The Liaison Manager by Marguerite A.

de Leon

The Liaison Manager

by Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon

“With or without music?”

“With.”
Feona slipped me a memory stick through the slot in the glass, leaning
closer to make sure I heard her. She looked straight at me, plain, pale face
plaintive, her words slow, loud and clear.
“There are twelve songs on that, miss. Start from the first track. The
Nine Inch Nails. Mid-volume, not too soft. I want to hear it, but I want to hear
him, too. He has to make sounds, too.”
Feona, as with all of our patrons, had particular requests. Yet she did
seem a bit more concerned with the details than others. Most choose their
music from our own library and are satisfied with our equally wide selection
of theme suites, all of which are open for any and all adjustments. Feona, on
the other hand, had printed out screenshots of dingy bedrooms from noir and
gangster films, arranged them in a ring binder, and pointed out to me the
elements she wanted. A random smattering of empty beer bottles. A fat,
ceramic lamp with a graying crocheted lampshade. A cracked mirror with
fresh red smears (fake blood or lipstick, she clarified with much diplomacy).
Ashtrays. A naked, tattered mattress. She wanted it decayed. Nelson and
Edwin, the company gophers, were out with the van, scoping out garage
sales and ukay-ukays for her precious prerequisites. Every patron is God.
Unica Unlimited is the first and best devirginization station in the
Philippines, currently with 64 five-star branches and over 20,000 satisfied
customers. We pride ourselves in our precise personalizing policy, ensuring
that every single virgin to walk through our doors struts out not just with a
milestone under his belt, but with that warm, warm feeling only a perfectly
executed fantasy can impart. It had only been two years since the sex
service sector was legalized in the country, following the gradual, decade-

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long revolution brought on by Zancal, the male temporary sterility pill.

Together with the female pill, intercourse was finally 100% baby-safe, and no
amount of badgering from anyone—even the profoundly pissed Catholic
Church—could thwart this staggering opportunity. Unica Unlimited had
patterned itself after the devirginization stations that had flourished in
Europe and the United States since then. We aim for nothing less than world-
class first-times.
After giving me quite a few more specifics, written out for me from a
list she had saved on her digital organizer, Feona left the building to rest and
prepare herself. She would be back around 12:30 AM, having scheduled her
event for 1:15.
I leaned back in my chair. It was 6:30 in the evening. There was plenty
of work to be done; I had several other devirginizations to organize and
monitor prior to Feona’s. Nights at any Unica branch are naturally hectic, and
my old stint as manager of once-infamous band The Mastards had attuned
me to regularized bedlam. That evening, however, my drive was slow to kick
in.
I stared hard at Feona’s client specs form—fat from several additional
sheets—clamped down onto my beloved clipboard. All of the information on
it was solely Feona’s, crammed into every smidge of white in her tiny, boxy
print. I contributed none of the details. It was all hers, all hailing from her
own imagination and experience, likely a fusion of countless little facets from
films she’d seen, books she’d read, conversations she’d had, maybe things
she’d already done. As was the case with all others requests I’ve received
and brought to arresting, irresistibly tangible life. Yet the devirginization she
had specified was also something else entirely.
It mirrored mine. A hair too accurately.
I kept staring at the form, the distance between it and myself pressing
and palpable, up until I heard the van pulling up at the driveway. I slipped out
from behind the counter, knowing the boys would need a little help.

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Feona’s set-up was almost ready a little after midnight. The prep team
and I had stripped our Basic Teenage Boy’s Bedroom Suite of most of its
furnishings—the perpetually unmade twin bed, the gaming console, the stack
of scuffed basketball shoes, the action-figure display, the plastic box of porn
conspicuous in its plainness—until all that was left were the CD player, the
guitar, the amp, and the strange sour whisper that always hung in young
men’s habitats, care of Unica’s patented special spray. Vaguely rank, as
Feona had noted down. As Nelson, Edwin and a few others brought in the
props they had scavenged, I reviewed Feona’s dossier yet again, trying to
fathom how she had come up with a setting and storyline that were not as
original as she had probably believed.
Feona Marie Uy. Uy—common Chinese last name, indicative of an at
least slightly conservative upbringing if such readings were to be trusted.
Graduated four years ago from a prestigious private university. Cum laude,
but in Mass Communications, not in Business Management or the science
courses the school and its predominantly tsinoy and tisoy population was
known for. Lived in Capitol 8 with its mechanized guard posts and spacious,
pretty homes. So with her parents, then. Edited web content for an
automotive company in Ortigas, a long, hollow acronym of a company. Had
worked there for three years and counting. No past experience in glossy
magazines or advertising, the far more glamorous trades I expected a well-
schooled, well-sheltered, and supposedly well-bred Comm grad to be in. This
was either a sign of rebellion or of faint-heartedness. Didn’t look like the type
to wage war with parents over college courses, considering her mousy
disposition that afternoon, so her folks were probably supportive enough. In
conclusion, this Miss Feona Marie Uy, Client # 03712, she of a background
favorable for doing whatever the hell she pleased, had a decidedly weak will.
A 26-year-old virgin, after all. I put the dossier down.
Ever since people could completely baby-proof sex at will, the validity
of some romanticized notions attached to sex had petered out. Sex as pure
recreation had become more dominant than sex as procreation (accidental or

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otherwise), so unless you were one of the near-extinct breed of mortals that
had saved themselves for marriage, cherry popping no longer held the same
physical and spiritual urgency. The delicious danger had been dispelled.
Firsts were still firsts, however, so devirginization stations were developed to
lend the act some sort of dignity. It could be special on your own terms. The
near-accurate simulation of the place, time, man, woman, circumstance and
whatever else you prefer, planned and played out as one would the elements
of any other carefully orchestrated holiday. How a birthday is spent can be
plotted out—breakfasts in bed, movie marathons, dinner dates. How virginity
is lost was now open to the same kind of scheming.
With the prep team busy smearing charcoal on the walls (Feona
wanted burn marks but all our branches follow a strict fire safety code), I
went to the changing rooms to check on Mikey. I found him on the bench
facing his locker, already dressed in a brown Soundgarden band shirt and
tight, dark denims, hair properly mussed, poring over his copy of Feona’s
client specs form. He had a solid five o-clock shadow, having received my
message about not shaving. Good boy. Mikey was one of the most disciplined
and obedient devirginizers in the first place. And a smart one, working at
Unica to pay for his MA in Developmental Studies. He had mastered every
role that had been assigned him—the handsy doctor, the sweet-talking jock,
the rough and gruff repairman, the effeminate matinee idol—and executed
every special request in bed with the same dexterity. I had yet to get any
negative feedback on him from our clients, female and male alike. A good
boy. Pretty much the opposite of TJ, frontman of the Mastards, the boy who
had popped my own cherry, and Feona’s idea of her own boy made flesh.
In that evening’s get-up, Mikey looked like any other half-assed
frontman of some half-assed band who bottled up every last dreg of 90’s
grunge and labeled it their life’s mission. Which was exactly who TJ was. A
tired, tiring image. As Mikey loosened the laces on his green Chuck Taylors,
emitting a heady, almost nauseating air of cliché, I was slowly beginning to
see how easily Feona’s concept had suggested itself. However hard it was for

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me to admit it, my first time (from an outsider’s point of view, anyway) was
quite the trite tumble. Was nineteen, fascinated by slightly older fledgling
rock star, gave in at the bassist’s birthday party in birthday boy’s bedroom
after x rounds of gin-lime. Mandatory groupie behavior, as any stranger
would tag it.
But that was as typical as it had gotten. Instead of going on to fuck the
rest of the Mastards as any proper groupie was wont to do, I became their
manager and never had sex with TJ since. No blowjobs. Not a single,
conveniently dismissible round of making out, even. I wasn’t some
impressionable teenager back then. I was attracted to TJ, but part of his
allure was being a complete asshole, and I was smart enough to know that
yielding my body to one night of his depravity was sufficient. Born to a
groupie myself, one with no clue as to which of the half-assed 70’s folk
frontmen my father was, I was a cautious little girl. And this prudence of
mine helped The Mastards fill up their fifteen minutes with a few music
videos and one gleaming gold record.
“It’s not a rape fantasy?”
Mikey had asked the same question earlier. Unica still had its rules,
despite everything. No rape fantasies. No physical pain that could lead to
bleeding (beyond the few ounces, if the client was female) or serious injury.
No drugs. No use of a non-Unica devirginizer. No destruction of Unica
property beyond what was approved. We ran a respectable outfit.
“You have to be rough with her,” I replied. “Fucking-wise. But not too
much. Just feel your way through it. ‘Very hard pumping’ is what she said.
And she promised she wasn’t going to act like it’s against her will. Did you
memorize the safety word?”
“Yup.”
His lips twitched, suppressing a smile. I crossed my arms and forced
my own patient grin.
“She can say it, you can say it, I can say it. Remember: if the safety
word is spoken—”

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“—the procedure must be terminated,” Mikey finished with a mechanic

drawl. In the history of our branch, a safety word had only been used once,
and it was only because the client—whose sole request was a little ice cube
play—had the sudden urge to pee. The deed had been resumed afterwards
and ended successfully, as always.
“Respect the client’s wishes.”
“I know that,” he said, setting the form aside and stretching his well-
toned arms. “But you have to admit, she really thought this through.”
“We can handle it,” I told myself out loud. Mikey started stretching his
legs out on the bench. The intercom speakers crackled to life, echoing within
the changing room’s blue tile walls.
“Calling Liaison Manager Tolentino. Liaison Manager Tolentino, please
proceed to Monitor Bay Number Three. Liaison Manager Tolentino, Bay
Number Three please.”
“They’re calling me. See you later, Mikey,” I said, heading for the door.
Mikey massaged his calves.
“Yes, you will.”
The monitor bays were my favorite area in the entire building. Tiny
rooms with tiny desks, just enough for one person, an intercom, headphones,
and a video screen transmitting closed-circuit theme suite footage. (As
stated in the contract, every client must agree to have their devirginization
monitored by a liaison manager for legal purposes. Their wellbeing and our
devirginizer’s wellbeing are always of great concern.) Sitting back in the
dark, aglow in the image of a single devirginization smoothly underway, I
found myself most at peace. But I had an inkling that Feona’s session would
be a different matter. I entered Bay Number Three electric with caution.
I switched the screen and intercom on, sat down, and fixed the
headphones snugly against my skull. There stood Feona in the center of the
suite, staring at the dilapidation before her with a calmness I took for
approval. She had shed her t-shirt, jeans, and sandals for a tight black tank

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top, short red skirt, and (of course, of course) Chuck Taylors. Yellow ones. Her
hot pink bra straps burned through the LCD.
“Good evening, Miss Uy,” I said over the intercom. Groupie Glam
Barbie brushed off the hair cloaking her face and glanced around until she
found the security cam bolted on the ceiling.
“Yes! Good evening!” Her voice was strident. She was ready.
“Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Okay. He’ll be in shortly.”
I sat back, trying to slacken my body against the chair’s upholstery,
aiming for a pacifying, near-horizontal angle. My thighs jiggled at breakneck
speed. I kept telling myself that there wasn’t anything to worry about.
Everything was set. The suite was spectacularly nasty. Mikey could be fully
trusted. It was just a devirginization, and it wasn’t going to be any more
special than the procedures I’d already managed or will. I watched Feona sit
down cross-legged at the edge of the mattress, just like she had written at
the start of her script. This was her night. It had nothing to do with me.
Mikey staggered into the room. He had been requested to act drunk for
others a few times before and had the nuances of bad motor skills down pat.
He drooped down beside Feona, stretched his legs out, and turned to smile at
her. So far, every single gesture was spot on. And I was more than certain
that he had doused his lips with rum right before entering. Rum, Feona had
said, not gin. I took comfort in that tiny difference. Feona smiled back.
“Are you okay?” Mikey asked her. TJ had a slightly darker complexion, a
sharper nose, and far scruffier facial hair, yet when Mikey gave that slightest,
softest smirk, eyebrows raised by a fraction of a fraction, the resemblance
between the two was alarming, at the very least. I took a deep breath. Stop
it, I said to myself. You’re seeing things.
“I’m a little tired,” Feona, bright-eyed, replied with an exceptionally
breathy sigh. She, on the other hand, was not that good an actress. I would

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like to think that when I told TJ that, it looked like I meant it. “You, are you
okay? You look pretty smashed.”
“I am.” Mikey’s grin grew a little wider. “But I’m fine.”
“Take a nap?” Feona went on, patting the mattress gently. She had
really done her homework. No girl at an after-gig party ever recommends a
nap and expects the guy to consider it. “You need a break fighting off all
those groupies.”
Groupies. That was Mikey’s cue to stand up and head to the CD player
at the other end of the room. Which he did, placing one foot in front of the
other with deft inelegance. He pushed various buttons on the player as if it
were loaded with a disc. After a few seconds, Mark, the light and sound man
holed up in the technical booth down the hall, fired up the memory stick
Feona had handed over earlier. My headphones picked up heavy clacks from
a drum machine, then Trent Reznor’s slinky, stifled spoken word. “Closer.” A
chestnut of a sex song. Though it was one I enjoyed, it seemed a tad too trite
for the occasion. As the lyrics you let me desecrate you drooled down the
suite walls, Mikey lurched back to the mattress. It wouldn’t be long before
the big moment. Just a few stupid lines of dialogue left. Mikey shifted closer
to Feona.
“I don’t care about those groupies,” he said, kicking his shoes off.
A laugh, sparse yet shrill, ejected from my lips. I remember how I had
felt when TJ told me the same. How proud I had been knowing full well that it
was pure bull. How invincible I had thought myself to be as I happily
humored the boy, letting him think I had fallen for it, think his nights whining
before a mic was really enough to score my surrender. That was only part of
the reason why I had caved. It was more because I had thought it something
great to look back on. Losing it to some rock star. Making him think it was all
him. A damn good answer if anyone ever asked how my first was. At least,
that was how I had considered it then. And I had never wanted a live
reenactment. Traces of that one, tiny laugh rested heavy on my tongue.

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“Talk to me,” Mikey continued, flopping onto his back, crooking his
fingers at Feona with irresistible languor. Feona lay down slowly. It wasn’t out
of hesitation, like in some cases at Unica. There was fluidity in the way she
leaned her body next to him. A full sense of security, a sign she was enjoying
every single second of it. Before me was a girl who, having been so docile all
her life, was taking over herself for the first time—incredibly meticulous
devirginization strategy and all. Or so I gathered.
“Won’t your girlfriend get mad?” Feona asked coyly. “Where is she?”
“Out of town. With her family.” (Jen, TJ’s flavor-of-the-fortnight back
then, had been out of town, too.)
“What’s she like?”
“She cooks well. Take your shoes off.” (Jen made great adobo. My
Chucks had been heavy against TJ’s shins.)
“I can fry an egg.” (As could I, and not much else.)
“You have great legs. And your ass looks good in a skirt.”
Mikey began running a hand across Feona’s thighs, palm moving
further and further up her skirt at every orbit. Though I couldn’t really tell
from the way his body was angled, he was probably getting hard by then. I
could very well see, however, how Feona’s fingers groped at his belt buckle
with the greatest urgency. They began to kiss. They looked like they were
chewing each others’ mouths out. From my almost-bird’s eye-view, they did
look a bit funny pressed so close together, their heads and hands knocking
against each other. Strange and unwieldy. But I couldn’t muster a smirk at
that point. And not especially when Feona yanked off her skirt and Mikey
slipped his hand into her red cotton panties. She launched into an earnest
round of gasps and shudders, and I wondered if she could manage the next
line through that maddeningly blissful wince on her mug.
“Wait,” she wheezed at last. “I have to warn you—”
And I mouthed the next line right along with her, a line I heard at least
thrice a day, spoken with the same degrees of zeal and bewilderment.
“—I’ve never done this before.”

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Mikey gave her the warm, wicked smile he had perfected since his first
day of employment.
“Do you want to?” he and I said in unison. He slowly tugged her
panties down regardless, as per the clause in the client specs form.
The answer, of course, printed in standard, pitch black Courier New,
was “yes.” And judging by how eagerly Feona was wriggling the panties from
her ankles, flaunting a hairless cunt so smooth she must have shaved it
minutes before returning, the script would go untainted. My heart sank as
she shimmied beneath him. Mikey pulled her shirt off, and for those few
seconds that her head was smothered in black fabric, I wanted nothing more
than a pause button on my desk, some wondrous, magic knob to freeze the
action onscreen. Her face popped out smeared with hunger. Mikey straddled
her, unclasped her bra and tongued at her nipples, waiting for the next cue.
“Yes,” she said.
The one word reached my ears sharply, uttered just as “Closer’s” last
few chimes dwindled to silence. The second song slipped in a moment after
that. And that was when I felt my entire upper body, inside and out, from the
lining in my stomach to the very tips of my ears, tingle with the purest, most
definite dread. That unmistakable crunch in the opening guitar riff. That
hollow, slapdash drum beat. It couldn’t have been anything else. It had to be
“Malcontent (A Love Song).” Suddenly, TJ’s flat, feverish yowl leeched into
every morsel of headphone foam and I felt like passing out. A Mastards song.
Feona put a Mastards song on her playlist. She was the devil herself.
Mikey pulled his pants down to reveal a pair of black boxer briefs. With
his ass facing the camera, I wasn’t going to see his penis all that well, but in
no way was I raring to. I had seen it—and the other devirginizers’ equally
impressive appendages—countless times before. A tool to me and nothing
more. It was far more important that I had a good view of Feona’s face,
which, as she cupped her hands delicately on the bulk before her, held an
expression of awe. She wrenched the garter down, her eyes opening up even
wider, and ran her finger up and down his eight thick, taut inches. Mikey

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froze in position for a moment to let his client inspect the most instrumental
instrument in her purchase. (Most female clients forego blowjobs and
handjobs in their scripts; actual sex is, in the end, their main concern.) Then,
he set the marveled object right against her still shut slit. Feona bent her
head to get a better look. I wanted to close my eyes. Duty and the most
sickening sense of curiosity, however, kept the shutters hoisted up.
And the song, that stupid song, was making things more difficult than
they already were.
“Malcontent (A Love Song)” was #2 on the local charts at the time of
my devirginization. It started off The Mastards’ 1.5 years of celebrity and,
after my adoption as manager just a few weeks later, my esteemed
reputation as That One Girl in Their Entourage Who Was Not a Slut After All.
The song had a certain gruff tenderness to it which, it being the 90’s then,
made it incredibly popular despite TJ’s horrid lyrics. Listen, Jane, to my
bleeding heart. / A sigh escapes as it’s torn apart. Horrid. Nonetheless, many
were deluded enough to consider this pure poetry, steeped as they were in
the grunge era’s fête of melancholy. The Mastards milked those months for
all they were worth, sapping all the prospects for fucking, chugging,
shooting, splurging, or smoking until they were bone dry. Because that was
what they were supposed to do. They sopped up every ounce of glory with
heinous abandon as all newly notorious rock bands since time immemorial
had. It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. And I had taken it upon
myself not to join in, to be the clear-headed custodian because, at the end of
the day, respect was tendered to the sober. I cleaned up the messes those
Mastards made, informed them of deeds they had no capacity to recall, kept
their secrets, and they were grateful for my existence.
It was only after the band had broken up when I could question how
good I had it then. The second album, which sounded much too much like
the first, failed to hold anyone’s interest, including that of The Mastards
themselves. The boys never were an attentive bunch to begin with. They
called it quits, we each went off to fend for ourselves, and the most contact

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I’ve had with TJ since was the occasional slapstick video clip he’d forward to
all of his email contacts. I used to think I had gotten the best deal out of the
whole experience considering I was the only one who could remember it
accurately. I broke my promises to the boys and recounted every sordid
moment of those band days to anyone who’d ask, savoring the wows and oh-
my-gods and no-shits that followed. But those tales were never about me.
And after over a decade of telling them, casting myself again and again in
meek, minor roles, I finally began to wonder.
Mikey and Feona stared straight at each other, the song’s fierce
melody smoldering between them. Finally, Mikey eased himself inside her.
Feona’s face a second later spelled something not unlike pain. Still, slowly,
she pushed her lower half towards Mikey’s and let out a thrilled little scream.
This was a sound I had been trained to recognize in all its permutations. My
hands flipped unconsciously through my clipboard, clicked my pen, and set
the ballpoint firmly against the proper box. (The next morning, when I
inspected the check mark I had made, I found a succession of other check
marks carved into the next few pages.)
Mikey started pumping. Feona was no longer wincing by then, her eyes
half-open, mouth half-open, neck strained so severely as if in a fit of laughter.
Her panting was laced with mirth, with such unadulterated triumph, in that
respect. She was probably still in pain, and was probably telling herself that it
didn't matter. I could tell that this artifice was everything she had ever
dreamt of. And then Mikey grunted his next line.
“I like you, Feona.”
“Yeah, right,” she rasped. It was a miracle she could still deliver
dialogue at this point.
“No, really. I like you. You’re different from the other girls.”
“I am?”
She lifted one leg for more room.

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“I’m very serious, Feona. I’ve always liked talking to you. You’re smart.
You’re funny. I feel so comfortable around you, like I know you’re beyond all
this shit, you know?”
Mikey’s ability to grind hips and speak clearly at the same time was
always a very impressive thing.
“I am!” she screeched.
“I want to keep seeing you.”
“But your—”
“I’ll dump her. She’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I kept crossing and uncrossing my legs. TJ and I had shared the same
words. But I knew that this was where all the similarities ended. Mikey and
Feona would lie together in the deepest silence after they were done, just
like TJ and I had. Hands would be held complete with interlocking fingers.
Faces would be burrowed into necks, temples would rest against shoulders.
Soon enough, the suite would make itself a nice, dark vacuum for Feona’s
thoughts, just like the bassist’s room had for mine. But I was dead certain
that whatever plans she’d dream up then (never mind that it’d be play-
dreaming and would never be conceived) would be the complete—and
completely feckless—opposite of mine. They would be different. Ridiculously
so. We’ll start dating. Real dates with dinners at slightly not inexpensive
places, with the catching of limited-run quirky independent films that did
well in Sundance, maybe with the attending of friends’ bands’ gigs. I will be
envied. The relationship shall be tumultuous, of course, fraught with
accusations of fucking around on both sides, of getting too wasted and/or
big-headed on his side. We’ll have a grand break-up in front of everyone at a
soon-to-be-famous hole-in-the-wall bar. I’ll move on to other vocalists of
equal or better repute. I will be envied. I will be dumped by these successors
for getting too wasted and/or big-headed. My life will spiral downwards in
such a frenetic fashion that I’ll be known as a whore of the scene for decades

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to come. When my name is brought up, people will wonder, first off, whether
I am alive or dead. Everyone will pity me and be disgusted with me and envy
me.
Of course she’d think that. I could feel it.
And it was possible that Feona would use her devirginization as a
segue to real groupie-dom. She was going to be heartened, emboldened. Or,
at the very least, she would finally get the gumption to find a job less dull or
really lose herself in some sport or hobby. That typical epiphany. She was so
easy to read. I had this nagging feeling, though, as I watched her scramble
on all fours, telling Mikey that she “wants to feel his cock from behind so
bad,” that she was bracing herself for more drastic, rock-and-roll behavior in
her everyday life.
It wouldn’t be long before Mikey came inside her. His near-ejaculation
groan had a slightly sharper pitch than his scripted ones. I was all too
tempted to slip my headphones off, knowing I would have difficulty listening
to the tripe that would soon follow. He’d blow his load, all shudders, crying
out like he’d been bared to gunfire. She would feel him collapse against her,
feel his pulse drumming, thunderous and violent and pleasant, and hog all
responsibility for it, warmth slobbering down her thighs. She would make a
pact with herself to reach orgasm with the next guy she now has the will to
hunt for. Step by step, Feona, she’d chastise. One thing at a time. Prudence
was everyone’s key to bettering themselves.
The clipboard’s edges dug into my thighs, heavy. I picked it up and
rifled through the pages. Stopped once I had caught the clause.
I glanced at the monitor. Feona’s fists gripped the mattress’s naked,
crumbling foam, delirious, bouncing hard against Mikey like a ball tied to a
ping-pong paddle. She was having quite the time. She was going have such a
future ahead of her, free from tending to needs other than her own, free from
ever tiring of sex or partaking in it only every once in a while if the guy was
clearly just as bored as she was, free from wanting jobs that’d eat up her
days greatly, bequeathing upon her pockets of time in a cold, cozy nook

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where it was dark enough to feel okay, like a monitor bay. Free. From
everything I had become. She was going to ruin her life, and she was going
to like it.
I looked back down at that one page of the client specs form. Any other
day and I would have found the word hilarious, but that night, it seemed to
be the one pointing a finger (gnarled, scrawny, sheathed in the musk of
nicotine) at me, mocking me. The word was so obvious, so stupendously
unoriginal, that there was even a smidge of a second when I wondered if she
was serious. But only a smidge. The high-speed humping that pulled my gaze
back up to the monitor assured me that she was not kidding at all. She was
disgusting. Naked, a sweaty, joggling lump of flesh, all beastly yipping,
whimpering.
My lips found their way to the intercom mic. Two syllables. Two
syllables were nothing to be afraid of. The word could be said in one breath. I
was all alone in the bay, with no one to snigger at me, to savor the sheer
corniness that would come out of my mouth, to stop me. On the tip of my
tongue was a word that could keep her from morphing into who I could have
been. Two syllables. I flipped the “talk” button on and just said the damn
thing.
“Cobain.”
They couldn’t seem to hear me. Mikey grunted oblivious little grunts,
busy slamming his groin onto Feona’s backside. I said it much louder.
“Cobain.”
Finally, it occurred to them that something new had penetrated the
room, and both stopped squeezing their eyes shut, glancing around with
curiosity as they held on to their momentum. I knew they were wondering
where they had heard that strange word before. I said it one last time for
their convenience. Slow, loud and clear.
“Cobain.”
The word registered. Mikey began to decelerate, his hips losing their
rhythm. This was very difficult for him, certainly. It must have been

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The Liaison Manager by Marguerite A. de Leon

extremely painful. But it was an occupational hazard, unfortunately. Rules

were, in fact, rules. I did make a mental note to give him a few minutes to
himself in a little while. At the moment, though, there was nothing either of
them could do about it. And it didn’t matter that things were slipping to a
standstill not because they had obeyed the clause, but because they were
just too disoriented for anything else. That was not important. He came to a
full stop after a minute or two. I flipped the “talk” button off.
Feona crawled away from Mikey. She rolled onto her back, looking
much too confused, far too surprised by the intrusion, to protest. Docile
again. After a few seconds still on his knees, his penis now all but
undetectable on the monitor, Mikey eased his body down on the mattress.
They knew they were done, unsalvageable. I watched them as they lay side
by side. Neither spoke a word. Their gaze crept across the ceiling, searching
for a certain something (a little bit of clarity, an exhaustive rationale written
in black marker), but not once did it cross the camera’s lens. The Mastards
track was fading out at last, the final note echoing less and less, the ghost of
a coming song just skulking about in the patch of calm. Feona clasped her
hands over her belly.
Who knew what she was thinking then. Not that I cared to know. ●

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