First and foremost, congratulations and welcome to the executive team at Mercer Media. I look forward to working alongside you in the demanding role such a position requires. Together with Helen Paul, we handle the various demanding needs of Mason Mercer, CEO.Please familiarize yourself with the contract prior to your commencement at 08:00 on Monday morning.
I have scheduled the required appointments. Your driver, Clinton, will collect you sixty (60) minutes prior. I can confirm that the doctor’s office has received a copy of your medical records. You will have a complete physical examination, including a blood draw and contraceptive injection, as outlined in clause 11b of the contract. Waxing services as per clause 14c will be performed in the afternoon. You are welcome to take lunch between appointments, please direct Clinton to your chosen establishment.
I have attached several documents requiring your signature; your prompt attention to this matter is appreciated. Helen has secured a courier for your Mercer Media lanyard and key fob, parking permit and credit card, which will not be activated until Monday, when the PIN will be provided to you.
Once again, congratulations on your appointment. Please reach out if you have questions pertaining to this email or the contents enclosed within.
Yours,
Trystan Hynd
EA to CEO
Mercer Media.
The removalof each wax strip represents another layer of my soul leaving the salon. I keep myself pretty tidy down there, but never quite the hair-free state requested in the contract, unless done with a razor or depilatory cream. No one can contort their own body to remove hair from their back door anyway, I figured. Melany with a ‘y’ has no trouble finessing molten wax, talking animatedly about how liberating and addicting a full Brazilian wax is, and how often she’ll see me in future maintenance visits. If it were up to me, Melany, I would not be on my hands and knees in your treatment room. It is my last appointment after a medical examination, blood drawing, and contraceptive injection. Now I know why the waxing was scheduled last, because after I’m in the required hair-free state, the last thing I want is to have a doctor anywhere near the tender skin.
Pen isbeyond bursting when I arrive at Covet after an inordinate amount of time stuck in rush-hour traffic. The idea of it being an hour is as perplexing as using the word rush to describe lanes of grid locked traffic stuck in place like pawns on a chessboard.
“Come here, you!” Her girly squeal is equal parts infectious and beckoning.
“Oh my god. Pen, I cannot thank you enough!”
Penny had texted when Melany was mid-rip on a stretch of wax in the rear. As much as answering her text would have been preferable to attaining a hair-free state, the burgeoning tears meant I couldn’t see who was texting, let alone answer.
Racing around her sparse yet functional desk, her long arms wrap me in a genuine hug. As the talent director of Covet,the business will enjoy a hefty commission. As my friend, she is thrilled to the back teeth, as my ma would say, for my success.
“I know how life-changing this is for Cait. Just remember, please,” she says squeezing out the last word as if pained, “not to discuss a thing about the job unless it’s with me as your agency representation, understood?”
Her words come from a place of sage wisdom. She left school at seventeen to pursue an international modeling career. Fresh-faced and lithely built, she strode catwalks for couture designers and graced many magazine covers, including those managed by Mercer Media. That was until a horse-riding accident at twenty-two affected her ability to sit and stand, much less walk in heels and glittery garments. She took on a talent acquisition at Covet, the agency that took her on as an unknown with stars in her eyes and zero in her bank account.
“Understood loud and clear, boss,” I say, pulling back to offer a salute.
“I’m not your direct boss, babe. Your boss will be the one driving his big dick into you when you’re bent over his desk. I feel it’s important not to confuse the two.”
Her dry humor aside, it has been made crystal clear that a Mercer NDA is an NDA on steroids. It’s more watertight than a goldfish’s butthole. Any hint of a clause breach and I’ll be on my backside on the pavement after being hoisted through the rotating front glass door. Then the legal mire will consume me like a quicksand bog does a stricken deer until nothing is left. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and do not even think about working in the city or state again. Perhaps leaving the country might be a safer option, only the might of the Mercer name has tentacles that reach around most of the globe.
“Bri, it’s a role. Think of yourself as an actor. Pull the maskinto place and portray it as if you were in the moment, only make sure your head stays out of the clouds, yeah?”
“Of course.”
“There is a lot at stake. I don’t need to remind you of that fact. Be you, but remember the sex you are about to have isn’t attached to any relationship, romance, or happy ending. It’s a job, like filing and spreadsheet data entry, and month-end financials. Don’t glamorize it, don’t build it up to be anything it’s not. She steps me back, her arms extended. There’s now a void between us. I just know she’s going to fill with something confronting, a blade through the soft, billowy clouds she warned me not to live in. “Because if you do, you will not be getting fucked; you’ll be getting fucked over. Hardcore. Bri, please. Whatever you do… don’t fall in love.”
The last remnants of perspiration sluice from my overheated skin under the first pulse of tepid water. Eight positional showerheads, including the multi-functional overhead rain shower, coat my skin in cooling water to rid the evidence of my thrice-weekly martial art sessions. Silat, an Indonesian form of martial arts, kicked my ass until I applied similar principles from my Brazilian jujitsu days as a teen. That, like everything else I take on, was mastered with the intricate precision required of a Mercer. Competency is not an option; it is a failure of character in our family.
Being merely competent is fine for any amateur, excelling beyond all feasible standards is the Mercer way. As the youngest child of Michael and Alice, my older siblings Mitchel and Monica were already on board that bullet train, even if Nic was riding in coach. Monica, or Nic as she prefers to be called, bucked the insistence on Ivy League schooling, opting instead for a degree in art. As my sister, I looked both up to her and down on her with equal measure. Yes, I was almost a foot taller, and did I think her working in some trendy museum as a collection curator was appropriate? Well, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought about her choices; Nic was her own person. Oh, how much I longed to have one-tenth of her internal fortitude. Her ability not to give a single damn about what others may or may not think about her choices, she did them anyway. She was adamant about shelving our last nameand taking Frazer’s name, Klein, until Magnus stepped in and persuaded her to hyphenate at the very least. He’s never as gracious with the males in the family, me especially. My ass is ridden hard like a colt on a muster. No concessions are given, and once I turned eight or nine, I stopped asking for them. From him, or my parents, all three were as strict as British school ma’ams with lofty expectations and intolerance for diversion, deviation, or disappointment. I felt the glare of their microscope lens more harshly than Mitchel or Nic did. It could be that, being the youngest, I was expected to learn valuable lessons from my older siblings. Should they falter or teeter, that was a teachable moment for me alone. Or perhaps it was because I was the third child. Mother and Father had a favorite, and no love was left over for me. Magnus Mercer was a cigar-smoking bastion of industry who had no time for the noisy nature of toddlers and children, so my one comfort came from Marin, my grandmother. Hers was a tone of soothing clarity, her touch warm but not caring to the point of replacing what should have been maternal devotion. She despised her daughter-in-law with the burning intensity of a thousand suns and often referred to her as Malice, behind her back, of course.
An unexpected and unwelcome morning meeting with Magnus is not the way I wanted to start my day, especially with a new EPA starting. However, while drying myself with a luxurious 2000-thread-count Egyptian cotton towel and tying it around my hips, I ponder the contrasting nature of these two experiences. One austere, cold and ruthless; the other, Sabrina Arden Broe.
Fastening the pale gold tie to complement my classic black Tom Ford suit, I step out from the walk-in wardrobe, the steam from my recent shower still lingering in the air like a fog. It’s just past 7 a.m. and I’ve been up for hours. Arising in inky darkness amid the distant wail of sirens heard from the parkinggarage, because in the penthouse of Onyx One, you cannot hear a peep from the lowly, exterior environment. Then the ride to the studio to spar with the best Silat masters in the country before hitting the weight room and heavy bag for another hour. Trystan ran on a treadmill, the center of his gray T-shirt a wet mass clinging to his shiny skin.
“Hello, Mason,” Magnus breathes in the raspy tone he adopted after decades of cigars and whiskey. “So good of you to stop by and make time for an old man.”
I turn in a circle, hands thrown out to the sides for his benefit. “Old man, where?”
His answering grin is devoid of humor. At eighty-one, he could pass for a man at least a decade younger, if not one of fresh retirement age. He worked hard, and if the rumors were true, played even harder, although the hefty sums in his accounts allowed for the best of organic skincare and subtle surgical tweaks.
“Save the bullshit for the boardroom, Mas. Sit down, son.” He gestures to one of the Barcelona chairs that are uncomfortable, but the only option. His office, his rules.
