by Amy Brent
“L, we really have to talk,” Charlie said.
“Seriously, Charlie. Now’s not the time,” I said.
“No, really. Now is a perfect time. Depending on how you take the information, it might help things a bit,” she said.
“You got a way to get us out of all this mess that doesn’t involve you spreading your legs?” Michael asked.
“Maybe if you spread yours a little more, you wouldn’t be so jealous of the fact that I was sitting on your boss’s face,” Charlie said.
I couldn’t help but let out a slight chuckle. As pissed off and confused as I was, she was still the fiery Charlie I’d fallen in love with. As hard as I’d tried, the truth of the matter was I couldn't drink her away at that bar. When I fell asleep that night, she was painted on the insides of my eyelids. She was everywhere. Her perfume. Her sounds. Her scents. Her tastes. She had embedded herself into every part of me.
But, I was still wary. I still didn’t know if the Rick bullshit she was spouting was true. My heart was screaming for it to be true. My mind, however, was telling me to back up at a furious pace and take a few more days to digest everything.
To sift through everything.
To figure out what the fuck to do next that didn’t royally screw everyone over.
“You don’t get to address me like that, Michael. You want to talk about sexual harassment. The way you’re talking to me is just that,” Charlie said.
“Oh, and hopping in your boss’s lap isn’t?” Michael asked.
“Not when it’s consensual,” I said.
“Seriously, L?” Michael asked.
“Look. This situation with Sheila is rough, yes. But, I didn’t do anything. She can’t take me down for something I didn’t do. We’ll find a way out of this, so long as I don’t confront her,” I said.
“I still don’t understand why you can’t just talk with her,” Charlie said. “Especially if they do it with witnesses around. Surely she wouldn't cry wolf with a bunch of people surrounding her.”
“Is she really giving us advice right now?” Michael asked.
“Whether L wants to believe it or not, I give a shit about both him and this company. I’m not alright with Miss Brown threatening either one, any more than you are,” Charlie said.
“Even you have to see how inappropriate this is. What did she come in here for anyway, hmm? To try and patch things up after ripping your fucking heart out?” Michael asked.
“And I told him the truth—that the man he encountered was not my boyfriend, but my ex who doesn’t wanna fucking let go of the past,” Charlie said.
“The fuck’s she talkin’ about?” Michael asked.
“I hadn’t told him any of that, Charlie,” I said.
She sighed before she pinched the bridge of her nose and that’s when I clocked the position of her hand. She had kept her palm steadily pressed to her stomach, and for a split second I remembered why I hadn’t seen her in so long. Charlie had been calling out sick, and the mindless gesture was proving to me that she really hadn’t been lying.
She had been sick.
Sick with what, however, was still a mystery.
If she wasn’t lying about calling in sick, then maybe she wasn’t lying about this Rick guy? But, it took a really unstable man to pull some shit like that, and if he had access to Charlie like that then she wasn’t safe. There was something deep within me that wasn’t alright with the idea of her not being safe, and the gears in my head completely switched.
“Charlie,” I said.
“Yes?” she asked.
“What did you come in here to tell me?” I asked.
“Is no one really going to offer any solutions to what is happening here?” Michael asked.
“I’m going to countersue for false accusations and slander. Libel, if it hits the media. Let her know that when we do prove the lawsuit was filed under false accusations, she’ll be out of a job and I’ll ruin her career,” I said.
“Could we get a bit of privacy to talk?” Charlie asked.
“No. If you wanted privacy, you should’ve been more careful with the lock on your apartment door. What is it you wanted to tell me?” I asked.
“Are you serious, L? I was panicked all morning about you not contacting me after my idiotic exchange with Michael, and you’re pissed off that I left my apartment door open?” she asked.
“You live in a terrible part of town. Your carelessness brought this on, and nothing else. If Rick is still coming around and he isn’t your boyfriend, then it means you’ve been leading him on, too. At the very least, you haven’t made it clear to him that the two of you weren’t going to be romantically involved again,” I said.
“I told him exactly that when I found him in my apartment on Monday!” I exclaimed. “Leading him on? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“If he was still coming around before then, it means—in his mind—you weren’t clear or stern enough. You said it yourself, you had just come out of college and had no time to make friends because you were working all the time. Maybe you were lonely and the idea of knowing somebody in the city gave you solace. Maybe you kept him around for a friendly hookup. Maybe—”
“This isn’t something I need to be here for,” Michael said. “Call me when you get fucking serious about this.”
“I told you what I intend to do. Now, go execute it,” I said.
Michael stormed out of the room while Charlie’s body trembled in my office. I knew I was upsetting her, but this was a double-sided coin. She wanted to play innocent, like all of this had just happened to her, but it was never that simple. Women got lonely and knew when they had sure things, and maybe that’s what happened. Maybe this was all one big cluster fuck accidentally concocted by an insecure woman who didn’t believe in herself until I came along. I didn’t have the time nor the energy to fuel her existential crisis, and I sighed before I turned my back to her.
“How the hell could you say something like that to me?” she asked.
“How the hell could you say you loved me while stringing another man on?” I asked.
“Oh, and now you pity Rick? What the fu—fine. You want me to prove to you that it’s you and only you?” Charlie asked.
“Is that even possible?” I asked, as I sat down in my chair.
“I’m honestly not sure. You’re the most stubborn, hard-headed man I’ve ever met. But, even though you’re stubborn and driven, you’re not determined,” she said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You’re not determined. If you were, you’d be fighting for this. You’d be studying me, looking into my eyes—the same eyes you've looked into for weeks—to see I was telling you the truth. Instead, you refuse to see what’s right in front of your face because you’re scared I’ll break your heart.
“You already have,” I said.
There was a heated pause, and I could’ve sworn I heard Charlie sniffle. I sighed, putting my head in my hands before I raked my fingers through my hair. This day had just crumbled into a flaming fire of dog shit, and I had no idea where to begin in order to sift through it all.
“If that is all, Miss Charlene, you can go,” I said.
“I’ll show you,” she said, grabbing her purse. “And I know exactly how.”
“Care to enlighten me?” I asked.
“I’ll find out the truth myself.”
And she stormed out of my office with her purse in her hand as I wheeled around in my chair.
Chapter 32
Charlie
“Sheila!” I yelled down the hallway. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
I watched the blonde hair poke out of her office as I barreled down the hallway. I didn’t know who the fuck Ellison James thought he was speaking to me the way he just did, but I’d had enough. If he wanted proof I cared about him and no one else, then this was the only means I had at my disposal. I had Sheila, a false accusation, and the fire in my gut spurring me on.
I knew I co
uld back even the toughest shark into a corner, and I intended to do just that.
“Miss Charlene, what a pleasant surprise. How are you feeling? We all know you’ve been out for the past couple of days,” Sheila said.
“I’m feeling just fine, though I came into the office today with a startling realization,” I said.
“Uh oh. What seems to be the problem?” she asked.
“Apparently, someone is accusing Mr. James of something he didn’t do.”
I watched her reaction carefully as her face faltered slightly. The smile she was giving me faded to a weak grin before her shoulders rolled back, and the icy stare that riddled her eyes told me she was preparing for a fight.
But, if there was one thing I did well, it was fight.
“Come in here to defend your boyfriend?” she asked.
“I’m not sleeping with Mr. James,” I said. “And, your accusation could bring down this entire company, meaning I’d be out of a job, so it’s a bit personal.”
“Funny. I figured Ellison would be right on your heels,” she said.
“‘Mr. James’ is the professional name he prefers, I believe,” I said.
“But I bet you call him ‘Daddy’ in bed, don’t you?” she asked.
“Is that what you would wanna call him?” I asked.
“Look, it’s not my fault your boyfriend has a wandering eye and some groping hands. I went into his office yesterday to hand him some files and I tripped over a bump in his carpet. I fell in his general direction, he practically leapt out from his seat to catch me, and when he was helping me stand back up on my feet his hand groped my breast,” she said.
“I don’t know. Based on your reputation in this company, I’d say you’d enjoy something like that,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging. “And, I had to admit that I was thrilled when he told me he was into me. But, his rules are his rules, so I told him I wasn’t interested in breaking them. That could cost me my job, and this jobs means the world to me.”
“I’m sure. So, what was the part in all this that was sexual harassment?” I asked. “You know, since there’s obviously something you didn’t enjoy.”
“He ignored me when I told him I wasn’t interested, and I don’t like men that don’t listen. He thought he could impress me with the size of his cock, I guess, so he exposed himself to me in his office to try and sway my mind.”
“You know damn good and well Mr. James would never do that to one of his employees,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I ran out of the room crying, Miss Charlene. Honest to goodness, I didn’t take you to be the type of woman who would defend a man guilty of sexual harassment instead of siding with the woman. What with climbing the ladder the way you did without throwing yourself at any, you know, bosses or anything,” she said.
I could feel my blood boiling behind my eyes. She was not only tarnishing and completely destroying L’s character, she was mocking mine in the process. None of this sounded like L, not for one fucking second. Even with his flavor-of-the-month ways, the only things those women ever had to say about him still portrayed a gentleman. How he opened doors for them and treated them lavishly. How the was a good listener and had a beautiful smile. If L was guilty of sexual harassment, some woman somewhere would’ve filed a complaint we would’ve heard about before now.
Especially with the type of media and press coverage his company gets.
Right?
I felt my confidence in him waver ever so slightly, and I could tell Sheila was enjoying every second of it. I watched her sit down on the edge of her desk before she folded her arms across her chest, and the way she was posturing threw me back to Helsinki.
All the way back to the steam room.
And that’s when I got an idea. The only issue was that it required me to fake sympathy for a story I knew wasn’t true.
“He exposed himself to you?” I asked.
“Yep. Dropped his pants right then and there,” she said. “It was absolutely enraging. I couldn’t fucking believe he’d done it. I mean, can you imagine the women he’s probably done this to before?”
“You don’t seem too torn up about it,” I said. “You’re not crying, or having any sort of visceral reaction. Your pupils aren’t dilated, which means there’s no adrenaline rush with this supposed negative memory you have of a man who push his intentions upon you.”
“I’m still in a bit of shock, to be honest,” she said.
“Then, you obviously won’t have an issue explaining what he looks like down there in court,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“Well, you know Mr. James won’t just sit back and let you sue him. He’ll probably countersue and take you to court. It’ll be behind closed doors, of course. But, you’ll probably have to describe to people—in incredible detail—what he looked like down there. You know, just to prove you actually saw it,” I said.
“They—they would make me relive something like that?” she asked.
“Terrible, isn’t it? It’s awful what the court system does to women who’ve been taken advantage of by men. They try to do all this good by putting men who pull this kind of shit behind bars, but do you know why they have to go through all this, and traumatize the woman all over again?” I asked.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because of women who make false accusations. They make it worse for the actual sexual harassment and rape victims,” I said. “So, you’ll have to describe exactly you saw.”
“Oh, my God,” she said. She was trying to pull fake tears from her eyes, but I wasn’t buying it. Her nose wasn’t running and her eyes weren’t growing puffy and red. Every single thing about this was fake, and all I was doing now was preparing the corner for her ass while I slowly and gently backed her into it.
“I’m sorry, Sheila,” I said, shaking my head. “Oh. Oh, God. I—holy shit. I’m so sorry. I just—I had to make sure you were telling the truth. So many women would cry wolf on someone like Ellison James for numerous reasons. Forgive me for being heartless, I just—I had to know.”
“It’s okay. I—I get it, I guess,” she said.
I reached out for her hands and took them as a forced tear trailed down her cheek. I took her hands and tugged on them, pulling her into me as I rubbed her back. I could feel how steady her heartbeat was. Not the heartbeat of a woman who was suffering from the embarrassment and shame that comes with pressing sexual harassment charges.
“Do you want to practice with me?” I asked.
“Practice what?” she asked.
“Describing what he looked like. I know it sounds weird, but sometimes if you rehearse something, it makes it easier to recall. You might not be able to remember all of it at first, and the last thing you’d want would be to have the case dropped because you couldn’t provide the detailed information required.
“Has this happened to you before?” she asked.
“No. But, it did happen to my best friend,” I lied. “And that’s what happened to her. It was so traumatic to relive the experience that her entire testimony was thrown out. She got hysterical on the stand and they had to restrain her.”
“I’m so sorry, Charlie. But gosh, it’s so nice to have someone on my side,” she said.
“Michael and Ellison are sharks. They’ll come after you hard. Let me help you.”
“What made you believe me?” she asked.
“Your tears,” I said, reaching up to brush one away. “You can’t fake these kinds of tears. You’re a strong woman, Sheila, but you can only be strong for so long.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” she said, snickering.
“Do you want to try? Just you and me?” I asked.
She started this fake tremor in her hands and all I wanted to do was vomit all over that pretty little blue shirt of hers. What she was doing was disgusting, but I was about to pull it all out of her without her ever realizing it.
“I don’t know if I can. That—”
> “If you can’t respond, you can’t prove your allegations. They’ll tear you apart,” I said. “If you don’t want to describe it, that’s fine. But, were there any distinguishing features about him down there? Anything you could pinpoint in court that would be unique just to Mr. James?”
I watched her look into my eyes while her mind whirled with my question. I tried to keep my mask on as long as I could, but I was on the brink of proving she was lying. I already knew I could’ve come at her with a catty attitude, all bitch and no respect and pulled out of her everything I needed.
But, if she felt the need to manipulate, then I was going to manipulate her right back.
“No, there wasn’t. Absolutely nothing. I guess that was the funny thing about all this, if there even is anything funny about it. For a man that walks with the attitude and demeanor Ellison James does, there was nothing about what he showed me that stood out,” she said.
“Absolutely nothing? No moles, or scars, or marks of any kind?” I asked.
“No. Nothing. That much I’m sure of,” she said.
I’ve got you, you stupid bitch.
It was then that I heard something shift behind me. My eyes flickered over to the window, where I saw a shadow move down the hallway. Two shadows, to be exact, and that’s when I realized what was happening.
