by Lucy Lambert
“The only women I see all day are models, it seems like sometimes. So many tiny waists, so many thin figures. When I see them, I can’t help but to compare them with those malnourished children in third world countries. Don’t you agree? I believe a woman should be real, look real, rather than aspiring to such unrealistic and artificial standards of beauty. Don’t you think?”
Again, Charlotte felt her distaste for her boss wavering. She’d expected him to just be another womanizing asshole with ten models hanging off him, hungry for his money. But he was different. His eyes didn’t judge her; they didn’t glaze over if she spoke.
She wrestled against a new set of feelings, ones she’d been feeling recently in her sleep. Ones that made her body hot, made her feel a pleasant wetness. No, she told herself, he’s just another asshole out to hurt you.
“I think that women who use their bodies to get ahead are reprehensible. They have no character. They had too many dolls as little girls, so that’s what they think real women are supposed to look like,” Charlotte said.
She realized then that his questions may have been rhetorical. She slapped her hand over her mouth, her cheeks burning again. Do you really want to get fired this badly? She chided herself.
“That was an honest answer,” Pierce said, leaning forward until she could see her face reflected in his eyes, “And I appreciate it. Now, a warning. Keep that tongue of yours to yourself. The truth stings. When people feel pain, they tend to lash out at its source.”
Charlotte felt her entire body pebble with goosebumps under those eyes. Electric fingers seemed to be trying to tap out a symphony on her spine. There was something else there too: a heat, a longing that made her wince.
She did her best to stare at her hands folded in her lap until the car stopped. What did he mean when he talked about a real woman?
As they got out of the car, she realized what the look on Mindy’s face had been when they got on the plane. It hadn’t been irritation, like she’d thought.
It was jealousy.
They stepped out into the sun. Charlotte shielded her eyes against the sudden glare. The smell of burnt plastic and silicon assaulted her nose. There was a long, white building on one side of the lot. The factory, she figured.
On the other side was what she could only describe as a mini office tower. It was all glass, so reflective she could hardly look at it. It had three floors and a large aerial on the roof.
The inside, however, felt very familiar. It was an office, with cubicles and people wearing ties as in every other office. They went to meet the factory manager. He bowed to Pierce, and had Pierce sit in his own seat behind his own desk.
The manager never so much as once looked at Charlotte. She sat in another chair in the corner, notepad ready. Another woman was in the other corner, also holding a notepad. Charlotte figured she was the manager’s secretary.
Both men spoke at length in English about production quotas, tariffs, shipping costs and the like. Charlotte tried to take as much as she could down, but she just felt so lost.
Every now and then, Pierce glanced her way. She found herself longing for those looks. They seemed to bring her back down to reality, to ground her in that foreign place.
Finally, the meeting ended. The manager bowed slightly to Pierce again. Pierce nodded. There was something about the tightness to his face that told Charlotte he was irritated, perhaps even angry.
The manager and his secretary did not pick up on this fact at all, however.
Charlotte stood, straightening out her clothes and putting the notepad under her arm as she followed Pierce out.
Then the manager and his secretary spoke to each other in Chinese. They laughed.
Pierce stopped in the doorway. He spun around to face them. Charlotte felt her body grow cold as she saw the look on his face. It was the same look she’d seen on fathers everywhere, right before they berated their children.
But then she noticed he wasn’t looking at her. No, he looked past her to the manager and secretary. They stopped laughing when they saw him.
Did he understand what they’d said? She wondered. She turned, and noticed them looking at her.
She realized they’d made a joke about her, and had been laughing behind her back.
“That is unacceptable!” Pierce said.
He stalked back into the room and stood right in front of the manager, looking down at him. They were so close that their noses were almost touching. Charlotte watched as the back of Pierce’s neck got redder and redder.
“So sorry, Mister Pierce,” the manager said, trying to bow and scrape backwards.
“Sorry about what? Sorry that you joked? Or sorry that I understood it?”
The manager’s eyes grew wide as he searched for a way to escape.
“I am going to make a call to your superior. If I call and he says you’re still the manager, it will be far worse for you than if I heard the opposite.”
The manager had turned pale. He nodded at Pierce. Pierce turned around, tugging at the knot of his tie. He left the room without looking back.
He and Charlotte were silent all the way back to the hotel. She lay in bed most of the night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what happened.
She’d been completely wrong about Pierce, she knew. He could have let it go. He could have laughed with them, and she would have been none the wiser. Instead, he’d chosen to defend her.
There was no comfortable position she could find on the bed. Every way she tried to move resulted in that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inexplicable heat rising in her core. It got hotter when she thought of Pierce, and she couldn’t remove his face from her mind.
“What are you doing, woman?” Charlotte said, getting up. She put on a bathrobe, grabbed her room key, and put on some slippers. There were no people in the halls.
She knocked on the door of another room.
It opened. Pierce, shirtless, looked at her.
“Yes, Miss Montgomery?”
“May I come in? I need to talk to you.”
He stepped aside and she went in. He had an enormous suite with a king-sized bed. There was also a hot tub, and a large balcony. She tried to keep her eyes on his face as he motioned her to the couch.
“About earlier... Thank you for that.”
“It was nothing.”
She shook her head, “It wasn’t nothing. I didn’t even know what was happening. You could have let it slide, but you didn’t. I have to apologize. I thought you were just another corporate asshole. But now I see you’re different. You... You care.”
He sat down beside her on the couch. He tried to steeple his fingers again, but they wouldn’t obey. This close, he seemed to tremble. Finally, he laced his fingers together and shoved his hands between his thighs.
“I don’t like my employees to be mistreated. You’re right: a happy employee is a productive employee. They said something so cruel about you, I couldn’t let it go. I saw the spirit you have, the strength behind those eyes. That’s why I made you my new assistant.”
The heat seemed to radiate from his body in waves. Charlotte found herself short of breath again as she felt them wash over her body. Her flesh flushed red with the heat. Her heart slammed in her chest, and her lips had gone dry in a few moments. She licked them before she spoke.
“Is... Is that the only reason?”
He didn’t reply. Charlotte waited a little longer, then stood. She remembered what he’d said before: if he wasn’t speaking, she was free to go. As she stood, she knew that this time she didn’t want to go.
Her feet felt heavy as she got to the door. The handle felt so cool in her palm as she twisted it.
“Charlotte.”
She turned around. She gasped, backing against the door. He was right in front of her. His chest heaved, and his hands kept clenching and unclenching.
“There is another reason I took you on... I keep thinking about you. About the way you smell, about the way you look. In fact,
all I can think about right now is touching you. You’re so different from all the other girls. They’re all like Mindy...”
He reached up. She watched his hand. Her knees felt weak again, and she felt her sex open up, getting wet for him.
“You’re just so... Real. Like a real woman should be.”
His fingers slid over her breast. She sucked in a breath as her nipple stiffened at his touch. Then his hands moved up to her shoulders. They pushed her robe down. When he undid the belt, the garment fell away from her. All she had on was her bra and panties.
Then he pressed his body against hers, running one hand behind her and the other to grasp the back of her head.
His lips felt so hot against her throat as his hand moved under her panties and squeezed her cheeks.
She writhed against him for a moment, her own hands clenched into fists.
“Mister Pierce,” she said, meaning to tell him to stop.
His lips moved down to the spot where her neck joined her shoulder. He bit down, pressing his teeth into her flesh. She gasped. Her arms wrapped around him, pulled him hard against her.
She felt his member then, so firm against her.
One hand still in her panties, he slid it around so that it was between their bodies.
She sucked in a breath as she spread her legs apart for him. He found her wetness, stroking between her lips.
“God, I just want to touch every part of you at once. Inside and out,” Pierce said.
He pulled her head back, arching her neck even more.
The tip of his finger was electric as it stroked against her front wall. She wanted so badly to feel how hard he was for her, to feel his skin slide under her tight grip.
His hand shifted as he moved to put another finger into her. She felt herself stretching around him, felt her walls trembling against his touch. She ran her hands up and down the muscles of his back as she grew tighter and tighter around him.
Her face contorted, her mouth opening wide, as the spark of pleasure surged into a full on bonfire inside her. She was close, she knew, so close. He just needed touch her a little more...
Then someone knocked on the door. They ignored it at first.
Then they heard the key slip into the lock. Pierce let go of her while Charlotte frantically grabbed her robe and tugged it back on. Someone shoved against the door and she nearly fell. When she stepped away, the door opened.
“Mister Pierce? Are you okay? I heard noises...”
It was Mindy. She had on a very sheer silk robe, and Charlotte knew she was naked underneath. Mindy’s mouth clicked shut when she saw Charlotte. She took in Charlotte’s flushed features and Pierce’s dishevelled hair.
“How could you?” Charlotte said. Mindy was clearly there to service his needs.
She wanted to slap Pierce then.
He looked at her with open shock on his normally composed features. “Charlotte! Don’t go, I don’t know why Mindy is here. Trust me, there’s nothing going on between us. Nothing at all.”
Then Mindy smiled. It was an evil, cruel smile that made her pretty face ugly. “Not yet,” she said, stepping in, “But soon, hopefully. Very soon.”
Her nipples had stiffened under the silk.
As the tears began leaking from her eyes, Charlotte pushed through the doorway and ran back to her room.
She knew it. He was just another asshole trying to take advantage of her. He called after her, but she ignored it. She tried to ignore how angry Mindy sounded as they continued speaking behind her, and how he was telling her to go back to her room. That she’d ruined everything.
Something in Charlotte told her that she was being too harsh. That it was just how it seemed: a pretty secretary trying to seduce a boss that wasn’t interested in her. But it was just so much easier to be angry, rather than dealing with the true feelings blossoming inside her.
It was dark in her room, and it felt so good to pull her covers over her face and drift away to a dreamless sleep.
Winning Him Back
Charlotte felt alone. Having discovered the kind of person her boss, Landon Pierce, really was she’d done the only thing she could think of: she ran home.
It had taken nearly the entirety of her previous pay check to get the plane ticket out of Taiwan. She’d left that very night, still able to hear the voices of Landon and Mindy. She was lucky the taxi driver knew enough English to get her to the airport.
The printer thrummed to life on her desk. She watched as her resignation letter came out. She hadn’t been able to think of anything particularly witty or scathing to say, so she’d opted for a boilerplate she’d found online.
Grabbing a black pen, she put her flowing signature on the bottom. Her clothes from the trip felt uncomfortable, and she knew she should change. Changing hadn’t really been on her mind when she unlocked the door to her apartment.
It was all she could do to not collapse with her back against the door and cry, really.
Only the thought of getting out of that place had driven her forward.
“It’s good. You’re doing the right thing...” Charlotte told herself.
Holding the paper up, she scanned the words. Something within her wished there was a typo, or a printer error. Something that would let her crumple up the letter and throw it in the trash.
A wet spot appeared near one bottom corner. Then another. Confused, Charlotte looked up at the ceiling. Were her upstairs neighbours having trouble with their washing machine again?
Then it hit her: she was crying.
Hot anger shot up through her chest, into her arms. Her fingers crunched the letter into a ball at the surge of energy.
When her hands stopped shaking, she grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk. Dabbing at her eyes, she looked at her monitor. The letter was still there, the cursor blinking away after the final word.
The whole experience clung to her skin like a greasy film. Even though the jet lag had begun hitting her, Charlotte felt the overpowering need to go shower.
Stripping out of her clothes as soon as she stood, she walked naked to the bathroom. It took a moment for the temperature to level out. Charlotte stood beneath the showerhead, letting the steaming water wash over her face.
She felt the stream move down her neck, between her breasts, down her stomach. A shiver went up her spine as the warm stream moved between her legs. It reminded her of how she’d felt when Pierce had touched her there.
A new warmth flooded her from the inside. Unbidden, the image of Landon standing in front of her, holding her body in his strong arms, came to mind.
Trying to push the image, the feelings, away, Charlotte grabbed the bar of soap. She began running it over her body. She jerked as she moved the bar over one breast. Looking down, she saw how stiff her nipples had become.
“No...” she said.
Already the urge to forgive him, to let herself realize that Mindy had been trying to seduce Landon and not the other way around, pushed at her mind.
“No!” Charlotte yelled.
She threw the soap down. The bar shattered as it hit the porcelain. Sighing, Charlotte bent over to collect the shards. The hot water felt good as it ran down her back.
Then she slipped.
Letting out a yelp, Charlotte fell from her crouch into a sitting position. Sudden pain shot up her back.
The tears came then. They felt hotter as they ran down her cheeks than the water spewing from the showerhead. Pulling her legs up to her chest, she hugged her knees and rocked back and forth.
“Why?” She asked.
She knew why. She was curvy. Despite Pierce’s musing on not liking the super model physique, he was lying. Mindy had looked so thin, especially when she stood beside Charlotte.
It was all Landon’s fault, too. Charlotte had felt so secure in her body before she met him. That first day he came to her office as part of the corporate takeover had been the beginning of the end. She’d allowed herself to believe him when he expressed interest in her.
That had been her mistake.
Rubbing at her eyes, Charlotte vowed not to let it happen again. When she went back to work the next day, she was going to hand in that letter. As soon as she printed and signed a new copy.
Then a slow smile curled the corners of her mouth. Charlotte knew just how she was going to hand it in.
That smile stayed on her lips even as she finished her shower and crawled under the covers.
***
The elevator doors opened, chiming. Charlotte got out, walking confidently down toward the double set of stairs that led to Landon’s office.
Mindy sat at her desk, flipping through the pages of some report. She looked tired, even from that distance.
Charlotte let her hips sway a little more as Mindy looked up. Mindy’s eyes, puffy though they were, widened as they looked upon Charlotte.
It was hard not to smile, even as Charlotte realized that Mindy had been crying. Charlotte had put on a long dress that hugged all her best features, from her large bosom to the flair of her thighs. She had a leather-bound clipboard in one hand. The resignation letter was the only thing inside.
Charlotte wondered who walked in on Mindy and Landon to make her so upset. A taste of her own medicine, Charlotte thought.
Then, walking by her desk, she saw it. Her monitor was already on. Aside from Landon’s schedule, there was something new there. It was an icon of a large envelope. It blinked red, the color of urgency.
Her step faltering, Charlotte stopped. She looked up the stairs. The lacquered double doors leading to Landon Pierce’s expansive new office were shut.
Charlotte never could resist a ringing phone, or a blinking icon for that matter. Putting her folder down on her desk, she grabbed the mouse and moved the cursor over. Her breath caught as she opened the message.
“Ms. Montgomery, there has been a misunderstanding. I apologize for that. LP.”
Her mouth suddenly dry, Charlotte swallowed. She looked up over the monitor at Mindy’s puffy face, then back down to her screen.
Even though it was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment, Charlotte cleared her throat and got Mindy’s attention.
