Striped silk boxers, seven- foot- something, puts a letter on my desk; the back of his hand has more hair on it than I care for. He speaks: voice compliments me on my vamp-red lacey lingerie set. He looks more like a Great Dane in a silk loincloth than my boss. I mean, I like big dogs, but his mass is lumbering, loping, dopey or maybe completely laughable.
Something in me wants to cry. I wrap my long black hair in a bun at the nape of my neck, sticking a Bic pen through the knot to hold it in place — I cough instead.
This is how it works. He canters away and looks back over his shoulder, his saucer-mouth purses ever so slightly. I wonder if he purchases silk boxers in bulk or maybe his assistant buys them for him. Why stripes? Why me? I sigh and I re-gloss my lips before tightening the loose garter belt on my right thigh. I look down to assess my cleavage. Everything is in place, buoyant. I open the letter my boss slipped onto my desk; it’s the sixth one in six days. We are all allowed seven before an unspoken ‘pass’ is silently agreed upon and honored without any threat to job security.
I have one more day to sign the letter, to sign off on a ‘to be determined love affair’ or what? Or what? I can’t answer. My truths are simple enough: I’m a working mother of a dead six-year-old; I’m single. I have only one girlfriend, Shelley, who repeatedly calls with the same sorts of, “well, I just had to suck-off another idiot above-the-line executive but I got the promotion,” type of shit. She doesn’t mind playing the politics. I work because I want out of my mother’s house; I’m twenty-five and my hair is going gray at the temples. L’Oreal can take care of the grey but the rest is up to me. My job performance in the Public Relations Department of The Sexual Harassment Industry has been less than exemplary. Signing the letter may be the only way I keep this job and escape my mother’s incessant criticism of my life: “You have no life; you never go out; you are a young woman with so much to offer a young man; you aren’t really going to wear that to work; who will want you now; you look like a street tramp; where did you get those bitch stilettos; darling, you look like a clown with all that lipstick smeared on your face; did you forget you have a child?” My job makes me feel like a helpless child. Here we specialize in neutralizing hostile working environments by taking liberties other corporations have been trying to subvert, squash or ignore for years. I intend to be unclear. Nothing here is quite as it seems. We’re an experimental company created by the Association of Corporate Standards, or ACS for short. The theory behind The Sexual Harassment Industry is to let it all hang out. The employee handbook reads something like this: Gender harassment is encouraged, as is choice of attire. We expect the choice of clothing to lean towards the less is more theory. But all this is within reason, of course.
We all share a cubicle with another employee, unless we’re a boss-type. The boss-types walk around a few times a day, hand out memos or just hover threateningly over a computer. We deal in exchange of intellectual properties of some sort but I am not at all convinced since my imagination has gotten the best of me since working here. Nothing at this place is what it appears to be. At any rate, my performance of late has been less than exemplary. And late may be the operative word. I show up late; I’m late with every PR assignment; I’m late responding to emails; I’m late returning from my corporate lunch hour; I’m late to mandatory after-work happy-hour; and I never show up for corporate- forced birthday cake. Worst of all, my lips are chapped from abusing hard candy lip gloss and I know the only things holding me together are two words: my first and last name. And what does a signature really stand for?
The letter shakes in my trembling hands. I can hear my mother’s screeching voice. The letter I hold is the same one as the day before and the day before that one and the day the day the day before that. It reads: “Dear [Name of Object of Affection]: I very much value our relationship and I certainly view it as voluntary, consensual and welcome, and I have always felt that you feel the same. However, I know that sometimes an individual may feel compelled to engage in or continue a relationship against their will out of concern that it may affect the job or working relationship. I want to assure you that under no circumstances will I allow our relationship or, should it happen, the end of our relationship, to impact on your job or our working relationship. Though I know you have received a copy of [our company’s] sexual harassment policy, I am enclosing a copy [Add Specific Reference To Policy As Appropriate] so that you can read and review it again. Once you have done so, I would greatly appreciate your signing this letter below, if you are in agreement with me.”
He wants my signature.
I look around the office. My vantage allows me direct access to my boss’s office with an occasional glimpse of a bare shoulder or a hairy leg and maybe a flash of a red fishnet thigh-high. I watch him lick the palm of his hand and press down the cowlick on the crown of his head. The office is designed like a labyrinth with the center being the boss-types’ offices. An architect by the name of Nathaniel Norris built each floor of this office building as a labyrinth of cubicles with the idea that to walk the labyrinth is to create balance within one’s brain as the soul seeks to restore equilibrium within its male/female aspects - the duality of its creation. Our employee handbook also reads: A labyrinth relates to wholeness, the imagery of the spiral is a meandering but purposeful path. Strange that out center should be found in an above-the-line executive’s office.
I ball up the letter and toss it in the trash receptacle. I share an office cubicle with a maniacal nail-biter. Our shared trash consists of his nail bits and my discarded letters of requests. The nail biter, George, gets away with doing nothing but nibbling his nails all day long and taking long martini lunches because his choice of attire is a jock strap and he takes the liberty of sucking off the CEO, a man who is in his eighties and walks around in a short black silk robe, dragging around an oxygen tank. And it’s so completely unattractive. Georgie, the nail biter, has sucked him off more than he cares to admit. It’s quite obvious what one needs to do around here to get a vertical promotion.
“Georgie, how do you do it?” I insist, hoping to interrupt the obsessive nail biting.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He spits a piece of his pinkie nail bit into the trash. His poor nails, they are down to the nubs. “It’s simple: there are two kinds of people in life, those who play along with the game and those who resist. I am like two blowjobs away from getting promoted to the next floor up and ever closer to the center of the labyrinth. Can I borrow your lip swelling gloss stuff? Your lips are always so puffy and kissable.”
“Sure.” I adjust my thong crawling up my ass and wonder if I made the right choice to wear the leather.
Georgie squeals, “I like the way your gloss puffs up my lips, but it kind of stings.” He pinches my arm. ”You’re such a skinny little thing. Have you ever thought of implants? Might help you along around here.” His wrist circles in the air.
“I don’t need any more attention.” But something about the way Georgie says, “might help you along” scares me.
Georgie hands the gloss back to me and fishes out the discarded letters from the trash. “Maybe you should take the Great Dane up on his offer. You know there’s been talk about my poor performance at work lately and that you should consider your options, considering. Hello, you live at home with that wacky mother of yours who is convinced you have a child, still.”
I smooth out the balled up letters with the edge of my desk.
The Great Dane lumbers over to our cubicle and passes out a memo to Georgie and me. It’s a mandatory birthday party for the Head of Creative Consultation from the third floor. He winks at me.
I look away and grab my black Prada, sifting through it to avert his gaze. There is only baggy of stale Cheerios, some baby wipes, a tube of Neosporin, a fruit roll-up, my make-up bag, my wallet, a band-aid, and a condom that’s expired. He’s gone when I look up. Georgie rolls his eyes at me.
My IM blinks: it’s my girlfriend, Shelley, from the second floor. Shell would be the first to take any and every letter of acceptance all the way to the top of this company. She wears black nipple pasties and leaves a bullwhip on top of her computer, which lets everyone know that she’ll spank those executives senseless to get what she wants.
Shell writes: I’m sorry I flaked out on you the other night after work. It was just a mandatory after work happy-hour thing and one thing lead to another. Besides it was a lateral hook-up. He’s my equal on the work tip. It’s not like he can help me either way. He can’t help me move up in the company. It was another act of personal pleasure versus business. You really should get out of your slump and join us one of these nights.
I write back: Sounds productive. Shelley, I’ll call you later. I’ve got my own corporate drama, lol.
Georgie is looking over my shoulder. “She’s a complete idiot. Why waste time with a lateral hook-up? Bullwhip is all I have to say.”
“Maybe that’s all she can get,” I sigh. But I know Shelley, she lives by the motto, ”I dug him, I fucked him, it wasn’t nothing.
“Well then you get with it, sister. The letter is on your desk. You can do much better than her. Hello, Great Dane, and who knows, maybe you’ll get a little closer to the center and you’ll be the one handing out memos. Just make sure you to take me with you.” He snaps his jock strap to emphasize his point.
I have to get away from my mother. She keeps insisting my baby is still alive and some days I lose what is truth and is not. Everything here is inside out. Maybe if I got away from her things would change.
With a signed letter folded in the corner of my brassiere, I slip into my black stilettos; Georgie winks at me as I find my way to the Great Dane’s office. The labyrinth is built so that you can always see the center from the outside but there is never a straight path towards it. I watch him as I wind my way through a maze of cubicles. His unwieldy weight and the fragility that surrounds him are clearly incongruent. The room is built with several glass shelves lined with thick leather bound books and silver framed pictures of women in bikinis straddling rocks in the ocean. The entire office feels like it could shatter at any moment. Currant incense burns in an adobe pot on his desk. I gingerly knock on the glass door before sliding it back and purr over to his desk. I put my elbows down first and the look up at him. My hands are in the prayer position. He smiles.
“The letter is in my brassiere,” I offer my chest to him. His smile gets bigger; I notice his long teeth. “If you want it, you have to take it out with that strong mouth of yours.” I’m convinced he wants it rough.
His smile fades and he flips a switch under his desk. The slate gray curtain automatically draws shut and the latch on the door locks with a thud, leaving us in complete privacy.
“I don’t know if I care for your tone or your implications. What exactly are you insinuating by encouraging me to rip something out of your bra?”
“The letter. I just thought.” My hands protectively rub along my waist and I snap back into place the top two latches of my bustier and straighten up. “It’s the sixth letter you’ve given and I thought I’d return it with my signature.”
“Are you mad? I’ve done no such thing.” He removes a number of letters from his desk and places them in the top drawer. “Listen, we’ve overlooked your choice of attire as of late. It’s one thing for an assistant to dress in lingerie but you’re head of public relations. What are the people in the company to assume by the dominatrix outfits you come in wearing everyday? I mean, you’re an attractive woman and we understand you’ve gone through quite a bit after your child’s accident but this has gone too far. I am your boss, you realize. You do realize this much, don’t you?” His hard-on is poking out of his boxers. I suppose this is some sort of angle or bizarre foreplay. I wish I had Shell’s bullwhip. How dare he speak of her? My child’s only accident was choosing me for a mother. Maybe the Great Dane is losing his mind? I need this job. I need to get out. I need to turn everything back to right. I slam my stiletto heel onto his the desk. “Maybe you want to fight a little. Maybe you should climb over the desk and try and make me give you the letter, you big bad doggy. Grrr….”
The Great Dane stands up and his seven-foot-something frame lunges over the desk and tackles me to the ground, tearing at my brassiere with his long teeth as he fetches out the letter. My chest is covered in drool. He towers over me, adjusting his striped silkies before helping me up from the floor. I snap my garters back into place and slip back into my stilettos.
“Thank you, Miss. Clark. That will be all. I think we both understand each other now, wouldn’t you agree? You will receive a generous severance package and don’t worry about packing up your desk. We can take care of that for you.” He smiles seductively with his rather long teeth. He wipes the letter on his boxers to dry the drool and slips the letter in the top drawer of his desk along with the other letters. “You work for me, yes? In the public relations department?”
“Well yes. That’s the job I was hired for.”
“Well, I’ve been giving you letter after letter for editing purposes. I need an edit. This is a letter the board wants us to implement when an employee seeks to engage in any type of extra-curricular relations with another employee. A precaution. And it saves everyone from embarrassment and covers everyone from any legal indictments. You understand.”
“I suppose. But isn’t that a Human Resources issue? I just thought you were engaging me in an indiscretion….”
“Well, you supposed wrong. And your indiscretions have gone far enough. I am sorry but we are going to have to let you go. I needed an edit, that’s all.” He flipped the switch under his desk and the curtains drew back and a loud clank unlocked the glass door. “You found your way here so I am sure you can find your way out.”