Sebastian thought this while sipping through the middle of his
espresso
double shot. In a moment the waitress would ask if he was ready to order. He would swish the coffee in his mouth with his tongue and then sip the seltzer water while rubbing two fingers across his cloth napkin and say that he was.
The thing that actually mattered. The only thing. Never changed:
power
.
He would enjoy his espresso slow. Make it last until just as his
salmon
was about to come out. That final stretch would be what the seltzer water was for. Small, frequent sips. While watching people pass by on the street through his
sunglasses
.
There was no need here for a smartphone. What life wasting garbage was there that could be better than enjoying this? he wondered. A cool, sunny Tuesday afternoon where he had no worry about getting back to work. He knew he would get back to it eventually. But that would be once ths moment was over. For now he could experience this reality without stress or worry like the people he was surrounded by. People staring at their phone or their books, listening to their
podcasts
, trying to milk out whatever 'freedom' they could muster between the pathetic cracks of time that they called their 'breaks'.
A man who could afford a long lunch was truly a king. The salmon came out.
"Enjoy, sir. Would you need anything else?"
"I'm good. Thank you."
"My pleasure."
Wild caught salmon to fill his belly during this long lunch. Salmon he didn't need to catch. Cooking that he didn't need to do. Cleanup that he didn't need to perform. That was power. He cut off a piece of the fish using the side of his fork. He took several bites and then thought more of power.
His boss. Clay Weston. Now that was a powerful man. Sebastian had hardly known anything about Clay until three years ago when he got that mysterious visit from Clay's primary assistant.
There was no email or phone call. Just a personal visit. A time and a place. And no question about whether Sebastian had anything going on that day that might make it impossible for him to come. It was like the assistant... or the man she represented knew everything about him. For some circumstances that day had been completely clear for him. It was going to be a breather of a day he had told himself until suddenly he was wanted by the man himself.
Initially Seb had thought Weston was simply some middle tier CEO of a boring Midwestern company. But it was only over the following three years while earning more trust that he learned more and more that the public Clay Weston was a sham. An image. And he realized more and more that the man he was working under was another person completely.
A man who wasn't known to the public. An identity that floated through the streets. Even after all this time he couldn't prove to another person. But deep down inside he was sure that his boss was
The Wolf
.
It used to make him so excited. But also scared. Could he get whacked for messing up? No, that's why they took so long to trust you. They didn't hire any jackass up the ranks to work directly with Clay. When they brought you up, they were sure of you. And they'd give you tasks that were just revealing enough but not to the point where if the person went rogue they could spill the beans on the entire operation.
A gradual build up... where if anywhere along the line there was clear indication that they had got the wrong person they could simply stop ascending that person. No harsh feelings. And no having revealed a secret to the wrong person. Plenty of people other than Seb had certainly been given the chance. And had failed to ascend to the point of actually meeting Clay. And they had stopped their ascension without ever knowing that there was a plan for them. They simply had just stagnated and went on with their lives. Never knowing they had been picked and had been being watched, only to have been determined to have been 'not a good fit'.
At one point when Seb got this awareness that he was indeed on that path of ascension. That his boss indeed was The Wolf, he was so excited he didn't know what to do with himself. He had always prided himself as being teh smart kid. The one who could figure the complex things that other people couldn't see. He wanted to run to Clay and tell him "hey! You're him!" but then he thought of how stupid that would be. If anything that would've been the clear red flag that he wasn't the right person. Clay would brush it off like he had no idea what Seb was talking about and then Seb would go back to being a regular employee. Or getting a great referral to be a regular employee at another company far away from Clay.
Nowadays his job, his mentor, wasn't so much a thing that felt like an overwhelming excitement. Now it was just his life. His reality. But damn didn't it feel quite amazing, he would think, especially on these long lunches.
