Page 31 of The Boss

“You can’t apologize your way out of this! Fuck you!”

“You’ll be grateful we did this.”

“I can’t believe you right now.”

“There’s more we need to discuss later. I need you up here for work in half an hour. If you do not want to consent to a test, that’s your prerogative, but it will impede our relationship until it’s done.”

She hangs up on me.

She hangs up on me!

I stand here, appalled, embarrassed, and on the verge of tears. What the hell am I supposed to think? The woman never once asked me about this before she plastered her mouth all over my genitals and fucked me with something she got from under her bed. I thought it was some kind of kink of hers. Apparently, she’s simply a fucking idiot!

A rude idiot. Because, no, I don’t care if refusing to take these tests means our relationship is put on hold. She should’ve thought of that before calling me up to her office Friday night.

Honestly, I should have thought of it first too. But I didn’t, because I was so over the moon that someone like Julianna Marcon wanted me to become her girlfriend.

I’m the real idiot here. Do I expect a woman like Ms. Marcon to think those things through? She’s never had to. She has people reminding her that she can’t throw money at everything, like some viral outbreak.

The fact I’m being thrown under the bus and treated like a diseased mutant doesn’t help.

But it does put things into perspective. And, as I am about to find out, this perspective is only going to get more fucked up.

I text Julianna. No longer do I think of her as my girlfriend. She’s my boss, a woman who is essentially paying me with a job and sex to play a role for her.

“I will do it, if you promise to go over everything with me tonight. I think we’ve had a miscommunication about what we both want.”

“Sounds great. I’ll get us a reservation somewhere private.”

I’m not excited when I go up to see her. That excitement has died, like the last of my naiveté.

Chapter 13

Alessa

Dinner with Julianna has a different air from last night. The décor of the restaurant isn’t as sultry; the food isn’t as sumptuous. The only thing that remains as wonderful as the night before is how good Julianna Marcon looks in her office dress.

I avoided her for much of the afternoon, which was easy enough since she had meetings and Vern trained me to use the executive network. Ihadto avoid Julianna. Because every time I saw her, I suffered such an enraging hurricane of anger and lust that I barely recognized myself.

Suppose it was good for me, though. I needed to ground my mind, heart, and loins from the high they had experienced for the past few days. Julianna Marcon is not my girlfriend, no matter what she says. She’s got some twisted ideas about dating if she’s presenting me with a nebulously legal contract stipulating the major points of our “relationship.”

You heard me! She presents me with a contract!

At least nothing’s been left out. The first half is an HR-approved job contract detailing my administrative role at Bradford & Marcon. Standard stuff, like my insurance, other benefits, rate of pay, and the general expectations of my job (and what I’m not allowed to do, both by law and the rules already laid out by Bradford & Marcon.) This is something they could’ve gone over with me at the office, but the reason I’m seeing it in private is because of the second half.

Julianna has gone out of her way to detail every aspect of our relationship.

To be fair, she’s offered many concessions so I can stay on top of my schoolwork, and I guess I have my personal life. My mornings, regardless of whether I wake up at her place or not, are mostly mine. When my job starts in the afternoon, however, I’m hers. Almost literally.

I keep my expression neutral and my anger checked as I read over the contract in silence. Julianna gets up to use the bathroom, confer with the maître d’, order a replacement of wine for the glasses we finished, and shoot the breeze with someone in a nice suit. When she returns, I’ve read through most of the contract and consumed another glass of wine. I needed it.

How many women have been in this position before? I honestly want to know. This is beyond some sugar-baby shit. I mean, she’s only paying me for my actual job. I don’t get some million-dollar bonus for sticking it out. I do, however, get a lot of financial benefits like free trips in her private jet, luxurious dinners like this one, a shopping budget so I can deck myself out in the finery of a billionaire’s main squeeze, and she’s silently agreed to help me cover my expenses so I can save paychecks. This means my rent, utilities, and groceries are covered.

I’m no longer expected to take TriMet since I have access to her car and driver whenever I need. Screw that, I’m still getting next month’s pass. I don’t know how long this will last!

If there’s anything this contract makes clear, it’s that any “relationship” we have is purely about sex and her image. I get to be her public lover, and I suppose I must play the part of a real girlfriend when we go to functions, but behind closed doors, I don’t expect her to be a loving, caring girlfriend. She wants me for sex. Good sex, I hope. From some of the things written in weird jargon, she wants some kink, too. As long as I feel that I can get out of it if I’m uncomfortable, I’m fine with it.

That’s what my logical side tells me. But I also know that, aside from relationships that lasted up to a few months when I was in high school, I don’t have a lot of relationship experience. What I think might be fine may turn into something that breaks my heart later on.

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