Welcome to The P.U.G.H. Society

Madison's Story Begins

She stood there like a needle in my eye.

“This is where you two met?” Angelica Monroe, newly-appointed CEO of Adler Technologies and the youngest CEO of a major electronics corporation in the history of Corporate America, spit daggers with her words, savoring every cut. “Ellis would have wanted you to let go, Madison. Let you go live a life in luxury somewhere far from here. San Francisco is home, isn’t it?”

“How would you know what he’d want for me?”

She smiled again from atop her four-inch stilettos, cocked her head, letting the jet black waves fall across half of her face. Her green eyes sparkled in the shadow. “I know. I knew a lot of things he wanted.”

I’d watched her walk in from the far end of Eddie’s, our favorite place. Watched every man at the counter stop and stare. The room had gone silent, as if God herself had walked in and sat down in the booth Ellis and I had occupied for twenty-five years, since the very day we’d met at this spot. She hadn’t taken her eyes off me, daring me to get up, to head her off, to look away. A hip sway that made New York traffic shudder to a stop, a navy power suit that hugged every curve. No wonder, I thought. No wonder.

She’d settled into the seat opposite me without so much as a word, asked for water with a slice of lime, then her critical gaze swept over the remains of my half-finished wedge salad, the nails I’d neglected to get done for a week, the single rock jutting out from my ring finger, the way my dirty blonde hair fell down loosely to my shoulder, unwashed and unbrushed. She was as together as I was undone. Her smile underneath plump ruby lips, my thin lips uncolored and pressed into a firm line as I gripped the edge of the table, still unready for what she would say.

“My deepest sympathies, Madison. It’s been what now? A month?” She waited a beat, and then her mouth opened again, but I cut her off.

“No.”

“Please, Maddie. May I call you Maddie?”

Ellis had, but her? “No. I know why you’re here, and the answer is still ‘no’. You couldn’t wait a week after the first no, could you? A month? How’s the new office?” I had my sources. I still spoke with Robert on occasion. He’d said such lovely things about Ellis at the funeral.

The smile faded, and she sat back, crossed her legs. “I have a responsibility to the company.”

“You did, yes, and how did you fulfill that responsibility? By maneuvering yourself into that job?”

The water touched her lips, but didn’t find its way into her mouth. She held the glass aloft for a beat, and I could see a cloud pass over her face, a darkness I’d suspected was there. “I have the company’s best interests at heart. I know what happened was tragic, and you have my deep sympathies, Madison. But the rest of the world goes on, even if yours has stopped.”

She waited, looking for a reaction, and my eyes fell on the steak knife next to my right hand just before I let that thought go and grabbed my own water. The cool liquid spilled between my lips, and I doused the inferno that threatened. My mind was made up, but she wouldn’t relent. How many messages and calls had I already gotten since that day, and it wasn’t about condolences or where to send the flowers or whether or not arrangements had been made or where to send his effects. A lackey had come to the house with Ellis’ things, and the only things that came from Angelica Monroe were lawyers. I turned them all out and finally stopped answering the door. But I couldn’t hide in the house all day and not find him in any of the rooms — even if he was in all of them, so I’d gone the only place I could go and feel more whole than I had in four weeks.

And here she was, uninvited and unwanted.

My eyes traced the length of her legs, from the jet black Christian Louboutin pumps to the hem of her impossibly short navy skirt. The crisp white button-down hugged every curve, her jacket left behind. I knew she liked men to look — even women — to fawn, to swoon, to spend ever later nights at the office to feel her gaze, her touch, the silkiness of her thighs and… I’d read his emails to her. Did she know? Did she know I knew? Certainly she was here in person to find out, but not to read me or probe. She wasn’t the kind to be subtle. The way her nipples pushed against the thin white fabric of her top, aching for attention, there was nothing subtle about Angelica Monroe.

At the bar, two men were staring, not even pretending otherwise.

Outside the window, Madison Avenue was bustling with the lunch crowd, men and women crossing 42nd at the corner, perhaps on their way to the library, our usual mid-week stroll. Seventeen steps up from the sidewalk to the entrance, the cool air whistling through the gaps in the main doors, and then the stacks. Still with books in them even; even in this day and age.

She was standing now, and I registered the scowl, felt a spark of victory. Did she fuck everyone at work? The rage in her eyes told me as much as I needed to know.

“No,” I said. “Now please go. Please.”

“We’ll see then, Mrs. Adler, won’t we? I have my ways, and I always get what I want. Your husband knew this, and you’d be wise to follow his lead.” It was all I could do not to offer her a parting ‘fuck you.’

The sounds of the city on mute, I walked 42nd Street in a nostalgic daze. Remembering its past. Barely registering the present. The pastry shop that used to be across from Zara, window shopping to whet both our appetites. How long had it been gone? It was full of holo art now; buy an NFT of the Mona Lisa. He’d held my hand when we crossed the crush of the intersection — cars honking, motors belching fumes. Now the streets were almost silent with EVs that all silently communicated, drivers focused on tiny screens and faraway thoughts. My eyes had always been on the classic lines of the New York Public Library spilling into the tree-lined greenery of Bryant Park. Nothing like the bright holos that played on the sidewalk now, breaking up the view of the ancient edifice. I barely noticed when they’d holo’d the granite lions guarding the steps, making them roar and growl and paw at passers-by. My eyes had always been on Ellis, and if he wasn’t there, what was there to see? Looking up, the sky behind his blue eyes, lanes of azure between towers of glass.

No library today. No stroll through the park, looking for the ice cream vendor long gone, a shady spot, the hopes that it wasn’t too hot and he wouldn’t make a mess of his suit. Had she? Had they come here in recent days? Had she sucked on the end of his handkerchief and wiped away a vanilla drip on his favorite crimson tie? He wouldn’t. But, she might. Had she sucked his cock in his office or hers, spread over his desk, that perfect 30-year-old ass in the air and her hungry eyes. She looked at me with them, like I was just another meal to devour. My stocks, my majority shares, my husband, my home, my life — just another meal for her to slice apart, piece by piece until the plate was clean. I clenched my teeth and walked.

I should have stabbed her with that knife, I thought, and then I admonished myself. She wasn’t worth it.

I ducked under scaffolding to be out of the sun, looking for the shade, a dark place where the world couldn’t look down on me and see. Some things never changed — the endless construction going on in the city, pushing through a crowd, punishing summer heat, worse in this new climate. I pulled my arms in, holding my bag close, pressing against the wave of oncoming humanity as cars idled for the light. A bump, I spun, grabbing for a handhold, some rude fuck barreling through, and my hand landed on a shoulder.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, a face turning, a man in a blue suit, his face suddenly familiar. “Robert?”

He smiled but turned, leaving me there, my hand lingering at shoulder height, watching him disappear into the hustle of people. It was Robert, or was I mistaken? I hadn’t seen him since the funeral. He’d been so lovely. He was on Ellis’ legal staff, wasn’t he? I frowned, my mind trying to pull out of a fog, to place the face that I was sure I knew. And that spark of recognition. I hadn’t imagined it, had I? Yet, he’d simply walked away without so much as a hello. And maybe, just maybe, I was remembering something that had never been.

“Robert?” Suddenly I needed to speak to him, to someone, someone who knew Ellis, had worked with him, spoken to him, thought kindly of him. My breath caught in my throat, and I reached down and touch my wedding band, feeling the grief welling up. I just needed — could it have been him? I could ask after the company, what he knew about what was next. Something. Anything. A product line. A simple HR announcement, something that felt like I wasn’t still alone and everything I’d had was in the contents of an urn on the mantle.

Every day, Ellis had come home and filled me in. It had been so hard to leave, when I did, and I was never sure if I’d made the right decision to stop working. But Ellis had always made me feel like I was still there, part of the hustle and bustle, filling me in on the interworkings of business deals and R&D for the next big Adler Technologies product line. Such a big future in electronics and data and then holos and the world as it evolved into something I barely recognized now. All gone with Ellis — my connection with the world. For weeks, almost four weeks, I’d heard nothing, seen nothing, knew nothing, as if not only had the man I loved been taken from me, but the whole world had cut me off.

Robert I knew; I’d spoken to him at least once since that day. I started after him. A word, a whisper — I just needed something to hold onto, something besides the bad taste in my mouth Angelica had left. The blue of his classically tailored suit bobbed with his awkward gait just a few meters ahead, a sharp contrast to what men in business wore in the city now. I hurried through the intersection, pushing past a couple with an apology on my lips, but when I got to the other corner, he was gone. Gone. Just there a moment ago — aha! And then I had him again. A momentary stop a few dozen meters down 7th Avenue to check his phone. He looked up at the building in front of him, and then he ducked down an alley.

My heels clattered along the concrete as I hurried to catch up, rounding the corner, and I stopped there in front of a dingy door that looked ages old, its diamond-shaped window crusty and opaque. Posters and stickers plastered the walls, announcing the latest shows across the Big Apple from dozens of years before. A single black handle beckoned like a time capsule waiting to be opened. Robert was inside. That much I knew; the rest of the alley was empty. But what he was doing here? Was it a bar, a club, a strip joint? Worse? A two-martini lunch, or was it bourbon with a naked woman in his lap? I eyed the door again, shrugged, and pulled.

Darkness. I blinked, trying to adjust to the low lighting, and stepped forward, letting the door swing shut behind me. The hustle of the street faded away, and the quiet of nothing filled the air. A bottle clink. A deep voice. The smell of cigarettes and old leather like I was still in the world I grew up in.

“Get you a drink, sweetheart?”

I blinked again, the spots receding, and I found myself in an establishment that had seen better days. Dim yellowed lighting revealed dusty liquor bottles on sagging shelves behind the bar, their labels faded and peeling, like they’d been there since long before my family had moved to America. A row of mismatched bar stools stood guard, some perches for men nursing beers, others empty and not exactly inviting. A man in a brown suit — not Robert, his collar loose and tie askew, stared at an empty martini glass as if he’d stumbled in after losing a long argument with the world. An old phone hung from the wall nearby, and I wondered if it worked.

“A drink?” The bartender, a thick-set man in a black t-shirt, tattoos crawling out of both sleeves and reaching down to his wrists, leaned on the bar. He pulled on a short goatee as dark as his hair and nodded. “Not exactly your kind of place, I’m guessing. What you looking for?”

I swallowed, finding my voice. “A man. Blue suit. He — he just came in.”

“PUGH?”

The word hung in the air between us. A nonsense word. Or was — no, Robert’s last name wasn’t Pugh. I shook my head. “Robert. His name is Robert. Blue suit. Six two. He just walked in.”

“Yeah, thought so,” said the bartender. “Stairs in the back.”

I nodded, ignored the stares of the three men. The suit hadn’t even looked up. He pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and dropped a few bills on the bar. I heard the door open behind me as I turned and pushed through.

What was in the back up the stairs? Robert wasn’t just any member of the legal team at Adler. He was part of the executive suite. Why would he be in a place like this? I walked past a bathroom, another door, racks of clean glasses and dishes, shelves stacked high with towels and cleaners, a small fridge plugged into an overloaded socket. And there were the stairs, the door open but not exactly inviting. Not stairs up, but down. Not up into the light, the second floor, a balcony, a retreat, a sunlit escape where a man or woman might smoke a cigar and share a glass of whiskey. Instead, the stairs led down into the dark.

I hesitated, clutching my bag to my chest, trying to pierce the darkness. I could feel the gaze of the men in the bar, their eyes riveted, wondering if I would take the leap, take the stair down into the unknown. Where did it lead? There was nothing there now — not the slightest hint of light, just a few wooden steps and a sturdy-looking handrail that disappeared into the gloom. Just an aroma wafting up from the darkness, promising centuries-old excavations and bricked-up walls. A wine cellar perhaps. A dark, underground sanctuary that had seen countless generations of monied men tilting glasses and strategizing the domination of the world. Or was I over-romanticizing it? Perhaps it was a dungeon. A dark hole where men do the unthinkable, deeds that shunned the sunlight and the curious gaze.

A shift in the air as the door opened and confident footfalls announced another man’s approach. He stepped around me, glided by with a smile and a single word, “Welcome,” before he thrust himself down the stairs, his footfalls fading. Another suit. Expensive cut. Blueberry tie. A clasp there in the center like an octopus.

“Welcome.” I played his greeting over and over in my head, seeing the metallic tentacles and sinister eyes of the little tie clasp. I’d seen it before, that symbol. Somewhere recently. Just now. It felt so fresh, so new, and then I had it. Pulling open my clutch, I fished around. At the diner, when I got up. A business card underneath the check on the table. My fingers closed around it, and I slowly pulled it into the light, the intricate circle surrounding an eight-armed octopus staring back up at me. “PUGH.” The letters all in capitals. What did it mean?

There was only one way to find out. I took in a sharp breath and placed my foot on the first step. Welcome, I thought. Welcome indeed. To PUGH.

Author’s Note: The adventure begins for Madison, and she has no idea what’s coming. Welcome to the PUGH Society.