Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Iterations ❯ Listen ( Chapter 1 )

She's wearing the dress I bought for her. I smile and let my eyes leave her face, trail downward a bit. This is politeness. The rules are different with women you've been intimate with.

 

This is politeness because, to be honest, the dress doesn't look all that good on her. Either I have poor taste, or a few months with her have worn away the gloss of her appeal.

 

The wine feels pleasant swirling down my throat. It's allowing me forget the details of yesterday's botched meeting with the board and next week's convention in London. I'm not very well prepared these days. Yes, the company's image may suffer, but I'm starting to wonder if I should care. Okay, this is the wine talking. I know I do care, in some faraway Monday as the elevator chimes Floor 35 and I step out in my newly polished shoes and a double shot of espresso in my system.

 

But right now there are just a few glasses of house wine and a familiar woman here with me; the scope of my life is narrow.

 

She's been talking at me but I didn't catch the beginning of her story. She's predictable enough, though. Something about her friend's new job at the Satin club downtown. I have to wonder how many of her friends are dancers. Wonder what they look like.

 

“You're not listening again.”

 

I smile easily. I don't think she knows how much I hate that pout she's making. She looks like my sister.

 

“You told me Selena's at Satin now and doesn't feel safe there.” I can usually sum up several minutes of her chatter in a sentence or two. She knows how to fill silence. I shrug. “She should get another job.”

 

The pout's not going away. “She can't really afford to. Not all of us are like you.”

 

I laugh. I don't feel bitter, because at least she's beautiful. But somehow it seems every woman I end up with defines me by my wallet…which is natural, I suppose.

 

“I can't exactly get another job, Dani. It's a family business, you know that.”

 

“You have a sister.”

 

I pause for a second and kind of hope she knows how stupid I think she is, but because she's stupid she probably doesn't know.

 

“I don't think you've met her, have you.”

 

“No.”

 

“She's not interested in business.”

 

“Oh.”

 

I've let my food grow cold. I'm not that hungry tonight. For a second I remember how hungry I used to be when I first started on the job. The secretaries were appalled at how much I usually ordered for lunch. But after a few years without serious training, I'd say my appetite has gone down to a semi-normal level.

 

She talks at me some more and I listen. I'm actually considering when she'll ask to break it off. It should be sometime soon, because she's enjoyed enough of my money and I know she's not as captivated with my personality as she pretends to be. She's a fairly tolerable person when she doesn't talk too much about herself, and she's beautiful. All in all it's been a fair exchange.

 

I always make it clear in the beginning that I'm not looking to get married. So I usually get along quite well with my exes because we establish a sort of mutual understanding early on. It's much cleaner that way, fewer burdens for both of us.

 

“What are you thinking?” she asks me. She looks suspicious. I guess I look bored.

 

We should be over by now.

 

“We should get going,” is my answer. It is kind of late.

 

“It's Saturday night,” she says pointedly.

 

“There's nothing worth doing around here.”

 

She smiles in response to that. I think she's trying to look seductive, but it's not working.

 

“Except you. Is that what you want me to say?”

 

Her smile widens and she even blushes. Cute.

 

But a turn-off.

 

“Carl will send you home. Or wherever you want to go. But I'm going to take a walk, I need some time alone.” My words are rather abrupt. She's probably offended that I don't want her, even when she's wearing the dress I bought her.

 

I'm already texting my driver. She's not protesting at least. Maybe she's remembering that the dress I bought her is worth a few months of her salary.

 

“I guess I'll see you next week,” she says, not hiding her disappointment.

 

“Call me.”

 

I walk outside and through the parking lot. I think Carl is puzzled that I'm just going off on my own. Another one of his boss' strange whims, he must be thinking. At least I'm not flying away this time. I've done that a few times when we were stuck in traffic on the way to important meetings.

 

It's autumn. The air's cold, beginning to bite at my skin. I should have worn something warmer.

 

I have to smile at myself. Funny how I've forgotten so many of my old habits. I don't have to put on extra clothes to feel warm. I just have to kick up my ki level. But I don't often use ki anymore, so I usually don't realize that I can.

 

The streets are emptier than they should be on a Saturday night. I would wonder why, but I've realized that sometimes there simply isn't a reason for things that are out of place. Maybe it's just in our minds, the concept that something can be out of place. In reality, maybe things just either are, or aren't.

 

This is probably still the wine talking.

 

I don't usually philosophize much. I just live. I used to wonder a lot if this kind of life could satisfy me. By “this kind of life,” I mean what you think I mean. Power and wealth. Working at the top of the system and knowing I can have whatever I want. My fear back then was that I'd be an even bigger sellout to the system than the guys who start at the very bottom. Those days of youthful idealism are gone. I'm just a man still, but a man with a lot more to his name than others. I can't say I'm happy, but happiness and satisfaction aren't the same. Satisfaction by definition is enough.

 

I step off the curb as the pedestrian light turns green. The car just rounding the corner keeps going even though the driver must have seen me by now. It doesn't break my stride.

 

It avoids hitting me by maybe an inch. The breeze from its passing lifts the bottom of my coat. A quickly fading voice shouts an expletive in my direction.

 

This is how I know I'm just a man. At least once a week I'm reminded. Or rather I have to remind myself. So I don't slow down on Saturday nights when I'm crossing the road, even when a driver who is most likely drunk is carelessly swerving into my path.

 

I've never actually been hit when I do this, though. And when I walk through the more dangerous parts of the city, I've never been mugged. Must be luck. Not that getting hit by a car or a fist would seriously hurt.

 

The complete lack of violence feels a bit strange at times. The yearning for a physical challenge, any sort of violence, even pain, is wired into my genes. Half of them, at least. But with each year that passes, I guess nature loses to nurture. Or habit. No one's ever nurtured me. The word itself sounds disgusting to me, like a repulsively soft, skinless newborn rodent.

 

This must be my nature speaking. I hate weak things.

 

All the lights on this long avenue are lit. The sidewalks are straight and the trees are all about the same height. The sky is dark and the stars are clearly visible. What else is worth describing…the buildings are just…buildings. I see them every day and hardly notice them anymore.

 

But I notice the lights because last year when there was a citywide blackout for three days, the mayor turned to me. Capsule Corporation redesigned the power grid of the city. Not our specialty, but we're flexible. My mother was proud of the company she had helped build into a global empire, naturally. My father didn't give a shit and told her to shut up about it, naturally.

 

I'm going to keep walking because there isn't anything else I can think of doing. There's probably something waiting for me to do in my inbox, but for now I'm just wandering.