“Met someone about a month ago.”
His therapist gazes at him with her usual demeanor of boredom. It’s soothing in an odd way; someone who isn’t afraid of him.
John’s an utter asshole of a boss. A monster. Inhuman. Inhumane. The devil himself. He knows it, and has heard it confirmed behind his back many a time. It’s not surprising, really. That miserable childhood of neglect and abuse battling to see which could do the most damage had been followed by a decade of high-pressure school life and even more soul-crushing ladder-climbing broken up only by a short stint in the military where the last lingering bits of his idealism had been obliterated. By the time he’d clawed his way to the very pinnacle of his industry he’d had literal blood on his hands, a trail of metaphorical bodies behind him, and the only thing keeping him from stepping out one of the windows of his entire-top-floor office had been the sickening thought that his father would sneer at him from the pits of hell for giving up.
He is the man who has everything, and he’d had nothing to live for.
“Random stranger. Literally bumped into him at a gallery. He looked at me like he was looking at the art, and it wasn’t appreciative. Then he called me - what was it - a touch-starved, love-famished skeleton of a child hiding behind money, playing with lives because no one ever taught me to play with blocks.”
This gets a blink and movement from both eyebrows. Her mouth even twitches, like it’s trying to remember how to smile.
“He’s infuriating,” John continues, grinning idiotically despite himself. It’s fine; her office is sealed off and soundproofed, and he pays her well to keep his secrets.
“We got into it right there with flutes of champagne still in our hands, and he’s giving as good as he gets only he looks like he’s having fun, listening to me tear into him and even threaten to destroy everything he cares about.”
A short sigh from his therapist.
“Yeah, not good, I know. I don’t give a shit and neither did he. He was…interesting, and what absolutely drove me ‘round the twist was that he acted like he had the same sort of ‘oh what an interesting little bug’ thought about me.”
“And he’s…nothing! No family connections worth mentioning, no real money, no high-placed career. But what a brain! He knows a little bit about everything and everything about most things, and nothing that I do or say or buy seems to impress the man. It feels like trying to entertain someone by doing a bit of magic, you know with a rabbit and top hat, only they know all of the tricks already and they’re even explaining what bits you’ve got wrong, or where your technique is shit.”
Trim legs uncross themselves, then re-cross the other way, and his therapist actually speaks.
“And you went from threatening to wining and dining…how?”
“Oh, the usual,” John waves off. “Had him tracked down and looked into, then I invited him to dinner. He turned me down. Said that being the only two diners for the night at Araki sounded boring - boring! I have had corporations and daughters and wives thrown at me with Araki - but that I was welcome to join him at a crime scene instead, if I promised not to ask too many stupid questions. Said my knowledge of firearms and corporate espionage might come in handy solving a murder. He consults with the police off the books, apparently.”
“He thinks…that I need some excitement in my life.” John huffs in amusement. “So it’s been a few weeks now, of offering to take him to Italy or Japan for a weekend and instead eating Chinese takeaway at his flat while he rants about how unimaginative criminals are, or getting dragged down dark alleys by the hand like a little kid so we can watch for a burglar or blackmailer or whatever. The turnover rate in my security detail’s giving HR the fits.”
“And is it just wining and dining, or are you also wooing and doing?”
“Getting there,” he says, then frowns and admits, “I think. I hope. God this is miserable; not being sure.”
“Yes, you look very broken up.”
“Don’t I just,” John grins.
