Usually I’m here earlier than all these yuppies, but since I stayed late last night and know I’ll be doing the same tonight, I slept in a little later—and yes, also because Maggie kept me up extra late too.
“Fuck them, we could eat them for breakfast!” screams John, the guy who’s been out in the pit the longest.
“—ten thousand at eight and a half—” says a short-timer who is balder than a pool cue.
“—pick up a hundred thousand shares—” says Liam, a real Irish tightwad.
Though the chatter usually perks my ears, I find myself pulling my phone from my pocket. With Mr. Foxtrot ahead of me and preoccupied with all the hustle and bustle, I check my messages.
Maggie: Are you more like Richard Gere in American Gigolo or Pretty Woman?
Me: ?
Maggie: Are you all about the sex or the market?
Me: You’re insane. Which answer will get me a look at your wet pussy faster?
Maggie: Neither. I’m not one of the hooker whores down in the basement of your building.
Me: You’re stuck on that, aren’t you? Internet surfing?
Maggie: No! Just curious.
Me: You had it right the first time, they’re the happy hit squad of prostitutes, and to answer your question from earlier, I’ve never dipped my pen in that ink.
Right then the buzzer sounds, announcing that the market has opened. And just like that, the room breaks into pandemonium. Feet come flying off desks. Journals hit the trash. Eyes open wide. The gates are open and the bulls are ready to charge.
Like each of them, the mighty roar is surging through my veins and resonating with every fiber of my being.
As we near Mr. Foxtrot’s office, I shove my phone back into my pocket and hear the ping of it again. Maggie will have to wait.
Phillip Foxtrot is a big man. Husky and tall, just his natural state is intimidating, and I am no pussy. However, couple that with the fact that he rules his empire with an iron fist, and yeah, I’m shaking in my shoes a little.
Quickly, he closes the door to his massive office and sets his gaze on each of the six television screens he has on the wall to the left, and then shifts his attention to me. “Take a seat, Keen.”
I hustle to the chair in front of his desk.
“No, Keen, sit in my seat,” he says, indicating the chair behind the giant mahogany desk.
I stand where my feet are frozen on his plush carpeting.
“You got a problem with that, Keen?”
“No,” I reply, “no problem, sir.”
“Good.”
With my shoulders squared, I walk my ass around his desk and take a seat, right in his fucking black leather swivel chair.
“You like how that feels?” he asks.
“Ummm.” Fuck, what’s with the stuttering? I try again. “Yes, I do, sir. Who wouldn’t?”
“Move around a little in it. Pick up a pen. Lean back. Make yourself comfortable.”
Okay, I’m not going to lie: right now my balls are shriveled up inside themselves.
“You want to sit on a throne like that someday, don’t you, Keen?”
I nod.
“Do you know what it takes to be king?”
I grip the sides of the chair. “Sure—intelligence, determination, and hard work.”
He circles around the desk. “No, Keen, it takes balls. Big balls.”
I say nothing.
The man who founded this firm sits on the edge of his desk and looks down at me, the silver at his temples gleaming amidst his dark hair. “Do you have big balls, Keen?”
I glance at the silver framed photo on the desk of his wife and two kids. “I like to think I do, sir.”
He leans down lower. “Have you ever come out to my house in the Hamptons?”
“No, sir, not yet.”
I’ve heard about his summerhouse, of course. In fact, he has two houses in the Hamptons—one where his family vacations and one for his firm meetings, as he calls them. The firm meetings are for the higher-ups and clients, and are not meetings at all, but actually wild parties. These “meetings” are thrown almost every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Live bands. Food. Booze. Girls who work for the firm dancing topless, strippers and hookers considered guests, and everyone naked and howling at the moon by midnight.
Mr. Foxtrot motions for me to get my ass out of his chair, and I do, with great relief. Once I am sitting across from him, he looks right at me and says, “It’s your time, Keen. It’s your time. Not only will you have an open invitation next summer to some of the best pussy around, but you might even be throwing your own parties before the decade ends.”
This is it; my promotion is on the table already. I’ll be a higher-up before the day is done. I can’t fucking believe it. I’m an eagle soaring high and building my nest.