He was always shouting, sashaying, tearing things off walls. Nothing was ever up to his incredible standards – nothing. It wasn’t so much that they were high standards, but that they were standards that changed with the rising of the tides and the blowing of the wind. It didn’t help that his ego was both incredibly delicate but massively inflated as well.
She didn’t like him. Who would, after all? He was so difficult to work with, even as she churned out another meaningless report that he wouldn’t know how to read. He knew nothing of what he did and relied entirely on her for answers. She rolled her eyes as she highlighted keywords in a large fact sheet for him, just so that he could present another case to another person and impress them with his vast pool of knowledge.
He knew they envied him, what with his designer hairstyle, his impeccable sense of fashion, and his perfectly plucked eyebrows. Once, a colleague had asked him how come he put on his shoes with such ease. Work shoes were never easy to put on and take off. He replied in a huff of hot hair that his shoes were $1,000 shoes – they’d better be easy to take off! So the question of his shoes was never brought up again.
In fact, no other questions ever came his way again.
He demanded favours like candy, but withheld his own favours with a tight-fisted grip. Any favour he dispensed was clothed with sarcastic jibes and thinly-veiled, if at all, insults at those who dared to ask him for one. He thought he was being funny, but then, all failed comedians think they are funny.
So he wondered why, slowly but surely, nobody talked to him. She didn’t want to talk to him. She’d rather face an emotionless computer than deal with the tantrums of a five-year-old man. She just sat there and did his work for him, so that he could get his money.
It was lonely at the top, he consoled himself. It wouldn’t matter, because he wasn’t there to make friends. He was there to make money. Friends, he had plenty, he thought. He had a rich boyfriend who bought him bags, cars, and degrees. He was good in bed, he thought. So what if he lacked a few friends where he worked? It didn’t matter.
Only money mattered, like his father said. His dearly departed father, who never approved of anything he did. From young, he had been trained to do whatever it takes to get whatever he wanted. He learnt that when his father stepped into his room one day and saw him reading magazines that contained scantily clad males. He learnt that when his father locked the door and beat him for his inclinations. He learnt that when his father unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants, dropped his briefs, and proceeded to show him exactly what those magazines implied.
It was a punishment, but he enjoyed it. He cried, not in pain, but in pleasure. But his tears were mistaken for guilt, and he was whipped once more before his father buckled everything up and left his room the way he entered.
His mother was none the wiser.
Anyway, only money mattered. Those shoes were expensive.
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