday go?" I asked between bites.
"It went fine, Ed. My team member ghosted me. I lost time on a critical project I bet my career on and worried something had happened - only to find out he was partying for an entire fucking day. You?"
I didn't apologize again. I didn't know what I could apologize for at this point. I wasn't a partier. Whatever happened to me, I was ashamed. But shame isn't anything to talk about to the person who feels it for you. Self-pity got me nowhere. I wasn't going to use it anymore - especially not with Kata.
Aside from turning the norms of decency between manager and team member inside out, there was a little thrill of liberation deep inside me. I had skipped out on a professional promise. The good little worker I was and had always wanted to be failed. And yet, it wasn't the end of my world. Instead, Kata was here. My work life came and accommodated me. I was enough to have her carry all the unfinished boxes of the entire project - out from the office, down the elevator, to her car, and then up to my apartment. She was so pissed, but she showed up. I couldn't explore why I felt good about it. Unlike my wife, unlike all those other women in my life, even after my behavior disappointed her, she came. I was worth something to her. I wasn't fired, blamed, or thrown under the bus. She was still committed - even to the worst of me.
We ate the pizza without talking--me at my corner and her on the couch. A radio played the same popular song for at least the twelfth time that hour. How did anyone hear anything different nowadays?
Through it all, we never stopped working. We slowed down slightly around the pizza but then picked back up again. We didn't stop to clean. The plates and boxes were piled on the floor in whatever open spots remained among the boxes. We achieved a flow. The room darkened by the evening and was silenced by our concentration and frenetic pace. I was only broken when I began calling out numbers for her to check. The check gave us continued hope things were going well.
"Row 1023 - HHF5."
"Good."
An hour later.
"Row 1207 - G2C12."
