by David Jester
A handful of employees disappeared outside for a smoke, hoping into relax and exchange gossip after the spectacle. Together with Melissa, another female employee and a man named Paul, I ducked into the kitchen for a sandwich and some gossip.
‘I think it’s Jack,’ I said, fairly quickly.
They all looked at me. Paul spoke first, ‘Who?’
I waved my arms about as if to pluck his name from mid-air.
‘I think he means Andrew,’ Melissa clarified with a giggle, the innocence of which had been affected by the scene in the call-room.
‘Could be,’ Paul said.
‘He seems the sort,’ the woman agreed. ‘I’ve seen Mrs Mann near his cubicle a lot.’
I nodded exasperatedly. ‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘I’m right next to him. I see her all the time.’ I felt bad for lying, so it felt good to tell the truth.
‘He kept talking about how she looked the other day as well,’ Paul added, ‘that she was flustered a lot, that she had a glow. Looked like she had sex a lot, he said.’
‘Seems an odd thing to say,’ Melissa remarked.
‘Very odd,’ the woman agreed.
‘Indeed,’ I added, feeling as if I should get involved.
‘And he is a very shifty character,’ Paul added.
The rumour mill had started turning already. I had blurted out his name on a whim, keen to keep my job and not to lose Melissa. But as the belief spread I began to feel bad for Adam. I didn't like the guy, there was something so innately dull and mediocre about him, but it still wasn’t right to let him go down for something he didn’t do.
Paul began to say something else but was cut short by the sound of restless sobs. We all turned towards the door to see our despondent manager trudge through, his head held low as the remnants of despair trickled out of his mouth.
I felt terrible seeing him in that state, even if it was a refreshing change from his usual facade of Dickensian cantankerousness. I wanted to stand and own up, but I restrained. My honesty wouldn’t make him feel any better and it would make me feel a hell of a lot worse.
‘Derek, sit down,’ Melissa said reassuringly, the deepest grain of sympathy etched in her soft tone.
He flopped down on an empty chair. I immediately felt uncomfortable in my own skin and wanted to jump right out of it. Preferably into a large hole.
Melissa rested a hand gently on his slumped shoulders. I wished she would do the same to me, I needed reassuring as well. I was shitting myself. ‘Talk to us,’ Melissa said to Mr Mann. ‘You can tell us anything.’
‘We’ll help you find out who did it,’ Paul said.
I looked at my fellow employee, staring daggers into the side of his face.
What a stupid thing to say, I thought. I should have blamed him instead.
Mr Mann shrugged; he was in a world of his own. ‘I don’t know who did it, but I know her type,’ he explained slowly, lifting his head up to meet the gazes of his expectant employees. ‘She likes them young, dumb and innocent.’
I was looking at the floor but I was sure he was staring at me at that point. I could feel his eyes burning into my guilty head.
‘She senses their fear and stupidity like a shark sensing blood,’ he continued as everyone hung onto his words.
If I had gained anything positive out of this situation it was to be that at least an attractive woman had liked me without even getting to know me. Now I was beginning to doubt whether she had at all, maybe she just thought I was stupid and naive. Maybe I was her type.
‘I’ll find him,’ he finished, determined.
I looked up slowly, expecting to see him glaring at me. He wasn’t.
‘Like Paul said,’ I explained. ‘We’ll help.’
He looked at me and softly smiled. ‘She’s a bitch,’ he said after a short pause. ‘She’s done it before, more than once. I thought she had finished, I thought we were okay now.’
‘How did you find out?’ Paul wondered.
Both women had arms around the manager now. His sobbing had ceased but the melancholia lingered on his breath like a stale mint.
‘My desk had been cleared. My files, everything, just shoved aside or to the floor.’
I cursed to myself. She had promised she would clean up.
He continued: ‘I found her knickers as well. She left them there on purpose; she did this to hurt me. I just--’ he broke down again, catching his head with outstretched palms and sobbing loudly into them. ‘I don’t know why she does it!’
‘She doesn’t deserve you,’ Melissa said comfortingly. ‘You’re a sweet, sweet man.’
‘And she’s a bitch,’ I added, maybe a bit too personally.
Melissa stared at me, I stared right back. ‘Well, she is isn’t she?’ I insisted.
‘You can’t say that--’
‘He’s right,’ Mr Mann said, rising to meet the room again. ‘She is a bitch. I should have never married her. I should have never forgiven her.’
An unsure silence descended. No one knew how to follow that remark.
We all contemplated the silence for a moment. Derek wiped tears from his eyes. His breathing slowed. He seemed to soften again, but he was exhausted, beaten by the tears.
Eventually he broke the silence. ‘She likes to take their virginity and rub my face in it.’
‘Sounds messy,’ I said quickly.
Everyone around the table looked at me and I immediately regretted speaking. I hadn’t wanted the awkward silence to coat the room again so I had said the first thing that came to my mind.
I slapped a hand to my mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said through the gaps in my fingers, ‘sometimes I try to make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.’
‘Am I making you uncomfortable?’ Derek responded without missing a beat.
‘No. No. Not in the least,’ I hesitated, hoping someone would cut in and save me. They didn’t. ‘I mean yeah, a little bit. But you have every right, considering.’
I ran that over in my head quickly. Did it sound like I said he had the right to make me uncomfortable because I was the guilty party?
Shit.
‘Because of your wife,’ I reiterated. ‘Being a slut and everything,’ I finished with relief. Everyone was staring at me, wide-eyed disbelief on their faces. I didn’t mind, I could have said a lot worse, I almost had.
I sat defiantly next to Mrs Mann. She had collared me outside the building and lured me to her car. She had adjusted her seat all the way back and slipped out of her knickers before I had even looked at her.
‘Come on,’ she pleaded alluringly. Waiting for me to climb on top of her.
The car was parked right outside the building. Anyone entering or exiting would see us together. This was what she wanted. Derek and I were right, she was a bitch.
‘I refuse to have sex with you until you tell your husband I never had sex with you,’ I ordered.
She sat upright again, a sterner look on her face. ‘He knows?’
I turned rapidly in the small confines of the passenger seat, I could feel the faux leather cover squeak against my jacket. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘Well, he hasn’t been home for a few days,’ she said softly, trailing off.
‘He’s been sleeping in his office,’ I said matter-of-factly. Turning back to face the building, pulling the trails of my jacket with me.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Well, you do now.’
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She seemed hurt, she looked introspective. All along I had assumed she was some form of life-sucking sex demon, now I realised she might actually have feelings.
‘And he thinks it’s you?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t want him to either,’ I said. ‘I have a thing -- a potential thing anyway -- with a woman. I like her. I don’t want her to know.’
Mrs Mann nodded. She was staring out of the windscreen, towards the building, her eyes caught in the contemplations of the middle distance.
/> ‘I thought you wanted him to know,’ I said, feeling slightly befuddled about her intentions.
‘I didn’t. I did,’ she shook cobwebs out of her head. ‘I don’t know. I thought I did. I enjoyed the rush of him finding out, and, I guess, maybe I wanted to hurt him, to pay him back--’
‘For what?’
‘He doesn’t fuck me anymore.’
‘So you get revenge by fucking everyone else?’
She nodded.
‘Okay,’ I couldn’t help but smile at the madness of it. I felt a sudden need to leave; being with her was corrupting my sanity. ‘I have to go,’ I said, gripping the door handle. ‘Just don’t tell him, okay?’
Her head was hung in thought.
‘I won’t.’
I climbed out of the car when a thought struck me and forced me to dip my head back in. ‘Oh,’ I said, waiting for her to look at me, catching her eyes in a smile. ‘If it helps, tell him you were fucking a guy named Alan.’
‘Alan? What did he do?’
‘I don’t know, but he’s a dick, he probably did something to deserve it.’
Mr and Mrs Mann made up the same day. Their argument could be heard all over the building and it culminated in some very aggressive sex, which could be heard all the way to the car-park.
Afterwards Mr Mann came out of his office with his fly unbuttoned, his shirt astray. A large smile on his face. He sacked Alan without explanation and then went back in his office for another ear-busting session with his wife.
As luck would have it, there was an Alan who worked at the company. Obviously he wasn’t the guy I was thinking of, but it was far too late by the time I realised.
A few weeks later Mrs Mann grabbed me in the hallway and bundled me into the storeroom. She kissed me deeply -- without tongue -- and then pulled back. I was protecting my groin and about to plead with her not to have sex with me when she pressed a finger to my lips, whispered ‘thank you’ into my ear, and then backed out and left me alone with the one of the most awkward erections I have ever had.
Through no intentions of my own I had sparked the sexual relationship that she had always wanted with her husband. I had also started a relationship with Melissa outside of work. We had been on our first date, and although we had only exchanged a brief kiss at the end of that date, I felt better about that moment then I did about the whole sordid affair with Mrs Mann. It felt real, natural. It felt like I was onto something good.
10
Love in the Work Place Part Three: Melissa
After a fairly productive first date at the cinema (no moments of embarrassing recall, one memorable kiss) Melissa and I arranged to see each other the following weekend. She gave me her phone number and asked me to call, even though we would see each other at work throughout the week.
On the first date I had suggested the cinema after she mentioned a film she wanted to see. For the second date she didn’t drop any hints and I was left to my own devices. Sensing that would lead to trouble, I consulted Matthew.
‘Blow her mind,’ Matthew told me over a pint and a game of pool. ‘Take her somewhere she’ll remember.’
‘Like?’ I asked, leaning lazily on my cue as I watched him line up a long shot on the yellow.
‘I don’t know,’ he said distantly, sinking the shot. ‘That’s up to you.’ He stood up, looked me in the eyes. ‘But it has to be fucking good, be impressive, be different. Give her something to remember you by. Something to tell all of her little friends.’
‘Remember me by? I’m not dying.’
He took a long drink and grinned at me over the rim of the glass. ‘Listen, she’ll be expecting dinner, don’t matter if you’re skint or not.’
‘I am,’ I nodded. I really was.
‘Well, seen as you’re taking this route, a dinner is the done thing. And you don’t wanna do the done thing.’
‘This route?’
‘Asking her out for a date an’ all that.’
‘I like her, what else am I supposed to do?’
‘Leave that shit for the romantics and the films. Nowadays, you like a girl; you take her out, get her pissed and fuck her.’
‘How charming.’
‘Way of the world mate.’ He finished his drink, still grinning proudly, forever endowed with a sense of hilarity. ‘Anyway, what was I saying?’ he frowned, pondered, ‘something special!’ he said, his eyebrows raised in glee. ‘Surprise her, delight her. Blow her fucking mind and then maybe she’ll blow yours.’
‘We could just go to KFC; she said she liked fast food.’
‘You ever feel horny after you’ve eaten?’ he asked plainly.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Exactly!’ he raised a hand and an outstretched finger like he’d had a Eureka moment. ‘Neither will she. Look,’ he put down the cue and laid his hands on both my shoulders. ‘Listen to your uncle Matthew. Take her somewhere different. Surprise her. Romanticise her. Ply her with drink. She’ll be grateful. She’ll probably let you fuck her up the arse.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Very much so.’
Despite Matthew's questionable toxicity, I followed his advice. Melissa was my first real girlfriend, the first person I felt a special attraction to, I wanted a date that matched the uniqueness of the relationship.
I arranged everything for a perfect Saturday afternoon. A drive to the seaside. A stroll on the dunes. A picnic on the beach, and an evening in my flat, under the glow of candles, where we could get to know each other with a few glasses of wine.
I spent all week planning it.
My flat alone took two days of clearing and cleaning. I had only been living in it for a couple of months but in that time it had accumulated all the detritus of a bachelor life. Magazines, papers, clothes, dirty dishes, pizza boxes and empty pop cans lay strewn about like paint flecks on a Jackson Pollock canvas.
I picked Melissa up around noon and headed for the seaside. I didn’t know where we were going, but I was confident I could find my way to the coast.
Melissa was excited. She had an inkling I was planning something when I asked if she was free during the day, but as the car coasted along in the general direction of the sea, she was practically bubbling with childish glee.
‘Roller-rink?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Tenpin Bowling?’
‘No.’
‘The circus?’
‘No.’
‘The beach?’
I hesitated. ‘No,’ she didn’t seem to notice.
‘You’re not taking me abroad are you?’
‘To France?’
She nodded.
‘No.’
‘Hm,’ she put a finger inquisitively on her chin. ‘Are you taking me to the woods to murder me?’
‘Damn. You’ve guessed it.’
‘Oh joy!’ she exclaimed with a grin.
‘Act surprised though won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she nodded. ‘I’m sure I will be.’
I stopped following the road signs when I saw the sea on the horizon, then I just followed the blue and pretended I knew where I was going.
‘The beach!’ Melissa exclaimed. ‘So you’re not going to brutally murder me after all.’
I pulled the car into a small car-park. Gravel chips crunched underneath the tyres as I manoeuvred into a free space. The car-park was full, at least a dozen cars were crammed into the small space, but I couldn’t see anyone around.
The gravel foundation stopped at a ridge of thick, wild grass which stretched long and ascendantly into the distance, beyond which I could just make out the sea at the point it converged with the pale blue sky.
A wind kicked across the grassy dunes and cut through the car-park and my short-sleeved shirt, raising the hairs on my arms and my partially exposed chest.
I took my coat from the backseat and slipped it on before handing Melissa hers. She wrapped the padded arms around her body and tucked her neck into the plush lining,
peering at me above a spiked collar.
‘It’ll be warmer on the beach,’ I assured her.
She smiled to tell me that she didn’t mind.
‘Come on,’ I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close, stealing her heat.
I set off across the dunes with Melissa under one arm and a picnic basket cradled in the other. We walked along a sandy path that cut through the thick grass, and wove between hardy flowers, mounds of dirt, carelessly dropped litter, pebbles, rocks and curious insects.
‘I’m not scared of bugs,’ I assured Melissa after a slightly feminine attempt to avoid a swaying moth. ‘I just think the world would be a better place without them,’ I waved a hand around my head to make sure the brightly coloured insect had disappeared.
‘I don’t think the world can function without them.’
‘I’m sure we’d manage,’ I said, picking up the dropped basket and wrapping my arm back around Melissa.
She tilted her head and frowned at me, she was about to call me a sissy, when I interrupted her.
‘Look, other people,’ I said, nodding ahead and smiling victoriously when Melissa followed my gaze.
We had been walking along the path for ten minutes, taking the scenic route around the wildlife encrusted edges. The beach was ahead of us now; we could just make out a few blobs of the human variety resting on its surface.
At Melissa’s insistence, and to my delight, we walked further on until we found an empty section of the beach. Whilst there I took out a knitted blanket from the basket and stretched it across the cleanest square of sand I could find.
A heavy sigh escaped Melissa’s mouth and she flopped down onto the blanket, stretching out as I watched her admirably.
Further down the beach I could see a small group of people enjoying the mild sunshine and the sounds of the waves lapping at the shore. A few of them were strewn out on the sand, in deck chairs or on blankets similar to the one Melissa writhed on. There was a lot of pink amongst them, and small dark patches indicative of Speedos or trunks around their groins.
It had occurred to me to wear a pair of trunks and see if Melissa fancied a dip in the ocean, but it was cold, I hated wearing trunks and we weren’t kids. A picnic was fine.
