22. Marlowe
CHAPTER 22
Marlowe
‘ T he smoothies here are amazing, I have to say,’ Elaine tells me, gesturing around the palatial staff cafeteria.
It’s a couple of floors down from the executive floor, a mainly white, light-filled space that looks like it’s been designed by a Zen master.
Sure enough, there is an actual juice and smoothie bar that Tabby would love.
Apparently, the food is all fantastic and also free , which I thought was something that only happened at tech giants like Google.
As I gaze around the food court at the grill, the salad bar and the omelette station, I can’t help but calculate not only how much money I’ll save, but how much time and headspace.
No more assembling the next day’s lunch after Tabs has gone to bed.
Now I just need them to do my laundry for me, too.
A woman can dream, right?
‘Great!’ I say brightly.
Elaine is a lovely woman whose age I’d put in the mid-forties range.
Her light brown hair is styled in a long bob, and she has the most genuine smile.
I’m grateful to her for taking me under her wing, because to say I’m feeling discombobulated after Brendan’s particular brand of onboarding is putting it mildly.
I’m actually compiling a mental list of things I need to stock up on.
Lube, for sure, because that fit was tight.
Wrist supports, possibly—a high plank has nothing on doggy-style on the floor for putting undue pressure on the wrists—and definitely an ice pack.
I anticipate feeling very sore by tomorrow.
One thing I don’t need, it seems, is moisturiser.
Athena told me that Camille makes a big deal about aftercare with its clients.
Seraph has all kinds of tutorials about it, apparently.
Brendan’s brand of aftercare appeared to be mainly a cheeky slap on the bottom for a job well done, so it surprised me when I emerged from putting myself back together in the swanky marble bathroom attached to his office to find him patting the sofa next to him.
Annoyingly, he didn’t look like he’d just had a shagathon.
He was back to being perfectly put together, dark hair raked effortlessly back and his attire immaculate.
He winked at me, dropping to his knees on the carpet once I was sitting and picking up a tub of what looked like fancy body butter.
He then proceeded to rub said body butter into my carpet-burnt knees with a charming grin as I stared down at him, completely dumbfounded.
Now that was discombobulating.
After our tour, I make myself comfortable at my new desk.
I’m sitting in a spacious, low-walled cubicle next to Elaine and across from some of the other assistants who look after the rest of the management team on this floor.
My sleek computer makes the one I had at the Royal Academy seem like an ancient relic.
I just hope I don’t embarrass myself working out how to use it.
Elaine is a godsend.
Brendan mentioned to me that he was in dire need of an executive assistant to assume the bulk of his professional workload from her, but he certainly hasn’t shown any interest in the more administrative side of my, um, onboarding process.
When she and I settle ourselves on some sleek sofas over by the coffee machine for a debrief, three things become clear.
One, she’s had way too much on her plate juggling both jobs, two, she’s pretty hilarious, and three, she’s a gold mine of information on my new boss.
‘There are a few things you need to know from the outset,’ she tells me, and I lean forward, eager to get the inside track on Brendan Sullivan, billionaire CEO and sex god.
‘If you have pens you like, hide them. He fidgets with everything, especially in meetings. During the last quarterly management meeting, I made the mistake of leaving my favourite fountain pen on the table. By the end, he'd completely disassembled it—springs, ink cartridge, the lot—while explaining our expansion plans to the management team. Never found the bloody cap. Now I keep a drawer of cheap clicky pens just for him. He really likes clicking things. He has a fidget toy in his pocket, but basically nothing is sacred.’
I laugh out loud. That was not what I was expecting her to lead with. ‘Okay, got it. Cheap pens.’
‘Cheap clicky pens, remember. Right, next thing. He operates on what I call “Sullivan Standard Time”. He's either fifteen minutes early or forty minutes late—there's no in-between. For important meetings, I tell him they start half an hour before they actually do. He thinks he's chronically late, but he's actually been surprisingly punctual for the past year. He has no idea.’
‘Understood,’ I say, making a mental note to keep Brendan’s calendar on this adjusted time going forward.
‘Oh, but he absolutely hates it if anyone else is late, especially if he’s turned up early. He throws a total toddler tantrum. There’s nothing worse to him than people wasting his time, and it’s your job to chivvy everyone along so they don’t rock up late and derail everything. I usually call the key attendees up fifteen minutes before a meeting starts.’
I can see that. I can easily imagine Brendan pacing, throwing his toys. And it’s not much of a leap to understand why a guy who hates wasting time might incorporate his sexual needs into his office hours.
‘That makes sense,’ I say. ‘Uh—does he throw many toddler tantrums?’
‘A few. He doesn’t exactly have a filter, and it can come off badly. But don’t get me wrong—the guy has a heart of gold. Last summer, we had this intern on our floor for a few months. Harry. Brendan took a real shine to him. The poor kid was in floods of tears one day—he was only about twenty—and Brendan took him out for a walk. Turns out his mum had suspected skin cancer, but the waitlist on the NHS for her to get biopsied was months and months.
‘Brendan forked out for her to see a private dermatologist and then for all her treatments after that. Turned out she did have skin cancer, and it cost thousands and thousands to get it sorted privately. But he didn’t bat an eye. He thinks nothing of stuff like that. He’s one of the most generous people I’ve ever met.’
I smile dreamily. So he’s a big softie when it counts. ‘I’m so happy to hear that.’
‘He definitely has his moments,’ she agrees, picking up her coffee. ‘But then he can also be a gigantic twat. My little boy was off sick loads last term, so I had to work from home. My job’s a lot more flexible than my husband’s. Anyway, Brendan made me feel really shitty for it. I was totally capable of getting the job done, but he behaved like such a baby because he had to go out and get his own lunch for a few days. He can be so self-absorbed sometimes. And don’t get me started on the way he treats women.’
I stiffen. Brendan’s multiple personalities are giving me whiplash. The lifesaver who forks out on medical treatment for a woman he doesn’t know, and the guy who has zero tolerance for accommodating working mothers. It’s a good wake up call, and a vindication of my decision to keep Tabby’s entire existence a secret, as well as abdicating her emergencies to my parents, no matter how wrong that feels on every single level.
And now another alarm bell is ringing.
‘How do you mean?’ I ask faintly.
‘Well, I probably shouldn’t say, given it’s not in your job scope to bother with this stuff, but his personal schedule needs... creative management. Last month, he somehow double-booked himself with two different women on the same night at the same restaurant.
‘I had to call one pretending to be from the restaurant, saying they had a gas leak. Then I sent flowers from him with a handwritten note I forged apologising for the cancellation and offering to reschedule at an even fancier place. She actually thanked him for being so thoughtful. I have no idea how he gets himself into these pickles, except that the sheer volume of women he goes through makes it hard for him to keep up with the details, I suppose.’
‘I heard him asking you to send flowers to someone today,’ I venture.
‘Yes. That’s very standard. He likes to follow up, keep them on the back burner. But he gets bored so easily, bless him. Variety is the spice of life where that man is concerned.’
Jesus. How long will I last? How long before he runs out of ways to fuck me in his office, before being with the same woman day in, day out has him running for the hills? I sigh. I may need to hit Athena and the other seraphim up for some tips on how to keep things novel, at least for as long as it takes me to pull together the vast funds for Tabby’s US trip and beyond.
The familiar spiral takes hold, the blind panic that her fate lies in my hands. That it’s down to me to pull this off when I’m more out of my depth than I’ve ever been. I feel like Anne Boleyn and every other wife Henry VIII ever had, desperate to keep her mercurial king happy and focused on her and her interests for as long as possible.
The anxiety is so forceful it almost drowns out Elaine’s next piece of advice.
‘And for God’s sake, don’t let him anywhere near that coffee machine.’
O ne of the rules Seraph is very big on is keeping strictly enforced business hours. Obviously, these EA positions are critical roles with a tonne of responsibility and, as with any other important role, work-life balance can be tricky to manage. It’s assumed that there will be evenings where we’re on our laptops late at night or can’t unplug from our email or have to juggle key deadlines. But here’s the crux of it:
We can’t do it from the office.
Camille drummed this into me on the phone call where she formally passed on Brendan’s post-coital job offer.
‘Being a seraph is intense,’ she told me in her calm, modulated tones. ‘Intellectually, physically, and emotionally. And the men who hire seraphim are usually powerful and often entitled. They’re used to getting whatever they want and they’re not used to hearing no. If you don’t leave that office by six each night, before you know it, you’ll be their arm candy at every function. You’ll be their fully fledged escort. If they want you at your best every day, they have to understand that you need to protect your downtime fiercely.’
As a working single mother, this was music to my ears. The time when Tabby was at school was fair game for me to work on earning a living, but even at the RA, I always hated when three-thirty rolled around and I knew she’d be walking out of those school gates to her grandparents and not to me. Every minute I wasn’t with her felt like a lost opportunity. Less rationally, it felt like I was letting her down. Ridiculous, obviously, and probably more than a little co-dependent. But when you have a chronically unwell child, you learn to value every moment with them.
So it’s with relief that I go to get changed in Brendan’s bathroom on the dot of six. Apparently, Yan will drop by with my scores of Selfridges bags later this evening to deposit my new wardrobe. I’ll need to Marie Kondo the heck out of my current one to get my new designer threads into my closet, but that’s what I call a high-quality problem. I mentioned to Brendan that I’d probably cycle to and from home from work each day, and he instantly offered me the use of his swanky ensuite. This evening I’ll rent a bike, but from tomorrow I’ll be on my ancient, barely roadworthy one.
Into my big rucksack go my new dress and shoes as well as the outfit I arrived in. I’ve created space by leaving my so-called “hooker kit” in the spacious bottom drawer of my desk: all the stuff Athena told me I’d need to do my job without looking just-fucked all the time. You know, toothpaste and intimate wipes and a lot of spare underwear.
Brendan is still at his desk when I emerge in a tank top and cycling shorts, my hair tied up in a big bun, because it’s warm out there. It seems rude to be leaving before the boss, but I remind myself that upholding healthy boundaries is critical in this job, and I need to implement that from day one. But more urgently, I’m not sure what constitutes an appropriate farewell.
Thanks for the orgasms?
Can’t wait to see what you have in store for me tomorrow?
Not sure how I’ll ride home with my pussy this bashed up?
In the end, I settle for none of those.
‘Bye. See you tomorrow.’
He looks up from his laptop and stills. ‘Fucking hell. Feel free to just wear that tomorrow.’
I give him a shy little smile. It’s so surreal to think this big, beautiful man railed me right here where I’m standing earlier. ‘Not sure it’s dress-code compliant.’
‘You’re probably right. More’s the pity.’ He pauses, assessing me, and then pushes his chair back. Before I know it, he’s strolling towards me. ‘You doing okay? Today was a lot.’
I nod quickly. ‘Yeah. I’m good. It was… good. Thanks again for all the clothes.’ And, you know, the ridiculous orgasm.
‘My pleasure.’ He hesitates before sliding a warm hand around the back of my neck. ‘This is all new for me too, you know. This kind of arrangement. So when you’re not happy, I need to know you’ll speak up.’
I make myself come out with it. ‘I’m a bit sore. I might need to… be careful tomorrow.’ Ugh, I hate saying it. He’s bought a new toy, and he’s played with it precisely once, and it’s already defective. ‘Let’s just see,’ I add hurriedly. ‘I might be fine. I’m out of practice, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.’
He’s shaking his head. ‘No, no way. If you’re sore, you’re sore. You’re not a blow-up doll, love. I don’t expect you to just put up and shut up, okay? Like I said, we’re both new to this. And for it to work, we both have to be happy.’ A dirty smile spreads across his face. ‘For the record, you did great today. I went hard on you.’
‘Okay,’ I whisper. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m the one who should be thanking you.’
Our eyes are locked. He really is indecently attractive, but I’m still trying to figure him out. He clearly has a heart of gold, but, from the sounds of it, my early instincts about this being a nannying job may also be right.
I wonder what a Monday evening for Mr Brendan Sullivan looks like.
‘Do you have any plans for this evening?’ I blurt out.
He looks for a moment like a deer in the headlights. His fingers flex on my neck. ‘I’ve got a… dinner. In Chelsea.’
I nod brightly. A dinner. It’s none of my business. Our sordid little arrangement ends at six each night, and that goes for Brendan as well as for me.
‘Have a lovely time,’ I say cheerily.
I’m pretty sure his eyes stay on my bum as I walk out of his office.
T hat bike ride definitely didn’t help my swollen undercarriage. When I walk gingerly into my building, it’s weird on so many levels. I feel like a weary traveller who’s seen another world and can’t unsee it.
Tabs and I live in New Cross, just south of the Docklands in South East London. It’s an area that can optimistically be described as “up and coming”, but there are still far too many grotty parts. Its only positive, really, is that it’s close to my new place of work—around a fifteen-minute bike ride if I pedal quickly.
Our flat is in a sprawling estate which is a mix of government-owned council flats and those which have been sold to private owners or landlords. Ours is one of the latter—we rent it from a rental company—but it looks and feels every bit as depressing as a council flat, and don’t get me started on the communal areas.
I punch in the code for the outside door and creep past a gang of youths in the concrete hallway. Even in the summer, it feels damp in here. They’re all in black hoodies, faces barely visible, the stench of weed thick in the air. They’re swearing loudly, and they’re intimidating as fuck. They’re blocking the mailboxes, and I quickly decide I won’t be checking my post today. I hate that my parents and Tabs have to make the journey through this area to get upstairs to my flat, and it’s a miracle that Athena ever braves this place at all.
Not that any gang would dare mess with Athena.
As I climb the stairs and leave the fog of weed behind me, the smell turns to piss. Yes, my neighbours piss in the stairwell from time to time. Can they be any more revolting? It’s such a world away from the huge flower arrangements and gorgeous windows and soaring architectural details of Brendan’s offices. This place is a roof over our heads and not much more.
I’m sweating and out of breath as I reach the fourth floor. There are lifts, but they’re often out of order and I use them as little as I can. I don’t like the idea of Tabby and I being trapped in a smelly metal box if some of our less salubrious neighbours decide to join us. It’s always a relief when I can lock the door of our little home behind us, because it means we’ve reached our sanctuary safely.
But here’s where my return gets more surreal. When I shut the door and drop my rucksack behind me, I’m met with a vignette of domestic bliss in this basic little shoebox, and it hits me like a blow to my stomach.
Tabs and my parents are sitting at the small kitchen table, dirty plates stacked neatly to one side and an array of playing cards between them. The evening sunlight streams through the kitchen windows, bathing the room and its occupants in a golden glow while also drawing attention to the urgent need for an updated paint job in this living area.
But while the white paint is greying and peeling, especially in the corner that was damp all winter, the vibe of our home is cosy and safe. It smells deliciously of Dad’s cooking—his carbonara, if I’m correct—and it’s spotlessly clean. My parents are as protective of me as they are of Tabby, and it looks like some serious housework has gone down while I’ve been out.
I’m scrupulously tidy myself—if we’re going to live in a little box in a dodgy building in a dodgy neighbourhood, then I’m damn well going to make sure it’s immaculate—but I know it’ll only be a matter of time before the housework starts to pile up, given the intensity of this job.
My parents may not know exactly what my new gig entails, but they know it’s a step up from my last role, and they also know it’s a necessary part of the funding for Tabby’s op. They can sense I’ll need extra support, even if I don’t ask for it.
And, on day one, they’re already stepping up.
All of it should make me happy: the clean kitchen; the card game; the delicious food that awaits me; the contented faces. I should be ecstatic as Tabby launches herself out of her chair and flings her little body against me. Mum’s religious about her changing out of her uniform after school, so she’s in white daisy print shorts and a lemon-yellow T-shirt with a huge daisy appliqué on the front.
And I am ecstatic; I am. I hug her back and pepper the top of her blonde head with effusive kisses. I’m delighted to see her, delighted to be home.
But it’s as if I’m viewing my daughter and my parents through a veil of sorts. Because while they’ve been carrying on with their wholesome, innocent days of learning and childcare, of housework and family time, I’ve been permitting a man I barely know to buy me tens and tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of clothes. I’ve allowed him to get me on my knees, to order me about, to put his dick in my mouth and in my pussy in the aggressive splendour of his office, and in return I’ve taken his money. Gladly.
So forgive me if knowing that the three people I love most in the world are ignorant of the depths I’ve plumbed in the name of money is horrifying rather than reassuring.
Don’t get me wrong. They can never know.
I just wish I didn’t have to sell my soul quite so comprehensively to ensure my daughter’s future.