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It’s still ringing in your head. Every little loud, hushed sound that echoes, every cut out second flashing behind your eyelids every time the warmth and softness of your pillow or the cold, unforgiving wood desk graces your head, in search for rest. Nothing erases it. Nothing blurs out the images or muffles the whine that fell out of your lips. Harley’s honey coated coaxes tasted just as good as you imagined it would taste, but it leaves a bitter aftertaste that rakes at your throat. The kind of candy you’re unsure of swallowing— down the dim, acidic pits of your stomach, or letting it stick to the dull cyan trashcans stationed at every corner of the facility.
Not much soothes this raging ache. Harley thought it was foolish, period. How dumb you are to mingle and flirt with others in desperate hopes he’d, at the very least say a word, or unload a thunder of complaints towards your newfound work hobby when all papers are signed, stacked and sent. Yet Harley Sawyer soaked in the murky pool of his familiar ego. Did not care for the way your uniform is unbuttoned, did not bat an eye to the arch of your body when papers fly out of your hold. It didn’t strike that way anymore, and you’re lost trying to find that sweet spot again.
Though it did not once extinguish anything else other than your fiery affair with the doctor, it was the damp fire you still tried to light over and over again. Chasing the embers, trying to rekindle what was suddenly doused. Your appetite stayed the same, your attendance, much more your performance remained the same way that got you that special department wide celebration.
Not that he purposely tries to drown and dull the memory away. That day remains one of the days that carves away at a spot in his genius of a brain and resides there despite burying it with his work. He tried replacing your whines, your pleas with the soul wretching cries of the children that fall victim to his sterile, gloved hands. He knew he reached that same level of desperation as you when he sought after things that are usually muffled by his conscious to act as a distraction. It irked him that no matter where he ran or turned, you’ve been there first.
Etched in laser precision, your name glints in the gloss of the gold on the medal of your award. Right under, in big bold font, unmistaken.
RECOGNISED AS STAFF OF THE YEAR.
So much for unmatched loyalty and incomparable excellence. You’ve sold away your morality, your dignity and your own name for a gold brick that does nothing but remind you that Harley Sawyer took your commitment, manipulated it in what wicked way he could think of and blew the remnants of it right into your face.
It didn’t hurt, much less take much to relish and reach towards the lighter side of it all. The party was wonderful. People drank in your name, praised your devotion for the glory of Playtime Co. How you willingly sacrificed, put away your selflessness, deafened the children’s begging, and forget the smiles they give you without having a single clue who you work under.
Everyone knew how heartless Harley was, and how far he was willing to go for the sake of the company— sometimes for his own. They understood this very clearly and even passed on unspoken rules that warn newcomers of his wrath.
So it was top news to you that he arrived to the celebration, even went as far as to smile at those other than the vile, near lifeless creatures of his making. Only he could find such satisfaction from seeing his abomination take its first breath behind a thick glass window. The entire department offer their congratulations, even those who never cross paths with you, and the science struck souls that are binded to their laboratories. You wouldn’t expect that the weight of your situation weighted more than the gold you’ve achieved.
The soul of the party took much to die down. Like always, these celebrations steer the attendees into a cycle that starts from money stacked bets, dizzying drunken laughter, and in that hazy state, the bets are placed again. It keeps these people going on for hours, while other rot controlled higher ups slip and sneak away from the function. Their time can’t be wasted on indulging the finer wonders of humanity, as it’s better be spent on forming plans that would pursue the company towards a brighter light and a bigger name.
Except for Harley, who traced every wandering step your feet took you, and mimicked you all night. If you are stolen for a quick conversation with a circle of people you barely knew, Harley stuck to talking to the whispers of his head. When you downed the sick, harsh alcohol, he preferred watching the way your throat moves with every swallow. As your heartful laugh echoes, he allows himself to smile at your joy, whatever you may be laughing at.
“Congratulations. You’re an admirable asset.” the compliment phased through you as the shots of alcohol you’ve down sticks a rock in your processing gears. A few vision readjustments, then you nail your realisation that Harley himself extended that barely genuine praise. “We wouldn’t be where we are now without you and i,” he choked up a pause to pick out an appropriate word that didn’t expose himself and what he felt towards you too obviously, “together.”
The medal in your other hand nearly slipped as your unoccupied hand lands on his crisp suit. He didn’t like it that much and would have scolded you for it, but it’s tolerable, just for the moment. “Hey, I’m just doing what I’m told.” you joke as the effects swirl and melt your brain. Similar to something Harley described once, but what it actually is sits in the far back of your mind, unreachable. “We make a great team, don’t you think?”
Partially because you look so great in this drunk, vulnerable haze, he lets a part of that statement be marked as true. He allows it because it kept his ego fed and comfortable. It assured him greatly. Though, really, the most important task you’ve ever been assigned to was to become his on site spectator as he wrote his personal report on an experiment. You were only there to look over him in case he missed a crucial detail, a skill he trained you for since the day you were recruited. “Yes.” it pained him to lie, but compared to agitating his ego than what he had planned down the line, it was considered tame.
Agreeing felt like puppeting a husk of himself. Where his true self floats above and pilots a vessel to lure you in. “We’ve got something else to discuss about.”
Hook.
You could recall the warmth of excitement that shot up as you matched his march out and forward. Split paths that lead to the reason for him to lead you so far away. Unmatched with Harley, where he dug one single grave for you to lay in, and you were willingly waltzing into it. “I think it’s time I allow you to get a grasp of what I’ve kept concealed from you all this time..”
Line.
Bleached from colours and where the hallways began to gave way towards the metal doors you couldn’t read what held behind it. “Oh you really didn’t have to..” he was laced with the sugar in your voice, the innocence of being deceived. Relishing it deeply, he lead you in with a simple, sly swipe of his keycard, and the blare of the doors as it opened was one of the last warning from the universe before it consumed you whole then left you bare. Longer, white washed hallways showed you nothing you could decipher, much less being drunk and drinking in how Harley had disregarded the litter of security cameras aimed down and clear to slide his capturing palm on your side.
“I saved the best for last.”
Sinker.
What awaited beyond the glass cage hid in the mercy of a shadow. Blunt protruding edges of a spinal cord lead to a skin thin tail bone, which curled and hid as soon as you laid your eyes on it. Washed with intial shock, he lead you closer to inspect with your hands intertwined. “Come, take a closer look. A waste it would be if you were to cower away from it.”
Swallowed by the shadow’s pit, a creature sculpted with sin rooted hands pushed out what little noises of defence it could. A cry so pitiful and heartbreaking simply became a breeze that flew right by you. How it prayed for mercy in what language its mouth could mutter, Harley gathered his overwhelming pride and bent you towards the glass. He needed you to reciprocate this untamable sense of achievement, even as you were barely registering what was displayed beyond the glass. The fact you were only glossing over what he thought was the biggest and highest regarded victory, not shocked into sobering up was brewing annoyance within him. Perhaps it was the alcohol to blame.
“I expect not a word about this,” Harley reminded you sternly with a call of your name. “This’ll be their suprise too. Just not now.” The window was painted with the fog of your breaths, worry tinged anticipation lingered and locked you from giving him a verbal response.
Dragged by the natural instinct— one a human once had now mutated into a newer, much more aggressive defensive tactic drove the creature to show its gnawing rage by attacking the thick glass. Out from the confines of the shadow, it carved its blood lusting claws into the glass and roared with all its heart could scream. “Quite a ravenous thing. I still have a lot of things to improve.”
“Not sure if I even want to recall anything like this.” You spoke honestly, the grim reality of it all as well as the swelling realisation that what that creature might be facing, and their own perception of reality is a disturbing horror story. What Harley conjured in his incoherently horrid mindset became his dream come true, and now you owned the privilege to share his pride. It just didn’t hit it right.
Your worry showed him the paths he could take to proceed forward with his plan. Harley failed to understand your concern and the morality of creating something only the devil himself could ever know, but he is aware that it wasn’t a feeling he was obligated to learn.
“Right.” The snug of his hand on your waist tugged you away from the scene before you. He secured you closer, way too close and so unfamiliar to what he introduced himself as to you. As much as Harley favoured you, the furthest you have been before that moment was a gentle kiss on the top of your head. Which he assured you was a temporary prize for your unending hard work. “Let’s give you something else to remember.”
The sting began to spread again. Guilt clawed its way through the slits of your heart that you’ve stitched with your bleeding hands before. Harley couldn’t be right. For what word he chooses to label you, none of them can be true.
You weren’t foolish for believing in the heaven Harley promised you. Not dumb for ignoring the calls and warnings of everything around you to turn back. Feeding into him is to go by what he thinks of you. A far fetched option.
How could he ever push aside what matters most for you? To mean all those things he says— even as lust blinded him. He added fuel to your delusions and lead you straight to where you wanted to be. Locked inside the furthest part of your head and he gets to keep the key.
Crinkles printed all over your outfit and your breaths thickens the air all around you. “I can’t get enough of you.” Harley confessed, as he held you in his grip, yet with all he could reach, the greed controlled him.
As soon as all seeing eyes cannot find you, can’t be your alibi to fend you, Harley shut off all the switches that hold him. “God,” he pleaded with your name sitting on his tongue. It was all he could repeat. Frenzied kisses stole your breath— all spit and sin.
Perched on his tidy desk, Harley ripped into you and imprinted himself anywhere he could leave a mark. Deep blooms of purple on your perfect skin, inside where traces of him lay. Your legs encased his thigh where he kept you whining for more, his lips that sealed all the noises he can’t afford to rewind in his head.
Harley declares promises he will serve like an oath. If he fails, it was no sign for him to accept defeat— Harley will carry his own words in way or another.
You will remember this forever.
No calls that leave you tossing in bed, rolling around to the gravelly tone of his voice. No extra paperwork so you’d stay until home beckons everyone else to return. It hurt most when you stay obedient like how he has conditioned you— to expect, to stay ready. But two weeks have been marked down, Harley has yet to mention anything, and everything he says is only in the dictionary of work. You’re convinced he has deleted your number and excluded you from his schedule.
Sitting and attending to your work lacks a reason now. It stopped feeling like fun, now that Harley barely even looks into your direction anymore. Bright office lights that bounce of your golden award constantly mocks you. No words were said, yet offence was noted.
The other side of the scale tips down the more you give mind and reason as to why everything suddenly changed. Maybe the new project has stolen him, as a whole. Energy, mentality and attention. Other than that, the scale waits for you to add. It waits for you to bring the excuses you make up to defend Harley Sawyer.
Even the name now sounds like a distant stranger.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” You spit as soon as the door opens and reveals him sat in the dim of his office. Unmarked paperwork slam onto the rich mahogany desk, pretty wood marbling where you once sat. “Is there something wrong with me that you’re too afraid to admit?”
First, you begin with checking yourself from his perspective. Perhaps when he looked over the arch of your ass on his desk he noticed something, or your performance has dunked so horribly he just decides you weren’t worth giving attention to. Harley retains his silence.
Frustration simmers and urges you to act. “You’re a ridiculous man, Harley.” Your stance just across his desk did not falter, just as he. Ever so detached from where he is stuck now.
“That is Doctor Sawyer to you,” He reminds strictly. That warning sends you back, nearly tipping you off your feet. He adds on with your last name, a rare identity you’ve long forgotten since becoming his secretary. Pleasantries were his ultimate, but you were spared. Before, that is.
Approaching closer where he sat on his chair, avoiding your wrath, you pushed on. No use listening to a man who listened to himself.
“Oh yeah, right. We’re back on last name basis again. Sorry.”
You try again. “Why won’t you address me? Address us?
“Did that mean nothing to you?”
Questions like this always strike him deeply. It reopens wounds Harley solemnly tended to. Growing up as a child that didn’t tick any checklist given often handed him those. Like when the neighbourhood cat died in his arms due to his curiosity, or when his first partner cried by his doorstep begging for closure.
Throughout all the time he faced that scenario, he has never given an answer that fits. As it meant nothing to him.
“What about all this time? My energy, my loyalty, my—”
He finds his voice, though what he spews barely correlates. “It was a moment of weakness on my end.” Surely. He stands up abruptly, still with his gaze hidden. Though, the way he avoids you fully, body turned, eyes on his desk.
“Oh, so what? You think I was in the right mindset getting bent over your table, kissing you all over?” You replay what happened in this office. Each corner here you see shadows of that night playing out over and over again like a broken tape. Harley may have even let the smudges of your handprints remain unwiped, uncleaned from the gloss of his desk.
Distance between you has never felt so far. Rising silence takes the stage, but you still fight for the spotlight. “You’re avoiding me all throughout, Sawyer.” It feels cringe, feels like a foreign language. “You’re suddenly back to the old you that I tried so hard to pry open.”
Painfully so, Harley lacks the reason you are digging him for. Yet guilt hasn’t veiled him and uncertainty withers as he settles on a decision. Truth is bitter, never something sweet for him to swallow.
Sorting through what little options he offers himself, he decides on one that didn’t require him to venture into the deepest depths into himself. That requires him to swim through the depths and come to terms with what he disregarded in the past, and most importantly his feelings towards you.
You’re pounding against his walls to be let in. To pierce your fingers over the pins of the wire fence and reach through what he himself couldn’t decipher and offer him your transcript of your perception is dreadful.
“You should leave my office.” Harley orders without room for denial. It is a command you have never heard before, if anything it used to be the opposite. He didn’t dare himself to check how close you are, or anything else for that matter. You have him cornered with nowhere to go, so logically, the only way out of this is to tell you to leave.
Leaving without implanting any kind of realisation or sense into him is defined as loss. Eagerness dilates within you to instill any kind of awareness or at least a morbid guilt that is hungry enough to eat him alive.
Tricking him by gathering the unattended papers stacked on his desk, you mindlessly count them and speak with your head held low. “So consumed by your ego. The one you’ve shaped from your years of being worshipped by the company. You’re—”
His heart silences from any erratic thrum and it crashes against his ribcages. Suddenly from the star high walls Harley dives into you, shattering any kind of anchor he held onto. With both hands gripping your shoulders as his expression read that of wild revelation and overbearing need to have all the noise strained to a halt,
Harley crashes his lips onto yours, his fear of it all clear as it is shown through how he grips you so harshly.
Freezing shock jolts through all of you as you connect with him, mirroring how Harley drags his hands all over your body, you capture his hair and drag him reasonably closer. Desperation is a honest topic as you two feed your fiery hunger, fueled by the rage that boils within you and the need Harley has tried so hard to ignore. He repeats his favourite move by sliding his hand on your waist and anchoring himself there.
Harley lets the sounds of his odd love speak through groans passing through your teeth. The more you pull on his mess of a hair, the more you drink in his sounds. Again, your hand unfixes the buttons of his shirt and your fingers leave traces of heated ecstasy all along the nerves of his neck.
Crushing familiarity warns you through the rise of hair all over your arms. What you are reaching into, pulling you and Harley into has been done before. How you got here was the flesh hungry irresolution that suffocated you until you ended up here in his office, unbuttoning his shirt.
Sweet mix of your spit and his is no strange liquor. One you’ve swallowed way too many times it becomes a usual gut-rot.
Pretty sounds string out of your throat as he goes to undo your bottom, pulling and sliding his fingers through the bands. Through the sickening fog of your lust, you pull away and stares into his half lidded eyes. Your hand stills on top of his that’s halted from searching for your warmth under your clothes.
“Hah, you never spare me,” A deep pause for air as you are poisoned by his desire. “A chance.”
The truth lingers in the air, and for a moment you believe he purposely lets it hang as he dives into the crook of your neck to bite and suck. Marking you with deep plum coloured blooms is always his favourite. Harley confesses into your crevices, enveloped in your warmth as your hand continues to pull on his hair.
“I hardly ever want to give you one.”
You can deal with this again. Sure you do.