When You Hold Me
THREE
Narrowing my eyes at the man whose presence took up the entire room and it was a big room. I had noticed him as soon as he stepped of the elevator. I mean who didn’t notice him. He wore a simple dark gray suit, with a black tie and a white shirt underneath it. He also had on a watch on his left wrist, nothing too flashy. So I can see how he can go unnoticed but his suit wasn’t just any type of dark gray, it was rich and different from all the other suits the men were wearing and he had a presence that demands attention. That’s one of the reasons why I had went downstairs to Leo’s picture of me.
There was an upper level that held more art had more “prestige” names attached to them. I was up there with Leo when I seen people, once again, surrounding the picture. It was placed in a far corner where I would hope it would go mostly unseen. But obviously no such luck. I was a little taken aback when a woman who was a little taller than me and wore expensive looking clothes asked me what price we were selling it for. There wasn’t a price on it and it wasn’t in the section for art to be sold, so I assumed everyone would get the hint that it wasn’t for sale. But once she had thrown out a price, everyone else started saying the prices they wanted to pay. Some I thought were outrages but a quarter of a million dollars was just too much.
In the words of Leo ‘He would be crazy to turn down that type of money’. It was about twice as much money the auction people were paying him. So Leo had dragged me upstairs before I could say anything else to the intimidating man and “convinced” me to just let the man buy it. Not before telling me who the man was. Memphis Pierce. Some major business man of some sorts. I didn’t really listen to all the details. I didn’t really care. But if it was important to Leonardo, then it would be important to me.
I looked down at the guy, Memphis, from my spot on balcony. He still studied the picture of me and I studied him. “You know if you keep frowning like that, you’re gonna get those ugly creases on your forehead.” I heard a familiar female voice behind me and it almost made me smile.
I turned around, “As if I don’t hear that enough from Leo.” I broke into a smile anyway and hugged my good friend, Rory. She was friends with Leo which made her a friend of mine. Her words not mine.
“Jesus, I can’t believe someone actually bought a picture of you for $250,000,” She leaned against the railing, eyes going in the direction I was staring at. “Well at least you won’t have to pay Leonardo back for letting you stay at his place.”
“Yes please don’t remind me.” I sighed shaking my head.
------
Buzz Buzz
I paused mid-stroke as the buzzer to the Leo’s art loft went off for the umpteenth time today. It was a Sunday which meant Leo and I spent the day in the loft just doing art shit. It was suppose to be peaceful and distraction-free. But it was kind of hard to do that when the damn buzzer kept going off what seemed like every five minutes.
“Oh well I wonder who that could be.” Leo gave me a knowing look as he walked past me to go answer the door. He knew damn well who it probably was. “Who is it?” He sang.
I bit my tongue, holding back my smile despite my sour mood. “Flower delivery for Ms. Benson.”
“You can just send them up in the elevator.” Leo replied back before walking over to me. I sat on a stool in front of a half assed painting of mine. “That makes it what 25 bouquet of flowers?”
“26.” I mumbled as I got up and went to the elevator.
For the last two hours, flowers upon flowers have been delivered to the loft for me. They were from people I don’t know or more like don’t remember, but they were at the art auction a few days ago. How these people got this address was beyond me. Leo’s picture of me was such a big hit but I seemed to get all the praise. He said he was fine with it because he got all the money. Most of the bouquet had message card attached to them. Some ‘complimented’ me on my body and such and others had contact information and such. I’m assuming they wanted to do some type of business with me, I’m not sure what but I wasn’t interested.
Walking into the elevator, I picked up the flowers and noticed something weird about them. All day I have gotten a stray of different roses and tulips,all recognizable flowers. But these were different. They weren’t your regular roses, if they were I would know but they weren’t. They were a dark reddish color and they smelled amazing. Sitting them with where the rest of them sat, I searched for the card that probably came with it. The card had some kind of design on it, just like some of the other ones. It had swirls going along the edges and on the bottom corner was a little enscribe that read, M.J.P. Must be the person's initials. I turned the card over to see more words scribbled on it.
1138 Weston Ave
If you want to see what I did with your portrait.
That was it. Nothing else was on the note. But I knew right away it was the guy who bought the picture of me. Memphis Pierce, was his name. The night of the auction, I had “politely” as I could asked him what he was planning to do with the picture. He told me in no uncertain terms “Whatever he pleases.” I knew the guy of all but 2 minutes and he was already infuriating. So of course when I had gotten home I had to look up who he was. Boss of his own multimillion dollar company, handed down by his dad...blah blah...single bachelor, sexy as hell, more blah blah. I stopped searching after the first few minutes. After the first couple days I actually started to forget about the whole thing. I couldn’t care less what he did with the picture, but looking at this note I kind of wanted to know now.
“Isn’t that downtown?” Leo said peeking over my shoulder at the card. “It must be at his office or something.” Great. I would hate to walk in his office and see my painting in the main lobby or something. I slammed the card next to the flowers and walked away from them going back to my shitty painting. I am now not giving a shit about the picture.
Several hours later, seven o’clock rolls around and after chewing on it I eventually decided to pay Mr Pierce a visit but not before googling where the hell I was going since I was still fairly new to New York and I didn’t have a car. So bidding Leo goodbye and telling him I’ll be home in an hour or so, I took a taxi to lower Manhattan.
The building was nice as shit, although it wasn’t as big as I thought it was it was still pretty nice. Getting off the elevator I had to walk through this a hallway that led to the lobby and a man with slicked back black hair and a gray suit greeted me once I reached the desk. He looked super young, almost my age, maybe.
“Hello, how may I help you?”
“Um yeah, I’m here to see Memphis Pierce, my name is Regan Bronson.”
I watched as he looked through a notebook and then back up to me. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Pierce isn’t taking any visitors at the moment.” He replied in a condescending tone. A tone I didn’t take too well.
I took a breath and tried again. “Can you just call him, I’m pretty sure he’s expecting me.” Okay, that wasn’t completely true but he sent the flowers and card as if he was. He went to say something, probably to reject me again, until someone behind me spoke up.
“Kyle, what’s going on?” I knew that voice. I turned around to see the man himself walking from the elevator with two other men beside him.
The man, Kyle, hurried to his feet in the presence of his boss to answer. “Nothing Mr. Pierce, this lady was just on her way.” Excuse me? I furrowed my eyebrows at him.
“Reagan Bronson?” He asked me. I didn’t bother asking since he already knew it was me. “What are you doing here?”
“You told me I could come see what you did the picture.” I said slowly as if I was mistaken.
He looked at me the same way. I didn’t miss his eyes look me over from my feet to the top of my head. I shifted my weight between feet suddenly becoming self conscious. I wore some drawstring shorts, a black t-shirt, a denim button up over it, and some dirty white chucks. I had little to no makeup. I hadn’t even thought to change before I made the trip here. It was suppose to be my lounge day, so it was very different from when we were at the auction. I usually don’t feel any type of way about what I’m wearing but it’s different when I’m in a room full of people wearing suits.
“Kyle,” he said to the receptionist and he answered with a ‘yes sir’. “Hold all calls, I’ll be going home after this.”
“Oh, I could just come back another day if you’re going home.” I tried to leave by going around him but he stopped me by putting his arm out. I heard him say something along the lines of ‘nonsense’ before he was leading me down another hallway with his hand on the small of my back.
Once we were in what I assume to be his office, he began to speak. “I didn’t think you would come this late.” I stood in the middle of the floor as he took off his jacket and laid it across the back of the large sectional that was to my left. His office was on the larger side or at least large to me. His desk was on one side of the room, a sitting area on the other side and there was smaller room made out of glass with a big table with chairs around it placed in the middle. Everything in the room was mostly white which gave it a bright vibe to it. I pictured something more dark, like gray or something.
“Well it was probably now or never.” I mumbled still looking around the space. That’s when I spotted my naked ass on the wall above the sofa. I walked over and just stared at it. “You put in your office.”
There was an upper level that held more art had more “prestige” names attached to them. I was up there with Leo when I seen people, once again, surrounding the picture. It was placed in a far corner where I would hope it would go mostly unseen. But obviously no such luck. I was a little taken aback when a woman who was a little taller than me and wore expensive looking clothes asked me what price we were selling it for. There wasn’t a price on it and it wasn’t in the section for art to be sold, so I assumed everyone would get the hint that it wasn’t for sale. But once she had thrown out a price, everyone else started saying the prices they wanted to pay. Some I thought were outrages but a quarter of a million dollars was just too much.
In the words of Leo ‘He would be crazy to turn down that type of money’. It was about twice as much money the auction people were paying him. So Leo had dragged me upstairs before I could say anything else to the intimidating man and “convinced” me to just let the man buy it. Not before telling me who the man was. Memphis Pierce. Some major business man of some sorts. I didn’t really listen to all the details. I didn’t really care. But if it was important to Leonardo, then it would be important to me.
I looked down at the guy, Memphis, from my spot on balcony. He still studied the picture of me and I studied him. “You know if you keep frowning like that, you’re gonna get those ugly creases on your forehead.” I heard a familiar female voice behind me and it almost made me smile.
I turned around, “As if I don’t hear that enough from Leo.” I broke into a smile anyway and hugged my good friend, Rory. She was friends with Leo which made her a friend of mine. Her words not mine.
“Jesus, I can’t believe someone actually bought a picture of you for $250,000,” She leaned against the railing, eyes going in the direction I was staring at. “Well at least you won’t have to pay Leonardo back for letting you stay at his place.”
“Yes please don’t remind me.” I sighed shaking my head.
------
Buzz Buzz
I paused mid-stroke as the buzzer to the Leo’s art loft went off for the umpteenth time today. It was a Sunday which meant Leo and I spent the day in the loft just doing art shit. It was suppose to be peaceful and distraction-free. But it was kind of hard to do that when the damn buzzer kept going off what seemed like every five minutes.
“Oh well I wonder who that could be.” Leo gave me a knowing look as he walked past me to go answer the door. He knew damn well who it probably was. “Who is it?” He sang.
I bit my tongue, holding back my smile despite my sour mood. “Flower delivery for Ms. Benson.”
“You can just send them up in the elevator.” Leo replied back before walking over to me. I sat on a stool in front of a half assed painting of mine. “That makes it what 25 bouquet of flowers?”
“26.” I mumbled as I got up and went to the elevator.
For the last two hours, flowers upon flowers have been delivered to the loft for me. They were from people I don’t know or more like don’t remember, but they were at the art auction a few days ago. How these people got this address was beyond me. Leo’s picture of me was such a big hit but I seemed to get all the praise. He said he was fine with it because he got all the money. Most of the bouquet had message card attached to them. Some ‘complimented’ me on my body and such and others had contact information and such. I’m assuming they wanted to do some type of business with me, I’m not sure what but I wasn’t interested.
Walking into the elevator, I picked up the flowers and noticed something weird about them. All day I have gotten a stray of different roses and tulips,all recognizable flowers. But these were different. They weren’t your regular roses, if they were I would know but they weren’t. They were a dark reddish color and they smelled amazing. Sitting them with where the rest of them sat, I searched for the card that probably came with it. The card had some kind of design on it, just like some of the other ones. It had swirls going along the edges and on the bottom corner was a little enscribe that read, M.J.P. Must be the person's initials. I turned the card over to see more words scribbled on it.
1138 Weston Ave
If you want to see what I did with your portrait.
That was it. Nothing else was on the note. But I knew right away it was the guy who bought the picture of me. Memphis Pierce, was his name. The night of the auction, I had “politely” as I could asked him what he was planning to do with the picture. He told me in no uncertain terms “Whatever he pleases.” I knew the guy of all but 2 minutes and he was already infuriating. So of course when I had gotten home I had to look up who he was. Boss of his own multimillion dollar company, handed down by his dad...blah blah...single bachelor, sexy as hell, more blah blah. I stopped searching after the first few minutes. After the first couple days I actually started to forget about the whole thing. I couldn’t care less what he did with the picture, but looking at this note I kind of wanted to know now.
“Isn’t that downtown?” Leo said peeking over my shoulder at the card. “It must be at his office or something.” Great. I would hate to walk in his office and see my painting in the main lobby or something. I slammed the card next to the flowers and walked away from them going back to my shitty painting. I am now not giving a shit about the picture.
Several hours later, seven o’clock rolls around and after chewing on it I eventually decided to pay Mr Pierce a visit but not before googling where the hell I was going since I was still fairly new to New York and I didn’t have a car. So bidding Leo goodbye and telling him I’ll be home in an hour or so, I took a taxi to lower Manhattan.
The building was nice as shit, although it wasn’t as big as I thought it was it was still pretty nice. Getting off the elevator I had to walk through this a hallway that led to the lobby and a man with slicked back black hair and a gray suit greeted me once I reached the desk. He looked super young, almost my age, maybe.
“Hello, how may I help you?”
“Um yeah, I’m here to see Memphis Pierce, my name is Regan Bronson.”
I watched as he looked through a notebook and then back up to me. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Pierce isn’t taking any visitors at the moment.” He replied in a condescending tone. A tone I didn’t take too well.
I took a breath and tried again. “Can you just call him, I’m pretty sure he’s expecting me.” Okay, that wasn’t completely true but he sent the flowers and card as if he was. He went to say something, probably to reject me again, until someone behind me spoke up.
“Kyle, what’s going on?” I knew that voice. I turned around to see the man himself walking from the elevator with two other men beside him.
The man, Kyle, hurried to his feet in the presence of his boss to answer. “Nothing Mr. Pierce, this lady was just on her way.” Excuse me? I furrowed my eyebrows at him.
“Reagan Bronson?” He asked me. I didn’t bother asking since he already knew it was me. “What are you doing here?”
“You told me I could come see what you did the picture.” I said slowly as if I was mistaken.
He looked at me the same way. I didn’t miss his eyes look me over from my feet to the top of my head. I shifted my weight between feet suddenly becoming self conscious. I wore some drawstring shorts, a black t-shirt, a denim button up over it, and some dirty white chucks. I had little to no makeup. I hadn’t even thought to change before I made the trip here. It was suppose to be my lounge day, so it was very different from when we were at the auction. I usually don’t feel any type of way about what I’m wearing but it’s different when I’m in a room full of people wearing suits.
“Kyle,” he said to the receptionist and he answered with a ‘yes sir’. “Hold all calls, I’ll be going home after this.”
“Oh, I could just come back another day if you’re going home.” I tried to leave by going around him but he stopped me by putting his arm out. I heard him say something along the lines of ‘nonsense’ before he was leading me down another hallway with his hand on the small of my back.
Once we were in what I assume to be his office, he began to speak. “I didn’t think you would come this late.” I stood in the middle of the floor as he took off his jacket and laid it across the back of the large sectional that was to my left. His office was on the larger side or at least large to me. His desk was on one side of the room, a sitting area on the other side and there was smaller room made out of glass with a big table with chairs around it placed in the middle. Everything in the room was mostly white which gave it a bright vibe to it. I pictured something more dark, like gray or something.
“Well it was probably now or never.” I mumbled still looking around the space. That’s when I spotted my naked ass on the wall above the sofa. I walked over and just stared at it. “You put in your office.”