Steel World Inc. Chapter Seven

 

Arabella wasn’t taking or returning my calls. I sat at my cubicle desk the next morning and gazed at the list of seven missed phone calls I’d made so far.

 

“Typical behaviour from a girlfriend who’s pissed off with you,” remarked an off-hand James as he sat perched on the edge of my desk, nursing a cup of strong black coffee. It was basically multiple espressos poured into a normal coffee cup, for he looked a little worse for wear from the night before. If he could wear dark glasses in the office to hide the state of his eyes, he probably would have done so. 

 

“What am I going to do? She’s got this all wrong.” I had told James of the bizarre encounter with Karl Magnus in the VIP area, and of the two high class escorts who were playing some Master Slave game with him. I told him how Arabella had caught me looking at the girls, though I stressed I really hadn’t been guilty of much, and how annoyed she had been in the taxi back to her block of flats.

 

“Yeah, well, you have to be careful when you stare at other girls, mate. Don’t you know that?”

 

“I wasn’t staring.” I didn’t tell James that I was very much aroused by the sight of Tessa and Puta in their steel collars – collars that seemed to be locked about their throats. I didn’t tell him that Arabella might have noticed a bulge in my trousers.

 

“She won’t return my calls.”

 

I couldn’t even go down to her office on the Second Floor as my key swipe pass only opened the doors to the Fifth floor where I worked. The Second floor was off limits to me. 

 

“Send some flowers. Works every time. Big fucking bunch. The most expensive that Interflora has to offer. Do it now. Takes a while for them to deliver.”

 

“Flowers will fix things?”

 

“Hell, no. She’ll still be angry in front of all her office girls, and she’ll make a public display of binning your flowers in the sink of the office restroom, but afterwards she’ll probably go and rescue them and grudgingly answer your next call.” James shrugged. “Then take her out to dinner. Somewhere expensive. Eat humble pie and compliment her lots. Don’t look at any other skirts for a while.”

 

“I’m not used to this.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re not used to sex either, Rogers.”

 

“I wish I’d never told you that.”

 

“Don’t worry, mate. We’ll get you laid eventually.” He slapped me on my shoulder.

 

I phoned the local flower shop and ordered the most expensive bouquet they had. They promised delivery around lunch time. And then I set to work on my coding for the aviation system I was working on. 

 

The hours dragged by, but just after two in the afternoon I received a text from Arabella.

 

‘Thank you for the flowers,’ it read. There wasn’t a kiss at the end of it, but when I showed the text to James he assured me she was giving me an ‘in’, as he put it.

 

“Ball’s in your court, now, mate. Don’t fluff this one up.”

 

I rang Arabella from my cubicle, and thankfully she answered just before the call might have gone through to voice mail.

 

“Simon,” she said.

 

“Thank you for picking up!” My voice gushed a sense of relief. 

 

“I was of two minds.”

 

“I am so sorry, so very sorry. You won’t believe how sorry I am.”

 

There was a sniff from the other end of the line. “Did you have a nice night dreaming of your lovely little Puta?”

 

“No! I have no interest in the girl! None at all. I only said which of the two other men might prefer. You asked me. You insisted I picked one.”

 

“And you picked Puta.”

 

“And if I’d picked Tessa? Would that have been all right? Come on, Arabella…”

 

“Don’t make me laugh,” she said as she couldn’t keep a straight face. “You know men are not supposed to win with questions like that, so don’t even try.” There was a lighter tone in her voice now. I think she recognised how plainly impossible her insistent question had been from a no-win point of view. “Apparently, I’m a Free Woman.”

 

We both laughed now, and I felt the ice thaw a little more.

 

“I know. What on Earth was all that about? A Free Woman…”

 

“I really have no idea,” said Arabella. “But he did make it clear that a Free Woman is permitted to always speak her mind.” She sounded amused. “I have that right, apparently.”

 

“And men must always show polite consideration to her words.”

 

“Oh yes. Always.” 

 

It would be our little joke, at Karl’s expense. He had been so serious when he had lectured us! “I was worried about you,” I said. “You wouldn’t let me walk you inside.”

 

“You watched me walk to the front door?”

 

“Of course! Yes! I didn’t let you out of my sight while you were still on the street, especially when you were fumbling with your keys for so long in the dark, and you wouldn’t have seen if a man had come out of the shadows with your back turned.”

 

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded a little grateful. “I wasn’t thinking about that – about the danger. I was just furious with you. I mean… Puta!”

 

“She’s some silly call girl. Why would I pay for her company when yours is ten times as precious?”

 

“Only ten times?”

 

“A hundred times! A thousand! Do you want me to go on my knees while I’m talking? I will!”

 

She laughed softly at the other end. “The flowers were really nice.”

 

They should be. They had cost £145! I never knew flowers could cost that much. 

 

“I’m going to be spending weeks making this up to you.”

 

“Yes, you will, Simon Rogers. And I’m going to enjoy every moment. There had better be some contrite squirming.”

 

“Can I begin tonight? A table at a restaurant? A really good one?”

 

“Oh.” There was a hesitant pause. “Oh… I’m sorry, Simon. I have some work commitments tonight. You know I said my job is pretty much 24/7 and I could be expected to work extra at very short notice?”

 

“Really? After last night I desperately want to spend some quality time with you, Arabella.”

 

“And so do I. Oh, Simon, I’m so sorry, but I don’t have any choice. I’m still on probation. What about tomorrow?” 

 

Not being able to see Arabella tonight was frustrating, but I could imagine how high pressure her responsibilities were as a Junior Manager. And, having now met one of the Senior Partners, I could understand that she might want to keep them sweet and happy.  

 

“You’re smiling, Rogers,” said James as he loitered on the edge of my desk again with another mug full of espresso shots. Didn’t he ever have any work to do? I was up to my neck in coding. 

 

“I think she’s taken me back,” I said.

 

“Great work, mate. Just be more discreet with ogling bits of skirt in future.”

 

“All I want is Arabella,” I said, as an unwanted mental image of Puta kneeling, a steel collar about her throat, flashed up in my memory. How can any woman seem so sexy? 

 

“Right.” He seemed disinterested with that statement.

 

“How’s Kissy Face?” I was calling her that, now, in response to James referring to Miss Whitlock as ‘Whitsie’.

 

“Unbelievable in bed. Man, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

 

“Do you actually have any work to do?”

 

“Yeah, loads,” said James, but he showed no sign of getting on with any of it. 

 

I clocked out at Seven that evening, which was an early finish for me. The lights were still on from some of the second floor offices as I left the ground floor and exited onto the street. One of those offices would be Arabella’s and she would be sitting there working on… whatever it was she worked on: acquisitions and recruitment, I supposed. I sent her a quick text that read, ‘I’m done for tonight. Please don’t work too late. I love you,’ and quickly got back a reply with a smiley face and several kisses. I kissed the phone screen and gazed back up at the impenetrable windows which, from the outside, gave no indication of the interior.

 

I took the tube back to where I lived, and bought a bottle of wine from a Marks & Spencer food store as I walked the final distance. I felt relieved that we were past our first squabble. We had a future together – I felt sure of it. The worst part was I knew deep down that Arabella had been right. She did have genuine reason to be annoyed with me. I could lie to her, but not to myself. I had been aroused by Tessa and Puta. How could I not be? But the real test of a man is whether he succumbs to temptation, not whether he is tempted in the first place. Isn’t that the backbone of classic heroic romances? The valiant knight who resists temptation and stays true to his Lady?

 

How could I even possibly conceive of doing anything that might mean I’d lose her from my life?

 

Puta was undeniably sexy, yes, but she wasn’t Miss Arabella Whitlock. 

 

Arabella Whitlock was a Free Woman.

 

I paused.

 

Why had I thought of her that way? The way Karl Magnus had described her? As a Free Woman? It was meaningless. It presumed that not all women were free, when of course they were. It presumed that some were the opposite of ‘free’.

 

There was a word for the opposite of ‘free’, and that word was ‘slave’.

 

Again I thought of Puta and Tessa, kneeling submissively, their eyes lowered before me, their thighs parted, at least when I first saw them, and the steel shining around their necks. 

 

I was aroused again, and walked stiffly to the door to my apartment block. 

 

I cleared my mind of Puta and Tessa again, and thought only of Miss Whitlock, in her over the knee skirt, modest long sleeve tunic top, and bright smile. The lovely Miss Whitlock. Kneeling on a mosaic floor, in a short, scandalously brief tunic dress, her thighs parted to me, her hair loose and free, and a steel collar about her…

 

No!

 

I was confusing the two images. I felt angry with myself. I felt I was betraying Miss Arabella Whitlock just by thinking such things. 

 

The lift was out of order, so I climbed the flights of stairs to my flat and let myself in, depositing the bottle of wine on the kitchen table. I would spend the night in tonight, catch up on some DVDs. There was that box set of Breaking Bad I’d been meaning to start, for a while now. But then I saw it, lying on the table where I had left it last night: the piece of white card with the phone number. Last night I had phoned that number, and I had written two things down on the card: the address of a house on Hampstead Lane, and a single word: ‘Fidelio’. 

 

I located a corkscrew and opened the wine, poured a glass and sipped it as I gazed down at that card. 

 

Eleven PM. Whatever that was about, it was going to be Eleven PM. I had been invited. 

 

I sipped the wine again and considered this. I sensed I was on the edge of some mystery, like Neo in the Matrix, just before he is offered a choice of pills to take. What was going to happen at Eleven PM in a grand house on Hampstead Lane? I had looked up the address, and the house had all the markings of the sort of property owned by a Russian oligarch. I should have nothing to do with it. In all probability it would be something disappointingly mundane. 

 

What was it the taxi driver had said?

 

“It’ a number. Call it, if you wish to know.”

 

Know what? I hadn’t asked to know anything. 

 

“The choice is yours,” he had said. 

 

What choice? Why me?

 

I picked up my phone and called the number again, but when I did so, the line was dead. The number no longer existed. I felt a prickling sensation at the back of my scalp. This was the sort of set up you’d see in a film or book. But films and books always led to unbelievable scenarios that real life could never match. Even so. 

 

I sipped some more wine.

 

I had been meaning to start the Breaking Bad box set for quite a while now. There it was on my shelf, staring back at me. But could I turn my back on the mystery that was a house on Hampstead Lane?

 

I had one chance tonight, and then I would never know. For the rest of my life I would never know.

 

“Are you a man or a mouse, Simon Rogers?” I thought to myself. “What’s it to be?” I couldn’t decide. Part of me wanted to explore the rabbit hole, but part of me also suspected it would all be a waste of time. I already knew that Karl Magnus was a rich man who indulged in kinky master/slave relationships with expensive, sexy, call girls, who catered to his whims for what had to be a lot of money, and that the people he associated with were probably people I didn’t want to spend any time with. But nagging at the back of my mind was the thought that I had to know. 

 

I looked at the clock on my wall and saw it was 9.23 pm. I’d soon be past the point of no return if I wanted to make it there by 11 pm. 

 

I sipped some more wine and sent a text to Arabella. ‘How’s your work evening? I can’t stop thinking of you tonight. I really miss you, and I wish you were here. xxx’

 

In a collar.

 

No!

 

I would not think of her like that. 

 

Kneeling, with her thighs apart, on a mosaic floor.

 

I clenched my fist in frustration. It was just a fantasy, yes, but it was so wrong. I slumped on the sofa and waited for a reply. It took ten minutes and then I got a reply that simply said. ‘Still working. x’

 

That was it? Just two words and a kiss? I felt… disappointed. Okay, so she was probably busy, but she could at least have said she was missing me. I texted back with, ‘everything okay? I love you so much. Xxx’

 

Ten minutes later I got back a simple reply: ‘Sorry, busy. x’

 

The clock on the wall read 9.57 pm.

 

To hell with it. Breaking Bad could wait. I picked up my wallet, keys and phone and called for a taxi.