Page 22 of Pierced

“Well,” she says, taking in a deep breath and adjusting her blazer over her unreasonably effervescent breasts. “Speaking of contracts… I have one for you to look over.”

“Jesus. What now?” I stand from my throne and walk over to look. Before I can pick it up, she snatches it back.

“This,” she says, withdrawing it from my view, “is how you can help make things right. You wanna make things right? You wanna be let off the hook? This is how you can do that.”

She licks her lips, puts her finger to her teeth, checks the tip of her finger for lipstick, then lifts her chin, tips her head to the side, and looks at me with the eyes of a sleepy tiger. I’ve never actually seen a sleepy tiger, but I have no other way of describing it. Sleepy tigers are the most dangerous in my mind. They look docile but next thing you know they go all tiger. Goddamn sleepy tigers.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you know the woman I had dinner with last night?”

“Pepper?”

“Pearl.”

“Sure.”

“Pearl and I were talking about something and it gave me an idea.”

“Who is she?”

“Who?”

“Penny.”

“Pearl.”

“Whatever! You’ve got an idea that’ll make things right? What is it?” I ask with curiosity and more than a little anxiety.

“This contract,” she says, placing it back on my desk and splaying her hand out across it, “is your key to being forgiven. You have asked what you can do that will make me forget and forgive what happened?” She points one long red nail down at the piece of paper. “The answer is on this page.”

I shake my head slightly and then look around the room to find the goddamn hidden cameras. Because I feel completely confident that I’m being punked.

“Okay,” I say, slowly. “May I see it? Please?”

I really draw out the please. I want to make it a sincere question. I really do. I just don’t know how one does that. Oh, well.

She gets a glint in her eye and then pushes the paper to the edge of the desk. My desk. I’m not sure how the tables got turned with her sitting in the boss’s chair and me asking her questions that conclude with ‘please,’ but here we are.

I take the paper up, involuntarily making a smacking sound with my teeth and tongue as I do, and read. Here is what I see:

In consideration of injurious wrongs committed against one Myrtle Astrid Rothschild as perpetrated by one Pierce Constantine Chevalier…

I look away from the page to glance at Myrtle, who gives me a ‘go on’ look.

Wrongs that so damaged her reputation and standing as to cause permanent harm…

“Permanent harm? I gave you a promotion and a raise! How the fuck—”

“Keep reading,” she says.

I turn my attention back to the page once more.

Mr. Chevalier agrees to make psychic reparations (“psychic reparations?”) in the form of personal subjugation at the hands of Ms. Rothschild.

“What. The. Fuck?”

She nods. “Go on.”