After Hours

After Hours

I stepped out of the elevator and looked along the darkened hallway. It was after hours, and all the employees had gone home for the day except for one. Light filtered through the door frame of the office at the end of the hall, and I slowly made my way down to it. Once I opened that door, I knew there would be no turning back.

I remembered the first day I met her. I was just stepping out of an office when she bumped into me knocking the fies I was carrying out of my hands. She immediately bent down to help me pick them up.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should have been more careful, but . . .” Her voice trailed away.

I looked up to see her with tears in her eyes.

“Hey take it easy,” I said. “It’s not like you ran over my dog or something. They’re only papers.”

She smiled wistfully at me as she pulled her shoulder length auburn hair back and wiped her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. As far as I’m concerned you did me a favor. I’d rather do this than have to take time off work to run Fido to the vet, and what if he died? Just think of the sadness and the expense of it all. I think I’d rather pick up a few lousy papers, wouldn’t you?”

She laughed. The sound rich, filled with warmth, inviting as if floated on the air between us. “Undoubtedly,” she said.

Her smile was lovely, and her dark brown, gold-flecked eyes danced.

“That’s better,” I said. “I think I’d rather see you smile than cry.”

“I think I’d prefer that, too.”

I finished picking up the papers and stood up.

“Here you go,” she said handing me the papers she’d gathered. Her hand touched mine, and lingered for an instant as she looked at me. “Thanks for being so nice about this,” she said. She withdrew her hand and with a departing smile left me standing in the hallway wondering if I’d ever see her again.

Now, I was here outside her husband’s office. I heard the elevator doors open behind me. The security guard was making his rounds. I turned the door knob and stepped into his office quietly shutting the door. The lamp on the desk softly illuminated the room. There was a door along the far wall and I heard the sound of running water. How long before he came out? There was a wet bar along one side, and the light winked in the glassware behind it. The décor of the room was in brass and glass and it complimented the oak paneling on the walls.

There was only one place I could go, and I ducked behind the bar just as the bathroom door opened. I heard his footsteps, the flick of a lighter, smelled the acrid odor of a cigarette. He was coming to the bar; his hard heeled shoes clicking on the tile floor. He was going to see me. I reached into my coat pocket.

A knock sounded on the door. He hesitated for a moment, then moved away from the bar and toward the door.

“Who is it,” he asked in a voice accustomed to command.

“It’s me,” a woman said.

I would have known that voice anywhere. I’d listened to it many times over the last few months. It was as soothing to listen to as a gentle summer rain. There was something in it that spoke of the loneliness she felt, and it never failed to draw me hauntingly, unerringly to her with its gentle caress. It was the woman I loved.

I heard the door open.

“Susan. What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.” There was a light tremor in her voice.

“Now?”

“I’m sorry, Robert,” she said softly. “It can’t wait.”

“What’s so important it can’t wait?”

“Me.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t you think I’m important, Robert?” She sounded hurt.

“I don’t have time for this.”

“You mean you don’t have time for me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. I’ve known it for years,” she said calmly. “I’ve tried Robert to be satisfied with the privileges I receive as your wife, to be grateful for your token admiration and affection. I’ve tried to convince myself your feelings for me were genuine, but they aren’t. They never have been.”

I peeked around the corner of the bar. Robert Jordan was sitting on the corner of his desk with his arms crossed. His craggy brown face failing to reveal any hintof warmth or gentleness, or sensitivity toward her. Susan stood opposite him. Her long auburn hair shimmering in the light from the lamp. I was struck once again by the beauty of her face. I thought only an artist with an eye for detail and exquisitely skillful and gentle hands could have created a face with such finely chiseled features, as if he had spent days molding each one together so it was impossible to tell where one began and another ended.

She continued. “All I’ve ever been is a status symbol, a piece of art to be shown and admired, but never to be touched,” she said quietly. “I thought I could live this kind of life. I even wanted it. After all, I had the respect, the admiration, affection and love of the most powerful man in this city; at least I thought I did.

“Is this going somewhere Susan, or are you just having your monthly?”

“No. It’s going somewhere. You’ve very nearly succeeded in destroying me. You chipped away at my self-respect; at everything I held dear until only a bare shadow of myself remained. I thought I had lost myself forever, but then something happened.”

Robert Jordan chuckled. “You mean someone don’t you?”

“You know?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’ve known for some time.”

“Then you know why I’m here?”

He laughed sardonically. “Of course I know why you’re here. You’ve found the love of your weak, pathetic little life, and now you want a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“You’re being ludicrous, Susan,” he said. “You’ve had your fun. Your moment in the sun. Why leave?”

“Because I love him, and I want to marry him.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I can understand you’re being swept away by emotion, but what happens after it goes away?” Surely, you don’t think you can live on what he makes after what you’ve been accustomed to getting from me?”

“It never was about money for me,” Susan said. “It still isn’t. It’s an issue of the heart, of fulfillment, of meeting the needs I have for love and companionship.”

“And you think this man you’ve been seeing can fulfill your need for love, for companionship? Susan, you’re naïve. Do you really think he’s in love with you? You’re the wife of one of the most wealthy and powerful men in this state; don’t you know that? It isn’t you he wants, but what he can get through you.”

“You’re wrong, Robert. He loves me. If you knew anything about him you would know he cares as little for what you represent as I do.”

“I don’t care to know about him, and as for what the two of you feel toward me I couldn’t care less.”

“I know.” Susan said. “Subtlety was never one of your strong suits. You made sure I stayed in my place, and I have the bruises to prove it. but it’s over. You can’t hurt me anymore.”

I had seen those bruises, and I knew he wasn’t above hurting her. Between the two of them the powers of good and evil were clearly defined. In Susan, I knew were the qualities that could stand the test of time, which endured adversity. I knew the faith, the hope, the unwavering belief she held that in the end she would have the life so long denied her. In Robert Jordan I knew were the qualities that could destroy them.

“You’re mistaken, Susan. There are many ways in which I can hurt you. I can make the price you pay for your freedom so high you and everyone you hold dear will suffer for your transgressions.”

He hesitated for just an instant watching her, and then calmly, coldly, slapped her hard across the face. She fell to the floor.

“This is only one of the ways in which I can hurt you, Susan, and it’s far one of the least painful. You think that hurts? It’s nothing to what I can to do you. Now this is what you’re going to do; you’re going to end your little romance with this great lover of yours and afterwards you’re going to go back home and take up your duties as my wife. Do you understand me?” Then he stepped forward and kicked her in the side. “I asked you if you understood me, Susan.”

Susan stirred, then rolled to her knees, one hand reaching into her purse.

“Answer me, damn you,” he said, “or I’ll give it to you again.”

She withdrew her hand from her purse a gun clutched in her hand, and pointed it at him. “I understand a lot of things, Robert,” she said. Her voice cold and steady. “Would you like to know what I understand? I understand that I have lived with you in a house without love, and without any of the things that give my life meaning. I’ve lived like an animal crawling around grasping, reaching out, for anything that might sustain me. Those are the things I understand.” Her finger tightened on the trigger. “But not anymore. You’ve hurt me for the last time.”

“Put that away,” he said, his voice crisp. “Who do you think you are, Susan? Do you really think you can pull that trigger? I don’t. You see I know you, and I know how much you value life. I know the compassion you have for people, and I know you can’t pull that trigger and kill me without destroying what has given your life the little meaning it has. You’re no murderer.”

“You’re wrong,” she said.”

“No, he’s not, Susan,” I said stepping out from around the bar.

Silence hung heavy in the room as if time were suspended, and I watched them looking at me with astonishment.

“Tad,” Susan whispered.

“Tad Jefferies, I presume,” Robert Jordan said looking at me. His face a mask of calm.

“That’s right.”

“Susan’s lover?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But I am the man who loves her.”

Robert Jordan threw his head back and laughed heartily. “You’re kidding right?” He was clearly amused by the situation. “You mean you’re going to take another’s man wife,” he said smiling, “and you haven’t even tried out the merchandise yet? How do you know she’s worth it?”

“Because I know her in a way you never can.”

“And what way is that?”

“I know her as a woman whose needs haven’t been met; a woman who’s yearned and longed for someone to love her and to give her the kind of life she’s always wanted and never had.”

“And you’re going to give her those things?” He smiled at me. “How sweet. What, may I ask, do you propose to do with me?”

I looked over at Susan. She was looking at me then her eyes widened when she saw the gun in my hand.

“Oh Tad.”

“I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore.”

“So you came here to kill me? I must say it’s interesting how things have turned out. Imagine the both of you showing up here in my office with a gun, and evidently the same idea. I guess that saying about great minds thinking a like is true after all.” He reached down for his glass and took a sip of his drink. “If you’re going to kill me the least you can do is tell me how you two met. My detectives were unable to inform me about that little piece of business and I really would like to know.”

“You’ve been having me followed.” Susan asked.

“Of course,” he said. “At first I wasn’t concerned. I thought it was just a fling, something you were doing in a vain attempt to hurt me, but then you started acting like you had some confidence, some self-worth, and that’s when I knew it was a little more serious than what I had first thought.” He picked up a pack of cigarettes off his desk, shook one out, lit it. He turned to look at me. His eyes were cool, appraising, calculating. “I must say I was surprised when I found out you, in a sense, were working for me. The only problem with owning a corporation is I can’t possibly know all the people who work for me.”

He shifted his glance back to Susan who was still lying on the floor. “Then to find out that you were actually going to leave me. I must say it was all kind of hard to imagine. I didn’t think you had it in you, Susan.”

I moved over to Susan my gun covering him and helped her up. There was a bruise on her cheek from where he had struck her.

“How did you two meet, anyway?”

“Right here. In your office building,” I said. “Susan had just come out of your office, and wasn’t looking where she was going because she was crying. She knocked a stack of files I was carrying out of my hands.”

“Love at first sight, huh?” He smiled. “How romantic.”

I remembered that day. After Susan had helped me gather up the files, I’d dropped, I’d delivered them, and then left for lunch. There was a restaurant across the street I frequented, and stepped in there rather than going back to my office. Stepping in, I noticed her sitting at a table alone. I waved. She smiled. We had lunch together. That had been the beginning, and now we were here at what I couldn’t help but think of as possibly the ending to what we had both hoped for.

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “She didn’t do anything to be ashamed of.”

“She didn’t? She’s a married woman, and she’s having an affair with you. I’d say that’s something to be ashamed of.”

“She isn’t having an affair with me,” I said.

Robert Jordan looked at me and laughed. “What would you call it,” he asked. “Perhaps it isn’t an affair in the traditional sense, but it’s still an affair.”

I looked at him. Never before had I hated someone so much.

“My friend,” he continued. “You came here with the intention of killing me, and so did Susan. I’d hardly call that something to be proud of.”

“I’d have a hard time feeling very ashamed of it,” I said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re like Susan. You can’t kill me because if you did you’d destroy what makes you different than me.” He smiled complacently. “You think if you get of me then you and Susan could live happily ever after, but do you two think you could ever really be happy knowing that you both had killed me? Can you precious love survive murder?”

I turned to Susan. I loved her, but I knew I couldn’t kill her husband, and looking into her eyes I could see she knew it too.

“You’re right,” I said. “Our love wouldn’t survive if I killed you, fortunately, we’re not going to, but you’re not going to win either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there isn’t anything you can do to stop Susan from leaving with me. You’ve threatened her, beaten her, and done everything in your power to keep her. Maybe you could frighten her, blackmail her into staying with you, but you don’t scare me. For all your power and intimidation, you lose.” I took Susan’s hand. “Come on let’s get out of here.”

“You’ll never be free of me, Susan,” Robert Jordan said, his face dark with anger. “Never.”

I looked at him. “That’s where you’re wrong. She already is, and if you ever try to hurt her again . . . I will kill you.”

Turning we walked out of his office; his ranting echoing in our ears. At the elevators, Susan turned to look at me.

“I can’t understand it,” she said.

“What?”

“What happened in there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said kissing her. “We’re together, and that’s all that matter.”

Susan smiled, and the elevator doors closed behind us.

The End