Chapter 15: Day-Long Bohe day flew by; my brain fizzed; five o’clock Friday: time to head home.

  Releasing a deep breath barely registered as stifled these past few hours, I saved files, closed windows, ed up the desk, and ehe automated weekend services. I logged out of the puter. I surveyed my desk, bare of any personal touches or details other than a small mirror and small coffee mug. The mug was white with a big red heart and written in curly pier, “you got this!” on one side and “girl power” oher.

  Fuck this shit; good riddail Monday.

  I gave myself a quick look-over and touch-up in the mirror and packed up my purse and started to shove some of the dots I wa home with me that night inter shoulder bag. Menie was already on her way out the door, barely pausing to give me a half-assed wave as she left. She was on her way to meet up with some friends at a nearby bar, the one where the up-ing young bucks trawled for easy ys. She’d made it pretty damn obvious she was headed for a night out, talking just loud enough with friends that I couldn’t help but overhear. She’d also made it pretty damn obvious--without being really obvious, if you know what I mean--that I wasn’t invited.

  The day’s work had been quickly and easily finished off--which impressed Sarah, giving me an ued flush of pleasure--but mostly it was the subtle intricacies of just being dy that kept me occupied all day. They didn’t expect mue, but Sarah had me rotating through various low-level positions throughout the week. From w with Mr Peterson she switched me to the reception desk. The calls came in stantly, as did digital messages, as did a steady string of visitors. For the rest of the day I was the face of V.I., and Sarah made it clear that V.I.’s face was not only professional and weling, but also pretty and just a little flirty.

  “The pany’s young, we’re hip, we’re fun to be with,” she told me. “And so are you.”

  And so I did my best to make my makeup just a little more striking, and with every phone call I purred into the phone and with every visitor I leaned forward and weled them with a glistening smile. My pretty fingernails flew across the keyboard and tapped out professional respoo all sorts of queries, and occasionally threw out the flirty little thank you or emoji.

  Inside I ged at the role fore, and as another set of male eyes g to my cleavage before finding my face, part of me resisted the urge to throttle the bastard. But another part of me . . . well, somehow, part of me found the whole thing fug hirious. If these idiot knew what was slung back beh this skirt, if these visiting corporate jackasses knew what I really thought of their cocky words and fshy suits, but . . . no.

  The women were harder to deal with. It must’ve been an industry thing: it seemed that the women who stepped through our door were all exceptionally sexy. God, it took every inch of willpower I had to not stare at their tits and ass as they stepped up to my desk. Even harder to deal with were the looks of barely hidden derision some levelled my way, the shrivelling disregard as they judged my cup-size and hair-colour, my clothes and my age and dismissed me as stupid, irrelevant. I swallowed down equal measures of shame and a the thought of how, not long ago, these same bitches would’ve been cm for my attention, for my affirmation. These sluts, in their fitted power suits and arrogant dession should’ve been hanging off my every word, and I swear, I would’ve put them in their goddam quick. . . .

  “Hey, dy.” Dan leaned against the desk.

  Every day since Wednesday, this kid had been finding some excuse to pass by my desk. Hell, it’s not like he was the only o least he tried to think up an excuse before hanging around for a bit, starting up halting versations before blurting out some task for me and fleeing back to his desk. It would’ve been cute in a pathetid of way if it didn’t involve him dropping menial work on my skirted p. I wao hate the guy and on some level I did, but reizing my aemmed rgely from jealousy and the stifli of my circumstances, I restrained any urge to sh out in the only ways left me--bitastiness, cold shoulders, cock-tease turndowns--a a pleasant smile to my face. It’s not like he was a bad guy or anything.

  More importantly, dy was fttered by the attention--intrigued, even, and impressed--and more than a little attracted to this boy. If I wasn’t pying the girl in this little enter I would’ve beeed t him down to the pub myself. There was something ingratiating about the kid that made me want to take him under my wings. He had a quick smile and a touch of hesitant coess to his eyes I liked. He was slim without being wimpy, well-dressed without being effeminate, and a few ialler than I’d beeen worked te, but the guy clearly kept active and in shape despite the busy job; I respected that.

  “Hi Dan!” I gave him a wide smile. His eyes lit up at my uedly warm reception. I’d been pying it a bit distant the st two weeks, but maybe it was the long day’s work, a month’s exhaustion, or something less definable—like those pills still melting my hindbrain—but I felt like having a simple chat with someone--I o have a real versation with someone, no matter how brief. Besides, he made me ugh: a year out of uy and somehow Dan was still awkward around girls. “W hard?”

  “Hardly workin’,” he answered.

  He winced; I stifled a groan; and suddenly we both ughed. “I’m just heading home,” I said, standing, grabbing my stuff. “Walk me out?”

  We left the office together, chatting as we went. He told me about the project he was w on, an out-of-house research bit on jeans aimed at a teenaged girl market. I listetentively aly deflected personal questions ba and by the time the elevator hit the ground floor he was assuring me he could hook me up with a free pair of low-riding jeans.

  “Oh yeah, it’s no problem!” he said. “We always get extra samples to show off to the research groups, and somebody always snags them. You’d look dead sexy in them.” He hesitated in mid-step and gave a forced cough. “Uh, I mean--”

  I giggled, lightly toug him on the arm. “That’s sweet, Dan. I’d love a pair, if it won’t get you into trouble.” We passed through the lobby; I hung bad he pushed the heavy gss door open for me.

  It had rained briefly but heavily during the day and the pza was grey and damp from the stiving rise to the not-unpleasant st of wet grass and pavement. Early Ju still radiated from the ground, and the drying rain steamed here and there in twisting curls of white.

  We crossed the slick cobblestone pza quickly, just another pair among the hundreds streaming away from the buildings that loomed overhead. Ss overhead fshed their news, bright windows against the early dark, and through those frames the world carried on, ung of my personal trauma. Captain’s Zheng’s ship tio accelerate, boosters fring iernal night; the s flickered, and there stood Jeremiah Steele, t over my diminutive frame.

  I stared up at him, at the solid frame filling its exquisitely tailored suit, the dark skin, the bald head and hard eyes. Scrolli beh him announced record NeoPharm profits and new researto projected diseases. There was ion of st month’s murdered of a rival’s son. ion of the lone man standing against him in court. Nothing of a single individual’s loss—his home, his job, his fug gender!—leaving them standing in a wide pza tugging their skirt down against a rising win.

  And as I stared up at the moal figure of this terrible man, I swear he looked down at me, and smiled.

  I had to trot quickly to catch up with Dan, his stable shoes and long stride making his pace hard to match. I felt myself blushing furiously with embarrassment at the effort to just stay a humiliating step or two behind him, my heels wobbling precariously on the slick stoorween trating on my footing and listening to his words, my handbag boung from the crook of my arm against my hip, free hand fighting to keep gusting winds from lifting my skirt, struggling with the weight of my shoulder bag. . . .

  How the hell did these women, walking quickly and assuredly across the same surface, mao look so posed and at ease? I felt like a sheaf of papers bound together with a loose thread: a frayed string or strong wind away from flying apart in every dire, an i act about to happen.

  For fuck’s sake! How, again, was all this supposed to deflect attention from me?

  I was about to ask Dan—to my shame—to slow down or if I could take his arm for bance—even worse!—wheopped and looked at me expetly.

  “Sorry,” I said, nearly panting, resenting his male obliviousness.

  “Oh,” he said, almost dejected. “It’s nothing, just. . . .”

  “No, I didn’t hear you.” I forced a smile, catg my breath. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I was just w if you’d like to, you know, maybe grab a drink? At that new poir, a few blocks over?” He seemed to rush to add more. “It’s just that I’m meeting a, uh, friend there ter tonight and didn’t want to wait on my own . . . ?”

  Looking up at him through heavy eyeshes and a veil of wind-tousled hair, biting lightly down on a fiip, I hoped to project coquettish uainty to cover up the very real fusion I felt at that moment.

  On the one hand: it’d been a brutally long day. The work itself had very little to do with it, but two weeks of pying dy in public had left me mentally aionally exhausted. The st thing I wanted was t it out a couple more hours, pying i small girl in the big city for this guy. My feet hurt. My back ached. My panties were riding up my ass and ping something awful. More than anything, I wanted nothing more than to tear off this bra and release my tits from their day-long bondage. I’d go home, crack open a bottle of wine and… .

  What? Another Friday hiding in my little apartment. Maybe an hour or two of practig dy, makeup or shoes until I got drunk enough to strip naked and stare at myself in the mirror. Maybe I’d dress up for my own kinky pleasure. I’d jerk off and drink some more and pass out drunk on the sofa.

  The alternative? Truth is, I was dying for a drink. A real drink, not some shit from the dodgy guy at the ground-floor shop who turned a blio my ck of ID. I hadn’t been out on a Friday night in . . . ages, and Dan was the first colleague to ask me to join him after work, and I knew damn well how important those first invites were.

  Those kids w The Lounge kept erratic hours, w from either home or offi a way that defied uanding. They teo hang out together; ma did the same, only occasionally mingling with the creative-types; and as for the secretarial staff . . . well, Melisa could go fuck herself.

  I still couldn’t bring myself to hit a bar on my own, not as a girl. They probably wouldn’t serve me anyway, what with my fial twenty-first still being a month away. And here was this guy, watg me hopefully, probably ready to buy all my drinks for the night. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? When a guy buys a girl drinks . . . yeah, he’s after something more than just pleasant pany. He sure as hell wasn’t inviting blotle-me along for intellectual stimution.

  I khis kid’s game, probably better than he did. He was trying to y an early cim on the new piece of tail in the office. But then I looked at him again and thought I saw something familiar in his eyes, loneliness or tiredhat mirrored my own, and all he wanted retty face to sit with him, because it’s almost always better to drink with someohan to drink alone, and eveer to sit and drink with someoiful. Maybe the guy wasn’t ready to head home yet, to ay apartment, shit food and a broken tv. . . .

  Maybe the guy just wanted a goddamn drink.

  His eyes flicked away while I made up my mind, following the movement of a leggy bloh hair down to her ass. I followed his appreciative gaze and shared his joy in watg something pretty pass by. I felt a stirrih my skirt watg her walk a an ued kinship to this kid--and a pang ret knowing that we’d never rete on that level. This kid could’ve bee a new friend, aom; but not dressed as I was; never like this. He was a young guy and I was--a girl.

  And that made a simple friendship impossible.

  With that in mind I was about to turn him dowhe decision was suddenly taken out of my hands.

  He stood across the pza, briefly lit from above by one of those massive ss, leaning idly against the wood-paneled side of a coffee kiosk, neer in hand. The length of his long coat swayed heavily around his legs. He’d been absent for nearly a week now. A strong wind tore across the pza. Loose papers swirled and danced between us and people braced against the sudden gust, men pulling their jackets tight, women’s hands falling to their skirts. My hair flew into my face, momentarily blinding me. When I could see again the man was gone.

  Jeff was back.

  A thrill ran down my spine and with it the absolute certainty that I should’ve killed him when I had the ce, ba that filthy alley behind the strip joint. My fingers itched to curl around an imaginary broken bottle as I sidered how too much had been itted into staying alive, into these initial steps towards my reveo lose it all now.

  The wind died down and I fshed a wide smile at Dan. “You know what? I’d love a drink.”

  “Really?”

  “!” I flitted past him, tugging at his sleeve. “But you’re buying!”

  Author's Notes:

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