Chapter 14
Clay
I slept all Sunday morning, and most of the time I’d wake to the reality of my life and I’d disappear back into my dreams of Mason, and how I felt in his arms before the nightmare would begin and hopefully not last too long.
On Monday I woke sore with every muscle aching in my lower half from my hips to my thighs, and calves.
I’d never had a workout like that at the gym, but this had been a good workout, I thought as I wondered when he’d return.
Looking at my clothes, a dark knock-off suit I’d bought to get this position, because I’ll wear it today.
And if anyone was crude enough to ask where I purchased it, I wouldn’t have to lie.
Did Mason sign off on a bonus I could only dream of because he thought I was wearing my father’s hand me down?
Yes, I needed the money to purchase clothes.
Well, that had been a lucky guess, and he was right.
I couldn’t go to that party with secretaries making in the six-figure range wearing a suit from the Men’s Warehouse. Is that store even open any more?
Instead, I had gone to Macy’s to purchase a suit that appeared to be something my father would choose. It was a sensible three-piece dark blue suit a man in his sixties would have been proud to wear, but I was in my twenties. I would have done better to go to the Men’s Warehouse.
Thinking about this had me smiling because it worked in my favor, or was it me that caught Mason’s attention and not that loser standing before him with “the mesmerizing face and beautiful hard young body and strong cock.” His words not mine.
I reached the subway station and hurried along through swarms of men and women rushing into the subway where everyone stepped into a train going to work on Monday, hoping that it wouldn’t stop where I’d be late, or the train wouldn’t stop because of some ungodly accident.
That was all I needed was to be late on my first day on the job because heaven knew what people would think.
I couldn’t get a seat this time of the morning and didn’t need one, therefore I stood with the train jerking into each stop and me lurching forward.
I tried reading the morning paper of the guy facing me, but my stop came quicker that I had expected and I could read only the headlines AI is Replacing Attorneys.
What the fuck? AI wasn’t news to me, that didn’t catch me by surprise, but it probably caught some of my former classmates.
Many of my professors preached about AI and how we needed to learn all we could on how to use it where we wouldn’t get replaced. Some of their students took that to heart and started using it to write their papers, until they realized that half the class turned in the same papers.
And then there were students who weren’t listening and declared Professor Steven as preaching gloom and doom, and especially the millennials, and how it would erase our jobs one day, and I guess that day had come, but I thought I was ready if it did.
I tried to get ahead of the curve and realized I needed some kind of training in AI, and I took courses on how to use it, and I followed up with those professors who offered those classes.
After completion of the courses, I felt I was ready to take it on.
Yes, I had been ready for AI, but not for what I would walk into early in the morning when I strode into Halifax and Mason.
It became apparent if I didn’t learn how to use Artificial Intelligence to help me write legal briefs, I too would be looking for a job sooner than I expected, but I thought it wouldn’t be this soon, I guessed as I stepped into the elevator with dudes I’d met only recently at the Christmas party nights before.
They nodded and I got no vibes that my life was about to change overnight as quickly as it had previously.
I waited, then stood to the side and let everyone off the elevator before I strode into the law offices of Halifax and Mason because I wasn’t in a hurry, after all I might have been the first lawyer into the office.
For some reason I didn’t want to be the first. Maybe I had seen too many black and white westerns where they sent out a scouting party, and the men never came back.
That was my doom and gloom scenario which took me back to my childhood of being the first to stand up in front of my high school class and declare that I was gay, and I was in love with the star quarterback. Needless to say, that didn’t go well.
It had been just as Marty and Tyler had said, only it appeared much worse.
Eyes dropped as if they had seen what had transpired in Mason’s bed.
The rough sex we had engaged in that had been refreshing and exhilarating not to mention so damn sexy I had to play that moment when Mason got on all fours, and I placed my palms on his ass cheeks and slapped them leaving my fingerprints on his smooth pink ass. It was then I stroked my length—
“Mr. Clayton.” The secretary whom I couldn’t remember her name, and if she hadn’t been gazing at my papers on her computer would never have remembered me either.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.” I had a lot alright, and I wanted to enjoy every moment I’d allotted to my head space where I’d filled it with the thoughts of Mason and his handsome face and his beautiful ass that was now mine, because I’d claimed it, and indeed he was a virgin.
“Mr. Clayton, Mr. Halifax would like to see you in his office.” I stood eyeing her with a blank stare. She must have thought I’d lost my mind and was ready to crash out.
“Yes. Yes. Of course. But I have to place my things in my office first.”
“It’s better if you take your things with you,” she said, and I glared at her and she shook her head up and down, as if to say yes, it is what you think.
Oh shit. I knew what that meant, just like I knew the pity stares from the other lawyers. When I passed each one there wasn’t a smirk, but a “That’s fucked up and I feel you.”
It wasn’t what I expected. There was a commiseration, a kind of sympathy they felt for me because maybe they’d walked in my shoes where they were just trying to get a job at their profession only to lose it in a second.
I’d hurried into work early, expecting the office manager to send me instructions about what was expected on my first day on the job.
I guessed he had been out of it because of the party and some of the party goers and workers said that the office manager, who was a bachelor, and had nothing better to do but email us on our days off to remind the new hires at Halifax and Mason that we were always on the clock and not to forget it.
I knocked on the red and brown mahogany door that had bold letters of Halifax in gold and black and a strong no-nonsense voice invited me in.
I knew I was walking into the lion’s den, and I didn’t have any protection.
I had just been hired by Mason without Halifax okaying it, and Mason, because he was a partner thought he didn’t need his approval, however, I had been given a salary and bonus even I thought was excessive for a first year associate.
When I strode closer to his desk to sit, Halifax had his back to me and he had been no doubt observing the scenery of tall impressive buildings overlooking parks and everything that made Manhattan a powerful city.
Standing until Halifax turned to face me.
“Do you know why you’re here?” he questioned with the tone of a prosecutor who asked a question knowing the answer all along.
“No, sir.” I answered truthfully, because I didn’t know. I could guess by the tone of his voice, but since I couldn’t read minds I didn’t want to guess.
“Well, you should know. I had been advised that you have broken your contract with Halifax and Mason. You do know what the contract says.” I remained silent and my face wasn’t hard to read, but as long as I didn’t admit anything, he couldn’t read minds either.
“You’re a smart boy,” he said, picking up his Mont Blanc pen and tapping it on a paper on his desk, then rearranging his faux Christmas flower.
A red poinsettia and a gold one. “...and I assume Mason hired you because of your brain, and not your looks, although I can see he may have had a lack of judgement, but there is no excuse for you. You’re just starting out your career a first-year law student, and to sleep your way up to the top isn’t tolerated in this firm.
“We have some of the most highly sought after clients and we employ some of the best brains in the country. We bring in billions of dollars a year or more, and Mason is very important to this firm as part owner, and one of the best and toughest lawyers I’ve met in my life time and I’ve met many, and none could come close to Mason. ”
There was a silence and he stared at me. His cold blue eyes tried to read me, but if he had I wouldn’t admit it.
I waited for him to end his speech, but he was a lawyer after all, and he was setting up his case to fire me and justify why he’d do it, and all the while Mason wasn’t here to stop him.
Minutes passed, but it seemed like an hour and his speech wasn’t coming to an end any time soon.
Finally, he said, “Sit.” Why now? So he could continue berating me the entire time while I was thinking, Just do it.
End my misery. Tell me I’m fired so I can exhale and be done with this shit and get on with my life, and you can end this legal brief.
“Do you have anything to say?”
I wanted to say you’ve said enough for the both of us. I’m guilty, what more do you want? However, I wouldn’t give him an easy way out. He would have to work for it.
“Do you deny that you slept with Mason?”
How would he know that? Oh yes, Mason’s wife, but then that’s a secondary source and he knows better than to throw that at me. He would have to prove to me by giving his sources.
“I don’t deny or admit anything. I plead the fifth.”
“You can’t plea the fifth we’re not in a court of law—”
“But you’re a lawyer and you’re treating me as if I’m guilty of breaking my contract. Who said that I slept with Mason?” Halifax squirmed in his seat and took in a deep breath.
“I’m not at liberty to say. But you were seen climbing into his limo.”
“He was taking me home.” I neglected to say it was his home, but if Halifax could dance around the truth with only hearsay, then why couldn’t I.
He had to prove me guilty and I wasn’t going to admit anything because I had too much to lose, and I didn’t have a job and they would have a right to take back that bonus and I had spent so much of it that I couldn’t afford to admit to anything except my name, marital status, and social security number.
“I see I’m getting nowhere with you,” Halifax said, narrowing his eyes.
You’re dismissed. He waved his hands at me, “and wait for your new assignment. I’m giving you another office and another position.
That of a researcher and forget what Mason promised you, your salary will be cut to the low six figures. ”
Thinking about that salary and living in Manhattan with the rent sky high and this economy, the secretary would be better off than me.
I hoped Mason would return soon because I needed him like yesterday for more things than to secure my job.
At this point I would have done better letting Halifax fire me and trying to get a position somewhere else.
Rising from my chair with weak legs feeling as if I’d been beaten over the head with that statue of Lady Justice without her scales where Halifax had placed prominent on his desk between the Christmas ornaments, she wore a blindfold and held a sword in her hand where she had just severed my balls in Halifax’s name.
When I managed to get to the door, and take a deep breath, because my job had been secured for now, all I had to do was hang on until Mason returned, however, I had to find out when that would be.
Then I would know what to do. After gathering my courage and balls from the floor, I ambled back to my office.