Taken

by Mia Ford

  I got up, straightened up the mess that I had made and filed my drafts on top of his inbox. It was a productive first day and I was looking forward to tackling it once again tomorrow.

  I had my hand on the doorknob and he came in and pushed me back out of the way. It was kind of rude and I could smell the liquor on his breath. He spun me around, making me dizzy and having the effect of making my dress swirl around me to reveal my Victoria secret panties.

  “Forgive me, but I got caught up in wooing the client at a local strip club. Those girls can really put on a show. I bet you would look great flaunting your stuff and giving the guys something to think about. Show me a few moves and pretend that there is music playing.” He was obnoxious, macho and a bit sexist. I didn’t feel like playing his game and there was no way that I was going to dance for him.

  “You’re drunk and you need to sleep it off before you do something that you’re going to regret.” He ruffled my dress and his fingers grazed my inner thighs which had always been my Achilles’ heel. “You need to stop this. I’m not some kind of plaything for your amusement. Other girls might enjoy this kind of sparring, but I’m not one of them. Keep it in your pants and we’ll get along just fine.” I knew that the words did not match the way that I was feeling deep down. I wanted him to take me, but to give him that satisfaction would only open that Pandora’s Box.

  “You…can’t fool me. You like the way that I touch you and you want what you have been looking at from that moment that you sat down.” He palmed his privates, giving them a healthy tug with my eyes gravitating towards the outline of it.

  “I don’t have to take this fresh stuff. If you can’t take this seriously, then maybe this isn’t going to work between us.” I tried to sidestep him, but he had his hands on my hips and was keeping me from leaving in a huff. “This is no way to treat a colleague.” I vainly slapped at his chest, feeling the granite surface and knowing that seeing him naked wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

  “I think that you might be protesting a little bit too much and it’s getting on my last nerve. Let your hair down and enjoy yourself. We only have this one life to live and we can’t just be all about the business.” His words were slurred and the liquor of choice was something that I was quite familiar with. My mother was happy all the time, but it was with a bit of help from several glasses of wine. It would appear that August and my mother would have made great drinking buddies.

  “I don’t need liquor to have a good time. I hope that you remember this in the morning. Overindulging is only going to leave you with a headache to beat the band. I’m going to give you something, but it’s against my better judgment. This is my own remedy. After you drink it, you’ll feel like hell, but then that will pass quickly enough. Take my word or not and I really don’t care.” I wrote it down with him behind me breathing on my neck. I turned quickly to see that his hands were poised to cup my ample posterior.

  I grabbed his hand and I placed the piece of paper in between his fingers. He could’ve easily had his way with me and those hands really did dwarf my tiny little digits. I had always been the bigger of my dates, but that was not the case with August. He had to weigh in at over 200 plus pounds of solid muscle. I didn’t think that there was an ounce of fat on his body. Whatever regiment that he had put himself through had the desired results.

  “I want you and I’m going to have you. It would be better that you just give in now. If you leave here without doing something about this heat between us, then you’re going to end up having one very restless night. You’ll toss and turn and you’ll have only yourself to blame. Grab onto a little bit of happiness.” The happiness that he was referring to was the stick of dynamite that was quite pronounced and looking ready to burst through his pants.

  I still had his hand in mine and then he lowered it and placed it against the lump of his arousal. I gasped thinking that this was unbecoming of a professional relationship, but not able to tear myself away from the thumping presence. It had a life of its own and a pulsing rhythm that had me squeezing it.

  “I… I…can’t do this. It will ruin what we already have. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and the awkwardness after it all falls apart leads to one of them having to quit. I won’t risk… I won’t… I have to leave and you haven’t heard the last of this.” I used whatever resolve that I had left to push him back away from me. He looked a little stunned by my behavior and tried to pursue but got the slam of the door in his face.

  I saw through the window that he had gone to his desk and had gotten a bit of the hair of the dog. I didn’t know that he had liquid refreshment in his desk. The way that he slugged the bottle back made him look like a caveman. I could almost imagine the way that he would rip off my clothes, strip me of my defences and leave me vulnerable to his manly persuasion.

  I breathed deeply, feeling my heart beating in my chest and knowing that I was one move from turning and going headlong into a disaster of a decision. It took all of my willpower to press that elevator button.

  I heard the clanging of the bottle and I turned to see that he was standing there swaying on his 2 feet and looking me up and down like I was a delectable dessert.

  “You have one chance to make it right. Come back here and let me put my hands on that beautiful big body of yours. I don’t think that I’ve ever had someone like you and that is a cherry that I want to break. Your lips say no, but your body is screaming yes. You’re thinking about it too much and that’s precisely the reason why you are alone.” His words stung and there was some truth behind them.

  I found my anger rising and I walked with defiance over to him before I started to point and poke at his chest. “How dare you say something like that to me without knowing me at all? I’ll have you know that I’m a warm and wonderful person. You would be lucky to be with me. I have a passion that cannot be measured, but you’re never going to find out.” I could still smell the combination of liquor and his cologne. I wanted to kiss those lips and let him manhandle me into submission, but that would only be feeding into his ego.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m usually a pretty good judge of character.” He looked like I had slapped him across the face and metaphorically speaking; I suppose that was exactly what I did with my verbal abuse.

  “I have a lot to give to the right man and you’re not him. You’re callous and you don’t care about anybody else’s feelings but your own. It’s no wonder that you like to work alone because nobody else can satisfy your high expectations. I’m going to forget that this even happened and I suggest that you do the same. Tomorrow, we start over with a clean slate and none of this ugliness to get between us. I still think that we can make something spectacular. Don’t mention this and you can bet that I’m not going to.” I had said my piece with my clothes sticking to me like a second skin.

  “I might have gone a little overboard, but you can’t blame me. You come in looking like that, wearing a dress that leaves little to the imagination and you expect me not to do anything about it. You are either delusional, or you really don’t know the kind of power that you have over a man. I think that it might be time to teach you a lesson. Teasing and showing what you have is only going to get you into trouble. I don’t think that you have truly lived a moment in your life and that’s a crying shame. I want to rectify that. I wonder how long you’re going to last before you realize that you are on the losing end of this battle.” He had unbuttoned the first couple of buttons on his white starched shirt.

  “I think that you’ll find that this attraction that you feel is one-sided. I could never be with anybody that thought that they were god’s gift to women. It would be in your best interest not to push this any further.” I was afraid and intoxicated by the very idea of being taken control of. No man had ever been able to handle me like that, but this guy might be able to do what others couldn’t do.

  “This game of playing hard to get is going to get old quickly. You’re fighting me when we should be
going at it like wild dogs.” He stumbled and fell to his knees still holding onto the bottle like it was a lifeline. It could mean that he had a problem. The signs were all there including the bottle in his desk.

  “That is no way to talk to me. I’m tired and I don’t need this. Don’t even think that I’m going to be party to sexual harassment.” I had to get some distance. I was showing that I would not take this kind of behavior from anyone. I wanted him to believe that, but deep down I wanted him to put his hands on me.

  It had been almost a year since I’d been intimate with anyone. That relationship fizzled from my lack of interest. He wanted to introduce toys and even another woman, but I wasn’t ready to jump in feet first. I was happy to dip my toe in by changing positions, but his constant demands had made me run for the hills.

  “I don’t see a lady. I see a sexually available woman that is letting an opportunity slip through her fingers. It’s a mistake and one that you’re going to realize sooner than later.” He slumped back against the wall with his head falling forward and his eyes closing. He was soon breathing heavy with his chest rising and falling with each labored breath.

  I could have made him an example. The very thought of stripping him naked and taking his clothes did put a smile on my face. This was no way to start our business partnership. I’m sure that he thought that I was just hired help, but I wanted to become the Ying to his Yang.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as the door to the elevator closed. I had to lean back against the glass wall. I felt the cool surface through my clothes and it brought down the fire that had become more than a blaze. I didn’t need this hassle. This was not what I considered a healthy work environment. The only thing that I could hope was that this was a momentary lack of judgment on his part. I would find out in the morning one way or the other.

  I wasn’t sure how much more that I could take. It was only lucky that he didn’t see any crack in my demeanor. He was not the type of man that was ready for a commitment. He would have his way and then he would toss me to the curb like yesterday’s garbage. I’m sure that other girls had already felt his abuse of power. Those that had any self-respect would have walked away, but there would have been some that felt that the only way to get ahead was to climb the ladder of success by using their bodies.

  I’d spent all night thinking about what had happened and it wasn’t fair. Just because he was the boss, he thought that he could have any woman wrapped around his little finger. He was going to learn the hard way that my affections were not easy to come by. I wanted a man to treat me right, give me his undivided attention and not just want one thing.

  I had my heart in my throat, thinking that I was going to get my walking papers by the time that I stepped out of the elevator. He didn’t get what he wanted and that was more than enough grounds to end this probationary period.

  I found Miss Timmons wringing her hands and looking a little dishevelled. “I haven’t seen him like this. He’s on a tirade and he’s looking for somebody to fight with. Tread carefully. He’s lucky that I have a thick skin.” I walked down the hallway, careful not to make too much noise and knowing that what he was going through was something that I’d only experienced once.

  Tina managed to drag me to a frat party and I ended up lying on the grass wearing no panties. It was not like me. To this day, I still didn’t know which of the frat boys had my panties as a souvenir. I knew that nothing happened, but losing them was degrading. It made me feel like people were looking at me differently in the morning.

  That was the one and only time that I had taken things too far. I was conscious of every drink that I had in a bar from that moment on. I could still get that buzz, but there was no way that I was going to become that fall down drunk that didn’t know what they did.

  I opened the door slowly, gritting my teeth together to give the illusion that I was trying to be as quiet as a mouse.

  He was sitting behind his desk with his hand on his forehead. “I don’t want to hear it. I can’t even remember how I got here. I woke up sleeping outside my office. The last thing I do remember is some scantily clad stripper giving me a private lap dance. I don’t even know if I should call the client and apologize for my behavior. You would think that I would know better.” He was kicking himself, but I did notice that he had not mentioned the way that he had acted with me.

  “You might want to consider staying off the hard stuff for a while. It’s one thing to indulge on the weekend where you can live with that pain the next day, but it’s another when you have to come into the office. I doubt that you’ve had time to go over the drafts that I made. They are not the finished product, but they will give you a basic idea of where I’m going with it.” He hadn’t even looked at me. His hand was covering his face. There was a glass of water on his desk with what looked like two aspirins.

  “I always do this to make the client more comfortable. One drink turns into two and then we are acting like teenagers by throwing cash on the stage. I’m getting too old for this. Do you know that back in the day I could drink anybody under the table and still make the deal? I might be getting a little older, but I thought that I was a bit wiser. Last night was a misstep and I can only hope that I didn’t say or do anything that is going to come back and haunt me.” Come to think of it, I could have thrown this back in his face by recording what he said to me on my phone.

  In this age of technology, it was a wonder that anybody was able to get away with anything without having it show up on the Internet. Robbing banks and doing insane things like putting a pool ball into your mouth could be caught for posterity.

  “The way that you are doing things is not healthy. You want your client to change his way of thinking, but you still do the same things to seal the deal. Do you not see how hypocritical that is?” I had no interest in mentioning the way that he had treated me like I was a piece of meat. I’d given it a lot of thought and I was quite glad to see that his recollection was spotty at best.

  “I get the feeling that we saw each other last night. Did you step over me on the way out of the office? This is mortifying. I feel so embarrassed. I want to crawl into a hole and die.” I could’ve told him the truth, but he already felt bad enough as it is.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must have stumbled in after I left.” I stood at the desk, looking down at him and seeing that he had a piece of paper clutched in his fist. It brought to mind the remedy for a hangover that I had scribbled down quickly to alleviate him of the pain that he was going to feel this morning.

  “I guess that is a saving grace. I just want to go on the record to say that I’m not like this. I do have a tendency to run my mouth when I get drinking. Some have mentioned that what I say during those drunken moments is the hidden truth. I don’t know if I see it that way. I barely remember my name after going on a binge like this.” His hand opened up and the crumpled piece of paper fell to the floor at his feet.

  “Everybody does stupid things once or twice in their lives. I’m sure that there are people that you’re going to need to apologize to. You’ll recognize them by the way that they shake their head in disbelief that you could say something so disparaging.” I was hoping that I wasn’t the only one that had found themselves on the receiving end of his forked tongue.

  “I had one such conversation with a female officer this morning. She said that I was trying to paw her last night. I apologized profusely and she agreed not to press charges. I do believe that I just dodged a bullet. It would do very little for my reputation for it to get around that I was sleeping one off in the tank. It would be worse yet if I were to be charged with some kind of misdemeanor.” The police officer should have thrown the book at him. The only way that he was going to learn was to hit rock bottom.

  “Let this be a lesson.” He looked up and there was that sort of hazy recognition that made me afraid that he was going to remember the way that he told me that I needed to learn a lesson. “You’re not in your twenties anymore.” It
was harsh and being in my twenties, I really had no reference, except for that one drunken moment that I wanted to forget about.

  “Are you sure that we didn’t see each other last night. I get the feeling like I should be apologizing for something that I don’t know anything about. You can be straight with me and maybe a cold dose of reality is exactly what I need to kick me in the pants.” I thought that maybe that was giving me the opening to show him that his actions had consequences.

  “I… I’m sure that I would remember something like that.” I was this close to throwing it in his face, but I didn’t feel that I would’ve been doing him any favors. He already knew that his actions were deplorable.

  “The only thing that I ask is that you keep it down to a dull roar. I’m not even sure how I’m going to concentrate. I only wish that there was some kind of remedy.” I could’ve easily picked up the paper and gave him some peace. I didn’t do that because I thought that he deserved to feel miserable for as long as possible.

  It served him right for making me look at myself in the mirror differently in the morning. He wasn’t wrong and I did somewhat regret not taking him up on his offer. I was just lucky that he didn’t remember. I wasn’t going to have to play the innocent victim.

  “I’m sure that I can keep things quiet.” I purposely moved the chair across the floor making it squeak like fingernails down a chalkboard. His fingernails gripped the edge of his desk and he snapped his head forward with a look of shock on his face. “I’m sorry about that. What was I thinking?” I was laughing inside, knowing that I was causing him pain and feeling that I was justified from the way that he tried to make be one of his conquests.

  “This whole thing could have been avoided had I just met the client here at the office. I always tend to think that getting them away from the stuffy day to day stress is a good idea. I don’t know how many times that I’ve gotten a call in the morning from some irate wife ready to take a switch off of me. I don’t play nice and sometimes playing dirty is the better way to go. I don’t use vinegar. The honey trap of those girls’ obvious attributes gets them more in the mood to talk about business.” I could see that men would feel almost at home around naked women. That was what I considered a man’s club. A woman could not break that glass ceiling the same way.