My Pretend Fiancé

"Fiancé?" Jennie asked incredulously to Leonard. She slowly backed away from him and arched her brow suspiciously. "You have a fiancé?"

Leonard took her hand to try and salvage any chance of him having sex tonight, but he found to his dismay that he had no idea what to tell her. Instead, he stuttered. “I, uh... I-I don't-- she won't be back for a while, come on,” he urged Jennie, his secretary from work, back on him.

“Uh, are you sure?” she asked, following his lead, as she straddled closer on to him. “Is she gonna come back?”

He shrugged and briefly looked away before smiling at her. “Come on.”

========

“A-And it's, like... I don't know what it is I keep doing wrong, Danny, I don't!” Lenina cried heavily against his chest and then pulled away to take a sip from her cup of tea, and then went back again to crying. Danny patted her gently on the back and kissed the top of her head.

“Are you sure it was him?” Danny asked in a soft voice. Abruptly tilting her face to his, Lenina sniffed and nodded.

“No one else has the keys to the house,” she added as she began to pull away from his chest and took another sip from her tea. Then she asked irrelevantly with delight, “What kind of tea is this?”

Danny grinned at Lenina. “It’s not. It’s Starbucks coffee.”

“O-oh…it’s tasty.” They both laughed momentarily then focused again on the real matter at hand. Shifting slightly in his seat, Danny scratched his ear and looked away from Lenina.

“So you two just got into an argument and he goes off to sleep with another girl? Do you know her?”

Lenina shook her head thoughtfully as she looked up into the ceiling. “I’ve never seen her before.” Danny’s eyes flashed a fierce disappointment as he now watched her intently drink away from the big plastic container. She was so childish in so many ways that it was a bit difficult for him to fathom why she had decided to be engaged in the first place. It almost seemed like she didn’t know what she was doing, even more so, the slightest idea of the upcoming responsibilities that marriage could bring into her life. Lenina seemed overwhelmed already.

“Why are you marrying him, Lenina?” The question was very blunt, and in a way, very hurtful towards Lenina, when she suddenly watched him with her own innocent venom.

“He’s my fiancé,” she answered in a small voice, pointing out the obvious. Her stare towards Danny was blank now, almost as if she knew saw nothing there. As if there was nothing to look at.

“I mean do you love Leonard?” Tonight, Danny was set on getting some answers because only then would he be swayed from his emotions for Lenina. If only her love for her fiancé could be proven to be true. “Lenina, do you?”

======

“Jennie, I have something to tell you,” Leonard winced a bit, holding her waist away from his, attempting to hinder any further advances from her. He raised his eyes to her when he suddenly felt her weight on his lower stomach as she straddled him. Her blouse was off with only a black push-up brassiere and gray low-cut dress pants. Jennie had been sitting on his lower stomach for five minutes since Lenina opened the door to his bedroom door. Ever since then, Leonard’s sexual intentions became jaded, meanwhile, Jennie would always ask him if he was certain of his decisions. Subliminally, they were both stalling for God-knows-what. However, once in a while, she would be tempted by Leonard’s impressive build and begin to touch and caress his abdominal muscles. He liked the feel of her fingers, but Lenina never ceased to cross his mind.

“What is it,” she asked. Whether she wanted to or not, Jennie was practically trained to listen to whatever it was that Leonard had to say because he was her superior, professionally. However, if questioned privately by close friends, Jennie would admit to the appeal she found in his voice, therefore, she would listen to just about anything, be it him asking her to do extra work after the usual hours, or even have lunch with him.

He sighed, suddenly leaving his arms limp at his sides, also leaving her atop him, wondering what she had done wrong. He began to answer and even tried to smile when he said it. “You’re being promoted.”

They both kept silent but after a few more moments of recognition, Jennie spoke first. “I-It’s not because we—“

“No!” Leonard quickly exclaimed, throwing his palms out at her. “No, I assure you, it’s not that. Jennie, your work hasn’t gone unnoticed by my father and I. You are very dedicated to me and your unfathomable loyalty is well appreciated, but…”

“Oh, God,” Jennie muttered, knowing that there had to be some sort of circumstance behind this entire event. She shut her eyes and slowly climbed off of Leonard to switch the light on. Seeing themselves in this predicament promoted an awkward relationship, rather than what was intended as a one-night stand. She could imagine herself telling her friends now with enthusiasm, “Yes, I got to promoted to a single status away from having equal superiority with Leonard! Oh, and this happened right after his fiancé walked in on us during foreplay. Oh, I didn’t tell you? He has a fiancé!” Jennie’s mind was hysterical with random thoughts. Was all this really genuine? And then it clicked.

Jennie smiled at Leonard malevolently and crossed her arms smugly on her chest. “I’m being promoted, am I?” Leonard winced at the eccentric expression on her face. He nodded and sat up to place his shirt back on, and in that very moment, he almost froze from a sudden realization; he wouldn’t be having sex with anyone for a long very long time. Then he completely pulled it down and sighed, glancing up at Jennie. “So that means,” she continued, squinting at him, “that my new status will allow me to supervise the rest of the building and I will be in charge of setting up meetings to discuss what’s good for the company. Am I right?”

“That is correct, yes.” Leonard casually stuck his pinky into his ear, twisted it, and pulled it back out for examination. Then Jennie carefully walked over to him, grabbing her light pink blouse from the top of his digital clock beside his bed.

“That also means that I will be working on the fourteenth floor.”

Leonard nodded.

“And what floor will you be working on? I mean, besides seeing your father occasionally on the fifteenth floor and seeing me during meetings on the fourteenth.” There was a slight smile hinted in her voice when she asked him, that it was almost frightening to Leonard. Nevertheless, he simply answered, “As usual, I will be working on the thirteenth floor.”

“You’re in love with her,” Jennie said confidently, now putting on her shoes, and stared at him while she slightly struggled.

Leonard’s mouth opened, but he was ultimately speechless. “How do you gather this from promotion and asking me what floor I’ll be working on?” But Jennie giggled this time, ready to leave but took one final moment to sit with him.

“Leonard—“ she quickly corrected “—Sir, you are simply trying to get rid of me to try and lessen the tension between us. Now that we have seen each other this way, we clearly cannot look at one another the same way, and of course, like you said, you have taken notice of my work, so you most definitely can’t just fire me. So your last resolution? You promote me! It’s actually quite a good plan, sir.” Jennie grinned and leaned in to kiss him on the forehead, and added, “Now that I have that figured out, I’m sure it’s safe for me to assume that the secretary who will be replacing me, an attempt at loyalty to your fiancé—and a strong one, might I add—will be a man. Am I right?”

Although Leonard’s composure was totally broken, he managed at least a nod.

“Then good luck,” she urged happily to him and jumped up from the bed, but was surprised when Leonard held her back by her left wrist.

“Wait,” he said in a low voice, seemingly defeated. Jennie turned back around and looked down at him, her happiness still clearly plastered on her face.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Thank you for figuring most of that out for me, Jennie.”

“Well, men can never really do things on their own, that’s why I was your secretary, remember? Now go call her.”

===== 12:08 a.m. =====

“What do you mean you can’t find her?” Tori bolted straight up, almost yelling into Cindy’s ear.

“What’s going on?” she whispered sleepily up at Tori. Their day together had been so extraordinarily nice that Cindy simply couldn’t imagine something bad enough to happen in the middle of the night to reverse everything. Earlier that day, Tori finally told her that she was willing to stick it out for the long run this time, and there would be no more excuses or interruptions—especially from a woman Cindy barely knew; a girl who Tori always referred to as Lenina. And lately, it seemed like Tori has been spending a lot more time with that woman rather than dedicating more of her time to Cindy.

Tori kissed the top of her head and whispered for Cindy to go back to sleep, and into the phone, she told Leonard that she would be on her way. “What?” Cindy asked with harsh aggravation and a slight hint of worriment. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. I’ll be back in an hour, alright?” Tori hung up the phone and slowly eased out of bed. Her foot slammed into her fifteen-pound dumbbell on the floor, and she couldn’t hold back that curse she’d wanted to say all day. It had been quite a nerve-wracking day on her part, confessing to her girlfriend that she really does want to make things work between them, it’s just that Lenina’s circumstance was not helping Tori out one bit. Cindy turned to her side, away from Tori and muttered, “You’re always going off somewhere to see that girl, I don’t even know why you asked me to spend time with you. Honestly, I’m getting tired of it.”

“Cindy, I’m sorry, but you know Lenina’s just a friend.”

“No, she’s not!” Cindy snapped as she slightly turned her head briefly to make eye contact with Tori. “A friend isn’t that needy! And I swear to God, Tori, if you leave now, I can guarantee you that we won’t be seeing each other anymore.” Tori paused by the door on her way out and briefly turned herself around to look at Cindy’s back.

“But Cindy…she is that needy.”

A tear escaped from the corner of Cindy’s eye as she listened to the door slam behind Tori as she left the apartment.

No more. I can’t do this anymore. And with that last thought, Cindy left the apartment herself and vowed never to call Tori again.

=======

The drive over to Leonard’s house was seemingly excruciating, Tori thought as she parked her car right in front of his home. She had worked too hard to put effort into her relationship with Cindy, and now, it was surely going down the drain. Slamming her car door, she hastily walked up to the door and knocked louder than necessary. Also, it might have woken up some people, as she saw some windows glow a golden yellow. “Leonard, open up, dammit! I don’t have all night for this!” The door was open within seconds, but Tori was tired, most of all, emotionally defeated.

Leonard was beside her as he locked the front door when he said, “Bad night?”

“Never mind that,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “What happened?”

“We, uh…got into an argument, and, uh… I don’t know, she just ran off. I have no idea where she is, so if anything we’ll just take my car and start looking around.” Tori grabbed him by his arm and pulled him to a western direction from his house.

“Or,” she said, “we can just walk. Just to show you how close your competition is, so you can open up your eyes a bit, you fool.”

====== 12:59 a.m. ======

“Lenina, you don’t know what you’re doing! You’re going to marry yourself off to this man who’s gonna leave you for a different girl each time you get into fights.” Danny was practically yelling at her, begging for her to get some sense when the occasion called for it, but Lenina only seemed to be more interested in getting more tea, or she would somehow avoid the topic with her charm. It wasn’t her fault—she was simply alluring to Danny in so many ways, too many ways. “Have you guys kissed?” He continued to pry.

Lenina’s face turned aglow with pleasure as she answered yes. “But I think he was also angry when we did. Yes, I think he was mad. He walked away from me that night. Do you have more Starbucks coffee or tea? I want something sweet to eat.”

Danny abruptly inched closer to Lenina and held her face in his hands. “Look at me. I would never walk away from you. He doesn’t deserve you, Lenina, why can’t you see that? I would kiss you and mean it—“

“Danny—“

Lenina began to speak but was harshly cut off with a pair of lips that suddenly settled on her own.

Outside, Leonard and Tori had just arrived, huffing and puffing, almost feeling that something was amiss, that they might be late for something and it seems that this was it; the view of his fiancé kissing another man. And it stung.