She was the most beautiful woman ever. When the light caught her hair it turned to spun gold and when she smiled, her lips would part like the red sea and every worry and fear would just drift away, like a feather in the wind. She made me forget how bad things were, how the climate was changing and how the forests were burning. Jenna Allred, just trying the name on my tongue felt good.I had made such a good choice hiring her.
I still remember her interview. She had walked into Dresden and Dresden Petrochemicals with a quiet sort of dignity. She was wearing a givenchy two-piece suit with a pale pink satin undershirt that was pulled in neatly around her slender waist. Jenna’s measured stride struck a careful balance between a likeable amount of nervousness and an inspiring amount of confidence. She was perfect.
I called her into my office and couldn’t help but meet her with a smile as she sat herself down carefully on my leather swivel chair. She toyed with the edges of her golden locks and batted her eyelids as I unfurled the luxury weighted paper upon which she had printed her peculiarly short CV. I briefly pondered why it had passed my perusal, so devoid of substance it seemed. It smelt nice, like violets and lavender. I felt my gaze drift from the paper to her face, I struggled to look away from her, so captivating were her eyes. In hindsight, all the CV’s in the world could not have sought to contain the glimmer of pure promise that those teal blue orbs contained.
“You don’t have any prior experience as an Assistant Buyer.” I said numbly, feeling like a small little space rock caught in her orbit. Jenna smiled.
“I realise this, but I do think I have all the necessary abilities.” She said, “One must accrue experience in a field, everyone has to start somewhere, don’t you agree? I’m tired of reading experience required, next to a crappy little wage. Have people forgotten what it’s like to start with nothing? Do we crawl out from the womb with experience as Assistant Buyers? When did we stop rewarding grit and dedication? Nothing can be gained without fresh blood.”
“I agree.” I said instantaneously, even though the vast majority of my twenty-or-so employees were middle-aged men with grey hair and bald patches who had perfected their roles over decades. I had always gone for the experienced sort, but when Jenna posited her view, I found my mind quite changed. She had a funny habit of widening my horizons. “I quite agree. Fresh blood. Yes. Now - it - it - says here that you do not hold the required degree-level education.”
“University? Disguised prisons where we are taught to think in the binary… no, not me. I may not be a master of the arts, or a doctor of the sciences, but I am every bit as smart and efficacious.” She leant across the table. I felt the hairs on my arms stand up. She adjusted my pens and smiled at me. “Next question.”
“What drew you to the role?” I asked her, my voice had raised a pitch or two. I felt something strange in the air, a quiet and dignified shift of power perhaps.
“Your company is very large Mr Dresden, it was founded by you and your brother was it not? Michael Dresden. I heard he died, I was so very sorry to hear about his death.” She said carefully. I gulped. All of a sudden I was not in the room with Jenna, I was on a crowded street below a crystalline skyscraper with a phone pressed to my ear. I can’t do this anymore Tommy, came a fractured voice. Don’t do this Mike, stop. They say when you jump from a high building, you lose consciousness. It’s a lie. I googled it after he died. Suddenly I was there watching. Mike’s eyes were wide and bulging, a loud splat, and then a find red mist that dripped into the gaps of the cold tarmac.
“Suicide.” I said to her, having returned from the horrors of my mind to my office. Jenna welcomed me back with warm eyes. “I don’t know why he did it.”
“Oh I think you do, but it doesn’t matter. I applied for the role as I want to work for a powerful organisation such as your own Mr Dresden, I want to be part of something, I want to leave my fingerprints on your masterwork.” Jenna said, gesturing around at the building and it’s golden candelabras and marbled floors. “Dresden and Dresden Petrochemicals is the largest distributor of plastics in Europe. Ambition is my motivator, in short. You should be thankful that I applied here. You’re company has had a lot of scandal after all, hasn’t it?”
“A fair bit, not unlike much of my sector.” I defended myself.
“Last year it was revealed that you had released a thousand kilo tons of hazardous materials into the Atlantic ocean, resulting in the total extinction of the endangered Albino Spotted Whale. They washed up onto the beaches in their thousands. The last, a lone calf, died right next to the decaying corpse of it’s mother whom it had slept next to for over a week.” Jenna spoke with vitriol. I felt myself growing pink around the cheeks.
What did we do Tommy, Mike was saying again, what did we do?
“They died in pain, because of you. That is not to mention the millions of other marine life you slew with your corporate greed. I would like to work here, but I would have the confidence that you have no intention of repeating these very costly mistakes.”
“I don’t, miss.” I said. I felt like a schoolboy again, at the heel of my teacher, tall and foreboding in her femininity. She leant into me, so close I could taste her lavender breath. She said something, but I did not hear it, I did not need to. Her voice was like honey. “The job is yours.” I said.
I would have given her my soul if she’d only asked.
She was a great worker. I can’t quite tell you what she did, but she was always hard at work when I passed her by, either buried in a computer or a book. I could not say the same for the other employees that worked in her department. Everyone except Janet in Accounts were performing extremely poorly. If work got done at all, it was rife with grammatical errors and misspellings. George Andrews, my executive buyer, was sending emails to shareholders, comprising of love sonnets and poems. I even had to let Jeremy go, for he had stopped working entirely, he would just sit there, staring at her, at Jenna.
“I’d like my own office Tommy.” Jenna said to me one day, and I agreed with a wordless nod. It was an ingenious move in the end as productivity returned to normal.
I can’t tell you when our relationship started. It was as If I had been dead all my life and suddenly I was alive. She was on me, in me. Her lips were on my neck and her long fingers were tugging at my belt, pulling my trousers down around my knees. “I’m married.” I whispered, but it was of no import. Julia didn’t matter, not anymore. It was Jenna, it was always Jenna. Her teeth would nibble at my flesh, but only where it was soft.
“Cancel the appointment with Ambassador Sweeney.” She said to me one day, sprawled and naked on my desk. She had the soft lines of a maiden in a Waterhouse painting. “He’s a crook and you know it.”
“I have to play their game if I want to keep my seat at the table, my sweet.” I said to her, “Don’t you understand, I’m not like them, I just have to pretend to be-”
“That’s how things are the way they are. You’re all pretending aren’t you? That’s how the game never ends. It’s the table that determines the rules, and the blind men who refuse to see the better course, the good course.” Jenna said into my ear with an eroticism that would not have been out of place in a Henry Miller novel. “That’s why all those whales died.”
“Is it all about the whales for you? If you love whales so much why don’t you go work for some marine-life non-profit?” Something in me snapped. Her gold hair was dulled and her eyes less warm. For the briefest of moments Jenna’s hold on me was broken, it was like I had come out of some haze, blissful thought it was. “You’re part of this now. You’re paid with their blood, just like the rest of us.”
“You’re still dumping in the oceans, I know you are, that’s not what Michael wanted.” She said, her voice was a comforting lullaby that I tried to push my way out of.
“Michael doesn’t want anymore, he’s dead. He’s a bit of dried blood on Newmarket Street and a rotted mass of flesh in Dunkeld Cemetery, he’s nothing anymore. This building is his legacy, all the profit margins, the end of year targets, the shareholders, all of them, they are Michael now.” I said. She did not flinch but seemed to wilt a little. She stood up valiantly to match my might. “I will continue. What we dump in the seas is a negligible amount. Much less than what some other firms do, we just got caught.”
“I understand Love, let us speak of other things.” She swooned, her cheeks turning a provocative pink and I was back in her thrall again.
Everything continued. No, the power was mine, I wore the suit, I held the briefcase. Jenna was my thrall. I met with Sweeney and cemented an exclusive trade deal with Northern Ireland that completely transformed our financial prospects of our fiscal year. We continued to dump some of our waste in the Atlantic, being careful to avoid any migratory whale pods, just to keep my Jenna sweet. Julia began to notice my affair, but she kept quiet about it. She liked my credit card too much.
“Why can’t I move in with you.” Jenna said in her coy voice, the one she used when she wanted something. She tossed her hair to the side and that lovely scent of lavender and violets confronted me.
“I have a wife and kids.” I replied. She narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t you happy with the penthouse? It’s nicer than my house anyway.”
“I want what she has. I want everything.” She bit my lip and pushed me down onto the desk.
That was all it took. It would be nice to have her at home, to never be apart. I began divorce proceedings in the morning. Julia got half my estate and I got the kids on weekends, but it didn’t matter, being a husband and a father was nothing compared to being with Jenna.
“Is this enough for you?” I asked her, throwing open the door to my life and giving her the only key. She didn’t nod, she stared at me, almost animalistically.
“Nothing will ever be enough.” She replied with a curt edge to her tone. She pushed me against the wall, where my children’s school pictures were hung. We had sex on the couch where I had laid out their Christmas presents.
Life at home with Jenna wasn’t as good as it was in the office. Now that she was my girlfriend and not my mistress, she opted to stay at home and not work. She’d demand my time, stand in front of the computer screen and rip up official documents when she didn’t get what she wanted. She got in the way. Sex became routine and even her beauty, while still intoxicating, seemed less startling.
“They had names you know.” She said one night, staring up at the ceiling whilst lying in a damp spot in the middle of our bed. Her dark brows were twisted and her beautiful face was marred by a look of grief, like I had broken her heart. I felt no sympathy, but a rare flicker of anger, for I had heard this nonsense numerous times before. Why couldn’t she just be happy? Why did she have to make everything so negative? “The whales you killed.”
“I don’t care about the whales.” I hissed. “I don’t want to hear about the whales anymore Jenna, I have given you everything, If I could give you their lives back I would.”
“But you can’t.” She stood up to her feet, the candle-light caressed the soft undulations of her beautiful frame. “They’re gone, just bones on the ocean floor or rotting flesh on the shore of some beach you don’t care to know the name of. Red mist on the tarmac.”
I can’t do this Tommy, I can’t live with it anymore. You weren’t there. You didn’t see. They were singing a sad song and it didn’t leave me. Goodbye.
“He went, you’re brother, he went to where they washed up on the beach, he inspected the facility from which the waste was dumped. He heard the song of sorrow and he felt bad.” Jenna said, she pressed her hand against my chest. “They lost so many. We lost so many.”
“I don’t understand.” I said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. We lost so many, but who were we? How had she known that Michael heard a song? How could she have known the products of his madness? Of his mania? I felt my thoughts twist and twirl together, a thousand warring urges and desires all doing battle in my brainstem. I have run out of time to make you change Tommy.” Jenna said.
I love her, even as I write here today in what will be my parting message to the world, I still adore her. I have heard the song now. I woke up one morning and found that Jenna was gone, only a small, strangely wet note had been left in her absence. It read as follows;
Gone to the office, See you soon. Jenna.
The office? Why had she gone there? She didn’t work anymore, the office was my domain now, not hers. Perplexed, I dressed for the day, slipped into the back of my driver’s car and headed to work. The car journey felt like it would never end and when I finally arrived and used my key fob to open the door to my office the most peculiar thing happened.
Water.
A rush of water spread out from under the door. The bottoms of my trousers grew wet and the liquid pooled into my shoes. Every move I took was precipitated by a squelch and followed by a splash.
“Jenna? George?!” I called. The air-conditioning had flooded again, I told myself, or there’s a leak in the ceiling. But it wasn’t raining, and the air-conditioning would be off as it was winter. It’s strange, the little stories your mind tells you to make you feel as though everything’s okay. “Jenna?”
“I’m here.” She called, except her voice was different. It was a pitch or two higher, and soft, so soft, almost as though she was singing. “La, la, da, de, dah.”
“Jenna?” I repeated, the water grew thicker as I followed her voice to the meeting room. All the desks were empty. The computers were sparking as water slipped into their plug sockets. I felt my feet come against something hard. I gulped.
It was George Andrews. He was face down in the water when I found him. I don’t know why I thought he was alive, for he was so still and cold. “Is that you George?” I asked.I flipped him over and nearly stumbled backwards in shock, for he didn’t look like George anymore, it was only by his signature gaudy tie that I knew it was him at all. His skin was a blue grey and all the moisture had been drawn from him. There were cracks in his stiff flesh, like fissures in stone and the skin had split apart around his neck, leaving giant canyons of empty dry, leather. I felt bile build in the back of my throat.
“La, la, da, de, dah, la, de, la, dah.” Jenna sang again.
The song drew me in, I moved wordlessly and every nerve I had was numb and deadened. The sound of her song surrounded me like smoke from a fire and the closer I drew to it’s source the more oppressive it felt. I felt my insides twist and tears well in my eyes. I felt sad, empty, I felt like I’d never be happy again, and I wouldn’t, how could I be? I was under the water, swimming in the deep of some blue gulf, and there was a bloated whale floating upside down, and a stink, like a dead rat under the floorboards . There was a little whale and it nudged it’s mother’s fin as if expecting it to wake and when it didn’t, it cried, an awful sound, so piercing, it knocked me back.
How could I? how… How dare I.
“La, la, de, dah, dah, dah, dah.” Jenna pulled me out of the water. Her silvery blue flesh was cold and wet and when her arms surrounded me I jittered and flinched. Her legs had fused together, and ended not in feet, but a large, floppy fin that was barbed at the edges. “Do you love me?” She asked and I nodded.
“I’m sorry.” I meant it Jenna, I’m sorry.
“Apologies mean nothing now, it has come too late.” She said, I wondered if she would end me like she had George, I would deserve it.
“No, not like George. I have something else planned for you” She had reached into my mind with her razor-tipped fingers and plucked out a thought. “I need something from you first. You will tell our story my love, a letter, from the heart, or at least the one I have made for you, and you will give it not to me, but to the masses, so the trespass shall stop.” Her honeyed voice dictated.
Here is my letter and I dedicate it to you Jenna, I have written it in cold red ink. Our love story. Let this also be my will, that all the fortune of Dresden and Dresden shall be passed, not to my children, who know me not, but to Jenna and the oceans I have poisoned. We humans are a scourge and the lives we tarnish shall have their justice if we do not cease our invasion. I surrender myself to Poseidon’s justice. I surrender myself to Jenna. Her teeth nibble at my flesh as I write, her fins lap at my spilling innards. It is a good death I think.I made such a good decision when I hired Jenna.