‘No one’s here, right?’ Nancy asks in a loud whisper. This is when I should put my hand up over my desk. I could pop up like a meerkat, but at the risk of looking completely ridiculous, I continue hiding.Chloe Raymond, this might not end well, I realise with a sense of dread.
‘The cleaner is always the last one to leave, trust me.’
It won’t end well because that voice belongs to Julian, my boss. There were talks of drinks at six o’clock when the majority of the office left today; from their slurred speech and the sounds of them stumbling around, it appears that Nancy and Julian partook in those drinks. They continue to giggle and pause, and I hear moans, slurping and yes, a light slap. I don’t want to lookbut Rosie’s desk is the nearest to that doorway: I may encourage her to wipe it down tomorrow morning.
‘God, I want your big hairy cock inside of me.’
Oh man, words. Sometimes they can just go in your ears, into your brain and the images they conjure up will infect your memory forever. How the hell is his cock hairy? Like a gorilla? Or a yeti?Don’t laugh, Chloe.He is a hirsute man; we knew this already. I hear tearing. That’s either her tights or his big hairy cock making a break for freedom through his pants. I raise a hand to try and reach for my earphones but I can’t quite get my fingertips to them. So, I cover my ears, like a child who’s scared of thunder. But even then, I can’t quite drown out the sounds of her moaning and his low-grade grunts.
‘You are such a dirty bitch,’ Julian says.
This isn’t wrong. Nancy is always very bad at washing up her mugs. She is also a terrible architect with zero skills or pride in her work.Could you drop that in?But as they continue, I realise that this isn’t a one-night thing. This is ongoing. This is possibly the reason Nancy is still employed.How long has this been going on? How have I not noticed anything before?I wonder. Maybe I’ve been too busy being an architect.
‘Put a finger in my…’
I cup my hands tighter to my ears to drown out the next word. If it is what I think it might be then Rosie will need bleach as well. I wonder if they’ve had sex on my desk. I think about Julian’s wife and how Nancy has only just got married. There was beef at the wedding. Julian was at the reception. Yet while I object morally to the lying, the cheating and the very complicated nature of what’s going on, I can’t help but be a little jealous of the drama of it all. Mere minutes ago, I was thinking of my very sad, lonely life and how I was going to eat my dinner alone. I don’t want to have a lusty affair with a man with a big hairy cock, but as I’m hiding under my desk, I feel quite patheticto be here, alone, crouching in the dark like an office gremlin, especially after all the time and effort I’ve put into my job.
‘Make me come, you bastard. Call me your whore,’ Nancy commands.
I don’t know what sort of affair this is, but they don’t seem to be very nice to each other. Plus, Julian’s breathing doesn’t sound great.Give him a chance, Nancy. Was that the sound of him dying? Or climaxing? Either way, at least this whole charade will come to an end soon.Please go somewhere else for your second round, somewhere more comfortable like your car, a dodgy hotel or a bed. I take my hands away from my ears. There’s another slap and then a laugh.
‘Shit. I think we’ve torn the Spooner Group plans, Julian.’
I hear zips, them grappling to get into clothes, the rustling of paper as he sniggers under his breath. ‘No worries. We’ll blame that Chinese cleaning woman.’
‘She’s Nepalese,’ I whisper under my breath. Then silence.Shit, maybe I said that too loud.No, no, no. I gulp and curl myself into a smaller ball like a hedgehog.
‘Or we can just get Chloe to re-do them,’ Nancy says. ‘I swear that girl lives here most of the time. She really needs to get a life.’
And then there’s more laughter. It’s unbearably cruel. So much so, my breath shudders slowly, tears forming in my eyes. I hear footsteps pad towards the door, the latch clicking shut. I pop my head up to check they’re gone. My screen is still on. I look at the plans I was working on.My plans.I move them to another folder without shared access. I turn off my screen and I put on my coat. I put my middle finger up to the empty office space. I then turn and get the hell out of there.
2
JUNE
BEN
Naturally, no one else called Uncle Lorenzo’s house in Ibiza the ‘Casa de Clap’ except my dear lovely mother, Valeria, now passed. She never swore, except when talking about her brother, Lorenzo. Lorenzo was the eternal bachelor, the party animal who bought a massive castle-like house in Ibiza and didn’t do things traditionally. Every day was a surprise.He’s bought a horse! He’s marrying a woman twenty years younger than him! He’s been arrested for public nudity! He’s getting a divorce! He has a mullet now! And a tattoo of Jesus on his back!
My mama used to light candles for him in church. ‘One day hishuevoswill wrinkle up and die,’ she used to say, if not from sex then from the tightness of his swimming trunks. She used him as some sort of cautionary tale of how a man shouldn’t live his life. I can imagine what she would say now that I own his house:Bleach the place, Benjamin. Get a priest in. Better, burn it down.
But I didn’t. Pyromania and house exorcisms aren’t really my style. Instead, curiosity led me out to Ibiza to see the OG Lorenzo’s house. I was drawn to this place of lore andmagic from our youth, this mountain-based villa that was home to many a hedonistic party, where the women changed with the seasons. Yet, it was also the place we used to escape to every summer, where Uncle Lorenzo would host the most outrageously fun family holidays. Holidays my sisters also remembered so they encouraged me to come out to Ibiza to investigate, hoping that there would be a villa waiting for us to fill with generations of our families for summers ahead.
‘We’re HERRRREEE!’ Phoebe shouts as she runs towards me outside the airport in her denim cutoffs and woven waistcoat, metres ahead of our other sisters. She wraps her arms around me excitedly. ‘God, you look great. Two months away and look at that tan.’
I stop for a moment to register that it has been two months since I packed a lone bag and came out here to recce the joint, leaving the restaurant in the safe hands of my sisters. Now they’ve shut up shop for the weekend and come out to join me, claiming it’s a sisterly mini-break, but I know they’ve come to be nosy and check up on me.
‘I hope you’re using SPF?’ Norah says, not far behind.
I reach out for a hug, realising how much I have missed them, even though I might not say that out loud.
‘It’s hot, isn’t it hot?’ Norah asks. She’s using one of those small USB-powered fans which is basically blowing warm air back at her face. She wears linen trousers, a black vest top and a straw trilby.
‘It is but the fan ages you. You’re a bum bag away from looking ten years older than you are,’ I say, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
‘I’ll try and be as polite as I can here, baby brother. Fuck off,’ she says, sniggering. ‘Take my bags. You look like you’re about to sell me weed out the back of your van. A tie-dye vest, really?’
‘Tie-dye is timeless,’ I inform her as she scans down to my cutoffs.
