15. Lalochezia

[gunwithoutmusic]

Saturday, June 13th—11:23 a.m.

929 words. Approximate reading time: 4 minutes, 38 seconds.

Clara slowly emerged from the pool, dripping and glistening in the late morning sun. She made her way across the deck to the lounge chair where she had set her towel before her swim. Grabbing the towel, she began to dry her hair off as she moved toward the back door of her mansion. The door slid open quietly at her presence, and she stepped into a large but sparingly furnished room, leaving drops of water on the marble floor in her wake.

“Rachel, TV,” Clara said. “Finance.” The television hung above the fireplace flicked on, tuned to the Financial News Network. A talking head sitting at a desk in an apartment somewhere was discussing recent stock exchange news. Clara watched intently for a few minutes, listening for any news on her own company.

She finished giving herself a quick once-over with her towel and tossed it on the back of a chair, grabbing the plush robe that she had laid out and slipping it on. “Rachel, TV,” she said, causing the television to turn off. She let out a quiet sigh and walked into her office just off of the great room.

She sat at her desk and picked her headset up, gently sliding it onto her head and adjusting the earpieces and the eyepiece to her comfort. “Rachel, office,” she said, and suddenly her office building appeared in front of her, a fifty-story skyscraper in a bustling downtown area. Other people soon came into existence, walking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of her building, likely returning to work from their lunch breaks.

Clara entered her office building and was greeted by Boris at the security desk.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Sealy,” he said with a smile. Clara breezed past him to the elevators and pushed the “up” button. The elevator doors slid open and Clara stepped inside before pushing the button for the fiftieth floor. Instantly the doors slid open again, and Clara was on a different floor. She stepped back out and walked through a brightly-lit cubicle farm, where nearly a hundred individual workers were toiling away at their computers. A few glanced up at her as she walked past, but most of them knew better.

She approached a set of ornate double-doors, and walked through them to find her assistant sitting at his desk, typing furiously. He seemed very lost in thought and didn’t notice her at first.

“Hi, Ross,” Clara said after a moment, and Ross nearly jumped out of his seat.

“Oh, Ms. Sealy!” he exclaimed. “I’m so sorry; I wasn’t expecting you to come in today.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen the news—”

“Of course,” Clara said. “I watched FNN for a bit this morning, nothing came up.”

“Oh, well, it wasn’t FNN, Ms. Sealy.”

“What do you mean, Ross? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, The Celeb Report picked up on last night’s party and they’re having a field day with it.”

Clara groaned. “Ugh, what now?”

“Uhm, okay, so it seems like someone that was working last night managed to get a recording and it’s going viral. People aren’t very happy about... uh... they’re calling it ‘a flagrant disregard for public safety.’”

“Oh!” Clara exclaimed. “Public safety? That’s absolutely ridiculous. First of all, it was a private party at my private residence, so what does that have to do with the public?”

“I know, ma’am, I’m just relaying—”

“Secondly, we took plenty of precautions! All of the waitstaff, the valets, the caterers, they were all wearing masks.”

“I understand, ma’am, but I think people are more concerned about the fact that none of the guests were required to wear masks,” Ross said quietly.

“Well, of course they weren’t!” Clara shouted. “They were my guests! This is just completely—” She cut herself off with a loud sigh. “Whatever, it’s fine. I knew this was coming. The damned media always has something to say about everything, always has to make mountains out of molehills. It’s ludicrous.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ross said. “Do you want me to issue any sort of statement?”

“Why would I?” Clara sneered. “I don’t have anything to explain or apologize for. And why should I even care? We’re hitting record profits again this quarter. The shareholders are happy, and they don’t give a shit about this kind of middle school playground bully nonsense. Hell, half of them were there last night!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ross said. “So... I guess we’ll just go through your agenda for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Push it all back to Monday, Ross,” Clara said. “I’m taking a mental health day.”

“Yes, m—” Ross began as Clara disappeared right before his eyes.

She ripped off her headset and tossed it down on her desk unceremoniously. She sat in her desk chair and stared at the walls silently for a few minutes, before standing up and walking back out into the great room. She looked around at her beautifully appointed home and all of her expensive things.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck!” she screamed suddenly. Her voice bounced off of the walls and echoed back to her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and screamed again, listening to the echoes. She sighed. “That’s a little better, I guess,” she said to no one. “This’ll blow over, Clara. They always do. Maybe I’ll just go for another swim to take my mind off things.”

She slinked across the great room, undoing her robe and sliding it off of her shoulders before tossing it back across the chair it had been on before. She made her way to the back door, which slid open for her just as her bare foot slid along a small puddle of water on the marble floor.

Comments

[roina_arwen]

Ooh, nice. Open ended, so we don’t know if she fell and whacked her head after sliding in the water puddle, or what. Love the technology. I hope we get another installment for Clara!

[gunwithoutmusic]

Thank you! :) Part of me thinks maybe she deserves to fall and whack her head, given what we see of her character here, but I also wouldn't really wish that on anyone so I'm not ready to do it to a character I made!

Something about the VR office is unsettling to me but also seems kind of cool. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing things that like soon, where people are "working from home" but still "going into the office" at the same time.

[banana_galaxy]

This is such a contrast to all the other settings you've used, and I love it! It's good to see what this whole world is like for the upper class types.

I also like the open ending, allowing us to speculate what becomes of her.

[gunwithoutmusic]

Thanks :) I definitely wanted to explore what things are like for the upper-class types. I think when I go back to these, I'll be more explicit about the year in which they take place, but what's interesting about this one is that it takes place during the period of time when people don't have access to cars (something that I explored in the very first one I wrote back in the last Idol session), yet Clara's party had valets. There's definitely some "rules for thee but not for me" stuff going on here.

[erulissedances]

I can easily see her not found until Monday, per her instructions, and her company's stock taking a nose dive upon the death of the CEO soon after the party and the poor publicity from that.

- Erulisse (one L)

[gunwithoutmusic]

In my mind, this isn't the first time she's had one of these parties, just the first time that one of "the help" broke their NDA. She could probably manage to cover it up or corpo-talk her way out of it. Of course, that's assuming that she doesn't end up with a serious injury or worse...

[bleodswean]

Intriguing! You cover a lot of bases here AND include your trademark twisty ending! Nice!

Great work setting the scene. Funny to think we can so clearly see a VR "scene" but of course we can! Also, using your particular 'Verse to clearly paint a picture of your character. And then that ending.

[gunwithoutmusic]

Thank you! The VR office kind of freaks me out - I know that Meta is really pushing the Metaverse hard, and while the technology still isn't quite there yet, I can see a future where everyone "works from home" but still "goes into the office" via VR. In a sense, it's a "best of both worlds" thing - you get the convenience of working from home, but you still have a place to go to focus and socialize with co-workers. In another sense, it's very scary because you know that these people are effectively trapped in their homes (whether they actually consider it that way or not).

[drippedonpaper]

I do like the twist on how she actually was staying safe herself by working virtually. And the story also emphasizes the privilege to "take a day off" as needed. Sometimes I think that was one of the hardest part of working 2 jobs which was 7 days a week for so long. There was never a moment where things let up. I did not earn paid vacation, and the budget was so tight, I couldn't afford to take off and not get paid.

Your story reminded me a little of Boris Johnson, and the party at his home :)

Your work always introduces intrigue :)

[dadi]

I totally thought of BJ too!

[gunwithoutmusic]

I think that the funny thing is that she has an attitude that she can pick and choose which rules she follows, and for the most part actually gets away with living that way.

I definitely had that party on my mind when I was writing this! Assuming that nothing terrible happens to her in the slip, I do wonder what the fallout from the party would be.

Thank you for your kind words!

[adoptedwriter]

SOme people cannot win no matter what they do or do not do. Love the ending in this!

[gunwithoutmusic]

Thank you so much!

[ofearthandstars]

I really love this character and setting - entitled and above reproach or care, it seems, and yet still a bit rattled to hear of any pushback. Also, you just did a fantastic job with the setup - I felt the relief of her expletive! I am hoping she did not slip at the end!

[gunwithoutmusic]

You hit the nail on the head with the characterization. She definitely feels like she's "above the law" in some sense, but she also knows what the optics look like. In my imagining, she's thrown these parties before, but no one's ever ratted her out so to speak.

I'm not actually sure what happens to her in the end, but I find myself wondering what the fallout would be and how she could recover. Thank you for reading! :)

[mollywheezy]

Very nice! This was a very different setting from some of your entries, and I liked seeing a different viewpoint within the universe you've created. Excellent ending, although I hope she doesn't fall!

I also loved that her version of Alexa is named Rachel. That completely amused me since I have a sister-in-law named Rachel, lol. ;)

[gunwithoutmusic]

lol I was trying to come up with an acronym for the virtual assistant and it was giving me trouble, so I finally just settled on Rachel. I don't know why, but it just felt right, haha.

Thank you so much for your kind words :)

[d0gs.livejournal.com]

Oh damn, I did not see that ending coming! I love that you left it open ended as to what happens to her though, leaving us to speculate!

[gunwithoutmusic]

Thank you! It's more fun to me when things are left a little vague; gives room for the imagination to do its thing. :)

[dadi]

Ahh the upper echelons of your dystopic universe ;) nasty people!

[gunwithoutmusic]

Oh, and in my head she's not even the worst - all she does is flagrantly disregard safety protocols and act like she's better than the "normies." She's all business in the worst way, but I don't think she's outright evil. I want to explore the elite a little bit more in this universe.