The Position (9 page)

“Nothing,” I say. “I didn’t mean anything. I really didn’t.”
 

But Lazarus continues to study me, as if he’s just discovered something interesting. Finally, he leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers under his chin. “Michaela,” he says slowly, drawing out the sound of my name. I can’t bring myself to look at him. “Tell me you didn’t do all this for me…”
 

I’m paralyzed. I want to say no but nothing comes out of my mouth.
 

“Because,” he goes on, “you know this position is purely professional.”
 

I force myself to meet his beautiful, amber eyes. But I don’t say a word. Disappointment rushes over me. What’s wrong with me? If he has a kink for all of his other assistants, why doesn’t he want me? All this work. All the hope. For nothing. The mantra circles through my brain. *To desire is to suffer. To desire is to suffer. To desire is to motherfucking suffer.*
 

Finally, Lazarus clears his throat. He swivels the chair away from me completely, so that all I can see is the back of his head. “Are you going to read me the agenda?” he asks, his voice going flat again.
 

I stare down at the trembling paper in my hands and try to concentrate. “Of course,” I mutter. Fighting back tears, I proceed to read him the complete lineup for the day. Then I go back to my office and sit down at my desk, wishing I could close the door. What kind of office has no independent exit and no door? Who does Lazarus think he is?
 

I busy myself with small projects all morning, trying desperately to hate him. I purge unused icons from my computer desktop, update his calendar event archives, and download a series of maps and local information for every city he will be traveling to in the next six months. All the while, I feel my heart pounding overloud in my chest and finally admit to myself that this rejection has done nothing to change how I feel about Lazarus. I’m a lost cause.

The next time I look up, Lazarus is gone, and he doesn’t return for the rest of the afternoon. All day I squirm in my tight-fitting dress and watch the clock, dying to go home. Tomorrow I’ll put on my old glasses and the frump-wear again. If he wants his ugly assistant back, fine. I’ll go back to ugly. Anything to make him like me again. *What is wrong with you? *I think. *Seriously, what are you turning into? This isn’t love. It’s a sick obsession that you have to shake off before it fucks you up any further.*
 

At ten minutes to five, I head to the bathroom to call Liz.
 

“Do you have any more of that red wine?” I ask. “I think I need, like, ten glasses.”
 

As usual, Liz is all laughter and light. “Then I better make something hearty to eat,” she says. “Travis is coming over, too. I’ll be sure there are plenty of bottles on the table.”

I try to push away the discomfort at seeing Travis again. Shit happens. He’s still my best friend. But when I get back to my desk I find a paper taped to my computer. *Michaela, before you go home, please pull up these files, print them out (including the color pictures), and create hard copy folders for each. I need them ASAP. Thanks. Lazarus. *

I stare at the list in shock. This will take hours. Why does he need it now? And where the hell did he come from? I go out to the reception area and look around. There’s no sign of Lazarus.
 

“I don’t know what to tell you, sweetheart,” Christian mumbles when I show him the list. He throws on his jacket and slips his computer bag over his shoulder. “If you want a life of your own, don’t be an assistant for Jude Lazarus. That’s just how he is.”
 

I go back to my office but there’s still no trace of him. With an aggravated sigh, I collapse into my chair and call Liz to cancel. Then I get to work. It takes over an hour just to pull the files from the first project on the list. The hours crawl by and the light fades in the window until it is dark and the whole place has gone silent. Everything is very quiet and I can tell that everyone in the office has gone home. By the time I finish the fourth project my eyes are stinging and exhausted, and I’m seething with resentment. This is cruel and insane. Is he punishing me for something?
 

I’m just about to get up for a cup of coffee when the lights go out. I startle and suck in a breath. But I shake it off. They’re probably on a timer, I think. Carefully, I stand up and make my way through the office, groping for the light switch. It’s nowhere to be found. The city lights twinkle through the glass and the office looks strangely serene in the dark. And then I hear it. The sound of ice tinkling in a glass. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I scan the darkness, searching.
 

“Hello?” I call out. “Who’s there?”

At first it’s silent. Then one of the dim lamps in the sitting area turns on, illuminating a figure who had been concealed in the dark. It’s Lazarus. He’s sitting on the couch and sipping brandy. He looks at me, his eyes dark and serious. I stifle a shiver.
 

“What are you doing here?” I stammer. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” He doesn’t say anything.
 

“I’ve been here a while.” I can tell he’s a little drunk. “You just didn’t notice me.”
 

“Did you turn out the lights?” The confident, playful Michaela has vanished. Now my voice sounds uncertain and afraid.

Lazarus holds up a small remote control, but says nothing. For a long time he just stares at me. Finally, he takes a sip of brandy and holds it in his mouth to savor. Then he swallows. “Come over here.”
 

My whole body goes cold and I begin to shiver. “Why?”
 

“Come here.” His voice is stern and quiet.
 

I make my way closer and stop on the far side of the coffee table. Lazarus gazes at me, his eyes taking in every part of my body. They stop on my legs.
 

“Lift the skirt above your thighs,” he commands, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
 

My breathing is loud in the silence. I don’t question him. I don’t think about it. I just reach down to the hem of my skirt and slowly pull it up until my thighs are completely exposed. As Lazarus solemnly takes them in, I feel a fire growing inside me. My body begins to shake so much I can’t hide it. A part of me wants to stand there forever under the lusty gaze of Jude Lazarus.

“Do you want me to…” I begin in a faint voice. But he cuts me off.
 

“Stop talking.”
 

He tosses back what’s left in his glass and sets it on the table. Half of his smooth, sculpted face is in the light. The other half is completely in shadow. Still, I can see something behind his eyes. He looks conflicted, as if there were a tug of war going on inside his head.
 

“Okay. Put it down,” he snaps, looking away.
 

But instead of dropping the skirt, I raise the hem up a little further until he can see my lacy black panties. The gesture alone sends a shiver through me. *Who are you? *I think.* Have you lost your mind?* But I don’t care. I don’t care that what he’s doing is clearly fucked up. I don’t care that *he* is clearly fucked up. I don’t care that I’m afraid. All I care about is holding on to the lust in his eyes. And boy, do I.
 

Lazarus looks at the skimpy panties and lets out a quiet, controlled exhalation. Then he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the cushions. I watch him carefully, wondering if he’s going to fall asleep. Then he opens his eyes and looks sharply at me, as if he’s suddenly made up his mind about something.
 

“Michaela,” he says very slowly, savoring my name like the brandy. “Close the door.”
 

The Position Series

The Position
unfolds over the course of multiple short novels following the exploits of Michaela Clark and Jude Lazarus. There will be five books in all.
 

For more information and to sign up for email announcements about the launch of The Position 2, go to
www.sexynewadultstories.com
.

Turn the page to check out a free sample of Izzy Mason’s free standing novella,
Plata
.
 

Plata

Chapter 1

The club was dark and lined with mirrors. Colored lights flashed on a long, narrow stage, where a chubby woman with thick, black hair was grinding against a pole. The air was thick with cologne. Mexican strippers in short dresses were scattered throughout the crowded room, draped flirtatiously over men’s laps, skirts hitched to mid-thigh, fishing for cash. Along a velvet covered bench at the back of the room, a fleshy bleach blond in a tiny red thong was sitting on a mustached man’s lap, riding him like a rodeo horse as he squeezed her breasts and nodded his head to the thumping bass of the music.
 

Madison had never been in a strip club before. And why would she? They were places that existed in the exclusive netherworld of men, along with brothels and pornography. She was only nineteen, after all, and sex was still relatively new to her. Still she had to admit, it was something she found deliriously thrilling. But there was sex, and then there was
this
: a sordid display of desperate libidos, so drunk with lust that they didn’t care who saw them doing what, which embarrassed her immediately.
 

She looked at Enzo and furrowed her brow. “You’re serious?” she said in Spanish, which was the only language they ever spoke to each other. After all, Enzo’s English was terrible, and Madison’s Spanish was flawless.

Enzo was wearing one of his casual-chic tee shirts tailored to flatter his broad shoulders and narrow waist, and she could see a lot of the dancers watching him hopefully. He put an arm around her shoulders and gazed slowly around the room, an amused half-smile on his face.
 

“Just for a week,” he assured her. “Para quitarte la pena. To get rid of the shame.”
 

Madison coming to Mexico City was Enzo’s idea. He knew what it was like to be desperate for money, and he had no patience for preciousness. Life is about sacrifice, he always told her. The world is indifferent, and no one owes you a thing. If there’s one thing you need to remember, he’d say, it’s that you make your own luck.
 

Madison looked around the room at the Mexican cowboys grabbing the strippers and licking their breasts, sometimes even biting them. Her hands went unconsciously to her own breasts in sympathy. She wondered how they would taste after being sampled by every slobbering, peanut-flecked mouth in the place. Howdy, stranger! Suck this lollipop and pass it on down! She stifled a shiver of disgust. This was not the kind of place where shame was taken away. Here shame shacked up in your bones and hung out for the rest of your life.
 

The woman on the stage called down to Enzo with a flirtatious wave. She pushed her tongue against her teeth and made porn star lips, the way most girls do privately in the bathroom mirror. Enzo blew the woman an effete kiss, and winked. It was stifling and airless, and Madison could feel her glasses sliding down her nose. She leaned into Enzo so that their shoulders pressed together. His body felt cool through his jacket, as if the suffocating heat of the place couldn’t reach him. Enzo was absolutely at home anywhere, from an embassy party to a seedy strip club. The world was his oyster.
 

Enzo was Madison’s best friend. He was a gay dancer from Cuba she’d met while spending a year in Mexico. She’d been studying Spanish at a private Mexico City high school that did a foreign exchange with her public school in Denver, and Enzo’s dance troupe once came to their auditorium to perform. Even though Enzo was two years older than Madison, they’d hit it off immediately. And because he’d already been in Mexico for two years, he drove her around to all the social hot spots where even minors could get a drink. Since then, his career had taken off, and he was now frequently cast in music videos, commercials, and as backup for famous Mexican pop stars.
 

He turned to look at Madison, his eyebrows raised expectantly. “Well?”
 

The stripper knelt down on the stage to let an old drunk man lick her thigh. Madison cringed and shook her head.
 

“I think I’d rather die.”
 

He just shrugged and laughed, though she knew he thought it was a mistake. How was a girl like Madison supposed to transform into a glamorous Gentleman’s Club dancer overnight? She couldn’t even turn a head in the street. Besides, everyone had to pay their dues. Start at the bottom, even if only for a week or two. After all, that’s what Enzo had done. But he didn’t chastise her. Instead he hooked his arm through hers and led her toward the exit.
 

“Okay, doll. I guess we’ll just go straight to the top.”

Chapter 2

Money was something Madison had never really thought about. She wasn’t like some of the other girls in her high school who dreamed of marrying a millionaire, swooning over magazines of haute couture and jewelry. Madison was a bookworm. She spent her days reading in cafés, or meeting with equally brainy girls to talk about books. She was a diamond-in-the-rough type: tall and awkward, with wide blue eyes hidden behind oversized, unfashionable glasses. Her thick blond hair was shapeless and uncombed, and she always slouched about in tee shirts and baggy jeans. Madison didn’t ask for much, and she was more than happy with what she had. Until the day she woke up and discovered that she had nothing at all.
 

No one had ever expected her father, William, to be a good businessman. Money just wasn’t his strong suit. He was an English teacher, the girls’ volleyball coach, and Madison’s kitchen table tutor, helping her with everything from algebra to Shakespeare. In the summer he would take Madison and her mom, Virginia, camping in the Rockies, where he knew the best mountain lakes and pristine wilderness areas in the state of Colorado. He was a loving husband and a great dad, and that was enough for Madison and Virginia. No one could understand why he’d secretly gambled away their lives.