Shogun of Love

CHAPTER ONE 5:30AM The old alarm clock shuddered into life in a convulsive manner, belching a grinding noise that could wake a sedated Hippopotamus two city blocks away. A solitary figure in a pink coloured pyjamas with the cartoon character Moana's face imprinted on the pyjamas, reluctantly sat up from the blanket ruffled bed mumbling irritably, she stretched out an unsteady hand and slapped the alarm clock on the head into silence. Zoe Westmore brushed back her tousled hair and blinked sleepily. It was past 5AM on a cold Monday morning in November. Zoe hated Mondays, there was something about Mondays that made it dreadful. Zoe hated Mondays right from primary school, the little boys in first grade back then always had fresh supplies of their rubber slings with which they used in firing paper missiles at the little girls in first grade back then, in junior high, Mondays was biology and French class which were the two subjects Zoe disliked the most. The dislike for Mondays continued at high school because Mondays was the day boys and girls in her class gossiped about the parties they had attended over the weekend, who was dating who, which boy kissed which girl and which boy snaked his hand up which girl's dress at such parties, parties that Zoe was never invited to. Zoe hated Mondays even more when she got admitted to NYU and found out that her most boring lectures all took place on Mondays, taught by dry humourless male and female professors who looked like the university equivalent of the Taliban. Zoe's dislike for Mondays was taken a notch higher when she got a job three years ago at Endo Incorporated as a junior business analyst and found out that she had to attend section meetings on Mondays mornings that were always chaired by the section leader in her department at the office who was a reed thin British man who wore Ghandi type of spectacles with a badly receding hairline who spoke English with a shrill voice as if he was in a Shakespeare stage play and was always looking seriously pained whenever anybody spoke American English around him. Zoe got up and did ten minutes of stretching exercises, then she expertly started making the bed which she completed in less than two minutes. Zoe hit the bathroom which in reality was just a small cubicle with a small separate area for the toilet, and there was a small separate wash basin under a small mirrored wall cabinet which held bathroom necessities. Zoe brushed her teeth and after that went to the shower and gingerly turned the shower on, the hot water came trickling in the shower and soon the steam from the shower enveloped the bathroom and made the shower a pleasurable experience on a cold November morning. She finished her bath and dried herself vigorously with the towel, she had selected the night before what she would wear today and she lotioned herself then dressed up. She went to the mirror on the cabinet and critically looked at her outfit and her makeup, turning to her right elbow and to her left elbow to look at her handiwork. Zoe brushed away an imaginary curl away from her gleaming auburn hair which she had bundled into a tight bun which she secured with a hair band. She wore a white female trouser suit with a red silk long sleeve shirt which complimented the white suit perfectly. She pinned a silver brooch on the lapel of her jacket and applied perfume on her wrists and behind her ears before applying red lip stick moderately before stepping back to look at her reflection in the mirror, a stunning woman elegantly dressed for work stared back from the mirror, Zoe smiled in self appreciation and picked up her handbag and a small black briefcase containing office documents and files. She switched off the light in her studio apartment and she proceeded to join the lift which already had seven people in it, all dressed for work. As the doors of the lift started closing, Zoe could hear families already awake in different apartments, little kids were already awake for another school day, some of the kids were arguing while some were crying as their mothers tried soothing them and trying to make breakfast at the same time, while fathers could be heard voicing support for mummies in their quest to get unwilling kids ready for school. Zoe grinned as she remembered her own daily shenanigans with her own exasperated parents when she was a little girl being prepared for school. The lift cranked open at the ground floor and everybody disembarked and headed for the main exit of the eight storey tenement. Zoe waved to old Tom the caretaker and handy man who was at his desk at the reception, already into his first steaming cup of coffee of the day with the New York Times sprawled in front of his desk. Zoe exited the building and checked her watch which indicated 6:20AM, and already the morning fog was almost gone and the first rays of sunlight was bathing the New York metropolis with a soft golden glow. On a normal day she would have ridden the subway, but today she was going to use a cab to get to work, she had dressed up in the white trouser suit, feeling good in her mind on this cold Monday, and didn't feel like sharing the grime, oxygen and other smells with people in the early morning peak hour train packed with folks of the New York human worker ant colony. Zoe flagged a taxi and got into the back of the taxi and told the driver her destination. The driver was a dark haired smiling Indian man with gleaming white teeth that would have made any dentist in Beverly Hills very proud, and most female movie stars over fifty years very envious. Inside of the taxi sounded like a street carnival during midday in Mumbai, as the driver played only Indian songs on the car stereo which he merrily sang to word for word with so much gusto that made Zoe laugh from her back seat. When the taxi stopped at a traffic light, the cabman showed Zoe a picture of his wife and two little kids whom he proudly told Zoe were living in Mumbai while he was trying to make a better life for them by driving cabs. Sanjay as the cab driver called himself, said he was attending acting and dance classes at night so that one day he could go back to India and fulfill his dream of starring in a big Bollywood blockbuster and finally bring his wife and kids over to America. Sanjay told her he loved America but was sad that Americans played baseball instead of cricket and that Hollywood movies didn't have dancing routines and sing along songs like Bollywood movies had. Sanjay was a good talker and his tales about the colourful but chaotic life in India made Zoe to laugh and the laughter made her feel relaxed. The journey took about 20 minutes as Sanjay expertly wove between traffic, blaring horns at belligerent impatient drivers anxious to get to their destinations, New York traffic was New York traffic. Sanjay soon announced with a flourish "we are now at Endo Incorporated your ladyship" Zoe looked up and indeed they were at the gleaming 25 storey glass and steel skyscraper that was Endo Incorporated's New York office. As Zoe fumbled in her bag for money to pay the cabbie, Sanjay instead of parking at the drop off zone side entrance to drop his passenger, instead he drove straight to the front porch of the massive building and a door man dressed in a well cut suit walked with measured steps to open the door. The door man had a sour expression on his face as he approached the yellow cab, the door man was used to opening limousine doors and doors of exquisite automobiles driven to the front porch by the high and mighty in society who came visiting at Endo Incorporated, it was obvious from the door man's frown that he wasn't used to opening car doors for those deemed as lesser mortals especially lesser mortals who arrived at the company's front porch in New York yellow cabs. Sanjay noticed the door man's irritation and he deliberately smiled at the door man which further irritated the door man. Zoe brought out a 50 dollar bill and gave it to Sanjay, and as he brought out his wallet to make change, Zoe gently said "please keep the change Mr. Sanjay, thank you for the ride, I wish you all the best in your acting career and with your family". Sanjay gave her a heartfelt smile of gratitude, and he turned to his car's glove compartment and opened it and brought out a small note pad and he scribbled something on it and tore out the page and thrust the paper into Zoe's hand and said "that's my phone number, call me anytime, best taxi service anywhere for your ladyship". The sour faced door man came and jerked the door open, and Zoe stepped out saying thank you which the door man ignored and instead glared at her before slamming the door shut, and turning his attention to Sanjay who looked at him with a smile before arching his eye brows up and down twice in a mocking gesture, the door man turned bright red with rage and his face puffed up with anger on enduring the indignity of being looked down on by a mere New York cabbie, Sanjay laughed, turned up the volume of an Indian song on his car stereo, engaged gear and drove off in a screech of tires. Zoe walked towards the huge glass revolving doors of the building, shuffling with other workers all of them moving towards the bank of scanners and metal detectors where they all went through the motions of clocking in, Zoe went to the lifts which had dozens of workers clustered in front of them, most clutching their bags and briefcases in one hand and styrofoam cups of coffee with the other, most of the workers had disinterested faces with glazed eyes looking like converts in a doomsday cult. Zoe ruminated on the thought of the facial looks of her co-workers on that Monday morning and suddenly felt depressed. A few co-workers said polite hellos to her as Zoe entered a lift and the lift swished close and whisked its occupants skyward into the vast glass and steel building. The fifth floor was the Siberia to which basic analysts were sent to work at Endo Incorporated, Zoe worked as a basic analyst at Endo Incorporated with a nine thousand dollar monthly salary, medical aid and other perks. In reality, basic analyst was a glorified corporate term for a number cruncher or low grade researcher in the American corporate world, doomed to a career in cramped dimly lit office cubicles and dusty basements with old company files, which in reality meant a basic analyst was a literal fetcher of water and hewer of wood at Endo Incorporated. Zoe worked as a basic business analyst looking at emerging markets and business trends and making investment recommendations for the company which was a global behemoth that spanned aviation, mining, steel manufacturing, financial services and shipping which meant that those higher up the food chain in the company appropriated the business recommendations of analysts like Zoe in the company and took the credit for those recommendations. The lift arrived at the fifth floor and disembarked its passengers, Zoe navigated the open plan office towards her desk, other workers were already at their desks, the lights from their computer screens reflecting on their faces, it was not even 8AM and the atmosphere at the fifth floor was already as somber as a funeral, Zoe took in the depressing scene around the open plan office and sighed softly as she dropped her bags on her desk and sat down on her swivel chair. Her gaze went to the two framed pictures on her desk, one of them showed Zoe sporting a huge smile while wearing beach shorts and a floral print shirt standing on a white sanded beach with gleaming turquoise waters behind her with tropical coconut trees in the background. The other framed picture showed Zoe a couple of years younger with her parents and her younger brother Scott, all of them in winter gear standing and smiling and holding themselves in a group pose behind a fat stern looking snowman in front of the family home in Iowa, Zoe smiled as she recalled the picture and how it had taken she and Scott roughly three hours to build that particular stern looking snowman, and her mood improved considerably. Zoe keyed in her password and her computer screen came to life and she soon started looking at analysis from a spreadsheet and she became engrossed in the spreadsheet for the next thirty minutes until Ned happened. Ned was a short guy with an Albert Einstein hair style that was part wolverine at the back and part bald in the front, and he wore thick spectacles that made him look like a sixty year old professor of Quantum Physics in a university in eastern Europe. Ned had spun his dating yarns to every lady out at their fifth floor office and had been turned down by all the ladies on the fifth floor. For the past three months, Ned or Casanova Ned as Zoe had nicknamed him had pursued Zoe relentlessly for the past three months hoping to score a date. One of the weapons Casanova Ned was deploying to win the affections of Zoe was getting her coffee and doughnuts everyday for the past one week. Zoe looked up at Ned who drawled... "How are ya Zoe? I got ya some doughnuts and coffee" Zoe had to squeeze her mouth firmly shut to stop herself from laughing, because Ned was trying to sound macho and all baritone when in reality Ned's voice sounded like a cross between a gargle and a shriek. "Thanks Ned for the coffee and doughnuts" Ned nodded imperiously as if he had just rescued the Presidential puppy from the edges of Mount Rushmore. Ned started blabbing about them grabbing a pizza after work at a place where a video game competition was taking place. Ned continued talking, lost in his own barbie Ned dating world while tapping his stubby fingers on the top of the desk as if he was playing an invisible piano. Zoe at that moment honestly wished that she had teleporting powers, because she would have instantly teleported Ned away from her desk to either the Sahara desert or to some uninhabited island and left him there with enough video games, Endo Incorporated paperwork, food and drinks for at least a year. Zoe heard Ned saying something about ice cream at Coney island before she saw Mr. Harrison their frosty British supervisor striding towards her desk from across the hurt like a sleeping gorilla stung to painful wakefulness on the buttocks by soldier ants. Zoe quickly turned to Casanova Ned and said "Thanks Ned but I will be busy today and throughout the week and even on weekends, thanks for the coffee and doughnuts, I have to face my work now, bye". Ned blinked in unbelief at his summary dismissal and as he was about to protest his dismissal, he saw Mr. Harrison approaching and he quickly turned to Zoe and said "I'll be back Westmore, peace out" and he made a peace sign with his fingers the way gangster rappers made peace signs in music videos and he walked away swaying like a maize stalk on a farm on a windy day, Zoe looked at Ned's retreating figure and his walk and again suppressed a huge desire to laugh. Mr. Harrison still made his way towards Zoe's desk despite Zoe hoping that he would at the last minute turn towards the desk of another worker. Mr. Harrison like a determined vulture made his way to her desk until he stood standing in front of Zoe's desk glaring at Zoe like a donkey robbed of an apple treat. All the other workers both those near Zoe's desk and those far away all had their eyes firmly focused on their computer screens, all of them not wanting to be seen by Mr. Harrison as not facing their work and eavesdropping. Zoe looked up at Mr.Harrison and shuddered involuntarily, the British man looked allergic to smiling and looked allergic to being in the sun and getting a tan, he looked like a pink cadaver with thin bloodless lips that were always stretched in a grimace. Mr. Harrison always reminded Zoe of those heartless wicked white plantation overseers who worked the black slaves and exerted cruel punishments on them for perceived infractions, Mr. Harrison was the overseer and the Endo Incorporated was the modern plantation and Zoe and others were the modern day slaves that Mr. Harrison threatened and tortured with office work and his comments and recommendations on the performance evaluation done yearly on the fifth floor workers which determined those to be retained in the company, those to be promoted and those to be fired. Zoe attempted a nervous smile despite the hostile glare from the unsmiling British man and said "Good morning Mr. Harrison", Mr. Harrison ignored her greeting and glared at her for a moment before saying to her in a British accent that sounded like a rusted razor blade scrapped across an iron bucket, "you are needed at the Executive boardroom, present yourself there within ten minutes" Zoe blinked, a bit confused at what her sour looking supervisor just told her and she asked, "Mr. Harrison, you said I'm needed at the Executive board room, needed by who please? I don't understand" The British man pursed his lips and looked at Zoe as if she had both epilepsy and Parkinson disease before replying in his clipped British tone, "top management wants you in that board room if that's what you want to understand ......be there within ten minutes" Zoe's heart missed a beat as she watched the sour British man who had already turned and started walking away from her desk, she quickly composed her thoughts and grabbed her bag, and as she was smoothening her hair, Mr. Harrison turned and called out "One more thing Westmore, be sure to bring your business analysis on diamond mining prospects in the south Pacific islands of Fiji and Vanatu, bring along your flash drive in case you are asked to make a power point presentation" the British man turned and walked away not even waiting for a reply to his words. Zoe quickly opened her drawers and started rummaging through some files and through more than a dozen flash drives before sighing in relief as she picked a particular flash drive and a particular file before shutting down her PC, straightening her suit and walking towards the lifts. As Zoe walked towards the lifts, her co-workers especially the female workers looked up from their computer screens sympathetically in a good luck in hell kind of way as if she was a suspected witch in Madrid in the eleventh century AD being summoned to a summary trial by inquisitors from the Catholic church, Her male colleagues looked at her with a look of "who did you piss off upstairs" and "a better luck with job hunting after you are sacked by upstairs folks". Zoe kept her mind clear and refused to let her mind be panicked by the kind of looks her colleagues were giving her as she strode to the lifts, her colleagues looking at the lifts as if they were the gulliotine in Indiana Jones's Temple of Doom. Zoe got to the lift and pressed the 17th floor which was where the executive boardroom was, the doors swished open and Zoe entered and before the doors closed, she spied Ned staring at her from his desk, or rather staring at her hips before raising his head and blowing her a kiss with his stubby pink fingers, Zoe got irritated and the doors closed with a soft mechanical sound, blotting out the image of Casanova Ned, Horrible Harrison and the rest of the funeral parlour folks on the fifth floor from her mind. It was not even 9AM yet and her Monday was already on steroids. She recalled a book she read about Zen and started the deep breathing and slow exhaling she had learnt from the book as the lift took her rapidly towards the seventeenth floor. The lift slowed and stopped at the designated floor and Zoe got out and started walking the red carpeted plush hallway towards the end where the executive boardroom was. The executive board room was the largest and most luxurious of the numerous boardrooms in the building, the executive boardroom according to protocol at Endo Incorporated was for the exclusive use of only two human beings, the Chairman of the company and the CEO of the company. As Zoe walked towards the end of the corridor, she noticed that there were about 20 people gathered on the corridor all looking nervous. An elderly lady with iron grey hair tied in a severe bun, was with a clip board summoning people into the boardroom. Zoe looked and saw that all those on the corridor were all top management staff, the very top echelon of the New York office of Endo Incorporated, all standing outside the boardroom nervous like high school nerds attending prom night, and involuntarily, Zoe's own heartbeat and nervousness increased. Zoe found a spot at the wall of the corridor and tried to stay quiet there, hoping to blend in. A female top management staff stood on the opposite wall across Zoe, really looking flustered, looking helpless as she looked at Zoe who tried smiling hoping to lift the sagging spirits of the woman opposite her, the woman glared at Zoe the way one glares at a cockroach suddenly discovered in a kitchen drawer and the woman looked past Zoe as if she didn't even exist. Zoe flinched and decided to face her own destiny and her own fate which was going to be decided inside the drape covered glass interior of the boardroom. Zoe looked at the elderly lady with the clip board at the door of the boardroom and the thought came to her head to go and announce her presence to the old lady so that masters inside the boardroom would be informed she was outside waiting at their pleasure to be summoned, and she decided to walk over to the old lady with the clip board, as Zoe left the corridor wall she was leaning on to walk towards the boardroom, she suddenly heard a commotion on the corridor and she turned and saw everybody on the corridor moving out of the way and standing on the sides of the corridor making way for a group of people approaching, and Zoe quickly panicked and as she turned on the corridor to move out of the way, she suddenly collided with a wall over six feet high. She looked up in panic and saw that the supposed wall was actually a tall human being dressed in a black business suit. Zoe looked up into an unsmiling but well contoured face that had dazzling black eyes that seemed to be full of energetic fire and icy ruthlessness. Zoe looked into the face of the silent towering figure standing in front of her, she stared at a face she would come to know in ways that would baffle her, she stared for the first time into the face of Tomiyasu Endo. CHAPTER 2 The tall man flanked by his aides and burly unsmiling body guards waited patiently for Zoe to step aside so that he could continue his journey to the boardroom, Zoe looked up into his face and into eyes that looked like shiny black orbs and a mouth that was set in a serious frown and Zoe involuntarily shuddered and suddenly realised that she was in the center of the carpeted hallway and that she was now the object of all attention as everyone on the corridor was looking at her with horror and in a split second, reality hit Zoe's brain which was the fact that she had just clumsily collided with a very important person in the hierarchy of Endo Incorporated in the full glare of staff members of Endo Incorporated, and was now unknowingly obstructing the right of way of this company VIP who Zoe didn't know but had a gut feeling that he was powerful enough to sack her from her job at Endo Incorporated that very minute if he so wished. Zoe's brain went into hyperdrive and panic mode, as she quickly took a few deep breaths and started mumbling a slew of very anxious apologies as fast as her panicking brain could conjure them. Zoe immediately after apologising tried to move to the left side of the tall silent man opposite her who just stared at Zoe without saying a word or flinching a muscle, and without a word the man tried to move to the right but Zoe's brain already in panic mode caused Zoe to move to the left and when the man tried to move the other way, Zoe tried going the opposite way still blocking the tall man who sought to bypass Zoe and get to the boardroom. Staff members standing on the corridor watched in macabre fascination and horror as Zoe continued her blunders, the tall man bodyguards and aides were now getting really flustered and giving Zoe some terrible looks. The tall man suddenly stepped to the left and stood motionless there for half a minute staring at Zoe who paralysed with indecision just stood there staring into the face of the tall silent man. The man suddenly swept his hand in the air in the direction of Zoe and motioned for Zoe to pass while he stood aside on the corridor. Zoe's brain finally started working and she pulled back from staring at the tall man's black eyes and she passed the man as she clutched her files like a nervous transfer student starting junior high school in a new school in another city. Zoe quickly passed and found an unoccupied space on the corridor walls and she quickly slid in there and stood with her back to the wall, wishing the wall could swallow her at least to hide her from the hostile gaze of the senior staffers who were also waiting on the corridor like high school seniors waiting nervously at the corridor before entering the party venue on prom night. The tall man moved with his entourage and didn't say anything or even sparing Zoe a backward glance. The tall man and his entourage got to the double glass doors of the executive board room and the senior executives were already waiting for him there, the executives bowed japanese style for the tall man who also stopped and also bowed politely in response although his bow was a slight bending of his head and not as low as the deep bows others gave him and the man and some of his entourage disappeared into the executive board room while some of his guards took up station outside of the board room. Zoe heaved a sigh of immense relief and tried to calm her racing mind down. She quickly checked her watch, it was 10:05AM, it wasn't even 10:30AM and her day was already descending into chaos, she had already collided with one of the Japanese bosses of the company and had succeeded in irritating the heck out of an obviously very important man who only wanted to go attend his meeting with other movers and shakers of society already waiting in the board room. Zoe's mind suddenly formed a mental picture of the tall man whispering orders to aides for them to get the name of the clumsy nitwit that had collided with him on the corridor who had also tried playing "block me while you can" with him on the corridor, Zoe could picture the man signing her sack letter and instructing the sour faced doorman at the lobby who hated New York yellow taxis to throw her personal effects out of the building to the kerb. Zoe took a deep breath as she deleted the depressing sack letter signing imagery from her mind, although a little voice in her head kept reminding her that one does not piss off global executives on a monday who fly on corporate jets across time zones and continents without any consequences. Zoe's mind again started conjuring up depressing scenarios again of irate top executives of Endo Incorporated, summoning her for a meeting to ascertain about her stupidity in daring to piss off one of the bosses of the company and immediately signing her sack letter after the meeting. Zoe decided to shut her mind from scary depressing sack letter prospects and instead looked around the hallway hoping to get distracted by the activities of those waiting to be summoned into the board room. Some of the men on the corridor looked at Zoe with the sympathy reserved for a silly teenager who committed an offence and taken to court and the judge informs the teenage offender that the sentence is forty years to life imprisonment. Some of the men stared at Zoe the way typical New Yorkers would stare at an orangutan if one walked into a diner or fast food joint, while some of the men gazed fixatedly at Zoe's heaving bosom and her hip line, which made Zoe suddenly uncomfortable and she looked away