The Boss

by Abigail Barnette

  "I know." I nodded miserably as I took my next hit. "But who has anal sex with someone and forgets all about it?"

  Holli nodded enthusiastically as she swallowed her sip of wine. "My friend Alexis! Like two days ago she was all, 'So there I was, bent over the kitchen sink with a vibrator in my pussy and my boyfriend fucking my ass,' and today I mentioned it and she was like 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'" She gingerly took the joint from my fingers and lifted it to her lips. "But she has mad pregnancy brain right now."

  I shrugged. As soon as I'd gotten home, I'd changed out of my expensive work clothes and washed off my eye makeup. I should have felt much more relaxed in my flannel turtle jammies, but I still didn't know what was going to happen at the office tomorrow. I wasn't sure there was enough cannabis in the entire universe to overcome my anxiety.

  Holli leaned forward, her huge brown eyes going extra wide, like she had an amazing secret. "What if... I went out and got us Chinese food? And pizza?" She raised a triumphantly clenched fist. "And a box of cereal."

  So, here's the deal with Holli. She's super skinny, due to a metabolic disorder. Which means she has to eat like an elephant to look like a giraffe. It might sound enviable, and I did envy her, for about the first year I knew her. But then I slowly started to notice how often strangers would tell her to eat a sandwich, or assume that she was anorexic, just because she was thin and a model. I stopped saying stuff like, "That girl should eat,” when I saw a skinny star in a magazine. Because I had seen Holli eat. And it was comically disturbing.

  "I'm not really feeling the midnight - " I reached across the back of the couch and pushed open the blinds. "Oh god. Mid-almost-sunset pig out. I do have to go back to work tomorrow, even if it is just to get fired. I think I'm going to take a hot bath and have an early bedtime."

  Holli took another deep inhale off the tiny stub of roach that was left, then carefully put it out on the edge of the ashtray on the coffee table before reaching up to boop my nose with her fingertip "You got it, kid."

  I peeled myself off the couch and felt some of the depressive funk lift. It had sounded fun to wallow in my pjs all afternoon, but now I just felt tired and bored and unproductive. Maybe while Holli was eating her way through Chinatown, I could update my resume.

  Or, I could take a hot bath and drink more wine.

  Look, I don't want to sound like a walking cliché here, but sometimes, the bath and wine are totally necessary.

  The apartment I share with Holli is amazing. A two-bedroom walk up on Canal, one of the major selling points was the big living room window and access to the building's rooftop garden. The walls in the kitchen and living room were butter yellow, the floors gleaming dark wood. The bedrooms were the size of shoeboxes, but it was still an amazing place, especially compared to our dorm room at NYU. But the bathtub is the reason I will never, ever move. In fact, when I do, I will probably try to stuff it into my suitcase and take it with me.

  It's an antique, high-back, claw-foot tub with gleaming white porcelain enamel on the inside and burnished copper on the outside. There's a curtain around it and a shower hose, so you can hop in and get clean quick, but today, I was planning to spend some quality time in there.

  I turned on the taps and adjusted the temperature to just above scalding. What can I say? I like to get lobsterfied. I added way too much bubble bath and a touch of skin-softening oil then headed to the freezer to get another bottle of chilled white wine.

  Holli was putting on her coat. "I'll see you later!"

  "Don't go to that place you got sick from last time," I advised her, and locked the door behind her. Then my wine and I headed into the steamy bathroom. To fulfill the stereotype that was my coping mechanism, I lit the sandalwood candles on the small tray table beside the tub, and pulled up some music on my phone.

  While Lana Del Rey warbled a dirge-like appeal about singing the blues getting old, I sank into the blissfully hot water and leaned my head back on the cool porcelain.

  As I languidly swirled my toes in the hot water, the awfulness of the office that morning melted away. So what if I lost my job? I had enough savings put aside that I could pay my half of the rent and bills for a few months. If that didn’t last, I had amassed plenty of designer handbags and clothes on the job. I could easily keep myself in consignment shop money if I needed to. Nice stuff was, well, nice, but not necessary. I'd sell it all if I had to.

  Maybe Neil won't fire you, I reminded myself. Yeah, you gave him a shock, but he seems like a decent guy.

  No. Decent guys did not fuck someone senseless and then steal their plane ticket.

  Of course, that guilt might motivate him to keep me at the company. Or a well-timed threat might...

  I dismissed that one almost as quickly as I'd thought of it. No way would I blackmail someone. It just wasn't in my character. Besides, I had no idea how many lives something like that would impact. He might be in a relationship. He might have a family. What he’d done to me six years ago was jerkish in the extreme, but he’d left me enough money that I could have gotten to Tokyo if I’d wanted to. And while he’d been presumptuous and rude and controlling and horrible without knowing a thing about my life or my reasons for running away, it wasn’t worth it to sacrifice my own morals and potentially destroy lives to keep a job.

  It was petty of me, in light of the very serious situation I was in, but I really couldn't get over the fact that he didn't remember me. I'd spent six long, frustrating years trying to find someone who excited me half as much as he had. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't imagined him doing the same thing, never able to forget me. The worst part of it was that he still got to me. Just thinking about him brought prickles out all over my skin. It always had, and probably would even after he fired me. It was incredibly unfair.

  I didn't want Neil. I wanted Leif, the charming English stranger in the airport. I still wanted him, and probably would forever.

  My body throbbed, like it always did when I remembered that night. I pressed my thighs together for just a second before I slipped my hand between them.

  "What do you want?" he asked me in my memory, his lips brushing my ear as he pressed me against the wall of that hotel room. My answer was always pathetically embarrassing in hindsight. I'd only had sex with two other people before him, and it hadn't been anything to write home about. I'd thought of the kinkiest thing I could imagine, and shyly stammered, "Um... you could... spank me? Maybe?"

  Cringe-worthy, I know, but I couldn't change the past. My fingers rolled over my flesh beneath the steaming water, and I sighed, my eyes drifting closed.

  He'd smiled, and I couldn't tell if he was making fun of me or not, I still couldn't, even in my own fantasy. "If that's what you want."

  I could smell his cologne, see him unbuttoning the sleeves of his gray-blue chamois shirt. He'd been wearing a faded David Bowie tour shirt beneath it. It was like he'd sprung fully-formed from my eighteen-year-old fantasies, the hot History teacher who just couldn't help himself.

  That thought opened my eyes. Man, had my daddy issues been that bad?

  Does it matter now? I asked myself, my fingers resuming their busy work beneath the bubbles. I took a shuddering, shaking breath. I could practically feel the crisp white duvet beneath my cheek as I relived lying across his lap, clad only in my cotton thong. I'd wished for black lace back then, but only because I hadn't realized the almost painful eroticism of white cotton to men.

  "Have you ever done this before?" he'd asked softly, his palm making slow circles over my backside.

  I'd shaken my head, feeling embarrassed by my request and by how wet I'd already been, how incredibly aroused he'd made me during the cab ride over, and in the elevator, and...

  I shifted my legs, slipping down further in the water. Oh, we'd discussed the rules back then, but I didn't need rules in my bathtub. My blood pounded, remembering that first hard smack; the shocking sound of it echoing off the walls, the stinging pain that had taken a moment to really set
in. He'd soothed it nearly away with the same hand that had delivered the blow, then another had landed, and another. Each time, I’d worried I wouldn't be able to take the next. Would he think I was silly or stupid for calling the game off?

  His long fingers had skated beneath my thong, pulling it up tighter against my aching pussy before slipping it down to my knees. Then another hard slap to my ass, and his fingers were inside me, two of them, roughly plunging in and pulling out. I had been so ready, wetter than I'd ever been, my mind consumed with a steady chorus of pleas to just get on with it and fuck me, already. Maybe if I had known how long he would make me wait, I would have given up. But I'd taken every shocking contact between his hand and my backside, until my skin had been aflame and I was sure I wouldn't be able to sit down on the long flight the next morning.

  The tight, hot spiral I was so familiar with now gripped my pelvis, and I picked up the pace, remembering how slow and measured his breathing had seemed in contrast to my desperate panting. He'd spread my own juices around my folds, stroking up, circling the untried opening between my cheeks. I'd pushed up on my elbows, about to protest out of modesty more than distaste, when another searing blow landed. In its wake the tip of his thumb slipped into my ass, and I hadn't been of a mind to argue with him anymore.

  I remember one desperate cry, "Please!" and I echoed it to myself now, twisting closer and closer to the edge. He'd made me come then, his thumb in my ass, two fingers in my grasping cunt, the other two working over my hard clit until I'd exploded. Just like I exploded in the tub, my legs quivering and jerking, bath water sloshing onto the floor.

  "Fuck." My other arm was over my head, mimicking the arch of the tub, and I covered my eyes for just a moment, to get my breath. That night had been incredible, but now I had to rescue the hardwood floor, and I'd just jilled-off to a fantasy about my new boss. I might have felt better for a few seconds, but now I felt considerably worse. And I still had to face him the next day.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, I got up, forced myself out of bed, and promised myself that no matter what happened, I would not jump from anything taller than two feet today.

  I dressed like I was going into battle, in black, high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and a sleek, structured, rust-colored jacket over a white blouse. I donned dark wood bangles like armor and did up my eyes in shades of tarnished silver. The contouring, my god, the contouring. I wore my brown hair in careless waves – the type of careless only someone who'd spent an hour and a half on her hair alone could achieve. And when I strode from the bathroom in a cloud of fragranced body lotion, Holli actually dropped the gallon of ice cream she was eating directly from for breakfast.

  "Holy mother of cheekbones," she muttered as she licked her spoon clean. "Are you going to work looking like that?"

  "Pff." I looped a skinny cashmere scarf around my neck. "I'm going networking like this. I figure I'll be fired by nine-thirty, I can at least go drop off some résumés."

  "You're taking this really well." Holli picked up her bucket of ice cream. "Should I be prepared for the inevitable fall out?"

  "There isn't going to be any inevitable fall out," I stated firmly. And I meant that. I'd done my moping around, but rather than let myself become a victim to a situation that was totally out of my hands, I would exert control over whatever aspects I could. I’d leave my current job gracefully and professionally, and try to get another as soon as possible.

  "Mmhm." Holli nodded as she shuffled to the couch. "Just remember, Mr. Cheeba and I will be right here waiting if you change your mind."

  I made sure I was out the door before she could light up. I didn't want to smell like weed at seven in the morning.

  I got my coffee and my breakfast at my usual stop. It didn’t take the usual amount of time, though, which I really appreciated. The last thing I wanted was to be late to my firing. I caught an earlier train than normal, too. At least something was going to go right today.

  The building’s lobby was still pretty empty when I negotiated the revolving door and flashed my badge at security. I got an elevator with no wait – epic! – and when I got to the office, I’d even beat Ivanka, the receptionist. No one ever got to work before she did. I suspected she lived under the desk.

  I punched the time clock via my desktop computer and started on the totally not fun task of transferring all my personal files to an external hard drive. I’d also clear my internet history and wipe out my contacts list. I wasn’t going to leave a scrap of help for the new regime. At quarter after eight, I checked my phone. No messages from Neil.

  Gosh, he really wasn't anything like Gabriella. By now, the sky would have already been falling, and crises would be raining down on us.

  Whoever had covered for me had emailed me Neil's schedule for the week, and a list of things that had to be done this morning. That surprised me, considering I had planned on being fired and figured he was planning the same thing. Must have been an oversight.

  One of the glass double-doors pushed open, and Neil entered, in a long, black wool coat that he shrugged off the moment he stepped inside.

  I jumped up to take it from him, totally out of habit. I'd been hanging up guests' coats in the office for years; it would have felt deeply unnatural to refrain from taking his.

  "Good morning, Sophie." His tone was totally fake and even, at odds with the uncomfortable way he tried and failed to maintain eye contact as he said it.

  "Good morning," I replied, and I fixed my eyes right on him, feeling a mean little thrill of satisfaction. That's right. I'm refusing to acknowledge the awkwardness of this situation. What are you gonna do about it? "Coffee, black, two sugars?"

  "Yes, thank you." He recovered impressively, adopting exactly the same strategy I had chosen to use: denial. "And if you could set the thermostat to around sixty-five, if it's not too much trouble? It's a bit warm in here."

  "Certainly." I smiled my easiest, closed-mouth work smile, all the while sing-songing in my head, I’ve seen you naked, I’ve seen you naked. He headed for his office, and I opened the coat closet and retrieved one of the gleaming wood hangers.

  "Sophie."

  I stopped and turned. He stood in front of his door, watching me. I had won our little standoff. He was going to bring up what had happened yesterday. I guess I could have gloated over my tiny victory, but instead I just felt really, really sick to my stomach.

  His expression was an apology written in human facial features. Something passed between us; an energy so full of weight and promise that it made the air heavy. My body went entirely still without my willing it to, but I wasn't tense. All at once, we were the lovers in that hotel room again, and the intervening events evaporated into ether.

  And in that moment of perfect trust, when we could have broached the difficult history we had made between us, Rudy Ainsworth strode through the door and confidently deposited his coat across my desk. "Morning, Neil. Ready to save this magazine?"

  Before I go any further, I should really explain Rudy Ainsworth. He was the kind of person who, through nothing extraordinary about his appearance, manner, or dress, commanded all the attention in a room the moment he stepped into it. He was short, slightly round, and had beautiful dark skin, but he wasn't super good-looking, just average. He wore tweed blazers and patterned plaid shirts with bow ties without looking like a hipster or a nerd, even with the thick black-framed reading glasses he sometimes wore. He was totally plain, but he exuded something that drew everyone to him like a magnet.

  This morning, that magnetic effect was somewhat diminished by the tension between Neil and me, and we both seemed to realize that Rudy had noticed it, as well. I hurried to hang up the coats while Rudy looked with interest from me to Neil and back.

  "Did you enjoy your day off, Miss Sophie?" Rudy had a soft voice and a faint, generic southern accent that I was about seventy percent sure was a pretentious put-on. It was obvious that the question was an admonishment, and I was supposed to try and f
erret out the right response.

  "Yes, thank you for asking." I wasn't going to make an excuse for my absence. Rudy Ainsworth could think whatever he wanted about me, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings. I was getting fired today, anyway.

  "I'm glad you're here," Neil told Rudy. "Can you come in and look at the budget they proposed for the handbag spread?"

  I was instantly forgotten, and the moment the doors closed behind them, I dropped into my chair. I was almost dizzy from whatever had happened between Neil and me, and my relief at having been rescued from a potential labyrinth of passive-aggressive conversation with Rudy.

  Rudy was the least of my worries. Now that Neil had left the room, I went off on an emotional bender, eyeing our might-have-been confrontation from every possible paranoid angle. Had he felt what I had? It had seemed so obvious in the moment. Was he still going to fire me? Had I imagined it all?

  I went on autopilot for the first forty-five minutes of my day, answering the phone, falling back on the comfortable routine I'd been in just a couple days ago. I'd thought the magazine would come apart without Gabriella, but everything seemed so shockingly normal. Maybe I could keep working here, after all. Maybe I could snag a position someone else had vacated in a huff yesterday. Life might actually improve.

  For the first time in a very long twenty-four hours, I started to feel like maybe my career wasn't completely over.

  At around lunchtime, Neil emerged from his office and paused beside my desk. "I think you should join me for lunch. We have some things we need to discuss. Ivanka will cover any calls."

  Have lunch with Neil? I had a vision of barfing up my still-beating heart right onto my desk in front of him. I felt a bit queasy as I got to my feet, which seemed to have been encased in blocks of lead. I went to the closet and got our coats, handing him his first. To my surprise, he moved to take mine from my hands.