The moment I saw Lucille for the first time, I hated her. She had golden platinum blonde hair in large curls that bounced as she pranced through the hallway on her shiny four-inch nude-colored platform heels. She wore a tight pencil dress that accentuated her curves. With double-D breasts; a firm, round ass; and a small waist in between, her figure was the hourglass shape that made every woman jealous and every man uncomfortable in his business slacks. Every man, that is, except me. I loathed her and her porcelain skin, her ruby lips, her power walk. She walked like she knew she could get whatever she wanted from whomever she wanted. What I hated most about her was that she probably could.
Unsurprisingly, her interview went swimmingly (for her). There were three interviewers: Daniella, Kyro, and myself. Each of her answers were perfect, laced with just the right amount of southern honey to draw us in. She knew when the interview was over and stood before us, giving us an ideal view of long legs clad in sheer pantyhose. I could hardly contain my disdain as she shook our hands and trotted out. Predictably, Kylo watched her ass wiggle out the door and down the hall.
"Wow, she's-"
"Perfect for the job!" Daniella interrupted, unknowingly blocking Kylo from saying something unprofessional.
"My thoughts exactly," he said, giving me an impish look to indicate those were not his thoughts exactly.
"Don't you think she's a little..." stuck-up? Bitchy? Exactly the kind of girl we all hated in high school? "Over-enthusiastic?"
"That's the best part!" Daniella gushed, completely missing what I meant. "She will get our team excited! This is exactly what we need!"
Kylo suppressed a snicker. 'She'll get them excited, all right,' his expression read. I shook my head.
"Well, if you guys really like her..." I started, emphasizing the resignation in my tone.
"Yes. Great. I will call her." Kylo rushed off as if someone else would try to beat him to it. Daniella nodded as if everything was falling into place the way it should, collected her notes from the interview, and shuffled back to her desk. I sighed and returned to mine, as well.
I had never been especially close with any of the ladies in the office, but we formed a sort of bond after Luci started. A common enemy will do that to a group of people. We watched as she trotted proudly around the office, quickly becoming a favorite among the leaders-once again, all except me. I ignored her as much as I could, but when I couldn't, I did my best to hide my contempt for her, never calling her "Ms. Barbie" or "Dolly" to her face (despite the temptation to do so).
Throughout her first few months, I got the sense that she was trying to get my attention. She would walk past my office to the copy room, back to her desk, then back again, laughingly saying, "Whoopsie!" as if she had forgotten something. Maybe she did; I never paid much mind. She would always look my way as she walked by, trying to catch my eyes, and I would stare fixedly at my screen in return, as if the email I was typing required much more focus than it did. Actually, usually the emails were about her. I confess I had made a game of sending little jokes about her-or written impressions of her-to Susannah, one of the older broads I had recently bonded with over our mutual disdain for Ms. Barbie. Susannah often joked that Ms. Barbie had a crush on me, and recently she had overheard the broad complaining to Daniella that I didn't seem to like her. In the moment, I had resolved to brighten up my behavior towards her-after all, she hadn't done anything wrong-but the resolve had weakened the first time I saw her after that. I still didn't know exactly why. Is it wrong to hate someone for no reason?
Wrong or not, I did, and the longer she worked there, the more my hatred for her burned. Finally, at six months, Luci couldn't stand it anymore. I didn't see her much for a whole week, but on Friday around 3:00, she knocked lightly on my door. The timidity shocked me, and I looked up with a surprised and quizzical look on my face.
"Hey, Julian... could we talk?" She asked, again stunning me with her unusually shy advance. I nodded, and she closed the door. A bit odd, but I shrugged it off. It wasn't against company policy, though atypical for a man and a woman to converse alone with the door closed.
"Listen... I'm not sure how to say this exactly..."
For some reason, my heart was racing. Why was I nervous? I hadn't done anything wrong.
"but over the past six months that I've worked here... I've gotten the sense that... well... do you not like me? I'm sorry, that sounds so juvenile."
I swallowed. Uh-oh. She was confronting me? I wasn't sure how to respond.
"It just seems like you don't like me at all. Even in the interview, Daniella, Kylo and I got along great, but you seemed tense. I wondered if you had a problem with one of them. But now that I've been here a while, I know you go out for drinks with Kylo every Friday night, and you and Daniella get along fine. I know it's me. So what is it about me?" She was looking straight at me, her arms folded, her shoulders slightly slumped in either a defensive or submissive stance, I wasn't sure.
"It's not you," I said after a painful silence. "I've just been really stressed lately."
"For six months?" She asked. I smiled sheepishly, raising my right hand to my left shoulder as if to rub a stress-related knot.
"Pressures of leadership, I guess," I chuckled, hoping to lighten the mood. Her brows furled in concern, but perhaps also disbelief. She came around the desk to the back of my chair.
"Hm, you do seem tense. Do you mind?" She had hardly asked before placing her hands on my shoulders and kneading them with her fingers. A feeling stirred within me, disgust mixed with something else.
"That's okay!" I practically jumped out of my seat. "I'll see a professional about it this weekend."
At first she was taken aback; then, she was angry.
"It IS me!" She said, putting her hands on her hips. "You hate me! Tell me why."
