Jack, Juliette, Me and It

I could see that she hated to be interrupted, so I did it again,

"Contrary to popular belief Juliette, you do actually have to study hard for a bloody long time and do a shitload of hard work and walk away with a shitload of debt."

Her mouth flapped open.

"A good university Juliette, somewhere you know that your peers will take seriously," I added some anger, "Whereas YOU Juliette, let me see..." I paused, "I just bet you went from the school of hard knocks straight to the University of Life." The silence in the room was almost tangible and I looked around at my colleagues.

Juliette could see from the corner of her eye a few nodding heads, that was exactly what she used to say, a few of them smiling behind their hands.

I carried on with my presentation and it was very well received. All except Juliette of course.

In a terrible mixture of metaphors between myself and Jack, I could feel that the Queen of this particular hive was feeling threatened, not by another Queen but by some objectionable Alpha male that represented almost everything she hated.

I stood, thanked my audience and proceeded to switch off the IT and disconnect my laptop from the conference room projector.

I was approached by several of the group I'd been talking to. The girls, all photocopies of the pretty Sophie, same suits and midi-dresses, same hairstyles, same blusher, same make-up around the eyes and the same shiny lipstick.

The lights were switched back on and I saw my heartbeat's reflection in the glass of the conference room walls. I was tall, dark-haired with a hint of grey around the temples spreading back and up. I'd inhabited worse. I could tell that my heartbeat was quite proud, and I knew would be a gym attender. I hated gym attenders.

I went back to my heartbeat's desk and looked. I could feel that he was quite new to this place and I felt he was probably one of those office minimalists; a desk was the place that you put your laptop, and rested your take-out coffee to let it cool, everything else was unnecessary.

I put down the laptop, and flipped open the lid, there was a computer game still as a wallpaper, it was from Skyrim. Shit, I was in a nasty nerd. I went through his memories and there was a X-Box and a sofa. A dark room, a growling man, a snapped 'are you coming to bed?' from his now ex-wife. His ex-wife had a reasonably good future, but I could see that was because this arsehole was no longer in it.

I could see her in black at his funeral, OK, perhaps my time here was short. She was almost the only person at his funeral too.

Oooooohkay then.

I really didn't like this man, but hey, I'd been in thousands of horrible people I didn't like and had made them do some strange things, some of them fatal.

I eased back to allow Jack to his own thoughts and tried to look at his future, and there didn't seem to be one. Perhaps I was going to stop him from being shitty to Juliette as she was the centre of this particular job, 'It' had already told me.

In her life stream I could still see him, but I couldn't see her in his. When I'd been Lecturer Matt I could see him in her life, but he wasn't there either; strange.

I looked at this awful woman's childhood. There was an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a father that didn't want his wife's lover's child.

There was a children's home, a foster home, back to the children's home.

There was no love at the home, bullying at school because she was different and was picked up in a minibus not by a parent like everyone else. The little girl came out fighting because it was the only thing she knew how to do.

The second foster home was worse than the first. The angry little girl annoyed the quite angry man of the house who felt little girls should be seen and not heard, especially ones that were charity cases taken on to please his bloody wife. Angry little girl reacted in the only way she knew, again.

Foster home two lasted less than a week after she went to school with a black eye she had from talking back to quite angry man.

A social work manager had chatted with her boss who had the bright idea of sending angry girl to a private school that would be chock full of other strong-willed girls, she would fit in so well.

The other strong-willed girls all came from reasonably loving families where they were encouraged to work hard and had a modicum of love, and a shitload of money of course. Angry little girl was totally different; she had no family and had never been encouraged to do anything other than not upset people.

She lasted two short terms at the school, her Head of House rescuing her from the junior girls changing rooms where twenty-two of her classmates, (the HoH actually counted them) all lined up with brooms, mops and scrubbers to 'clean-up' the skinny, penniless, foul-mouthed, back-street bastard that the county had sent in amongst them; no parents, no money, no class.

The older girls had told the juniors that 'The Brat' was letting the entire house down, and they really needed to do something to make sure she didn't let down 'the team'.

The HoH heard the cheers, and entered the locker room to see what the celebration was, seeing the kid the entire school (some teachers included) referred to as 'the brat' was cornered, and she almost closed the door and walked away from a school tradition that she had taken part in herself some thirty years before.

After all, that awful brat no other house wanted, that bloody kid that was in her office for one misdemeanour or another at least twice a week could do with teaching a lesson in teamwork. A cold shower and a scrub down with a couple of bask brooms might teach her that being a team player was just as important as hard work.

As she slowly pushed the door closed, she heard that angry tone,

"OK bitches, you try and hurt me, several of you are going down, I'm talking hair, eyes, teeth; one of you spoilt posh cunts is going to end up in hospital. There'll be more of your blood on the floor than mine girls, SO LET'S FUCKING DO THIS!"

That bloody girl, dumped on the school as a charity case by another old girl, chair of the board of governors, a County Councillor and vice-chair of the social services committee, this was all she fucking needed.

The HoH entered the room,

"Right!" she shouted, "just WHAT is going on here!?"

"It's Mills, Miss," shouted the junior prefect, "She was just going to attack us."

"Yeah," shouted the Brat still backed into a white-tiled shower, "I'm pinned in a corner by twenty-five girls, all of them armed with sticks and lumps of wood," several of them clattered to the floor sporadically and guiltily, "I'm just waiting to attack someone Miss!"

"Mills, come with me, girls back to your rooms! I've NEVER been so ashamed of this House!"

The brat walked through the clutch of girls, most of them originally totally against this retribution and busy not making eye contact with her, as she hissed 'anytime you want bitch' to one that had evidently said something to her.

She was sent to another children's home, and met a girl just like her, Fiona.

Fiona understood Juliette, she'd been there before her and explained that she was fighting the wrong enemy. Beating herself up was giving in to them. She listened to the girl a year older but decades wiser and discovered that anonymity could be her friend. She sat at the back, kept quiet and worked as hard in her education as she had in defending herself.

She was sent to another school and a gained a very good set of qualifications and encouragement to work hard, but her particular set of social workers didn't think she 'was university material', seeing as they had all been themselves. She was instead encouraged to start work.

She did, fighting off a dungaree-wearing feminist Ed-Psych that tried to convince her to become a car mechanic, a welder, a brick layer. Juliette Mills knew more than most that money made for comfort, and now she was free of the state's care, she wanted to be comfortable.

She started as a clerk-typist in a financial services company; she worked hard and listened. Fiona had always said to her,

"Sweetie, you have two ears, two eyes and one mouth; use them in those proportions."

By the time she was twenty-seven, she had moved company twice, and was a senior accounts exec, looking after millions of pounds of client cash, moving it around the world to take advantage of the best markets and interest rates, fired by her own drive and Fiona's good sense.

She'd had a couple of relationships, finding out that both men that had initially professed love for her were just interested in her ideas and after the initial clash of eyes across the expensive dinner tables they treated her to, their interest moved from her to what she thought the next emerging market would be. Her young and inexperienced heart wasn't ready for the lies and poor use.

She tried a brief flirtation with her own sex, but that girl was a psycho who stalked and trolled her for weeks once she decided she couldn't do the kind of inquisition and minute-by-minute accounting for every second of her life that the other girl demanded of her; until the court order stopped her.

Although she did find out later it wasn't actually the court order, the psycho had been dumped by another girl, and she was simply stalking and trolling her instead.

Then Fiona died. Meningitis; no idea where from, but it killed her in days.

That influence, that steadying focus was gone.

Juliette Mills became angry again and moved from hating men to hating everyone, it was just easier that way.

It did explain her though. To make it worse, some rotten bastard had significantly messed around with international cocaine supply and it was more expensive and harder to get hold of. Cocaine was what she had instead of a social life.

There was a TV-like flash as 'It' moved me to the next day. 'It' rarely had time for me to waste just 'being the heartbeat', preferring foresight to take us where we needed to be when it was necessary.

It was the next day and Jack walked us down a rather busy high street a walk from the office, and as he looked at his phone he ploughed into somebody, his new iPhone clattering to the floor.

"Oh... for..." Jack angrily roared at the woman that had just been walking along not looking at where she was going either, just as he had been.

"Fuck you dickhead!" she snapped back.

He wanted to go a bit mad and shout and scream at her in his driven, 'most important person in the universe' mindset, but there was a glow...

Around Jack, around 'me'; us.

I stopped the rant that was building up; pumping heart, rage at the impertinence of this fucking nobody. Cheap clothes, cheap watch, shitty android phone, just enough of a belly to show lack of exercise and personal pride. A common piece of shit who'd dared to...

The glow increased.

"I'm sorry..." I made Jack say, the fuming woman across from me seemed to pause as well. "It's been... one of those days," I made him say, closing his eyes and making him bow to her with smile. In doing so, I could feel Jack fighting against me as I diluted his venom. I reached down for the dropped phone, no damage.

"OK," she said. She took a deep breath, "I'm sorry I swore at you, I wasn't watching where I was going either," she extended a hand, which Jack took, shook and smiled with a hint of a second gentlemanly bow.

I could feel the man-whore in Jack rise to the challenge of perhaps taking advantage of this new female opportunity, but within seconds there was a man next to her.

"You OK Babe?" he said.

I stepped in,

"My apologies," I said playing the older gentleman, "I'm afraid neither of us were watching where we were going, no harm done."

"We're fine," said the girl with a smile.

I tried to see what might happen with the girl and her attentive beau, he seemed a bit of an arrogant twat as well.

"OK," said the arrogant twat, slipping a protective arm around his woman.

It had taken all of my power over Jack to stop him responding to this other Alpha male, throwing a challenge out there, and suddenly it stopped. I just held him in check.

The woman and her man nodded, gave a hint of a smile, and walked on.

I felt everything about Jack's resistance fade in a moment.

That grumpy, miserable, self-centred twat seemed to back off.

THAT wasn't so new, I'd known plenty of bullies back down when things didn't go their way. I went with it still and walked back to office, realising that for all this walking, Jack still hadn't stopped for lunch. I took him into the local supermarket and bought him a BLT. Just shy of the counter was a cabinet full of Krispy Kreme donuts.

I had him pick up a box of twelve of the biggest, the pinkest, yellowest, whitest and most chocolatey. Back at the office I placed them on the counter in the kitchen and took one.

The flavour was incredible. Certain things had always been a bit of a mystery to me, and just like pain and orgasm, flavours were right up there with things I never experienced fully, this must have been a strong one.

My heartbeat was a real fitness knob, his shirts were always tight fitting, I guessed that he wanted to show off his hard work and sweat perhaps he never ate donuts and this was all new to him.

Twat.

I was so impressed with the first donut that I took a second.

About an hour later I saw Julie, one of the team administrators with a donut, her lips smacking and looking very pleased about the whole thing.

"They're good aren't they!" I said.

She smiled back at me guiltily,

"Have you had one?" she said.

"Two!" I said.

"Two?" she looked shocked at that. I guessed that it wasn't something that Jack did.

"Yeah, I bought the tray!"

Her look went to surprise by way of a hint of disbelief. She sat up a bit.

"It was OK?" She looked a bit concerned, "me having one I mean?"

"Of course!" I said brightly.

"Thank you!" she said with some relief, "Any occasion?"

"Nah," I said, "Friday, a good day for donuts."

"Thank you, Jack!" she'd narrowed her eyes a bit.

"Share the good news honey," I said.

She looked confused again, I guessed it was because I called her 'honey'.

Within minutes, the tray of twelve, nine now, was down to two remaining and every face seemed to be munching.

This simple Friday lunchtime moment seemed to have brought a smile to the whole office. The other reason for the smiles was made clear when Sam the other administrator came across to me.

"Jack... I'm..." she looked embarrassed, "The King Edward Hospital is on the line," she pointed back to her desk, "Something about arranging a lift for..." she stopped momentarily, "for Juliette."

"From where?"

"I'm guessing the hospital?"

Her surgery; since my lunchtime issues I'd completely forgotten that the office harridan had taken two days off for 'a medical appointment'. I thought back, hospital... appointment...

"Oh yes," I said, remembering what my heartbeat's ex had told him about Juliette's forthcoming hysterectomy... I couldn't tell anyone; I shouldn't have known, "She's having some bloody thing done," I resorted to something mean about her. "Yeah, she's having a personality transplant, but it'll probably reject her!"

The office chuckled at my humour at her expense, but I felt slightly guilty about it.

I smiled at Sam,

"Pass it through to me Hon," I said. After all I was the most senior person in the building at the time.

"Hello?" said the voice, "Is that Mr Hackney?"

"No, my names Robinson, how can I help?"

"Miss Mills is here and gave us this number to contact Mr Hackney that is coming to collect her?"

"Collect her?"

"Yes, she's in the recovery suite and needs someone to come and collect her and take her home. Keep an eye on her for a few days..."

I looked around for Juliette's PA, but her desk was empty. Sam looked up seeing my confusion.

"She's off today." Sam whispered to me. "took the chance to have a casual day while Juliette wasn't here."

I thought long and hard, Jack still wasn't coming up to fight me on this.

"Oooooohkay, where do I need to come?"

*

"What are you doing here?" she growled at me.

"I was the only one in the office when this nice lady rang."

The lady in the blue scrubs looked up and grinned,

"It was the number on your next of kin details Juliette."

"Why did you ring, I said I was going to call a taxi."

The nurse looked at the notes,

"And we said when we had the pre-med meeting, you need someone at home to take you home and to look after you for a couple of days," she picked up the notes and read from them, "You said you had someone, your friend Mr Hackney?"

l knew what that was about; she had used her usual office joke and was going to get a taxi -- a 'Hackney Carriage', she would tell her long suffering PA Glyn to call on Mr Hackney when she wanted one.

"Where's Glyn, why didn't she call me a..." she snapped at me.

"Day off," I said, turning my back to the nurse conspiratorially, "who's going to look after you?"

"Well... I don't need anyone to look after me!"

"Juliette, we can't let you go home alone," said the nurse with a real tone to her voice. I was waiting for Juliette's standard 'don't you use that tone of voice with me' speech but the nurse wasn't having any of it. "JULIETTE! You have just had some quite significant surgery and you need to rest!"

"I don't have time to rest!" she snapped, waving as much of a dismissive hand as her wounds would allow, "I..."

Everything in the room seemed to indicate the pen in the nurse's hand, it hadn't started to glow but I knew it would so stepped in.

"I'll sign for her," I said, surprising myself most of all, "She can come to my place."

"No you bloody won't..."

"Right," said the nurse ignoring the complaining lady still with the surgical cannula in the back of her hand, "here's Juliette's sick note and her medication. She must keep these surgical stockings on for ten days, here's a spare pair," I took them from her, "these are strong painkillers for the next couple of days, these are the medication she'll need to take from now on, she'll need to contact her GP to get a repeat prescription, if there's a problem call us on this number any time, there's always one of us around that can advise; seriously, any time." She gave me a smile, and I could feel the thanks in it.

"Thanks," I said, "I'll remember that. OK Juliette, you wait there -- I'll go and get a wheelchair."

"I do not need a fucking wheelchair!" she snarled, I could feel her hatred at everything happening around her and out of her control.

"Juliette, you've had surgery, how are you going to run to the car park, precisely?" I snarled back at her. The nurse stepped away from the bed, happy that this awful woman was someone else's problem now, release papers in hand with my signature that meant anything that went wrong from now on would be down to me.

In reception, I managed to find a wheelchair and a nearby medical type insisted that I could only have it if I promised to bring it back.

I felt some of Jack's fire and stopped myself from saying, 'just what the fuck do you expect me to do with it otherwise', but I bit his tongue, adding a smiled 'of course'.

The medic smiled back.

"Thanks," he said, "some days we have to walk the car parks to find them, people wheel their loved one back to the car, get in and drive away; I mean, it's not like its bloody Sainsburys car park and we've got five hundred of them."

"Totally understand," I said, "I happen to believe that returning supermarket trolleys is the height of the civilised human, second only to the creation of the NHS of course."

"Thanks!" he said with a big grin and waved me on my way.

By the time I got back a grumbling Juliette was still bitching about the amount of time it took the hospital to do anything.