As he helps me up, I realise that he's actually not a bad-looking chap. Old Mister Gray, I mean. He looks alright- slightly better than average. But then I'm suddenly suspicious of the setting. This is too much like a classic Main Lady Mary Sue plot, where the affluent, handsome and slightly older hero enamours an inexperienced nubile.
Nubile suggests a lack of experience already, so I shouldn't have said 'inexperienced'. I'm sorry about that, interlocutor.
The paradigm of our meeting is highly amusing, and I want to laugh. What's even more amusing is that he caught me in almost the same pose that Main Lady Mary Sue is caught in- feet on the ground, back straight on the hero's lower arms and looking straight into his eyes. But I must stay in character, and I resist. There's another thing that bothers me when I first look at him. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something very strange about him.
"Are you alright?" he asks. I nod slowly, eyes wide and mouth open like I have lockjaw. This motion is not entirely part of the act. I'm just as surprised that I landed into such a coincidental position.
The nagging feeling from before stays as we introduce ourselves. Fortunately, I remember my act, and as I sit down to prepare for my farce of a scoop, I fumble with the zip of my bad until my nail breaks. The crack hurts, and I want to howl in my misery until the pain dies down a little. But I am an actress now, and I must keep my stage intact, and I bear with it by biting on my lip hard. I hope to fight fire with fire, and it works a little. I then drop the audio recorder three times in succession. He has probably noticed it was deliberate. It is very obvious. But he says nothing and, as I observe out of the corner of my eye, relaxes on a sofa seat and watches me with interest and a slight confusion. He is a very considerate audience. I take my seat once I have smashed the frame of my darling love Kate's recorder, scratching my scalp frantically. A fortnight without shampoo on an oily scalp is torturous and I am enduring everything for this act, and her. Honestly, if that girl does not beg me to whisk her away on her wedding day, I will flip.
"Sorry," I stutter. "I'm not used to this."
He smiles sympathetically. He has taken the bait! Hah! Why am I excited by such a trivial thing?
As I glance around his room, two options form in my mind about him. Both suggest a strongly contrasting facade and interior. The first is that he is a very nice and misunderstood person, very much like that poor man who was too well endowed on Sex and the City. That's why his office is so boring and plain- it's a cover to his truly colourful personality. The second is that he is gay.
He's very passionate about whatever industry he is involved in. I'm not sure. Kate has, at the very least, offered to do some work that will legitimately make the article hers, and so everything we say is being recorded on my phone and then she will transcribe and edit everything. It's very awkward sitting here and staring at a man, wondering if he is the embodiment of a stereotype homosexual, and so I've taken out a notepad and started doodling the possibilities of what he might truly be. I keep going towards the second option somehow.
It becomes very difficult to resist asking, to just confront. In the first few questions, he mentions repeatedly a solar-powered mobile device and how revolutionary the whole notion is. I am already weak from trying not to burst his bubble. Sorry, I want to stop him and say, but Samsung already pulled off a successful model about three years ago.
That's how I start doodling, in fact, and returning to my two options- to block off my own tirade about his firm's competency being at the level of a student project. This man is nowhere near as naive as the basis of the first option, and I decide he is gay.
I start twitching suddenly. He is so absorbed in talking about research and development and all that jazz, that he does not notice me almost having a spasm. I rock back and forth in my seat, one hand clutched on the arm of my sofa. No, I tell myself, don't do it. Don't be rude to people you've just met. That is not how your parents raised you. You'll hurt his feelings and then you'll have to go home and drink to your death out of guilt. Don't do it. I don't listen to anything I say eventually, and I pop the question, "Are you gay?"
He stops gushing, obviously startled, and stares at me, "What did you just say?"
Indeed, what did I just say? Sweet mother of the puffy heavenly clouds, please come down now and take me away.
I stutter my question a second time. I want my water from outside now- anything to distract me away from his shocked gaze. But there is no water to drink, and there is obviously nothing much to look at instead of his face, and I manage, very fortunately, to give him a sheepish smile.
"Whoa," he exclaims at long last, "where did that come from?"
I can only hope that if he has a trapdoor under my seat that he will make me now fall through at the press of a button, that if he traps in me some strange dungeon in the heart of this abominable building, he does not throw me into an Iron Maiden. That would really hurt, to say the least.
In a faltering voice, I try to save the situation, "i-it's in the question set..."
He stares at me- as he should. What kind of excuse is that? It's in the list of questions, which I have to ask for my interview with you. I want a gun. Somebody please give me a gun. I want to shoot myself now.
And then he smiles very sympathetically, "I understand. It's a little... unsettling to be asked so abruptly... usually, the issue is discussed behind my back. This is very refreshing in contrast."
Why are you so nice, Mister Gray, why? Why can't you flare up and throw me out of your plain office instead of accommodating with me? Why, you damnable gentleman, why?
"Maybe I should take this opportunity to clear the air," he ponders aloud, "don't you think so, Miss..."
"Steele," I reply spontaneously, "Anastasia Steele."
He nods slowly in acknowledgement, "I see... well, Miss Steele, I'm not. I am, on the other hand, very fond of exclusively female companionship."
He sounds very oily just then, and I squirm in my seat. Just hearing it makes me blush, and I think he took it the wrong way too because he looked up at me very... suggestively. My guilt towards him melts instantly. I blink slowly at him.
"I may seem to be a hard nut to crack-and I am," he continues in his sleazy tone, "but underneath all that I am very amiable, very easy to get along with... if you know what I mean, Miss Steele."
"Your employees held very high opinions of you, from what I observed while waiting," I ask, doing my best to keep a level head, "They thought well enough of you to speak very... defensively. If you don't mind, I'd like to know how you do it. How do you instill such... dedication in them?"
Now, as part of my blooming wallflower act, I have to pretend that I am sexually aroused by this oily man. I have no right to say that, though. Look at my scalp! Is he licking his lips? He is licking his lips, the sleazy bastard. No, no, Annie, play along. Keep going wherever you're going. Now he's fingering his mouth. Stop it. For the love of God, please stop before I throw up. I want to cry so badly now. Unfortunately, he keeps talking and I want to stab myself with a pencil now. How the hell do people fall for this cheap ploy? How did his blondie paramilitary stationed in his office get caught by this?
"That's an easy one," he answers with a smirk I'd like to rub out with bleach, "we have a clearly established relationship that everybody does their part to maintain. Besides that, there is a natural anchor, an effective control that keeps discipline. Some people are just born to control, you know."
I have no idea what he means by anything he just said, but I want to run away and hide at home right now. There is something in the last of his words- something very suspicious that throws me off. I manage to keep my façade and I count myself lucky now that I react as if I am shy and infatuated when I panic. Yes, I am a strange person. Deal with it.
I want to hide in my bed and bask in the tree-hugging marvels of Bollywood songs. That's all I want right now and I need it fast. I make an excuse to end the interview and run for the door, almost leaving behind my bag in the process. He helps pick it up and walks me out and I am nearly shaking. Clutching the lanyard around my neck, I smile nervously, "I've had a wonderful time talking to you, Mister Gray. I'll be off now. Goodbye, Mister Gray."
He narrows his eyes at me, the oily look on his face stronger than ever, "I hope we meet again, Ana."
Hang on right there. I didn't say we can be on first-name terms, kiddo, no sir-ree. Who do you think you're calling Ana? What's Ana, anyway? I suddenly remember my friend Rochelle, whom a boy tried to flirt with and called her Roch. I understand her annoyance now. Combing my hair nervously with my fingers, I bring my fringe closer to my eyes. If I look into his face again, I will definitely throw up. I sense his gaze as the doors of the padded metal box close. It is intense and revolting. I also sense the glare of his paramilitary, who have never had the chance to be alone in a room with him for such a duration of time, and I am glad it is all over.
The road back is uneventful in general, but I find it refreshing and relaxing after my ordeal. I am angry that my wallflower act was not successful. In my defence, I was thrown off by the sudden change in his behaviour. I am also annoyed by Kate, for throwing her burden on to me, but also slightly relieved that I had gone in her place. Naive as she was, he might have jumped on her. After minute naps in one or two small traffic jams, I reach our house and I run inside, heading straight for my room. Kate is howling again and, as I see the next morning, finished three more tubs of ice-cream. Her metabolism is really a thing of wonder. As I stare at my computer screen, the bright colours in the film reflected in my own eyes, I recall involuntarily the strange high he had achieved when I started discussing control and I shudder.
I hope I don't see him again, but I do so in a nightmare later that night, licking and stroking his lips again and again, and I wake up each time with a shudder. I hope I never see that sleazy man again.