III
(Twenty-nine hours before launch)
The meeting dragged on. Ana tapped her pen nervously against the folders.
The guy giving the presentation had an unbelievably dull tone of voice, and Ana wondered how he of all people had been picked to lead the project.
The project, by all accounts, was below average, but it would bring money into the company.
So all that was expected of her was to nod at the meaningless figures, stifle a yawn, and, in the end, approve a project that would be forgotten within an hour or two.
"And as the graph shows, by the end of the quarter there's a clear shift into the positive, a clean 17 percent." The man's nasal voice truly grated on Ana, so she cut him off.
"Thank you, Martin, the project has been presented satisfactorily, and I trust the higher-ups will agree with me about carrying it out."
Muffled sighs of relief went around the room, because the three-hour meeting had been brought to an end. Ana continued:
"As for the budget for the coming quarter, I want the papers on my desk on Monday so we can tackle the growing efficiency problem as early as next week. That'll be all for today." Then she rose, signaling that the meeting was over, and, steering clear of people, headed for the exit.
Her assistant held the door open for her, and Ana's skin prickled at her perfume as she passed.
The young woman was a die-hard hetero, yet she had a tremendous sensual effect on Ana.
The only person Ana had ever hired on the basis of sex appeal.
But the girl was so professional and hardworking that Ana had never once regretted her choice.
As it happened, being a manager at an international corporation was a challenge, but Ana loved her job.
She was the youngest female manager in the overwhelmingly male world of corporate leadership.
The envious looks of the male colleagues she outranked gave her incentive and motivation enough to keep climbing.
And since she was gay and the only high-ranking female manager, she wasn't even trailed by the malicious rumors that she used her body as a means of advancement.
She hurried down the hallway toward the elevator.
She heard the tapping of heels behind her.
"Miss Ana, I'll put the folders on your desk, and I'll pass the memo along to Mr. Martin that he's to deliver the project to you by Monday, all updated, in PDF format."
Warmth spread through Ana's belly. Oh God, she smells so good. The thought flitted through her mind, but she didn't slow, and, reaching the elevator, pressed the button.
"Yes, Monika, do that, and enjoy your long weekend. Any plans for the five days?"
"Of course — my boyfriend and I are really looking forward to the time we'll spend together." Monika stepped closer and whispered, while Ana's head spun: "I think he's planned something special — I saw the estimate and a reservation for some place in Lika."
Shivers ran through Ana's body. God, what is wrong with me, I'm not a teenager. She thought, trying to fend off the sensual currents running through her, while with a stony face she answered her assistant: "Don't do anything naughty." She smiled.
"Oh nooo, never, I'm a chaste girl." Monika feigned embarrassment and looked at the floor.
Both of them laughed. They had a semi-friendly, professional relationship.
But it was well understood who was the boss.
Ana said goodbye to the girl and stepped into the elevator.
She pressed the button that would take her down to the underground garage and fell into thought.
She wasn't usually like this, especially not at work.
What the hell was with her today? Was it the fallout from her failure the other night?
Or stress? Though she knew how to deal with stress with some expensive sensual massage, she didn't think that was the reason.
Her appointment with her favorite masseuse was two weeks away anyway.
No, it was something else, something that excited her and sent shivers of anticipation through her body.
And she knew the culprit, too. Damned Nick and his party.
An event meant to last two days over the weekend, one a select group of people spoke about with excitement.
It was known that Nick threw top-tier parties; he knew the best DJs, had arrangements with craft breweries, even had some sort of relationship with dealers.
Hard drugs, however, were never used at Nick's parties, only the light ones that either "lifted" people up or "brought them down."
Anyone caught breaking the rules could count on never coming to another of Nick's parties again.
The heels of her uncomfortable, expensive-brand shoes rang loudly through the garage as she approached her car.
She was still thinking about the party, mentally arranging outfits from her closet across the bed.
Nothing she pictured appealed to her — either the style was off or the color was wrong.
She sighed. She'd have to do some quick shopping.
She got into the car, started the engine, and called her favorite boutique:
"Ana here, I need something quick, something special. I want to be provocative."
She ended the call without waiting for an answer.
They knew her there, and the information she'd given ought to be enough.
If she wasn't satisfied, she could always try another boutique.
And no one could afford to lose a customer of Ana's caliber.
She picked up her phone again, sent Nick a message to arrange breakfast for tomorrow, drove out of the garage, and merged into the traffic stirred up by the coming long weekend.
The sun was shining, so she put the top down, letting the wind tousle her hair while, indifferent to the looks of passersby, she sang along to the latest hit blaring from her car's expensive audio system.
The shopping took up the rest of the workday.
But at last she was pleased with what she'd bought.
A black, not-too-short miniskirt. She wasn't a child anymore, after all.
A high-collared crop top with a gorgeous floral pattern on sheer fabric.
In tactical places the pattern covered, and in others it scandalously revealed.
The moment she saw the top, she knew it would be hers, so finding the rest of the outfit to match, along with the leather ankle boots, ate up the rest of her time.
Luckily, she managed to find everything in one place, which left her the energy and time to play with accessories, like the one-of-a-kind earrings and matching necklace that cost as much as someone's two salaries.
She didn't care — she could afford it, and female vanity demanded new rags and trinkets every so often.
Even though she had more than enough money, Ana wasn't conceited, nor did she behave like a snob.
She'd grown up in a children's home, or the orphanage, as the kids called it.
Adoptions were rare, and when one did happen, the chosen child didn't spend much time thinking about the dozens of children who would see the rare lucky one off with envious eyes as they left for their new home.
Ana moved quickly through her schooling, because books were her escape and she preferred studying to play.
She skipped grades, because even the teachers determined she was intellectually more advanced than her peers, and so she found herself in high school at just ten years old.
But an intellectually advanced child was not emotionally ready for high school and, naively believing in the purity of first love, she was raped at twelve.
That "closed her off," and only years of psychotherapy helped her, in the end, to give love a second chance.
And love appeared in the form of a small ward of the very home Ana lived in.
The girl, like Ana, had been abused, and they found comfort in each other.
The relationship ended by mutual agreement during their first year of studies, and Ana came out of it a stronger, more mature woman, and to this day she occasionally keeps in touch with her former lover to talk over old dreams and hopes.
The intellect that graced her, her disciplined work routine, and her innate charm helped her become the youngest enrolled senior student of management at twenty-two.
Professors wrote her recommendations unprompted, and the best companies competed to hire the attractive young lady of impressive reputation who had already proven she had a nose for lucrative opportunities and deals.
It took her just a year to earn the company money with her projects and to boost employee efficiency through structural changes to the rulebook.
Behind her back they called her a cold bitch, because she didn't waste much time socializing with colleagues.
And why would she? She'd soon forget them anyway as she shot up the company hierarchy.
But she was far from cold. On many nights she was lonely, and her occasional relationships didn't fulfill her.
Being gay in the traditional environment of Zagreb wasn't easy.
Though she'd become well known in the gay community and its clubs, she still couldn't find a person to fill her thoughts and her time.
There were opportunities, but even more misses.
She loved passionately, yet breakups and rejections brought back painful memories of the rape.
That was why she partied every weekend. She tried to fill the void that pressed on her soul.
The strain of work or the gym would be forgotten as she kissed her latest lover, consumed by passion in the filth of a club toilet.
But inside, all Ana wanted was to come home after a hard day at work, lay her head on the chest of a loved one, and breathe out, releasing the stress of the day.
She wanted a family. And, ironically, a piece of the family she'd longed for even as a child she found in the striking man who had recently moved into the apartment across from hers.
They clicked from the first, right there at the door of her apartment when he rang, apologizing because he didn't know where the trash cans were.
On impulse she invited him in, and they spent the whole night talking.
That had never happened to her before. In Nick she found a brother, a person she could share everything with.
She felt that he listened carefully to what she said, that he had refined taste in food and drink, and that he gave valuable advice.
The friendship deepened over time, and they became inseparable.
Giving each other emotional support, she finally got what she'd long dreamed of.
A shoulder to cry on and find relief on after a hard day at work.
On nights when painful memories woke the demons of the past, she would slip into his apartment and sleep on his sofa.
One chilly morning he spotted her shivering with cold in her sleep and carried her into his bed, where he warmed her with his body.
The fact that she was gay and he was hetero was never a problem for them.
He was always perfectly proper on the nights she stayed over, and he never looked at her with a man's gaze.
He was more protective toward her, and though that sometimes annoyed her, she valued and loved it.
And they had similar taste in women, too, so they spent a lot of time discussing and laughing shamelessly about the size of the breasts or the fullness of the backside of some passerby. Sometimes they'd catch the lust in the other's eyes as a passerby flashed her desirable attributes.
She parked in her spot, grabbed the bags of purchases, and went into her apartment. She tossed the things onto the bed. She'd sort them later. She peeled off her sweaty clothes and, with a sigh of relief, headed for the bathroom and a pleasant unwinding in the warm water of the shower.