Audacity (Seraph)

The French have two phrases they use when they want to wish someone good luck: bonne chance, for when one’s fate lies in the hands of the gods, and bon courage, for when your success will come down to your personal level of fortitude.

It’s the latter I need when I first meet a prospective employer. Not only is walking into the offices of someone who might be your new boss and your new fuck particularly surreal, but the interview dynamic is a tough one to get right.

Women often have to fight not to be treated as a sexual object in the corporate world. Most of us would demand, or at least hope, that any interviewer for a new job would focus on our qualifications for the position and not on our looks. In this instant, however, I will sit down with a man to discuss his professional needs and my professional suitability while both of us imagine each other naked on a constant loop.

It’s a lot. Even the dress code is a tough one to get right: professional rather than provocative but not totally sexless.

The elephant in the room at first-round Seraph interviews tends to be more of a T-Rex. A T-Rex who asks does he want to put his dick inside me badly enough to offer me a job and can I tolerate being stuffed full of him enough to say yes?

I’m not sure why I’m nervous this morning. On paper, this is a no-brainer. I’ve worked for Steve long enough to know that renewables, while superbly positioned for future growth, aren’t my jam. The sector isn’t for the faint of heart. Someone else comes up with better technology, which they inevitably do, and you’re toast.

More pertinently, this guy I’m meeting today, Mr Sullivan, is clearly an upgrade—unless he’s been a cleric for so long he’s forgotten how to use his dick, that is. Everything I’ve seen of him online shows me he is hot as fuck. Steve, on the other hand, is perfectly fine but nothing to write home about looks-wise. Our sexual relationship is highly regimented: he has a strong preference for being able to dictate the circumstances in which he gets intimate.

I get it, and I’ve grown surprisingly fond of him (or as fond as I grow of anyone). He’s insanely smart and generous to a fault with his information. I’ve learned a tonne from him, and I truly relish our intellectual back-and-forths. Sexually and career-wise, though, I’m in a rut. So I should be champing at the bit to get my hands on this job… and this guy.

It’s just that going into a new role with a new boss can be fraught. Given the salary I command, I aim to hit the ground running, professionally and sexually. There isn’t ever time to get my feet under the table properly, and I find it takes a huge physical and emotional toll on me. Again, it’s a lot, and if I take this challenge on I’ll have to be even more disciplined with my sleep and nutrition regimes than I have been since I got comfortable with Steve.

This morning, I’ve taken the step of turning the Eras Tour on on my TV while I get ready. Usually, I have CNBC or Bloomberg on in the background to get me up to speed on any overnight news out of the US and Asia, but today I require a proverbial kick up the arse.

Taylor Swift is not just about the music for me, fantastic though it is. She’s a walking, singing example of what we can achieve when we keep our eye on the prize. Her work ethic and her commitment to excellence are second to none. She keeps her head down. She pushes herself. She moves forward. She dreams big. She does what needs to be done, and she does it with boundaries and grace and humility.

So when I’m feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable or apprehensive or my usual drive eludes me, I watch her command tens of thousands of people and I remind myself that star quality might be innate but that hard fucking work gets you what you want and where you want.

This job is a stepping stone.

This guy is a stepping stone.

I have a vision, and I’m already so far ahead of the rest of my MBA class in terms of the salary I command and the access I enjoy and the trajectory I have that it’s laughable. After another three or four years of doing this, I’ll have my pick of C-suite jobs and I won’t have to endure years of middle management along the way.

I slide my iPad into my handbag. The car I booked is waiting for me downstairs, and I’m confident the traffic will allow for ample time for me to go over the copious notes I’ve made on Mr Sullivan’s background, the growth and IPO of Sullivan Construction, and the spin-off of the estate into Rath Mor.

One last glance in the mirror confirms all I need to know.

My lipstick is perfect.

And my future is blinding.

There’s always a moment in this job: that moment when you catch your first glimpse of him in the flesh.

I’ve seen photos of Mr Sullivan already, obviously, through my research, but it’s always different seeing them in person.

Rath Mor’s offices are located in a beautiful Georgian building on Berkeley Square, right across the square from the infamous members’ club Annabel’s. So far, so much better than Steve Goodall’s offices in Swindon. The interiors are plush and old school. Their thickly padded cream carpets and wood panels and perfectly lit art scream private bank, but the overall effect is less stuffy than reassuringly opulent.

I’d put money on that being a real Twombly behind the reception desk. My parents, who are cultural attachés, were pivotal in making his posthumous exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris happen a few years back.

This guy may have been a priest, but he enjoys expensive, alluring things.

Noted.

I see him a second or two before he spots me. He strides out into the reception area from a corridor on the left at a brisk pace, an unasked question on his face as he looks to his receptionist. And in the moment before our eyes meet, my brain downloads him like a 3D scanner.

Taller than I expected.

Lean build.

Good posture.

That’s a custom suit, probably Savile Row, and he wears it well.

Somehow, his face looks more open, less intense, than that photo I enjoyed so thoroughly of him as a priest.

Still, I’m not the only one who’s tightly wound. I can sense his nervous energy from here.

And finally…

He is seriously fucking hot.

I rise as he turns towards me, preempting him, smoothing the skirt of my dress over my thighs as I do.

‘Ah, Athena,’ he says, clocking me. There’s no way to miss the rapid—and likely involuntary—sweep he does of my body before meeting my eyes. He approaches, hand outstretched, with what I know he intends as a reassuring smile on his face. ‘So good of you to come in. How do you do?’

I know this guy comes from new money, from at least two generations of proudly self-made Irishmen. Perhaps that explains his friendliness, but in this instant the elite education his family wealth has afforded him at Ampleforth and then Durham University is also evident.

Socially assured, but with that Irish charm?

It’s a deadly combination.

We shake. ‘Thank you so much for having me, Mr Sullivan,’ I say, my voice clear and steady. ‘It’s wonderful to meet you.’

I’ve been in training for moments like this my entire life. Every gala I’ve attended in the kind of icy imperial splendour that only Vienna can boast; every visiting cultural delegate with whom I’ve had to make sparkling small talk; every opening night at L’Opéra in the presence of artists and money men alike: they’ve all taught me how to produce precisely the right social reaction for every given situation.

‘It’s Gabriel or Gabe, please,’ he says, turning and gesturing towards the corridor from which he appeared. ‘Don’t make me feel any more like my father than I already do.’

He takes my coffee order and relays it to the receptionist before ushering me down the corridor and through an antechamber featuring an empty desk to his office. I take it in quickly: it’s a large, well-lit room with the same panelled walls and cream carpet as in reception, except that these walls are painted a rich midnight blue. I assume that space we just came through is where I would sit if I worked here. There are two doors off to the right, both shut.

I’m here to sell my powers as an executive assistant, but I can’t help but run through in my mind how the sexual side would work. The partition between this room and my area is glass, but the door and wall leading out to the corridor are solid. It’s a good start. His desk is huge and solid oak, with presumably ample room for me to slide underneath it if I wanted to suck him off, and there’s a large sofa against the far wall.

I’ve worked with worse.

At his signal, I take a seat in front of his desk and cross my legs, placing my handbag on the ground next to me. I’ve opted for my interview staple of a fitted navy shift dress in supple wool crepe from Victoria Beckham. It’s just as formal as a suit, and squarely work attire, but the exquisitely sharp tailoring is most definitely cut to celebrate a woman’s body.

The main agenda of this meeting may be defined, but there’s a shitload of subtext, and I intend to make that subtext speak very, very clearly. I have good reason to be confident about my prospects if I nail this morning’s interview. Camille reported back to me that Mr Sullivan—Gabriel—emerged from perusing my portfolio somewhat gruff of voice and with his overcoat held firmly in place in front of his crotch.

So he was turned on, but he didn’t avail himself of the tissues. How very Catholic of him. Every sperm is sacred—isn’t that how it goes?

I’ve also seen the full notes from their meeting. I know how out of his depth he feels, and I sympathise. He’s emerged from what was supposed to be a lifelong vocation only to spearhead a company that’s loaded with potential but is really a bit of a mess. He was probably severely institutionalised in the priesthood, and I imagine his business degree feels far, far away.

All I have to do, therefore, is wow him with my understanding of his needs and my business acumen and persuade him that I can take every single professional headache off his plate—and that’s all before we get to the next round—the part where I fuck him free of every personal headache, too.