Soon

   His body entered the water slowly and was soon covered in foam that smelled of vanilla. He sat down on the edge of the enormous Jacuzzi and just closed his eyes and pulled his head back. Adam was trying to relax after the party he had thrown, a luncheon in honor of all the donors that had decided to give money to the hospital his foundation ran. They were all nice people, always smiling and nodding and shaking hands with one another. Adam knew most of them really well, from other events and from social encounters, and he knew most of them wee awful people.

 He took advantage of their guilt to fuel his philanthropic endeavors with all the money they had to give which was a lot. They were owners of huge companies and brands and taking a thousand dollars out of their bank account was almost unnoticeable. Their guilt came from the fact that most of them were always doing something behind close doors, whether it was having an affair, or having links with organized crime or having some sort of sickness or condition that they didn’t want anyone to find out about, among other reasons.

 It’s not like they knew Adam knew but rather than they used any social service available to atone for their sins and guilt. For Adam, who was a young businessman and also the owner of several companies, that had to be taken advantage of, instead of potentially loosing that money to other “causes” like prostitutes or alcohol. He didn’t have to threaten or to convince anyone, they just did what he expected them to do and that had always been the case even when his father was alive.

 It had been five years ago that his father had died and had left him in charge of every single one of the companies he owned and also in possession of most of his estates. Of course, his siblings had attempted to fight this will but he soon clarified no one would be kicked out of nowhere and there would be no fighting among family members. He distributed the estate and was sure everyone was represented in the various businesses they had. That way he earned his family’s trust and also the respect of their community of wealth.

 In time, with his keen eye for business, he managed to win the respect of every single company owner in the country and was able to prove to them that his young age was not a downside of who he was but rather and interesting and potentially key characteristic. After all, his father had died when he was just twenty-seven years old and many in the companies and among his family thought he wasn’t mature enough. He had an older sister and his dad had partners who were more experienced. But the will of his father was respected and he ended up being what they all needed in order not to let everything be lost.

 However, he wasn’t perfect himself. It was not that Adam had any obvious flaw but rather that he had too much interest in his rivals and friends. He had many of them watched by private investigators, forming kind of a team that revealed to him every little dirty secret they all had behind close doors. This gave him the advantage in every business negotiation because, although he would never blackmail anyone, he knew how to use those secrets in his own advantage. He was truly obsessed with getting to know everything about a person and wouldn’t let his investigators rest if they hadn’t found anything meaty.

 In that luxurious bathtub, he would often have a bath, as he would check all the files on his investigations. He was very adamant that if there wasn’t any interesting discovery in the first month, he normally left the person alone unless it was a current rival of sorts. He didn’t want to be using all of that to be a rat. Business was business and that’s what it was all about but personal things, very personal ones were just out of bounds. He had discovered, for example, how some people he investigated were HIV positive or had cancer. This for example was never used against them and the files he had were destroyed because that was personal.

 What he liked to find was something like a love affair, like some weird transaction with the mob or something like that. Both those things made people feel very guilty and guilty people are not good for business. It was very easy beating them in that arena where he had learned to excel from a young age, thanks to the tutoring of his father. He used those really silly secrets to make them tremble in their pants and from there his victory was already settled.

 The fun thing about it all was that Adam tried to be the contrary of all those rivals. First of all, he wasn’t stupid enough to do something crooked. He had all kinds of advisors and people working for him that would tell him if he was making a mistake or how to achieve something without the need of dirty money or cheating. If he didn’t saw an honest way to do something, he simply didn’t do it. He was rich enough so it wasn’t that bad not to win more money. He wasn’t driven by money because he had learned to control his thirst for power.

 Besides, he was very open about his life, both personal and in business and was always very clear that he didn’t answer to any one in his personal decisions and that only his family mattered in his business ones. That was it so he wasn’t the best media character, even if some news outlets loved to show some pictures of him hugging beautiful models, kissing men and women or having luxurious holidays in some faraway hotspot.

 Adam was not about settling, that was true. He wouldn’t marry any women because he thought that kids would come soon and he didn’t wanted children not to have a father. Because he was always away for business, was always focused on that and had only a few very well defined moments during the week when he could just relax. He didn’t think a wife and kids deserved that, even if it came with all the money and privilege he had to offer. His mother insisted that he got married to continue the line and have someone inherit all of it when he died. And she was right but he had no idea how to accomplish that.

 He had also thought of the option of marrying a man but that had the same problems, minus the conceiving part that would be replaced by the whole process of adoption or by them using a surrogate mother, which was his favorite option of the two. Any way, he wouldn’t have time for them and he wanted to be able to share everything.

 The bottom thing was that he needed to love someone and that didn’t happen. He had sex often enough and went into dates and was charming as a man could be, but no one had really made him think about them as a potential wife or husband. He was very nice and a complete gentleman with them but he needed someone that gave him something he didn’t have, that made him feel unbalanced but, at the same time, that made him feel like everyone with that person was worth it.

 Adam was not very big on the concept of love. He thought it more like an alliance of sorts were two people realize they have to be together because they work much better as a team. He knew many people like that, friends and family, and he had the image of his parents, who had always loved each other just like that, helping each other and being the best partners one could ever see.

 With the soothing sound of water around him, Adam realized that some day he would want children, that one day he would want to wake up and find someone he loved to smell next to him. He was only thirty two years old and thought that maybe it could happen the next day or in a couple of years but he was sure it would happen because, sometimes, he felt that need but it wasn’t as strong as it could be. He knew it wasn’t strong enough yet.

 He then stood up and walked naked towards a wall, where some wind blowers dried him up. He had to stand there like the Vitruvius man, feeling the soft caress of all that wind. Then, his mouth began to feel dry and the world around him started to get distorted. He felt dizzy and tried to hold on to the well but he just fell to the ground, a marvelous granite floor.

All wrong

   Alan put one finger in the water: it was perfect. He closed the tap and took off his towel. He put it on a hanger just by the tub and then entered the water, laying peacefully in the tub, closing his eyes and smiling calmly. He hadn’t been properly relaxed for many days because of work and family and he had decided to take this Sunday to just be at peace with himself, enjoying what he liked and doing everything for him only.

 He opened his eyes remembering he hadn’t used the bath foam he had bought a day ago in the mall. He stood up, carefully stepped on the floor mat and walked to the sink. He grabbed the small bottle and poured some in the water. Then, when he was about to enter the calm of the bubbles, he heard the intercom’s sound. He decided not to answer it but then it kept on ringing. He grabbed the towel, put it around him and went to the kitchen to answer the call. Apparently someone from work had come to visit him and leave some documents. He asked the man to say he didn’t want any visitors but then he heard another voice: it was his boss and apparently he had come with his wife. There was no way to say no.

 He put on an old t-shirt and some gym pants and received them. He thought his clothing would make them go away but they certainly didn’t. The truth was his boss was very fond of him but he didn’t like him in return. He was the kind of person that would use other people’s time freely, as if it was his own. Alan had to give them some cookies he had gotten from his mother as well as coffee he had prepared for a post-tub breakfast.

 Their visit seemed eternal. Who visited an employee at nine in the morning on Sunday? His hatred of his boss grew exponentially as he told him his stupid stories about the club and encounter had had with a well-known actor in the airport and when he had gone to Thailand. Alan did not want to know any of that. He couldn’t give a fuck about what his boss did outside of work and, clearly, his boss didn’t really cared about his employee’s lives.

 Then, after all his stupid stories, he confessed he had only come to visit in order to give Alan some papers that he should read for a reunion the following morning. And the he just left, as if nothing had happened. Alan decided not to ask why he hadn’t sent those damn papers by email or with a courier or some other way. Why did he have to come and bother the only person that visibly disliked him in the office? It was funny how Alan really did not express any animosity for him but then he was all nice and kind to Alan.

 He tried to not think about work, leaving the papers on his coffee table. Alan walked back to the bathroom, where the bath foam had grown so much it was spilling on the sides of the bathtub. Deciding he didn’t really mind about it, he took off his clothes, left them on the floor and put one foot in the water. He almost fell backwards when he felt the icy cold water that was beneath the foam. Now he had to empty the tub and fill it with hot water again. Half of the cold water out would be enough to fill it again.

 When most of the water was out, he opened the hot water tap to refill it. He also added some more of the foam solution, as most of it had gone down the drain with the cold water. Then, the doorbell rang again. Alan let out an exasperated sound. He was going to kill the doorman if he had let someone in without asking him. He grabbed his towel and went to the door almost running. Before he realized he could have just not answer it, he had opened the door.

 It was his neighbor Marco, a big guy that apparently spent every hour of the day at the gym. Sure enough, he wore the right attire to go and work out but that wasn’t important right then. He was holding a white cat, very fluffy with a flat face.

 - Hey man. I was wondering if you could take care of Snowball for a few hours. I            normally leave with my…

 He’s face looked as if he had forgotten the word he was about to say or even why he was there. Alan stared impatient, looking from Marco’s stupid face, to his cat’s face and then back to Marco’s. Then, he realized he was only wearing a towel, which could fall at any moment because he had not put it correctly in the haste.

 - Am I interrupting something? – He said, looking at something over Alan’s shoulder,  which wasn’t very hard to do as he was very tall.

 - Kinda… - in a very cold voice.

 - Cool…. So my girlfriend won’t take him. She’s busy and can’t do it. So would you do  it? Just for a few hours. She has already eaten and she’s very well behaved.

 He held the cat in front of Alan’s face, as if the animal was an offering a weird sacrifice ritual. Alan took the cat that tried to release himself from the man’s arms, and told Marco not to be late because he had a very busy day ahead. Marco just nodded, smiling in a way he looked like a very small child. He gave the cat a pat in the head and then headed down the stairs.

 After closing the door, Alan left the cat on the floor and turned to go in the bathroom. But the cat crossed his path and tried to attract his attention. The creature just roared softly and circled him with his fluffy tail but Alan had no time for this. He grabbed the cat, walked back to the living room and left him there. But when he tried to leave, the cat would cross his path again. He grabbed it once more but then realized the cat’s paws were wet. He was about to yell in fury because he thought it was cat piss but it wasn’t.

 There was a very large puddle of water, still advancing, from the bathroom. Then he remembered the open water tap. He threw the cat away, which landed softly on the floor, and ran towards the bathroom, his towel falling to the damped floor. He almost fell trying to close the tab of water. There was soapy foam all over and the tub kept spilling water to the floor. He finally was able to close the tap and drain the water out of the tub. Now he was wet and soapy all over and his towel was more of a wet cloth than anything else.

 He went to the kitchen and when he was about to grab the mop, the doorbell rang again. Exasperated and frustrated because of his failure to be at peace, he opened the door, slamming in hard against the opposite wall.

 - What? What the fuck is it now?!

 On the other side of the door stood his landlady, an elderly woman who was always accompanied to the upper floors by the doorman, who stood behind her. They both stared at Alan and then the woman yelled and started saying things so loud no one really understood. But Alan did get one of the words: “Pervert”. And then he realized that he was still naked, having not replaced the wet towel with a clean one.

 He slammed the door shut and, for some reason, put the security chain on. He could hear the old lady yelling all the way to the elevator and the doorman trying to calm her down. It was a disaster. Alan just remembered she had told him she would visit in order to negotiate an extension on his rent contract, which he needed to do because of the great price and place he had there. Now that was, like the bathtub foam, down the drain.

 He slid down to the floor, covering his face with his face, frustrated and sad that this so-called “peace” day had been a total failure. Then, with his eyes covered, he heard a weird scratching sound. Panicked, he put his arms aside and realized that Snowball had been quiet, too quiet until now. As he got close to the sofa, he realized the cat was cutting it open, strings of fabric on the floor and even some of the foam from the cushions.

 But that wasn’t the only thing. The papers on the coffee table were now on the floor. And no one could say now what they had been because there was only a bunch of paper strips beneath the table. Alan looked at the cat, which meowed joyfully to him and kept on going with his destruction work.