Sasha was furious. Her usual state of being was sixty percent annoyance, twenty percent disdain, ten percent despair, and ten percent joy at knowing she was superior in intellect and physical appearance to just about everyone around her. It wasn't ideal but thus far it was the only way she'd been able to successfully cope with her life. Right now she just felt angry, which threw off her internal balance completely, which in turn made her feel even more furious. And there were already so many reasons to be beyond incandescent at this situation.
Her first response when she'd arrived at work that morning and seen the abomination that was the latest issue of SugaRape was - she was ashamed to admit - to be angry at Dan. She'd been giving him signals at work for years and he'd never really responded. Well, he'd stare like every other man in the office when she leant over his desk in a low cut blouse, but he'd never tried anything on. She'd assumed it was laziness on Dan's part, but she'd kept at it because Dan was a beautiful mess and not the sort of crush one could get over easily. Finding out that he'd had a lover all these years made her feel stupid, like she'd been played. She was usually good at picking up on whether someone was gay, and she hadn't felt it with Dan, and he'd never said he was in a relationship, when he could have, easily. It was infuriating, like everything else Dan did.
At which point she'd realised that getting angry at someone for not making the details of their private life public knowledge - especially in an environment where people were mocked for everything - was idiotic. Dan tended to be oblivious to what other people needed from him and hyper aware of even the most subtle criticism. He probably hadn't even been aware of her signals, and if she hadn't picked up on the fact that he was interested in men rather than women, well, that was hardly anyone's fault.
But Sasha wasn't about to waste her energy being angry at herself. Not when she could be angry at Jonatton. Of all the people she had met in her life, Jonatton Yeah? was probably Sasha's least favourite. He was manipulative and sly and used his significant intelligence to make the world a darker and more sordid place than it already was. He was a prick, and if Sasha could afford to leave SugaRape, she would.
One day she wouldn't be juggling caring for her two younger sisters with completing a part-time law degree and maintaining a full time job. One day she would leave this place and never look back. But until that day she would just do as little actual work at SugaRape as humanly possible.
She was particularly cross that Jonatton had used her in his hatchet job on Dan's reputation. He'd asked her to do some last minute research yesterday, background info on a DJ he wanted to feature and she'd done it grudgingly. Ned had only just sent through the completely lay-out for that months issue and she wasn't sure that there was room for another article but it was none of her business if the magazine looked shit, so she'd put half an hour aside to see what she could find out about the mysterious 'Jones'.
At first there was nothing. He was a DJ, he worked days at Stanley Knives, one of Shoreditch's coolest salons, and had a regular Friday night set at H8nuPx, a club that had somehow managed to maintain a high level of underground integrity even after ten years. It was the sort of place that featured hardcore techno and experimental noise. It wasn't her scene but at least it had a history. Reading the club's website was fascinating but it didn't tell her much about Jones, other than the fact that he would be back in the booth this Friday after a two week holiday - and a picture.
The picture had been a shock. She'd seen Jones before, in the hospital when she'd gone to visit Dan. He'd been running around making phone calls and talking to nurses and she hadn't really connected him with Dan at the time but seeing that photograph made her wonder whether he was the mysterious friend who Dan said was looking after him.
In the end she'd called H8nuPx, given them some story about trying to contact Jones for a party and needing payment information for him. They'd faxed through his basic info including a name, date of birth and address which she'd passed on to Jonatton without another thought. Now she wished she hadn't.
Sasha massaged her temples delicately to try and clear the headache building up behind her eyes without ruining her eyeliner. It was only three p.m. but felt like it should be five thirty at least. This level of anger was draining. Not to mention the number of calls and emails she'd received about Jonatton's surprise article.
She'd read the thing three times now and could see how it would appeal to the gossiping idiots who thought SugaRape was the bible of cool. They'd turn on Dan in an instant, claim to have seen through his facade from the start, and there was a dozen badly written emails to the magazine asking why their loyal readers hadn't been informed earlier about Dan's behaviour, and whether they had fired him yet.
Sasha thought it was funny (by which she actually meant repugnant) that people who had loved the 'Vice' issue, and joked about the idea of molesting under-age girls, were incensed by the knowledge that Dan Ashcroft was in an affair with a younger man. She wondered how many of them had read the article carefully and how many had simply read the headlines and highlights. Jonatton had worded things to make it seem that Dan was keeping an underage lover through manipulation while not actually stating so. He'd published Jones' full name and his age, which was twenty-three and nothing to write home about at all, but had added the fact that Dan had been living with Jones since 1997, at which time Jones, or rather, Thomas Pearce, had been only seventeen.
Their youngest readers couldn't understand why it was an issue. She had seven emails attesting to that, at least. But most of their readers were approaching if not already past 30 (though most wouldn't admit to it) and had come to maturity in a time when androgyny was no longer cool and homosexuality was still only provisionally legal. When Margaret Thatcher had made the promotion of homosexuality illegal and the fear of AIDS had swept the nation. In 1997, if Jones was only seventeen, their relationship would have been illegal.
People might not remember the details but the memory of it, the fear of all things gay, was still there in the back of their minds. She had twenty-seven emails attesting to the fact that their 'older' readers weren't cool with Dan Ashcroft anymore.
She wrote out a memo of each email to give to Jonatton, hating the fact that he would take pleasure in every instance of hate but doing it anyway. He needed to see what he had caused, and that not everyone agreed with what he'd done. He never read emails she forwarded to his account but he rarely ignored hand-written memos.
Sasha's computer bing'd to inform her of a new email and she sighed when she saw that it was from 'Place' administration. Doug Rocket was insufferable and Jonatton considered it one of his best jokes that he'd managed to never actually talk to the man. He'd made Sasha and Dan do that for him. She couldn't imagine Rocket to be happy about the article, he was big on love an sexuality needing to be "boundless and without... bounds..." as he'd once told her at a party.
She opened the email, ready to lose what little faith she had left in the human race, and instead smiled for the first time that day. Jonatton was not going to like this. And she wasn't going to tell him about it until she'd done as much damage as possible. Then she was going to apply for a job at Place.