Lloyd's Angel: Prodigy
June 2011
I stood in the office, curiously unwilling to sit in His chair. I'd been in it any number of times, either alone, waiting, or sharing it. The feel of it against my bare skin was like an old friend. The scent of the leather, subtly perfumed by His cologne, made me think of "home." Today, I chose the sofa.
Mr. Sullivan didn't make me wait long. "You know, Angela, this office is yours." He put a metal lockbox on the coffee table before sitting beside me. "Lloyd left everything to you, including his ownership interest in the club. Hell, you spent as much time here as he did!"
"Not today, Danny." Mr. Sullivan always wanted people to call him Danny -- unless they were prosecutors or tax collectors. It was one of his quirks, like the way he liked his employees to leave as little to the imagination as possible. I was shockingly overdressed, in a dark knee-length dress and jacket and modest 2-1/2 inch pumps, but we'd just come from the memorial service.
It was scandalous enough to have two young, unrelated women sitting in the first row, without dressing like a call girl. My Lloyd had always been a believer in subtlety, so I honored him by dressing carefully, looking appropriately mournful, and not hanging all over Rose -- or letting her hang all over me. A number of the other girls had gone, too, but they'd been in back and not in the faces of the people who'd known Him from his other jobs, or even school.
"Well, this is the only stuff from his apartment worth keeping, apparently. Lloyd wanted it given directly to you." I knew Mr. Sullivan was more affected than he let on, but he didn't let society's expectations bog him down; he probably felt the sooner this task was out of the way, the sooner he could get back to thinking of new ways to wring cash out of Home Run's clientele.
I felt a little thrill of anticipation, looking at the box. I'd never seen His apartment, or felt a need to visit it. Home was wherever I could offer myself for His enjoyment; I felt myself juicing up at the thought of it, and then remembered that cherished wand of flesh would never again pierce my body. The box was His last gift to me.
Mr. Sullivan looked at a piece of paper he'd brought with him, and rotated the combination lock on the box to 721. "Sentimental bastard," he said under his breath. "That was the day he and Alexandra were married," he added in response to my look of inquiry.
After a quick glance at him, I unlatched the box and flipped open the lid. There were a number of old composition books and a smallish jewelry box, and that looked like it. The jewelry box was on top, so I lifted it out and opened it.
"Sentimental bastard, indeed!" Mr. Sullivan laughed as we both stared at the contents. "Jesus, Lloyd, you packrat."
I picked out the ring He'd worn until the night He'd created me, and the slightly smaller copy of it. "Their wedding rings?" I guessed.
Mr. Sullivan nodded. "Yup, and that's Alexandra's engagement ring." He poked a fingertip at the smaller of the two diamond rings in the case.
"I thought Lloyd was only married once," I commented. He'd been very clear I should never call Him Master, so of course I was very careful to use His name when talking with others. "Was this an anniversary ring?" The other diamond was much larger, and the style was different, too.
"No," Mr. Sullivan answered, laughing louder. "It's the engagement ring Sis got from Jonathan before she decided to marry Lloyd." He looked at my face. "What, you've never heard that story?"
"No." I wanted to know everything there was to know about Him, but He almost never talked about His life before me. "What happened?"
"Well, it's a long story," Mr. Sullivan began, with the relish of somebody who knew it was a good one. "Let's just say Alexandra was engaged to another guy when she met Lloyd. She dumped him a couple months before the wedding, and chose Lloyd instead! I have to say, I didn't think much of him when we met, but he grew on me." He smiled absently. "I guess she didn't give back the ring when they broke up, although it looks like she got the watch."
"What?" I thought I'd been following him, right up to the end. "This?" I asked, pointing to the old Rolex. "I gave it to Lloyd as a birthday present two years ago."
Mr. Sullivan gave me a funny look and picked up the watch to look at it more closely. "I'm sure this is Jonathan's -- see this scratch? It's from a bar fight. My sister gave him this watch as an engagement gift. How did you get it?"
