Hard Code: A Laugh-Out-Loud Workplace Romantic Comedy

by Misha Bell

  “I got it,” I say with a confidence I wish I felt. “Leave it to me.”

  Sandra plugs the phone back in. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “I’ll do that.” I smile and hope she’ll leave.

  She stands there.

  “Bye,” I say.

  She frowns. “You’re not leaving yet?”

  “Have to check on an email,” I lie.

  Though she’s in the loop on the sex toy testing, I still don’t want her to see the suitcase.

  “Good luck,” she says and finally leaves.

  I wait another minute for everyone to disperse to their cubicles, then snatch the sex toy carry-on from under the table and sprint out of the meeting room—and nearly tackle Britney, who’s lurking in the corridor on the way to the elevators.

  “Fanny.” Her voice is laced with poisoned honey. “I’m glad I bumped into you.”

  She is? Is hell experiencing climate change?

  “I wanted to ask you about the Belka project,” she says.

  Ah. There it is.

  “Please direct all your inquiries to Mr. Chortsky,” I say politely.

  I can see she’s unhappy with that answer, so I clutch the suitcase and step forward, hoping to quickly get past her.

  She doesn’t move.

  “Excuse me,” I mutter. “I’m late for a meeting.” With that, I forcefully squeeze myself between her and the wall and rush into the elevator as if I were being chased by an evil fairy.

  Once outside the building, I speed-walk all the way to the DHL office on Church Street.

  Wiping the sweat from my brow—it really is warm outside—I scan the paperwork involved.

  This day gets better and better. The customs form has an item list on it.

  This should be fun.

  I locate the nearest bathroom, lock myself in a stall, and open the suitcase.

  Fuck me. This is a lot of toys.

  A dildo in a clear plastic box. Something that looks like a buttplug. A cock ring. A vibrator. And lots of items I don’t even recognize.

  Luckily, there is a type of menu here, written by the same female hand as the auxiliary testing cases sheet. In fact, the inside of the suitcase also smells like that same perfume.

  I wonder if she’s the Impaler’s lover. That might explain why he’s giving this such a high priority.

  Kill her, the green monster of jealousy shouts inside my head.

  I don’t know who she is, I reply. You’ve got to chill.

  Find out and rip her hair out.

  You’re nuts.

  I’m you.

  Silencing the green monster, I pocket the list, close the suitcase, and get back into the main DHL office.

  Has anyone blushed this much filling out a customs form before? My face is so hot I worry my hair will catch on fire.

  When the form is done, I get into the line and wait.

  And wait.

  Growing bored, I take out my phone.

  Hmm. An email from Dominika.

  When I read the subject, my heart rate speeds up.

  I’m sorry.

  No.

  Can’t be.

  I open the email, scan it, and nearly drop Precious.

  It’s my worst nightmare come true.

  Dominika won’t be my tester.

  Chapter Four

  The car ride home happens in a confused haze.

  Dominika’s email almost seems like a cruel joke.

  Apparently, she’s joining a convent tomorrow. She, the woman who pretended to seduce—and then creatively violate—all the orifices of “nuns” at a strip club.

  I fire off an email asking her if she’s kidding, only to get an instant autoreply reiterating her plans to become a nun.

  If I tell Ava, she’ll die of laughter at my expense. Dominika the Nun will have a forked tongue and will be covered from head to toe in tattoos, some of which depict sexual acts prohibited by the sacred texts.

  Entering my apartment, I feed Monkey, my guinea pig. Originally, she was a gift to my ex, but he didn’t want her, so I ended up with her in the reverse of a custody battle.

  “What do I do now?” I ask her when she’s done with her chow.

  The little rodent hops up and down as though she’s dancing.

  “You’re no help,” I say, then refresh her water and pace the apartment as I ponder my situation.

  I thought I’d gotten a lucky break with Dominika. She’s an expert with toys, lives impressively far away, and was willing. I guess the far away part isn’t a big deal—I can use a proxy server to simulate that with someone local if I want. But the willingness to shove toys into holes is harder to find.

  I meet Monkey’s pink eyes. “Do you think I should hire a prostitute?”

  She scurries into the little house she usually sleeps in.

  Judgmental much?

  I resume my pacing and think further about prostitution.

  The biggest problem is that it’s illegal in New York. More importantly, I have no clue where to find one. Or a pimp. Do they still use pimps?

  Either way, I doubt you can just place an ad for a hooker on a freelancer site.

  Damn Giuliani—or whoever it was that cleaned up 42nd Street. Back in the day, you could hire a sex worker there.

  Maybe I could put an ad on Craigslist?

  A quick search later, I learn that they got rid of the relevant section of the site, and some other similar services, like Backpage, got shut down completely.

  As I read up on the topic, I realize that by hiring a sex worker, I could inadvertently end up supporting the evil that is human trafficking.

  So that’s a no-go.

  Would women working in a local strip club be interested in this? Or some escort service, perhaps?

  Are traffickers involved with that?

  Unlikely, but not sure I want to risk it. With hindsight, even Dominika could’ve been a victim of exploitation. Maybe it’s for the best that she backed out.

  So where does that leave me?

  A silly idea crosses my mind.

  Sandra said to let her know if there’s anything she can do to help.

  I picture myself approaching my boss for this and preemptively die of mortified laughter. Apart from the obvious, what if she has a weak heart and dies on me? I’d be infamous as the weirdest murderer in the history of crime.

  But asking a woman I know is a promising direction.

  Would Ava help?

  She swears by her vibrator.

  Obviously, she’d never let me live this down, but at least I’d keep my job.

  The phone rings.

  Speak of the devil.

  “Hi, Ava,” I say, snatching up Precious. “Are you having a slow day at the hospital?”

  “How did your meeting go?” she asks. “Any impaling I should be aware of?”

  I tell her everything but tone down my reactions to my boss’s boss because… well, because.

  Sure enough, she’s choking on laughter when I get to the part where I lost my sex toy tester to a convent.

  “So,” I say at the end, “there’s a pretty big favor I want to ask you.”

  “Noooo,” she squeezes out in between hysterical giggles. “I’m not having cybersex with you.”

  “That wasn’t the favor,” I lie. “I was wondering if—”

  “Dude,” Ava says. “You don’t have a problem.”

  “I don’t?”

  “You should test it on yourself,” she says with a giggle. “It’ll be fun, and you haven’t had an orgasm since what’s-his-name before Bob.”

  “But—”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to loosen up a little?”

  I squeeze Precious tighter, the mention of my ex and the phrase “loosen up” tempting me to say something very unkind to my bestie.

  The reason He Who Shouldn’t Have Been Named broke up with me was that I wasn’t “adventurous enough, sexually.”

  Those words sting to this very
day, especially because there might’ve been a kernel of truth in them. Not that Bob was any kind of wizard in bed… not even a Hufflepuff.

  Ava’s tone turns serious. “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. I just stuck my big foot in my mouth.”

  “More like your whole butt.” The grumpiness in my voice is only partially faked.

  “Look,” she says with a sigh. “If you really insist, I’ll think about being your tester.”

  “No, it’s okay.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You might have a point. I shouldn’t ask you to do something I’m not willing to do myself. The problem is, even if I do it, I still need a guy for the male toys.”

  She snorts. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Crook your finger at the first male you see, preferably of legal age, and he’ll test whatever you want.”

  “Uh-huh. It might work like that for you.”

  “It would work like that for pretty much anyone with a uterus. But let’s say it doesn’t. You can still get on Tinder or something like that. Tell the guys who match with you that you want cybersex before your dates and see how enthused they’ll get.”

  That actually does sound more plausible, though when I try to picture it, I feel deeply uneasy. Also, for some reason, the only image that forms in my mind is of lapis lazuli eyes and—

  “Ooh, sorry,” Ava says. “They’re paging me.”

  “Wait, I—”

  The phone goes dead.

  Paging. Still. Leave it to the medical profession to live in the Stone Age. I wonder if they also have dialup modems at the hospital, or cassette tapes.

  Hey, at least they no longer use leeches, so that’s progress.

  Unless they still do?

  A quick search on Precious later, I learn that they do indeed still utilize the little blood-sucking monsters, and that the FDA somehow managed to classify leeches as a “living medical device to clear localized blood clots.”

  The article mentions that maggots are used too, and I stop reading there, because gross.

  Monkey peeks out of her cage and squeaks.

  I give her half of a grape. “I know, I’m procrastinating.”

  Snatching the grape, Monkey hides in her little house.

  Fine. I can figure this out on my own.

  Jumping on my laptop, I open a fresh spreadsheet, name it “testing on myself,” and fill out two columns: pro and con.

  Under “con” are things like: “might be hard to face my coworkers afterward, especially the Impaler” and “it’s a less realistic test than if there were a second person involved.”

  In the “pro” column are tidbits such as: “keep my job,” “Ava might be right and this could be fun,” and “prove ex wrong.”

  Since the pro column ends up longer, I reluctantly accept the inevitable.

  “I’ll be my own guinea pig,” I say out loud. “No offense, Monkey.”

  Precious pings.

  It’s a text from Ava.

  So? You doing it?

  I reply with the okay sign.

  I’d wax if I were you. Makes one feel sexy.

  Seriously? I text back.

  Like a heart attack. Now stop beating around the bush and get rid of your bush. Emojis of lips, cat face, cherries, flower, peace sign, wishbone, hot spot, and peach are followed by a razor.

  I didn’t even know there was a razor emoji.

  Silencing the phone, I dart a glance at the suitcase.

  Nope.

  Not ready yet.

  Maybe Ava is right. Would I be more eager if I made myself prettier down under?

  Since the jungle that is my legs is on my to-do list anyway, I’ll just do that and some ladyscaping at the same time. The breakup with my ex made me experiment a little in this area. I’ve tried styling my pubes geometrically with upside-down and regular triangles, aeronautically with a landing strip, and—briefly—what could best be described as a dictator’s mustache.

  Speaking of, what’s with all the dictators sporting a ’stache? I bet one started the trend, and the dictator-sheep copycatted. Come to think of it, their inspiration might’ve been the original Vlad the Impaler. The painting of him had a mustache so big and bushy, he probably had a pet name for it, like Pufos—which means fluffy in Romanian.

  Thank the hipster gods “my” Impaler doesn’t have such a crime against nature above his kissable lips. He only has a little bit of sexy stubble up there—just the way I like it.

  In any case, nowadays I’m sporting a retro bush of epic proportions, with cobwebs and tumbleweeds down there, and “No Trespassing” signs. This isn’t a feminist statement, unfortunately, just a sign of self-neglect.

  Well, even if feeling sexy weren’t a goal, getting that hair under control could make locating my bits a little easier for the testing—so off it shall go.

  I dart into the closet where I keep my disposable gloves and N95 mask, then take it all to the bathroom, fully aware of how much I look like I’m planning a naughty game of doctor.

  There’s a fly in my bathroom.

  Gross.

  I try to evict him, but the clever beastie sneers at my futile attempts, buzzing around tauntingly.

  “Fine,” I tell him. “This place is about to smell like hair removal cream. If you get wing cancer, don’t come crying to me.”

  Of course, I didn’t get the cream to ward off insects. I just happen to hate the stubbly feel of my legs after shaving, and I’ve never felt masochistic enough to wax.

  Stripping down to the buff, I trim the affected area as much as is possible without garden shears. Next, I prepare a wet washcloth by the tub and put on the mask to avoid fumes.

  As soon as I strap on the gloves and squeeze out a handful of cream, I feel an itch on the top of my head.

  Then my nose itches under the mask.

  Then my eye.

  Ignoring it all, I get into the tub and slather the cream on my legs.

  I glance at my pubes.

  Am I really doing this?

  I guess I am. I get more cream and go to town in the vaginal region. That done, I awkwardly place one foot on the edge of the tub and upgrade the experience to a full Brazilian—I saw a butt plug in that suitcase, so this might help.

  I then wait for the cream to break down my hair’s protein structure. Bored, I wonder how the Seven Dwarves would’ve reacted if they’d walked in on Snow White doing something like this.

  Especially Bashful.

  The fly lands on my mask.

  “Shoo.” I swat at him.

  He buzzes angrily and scurries over to my forehead.

  “Get out!” I swat at him once more. “Perv.”

  The fly’s buzzing sounds indignant as he zooms through the room and slams into the closed window.

  Serves him right.

  In the next moment, I forget all about the fly because my most private area begins to burn.

  Ouch. It’s really burning—like an STD they punish rapists with in the seventh circle of hell.

  I shoot a glance at the clock. It’s not the full five minutes yet, plus my legs are fine.

  This must be because I switched brands, and some ingredient in this formulation doesn’t agree with my bikini area. Which is ironic, given that this brand markets itself as being “for sensitive skin.” In defense of the manufacturer, most such creams warn you about using this stuff in the exact area that currently burns. It’s just never been a problem for me before, else I would have done a patch test on a small part of my privates instead of going all in.

  Grabbing the warm cloth, I rub myself hard enough to start a fire.

  There.

  No more cream on my vag.

  Now my butt burns, so I take care of that next.

  Which is when my legs start to itch.

  With a growl, I wipe all the melted-looking hair from my legs and wash myself all over with a thoroughness an OCD sufferer would be proud of.

  Soon, no sign of the cream remains.

  I look down.

  Things ar
e angrily red, like I’m some animal in heat.

  There goes feeling sexy.

  Also, there’s a strange sensation on the side of my forehead.

  More specifically, the right eyebrow region.

  A burning sensation.

  No. Can’t be.

  Toweling off in a rush, I leap for the mirror.

  Crap! There’s a glob of hair removal cream on my right eyebrow.

  Did I scratch an itch there without realizing? Or did the cream splatter when I battled the fly?

  Either way, I frantically wipe the cream off—and most of my eyebrow goes with it.

  I wash my face thoroughly and make sure there’s no cream lurking somewhere else—like my scalp or my eyelashes.

  Nope. Just lost the pubes, leg hair, and an eyebrow.

  In the mirror, my remaining eyebrow makes my expression seem equal parts curious, suspicious, and skeptical despite the fact that I’m feeling none of those things, just shame.

  Getting my makeup kit, I try drawing the eyebrow back.

  The result is acceptable enough for a teleconference, but if I want to see people face to face, I might have to sacrifice the other eyebrow and draw both.

  I’m too traumatized to test anything now, so I spend the rest of the day integrating the handwritten test cases into my electronic list, then expanding the document to accommodate all the diverse contents of the suitcase. I also make sure the resulting document will automatically back up to the cloud. The last thing I want is to go through the testing, only to lose the documentation thanks to a busted hard drive and have to start over again.

  It’s happened to me once, and it was the worst feeling imaginable.

  By the time I head to bed, the redness from the hair removal debacle has subsided, and as my head hits the pillow, I feel a stirring of excitement for the day ahead.

  I never thought I’d have such concrete plans to play with myself or that I’d get paid for it, but here we are.

  The thought of work brings to mind X-rated images featuring a certain someone’s intense blue eyes and stern mouth.

  I fight the sudden urge to reach down and explore the newly bare skin near my clit. My orgasms belong to the project at the moment.

  With a sigh, I hug my pillow and drift off to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  In the morning, I feed Monkey and check my work email as I eat an omelet.