"Fuck you up the ass, bitch!" I screamed with my finger covering the boom mike just as Melissa strolled into our shared cubicle. Swing shift's newest temporary employee was fifteen minutes late, as usual. Two weeks ago, to the day, she arrived twenty minutes late and announced that I was her trainer.
We were both at the bottom of the tech support food chain, consequently we arrived at work as the twenty-three-year-old assistant vice presidents were heading for the door. Most were techno geeks with the fashion sense of Jethro Bodine and the super ego of Pinocchio. These diminutive tyrants would spend years creating a virtual über-woman but would not invest ten minutes in verbal banter with the opposite sex. Maybe when they're rich...
The temp's eyebrows rose as she put a pained smile on her face at my outburst.
"The customer is always right," she deadpanned as she draped her pink sweater over the back of her chair. We were forced to share a single cubicle because the "day shifters" hated everyone who didn't look like Buddha in polyester or who didn't believe "War Games" was the best film ever made. Because of this, only one cubicle — at the end of a long row of cubicles — was available for us "swing shifters."
The day shift wieners forced Melissa, a five-foot-nine-inch red-headed bombshell who was so hot rain evaporated before it touched her skin, and myself to the outer circles of Dante's Inferno. The geeksters looked down their nose, and over their black horn-rimmed glasses, at my English Lit Masters' degree and wondered aloud, how could the former captain of the college lacrosse team be such an egghead?
That particular evening I was wrestling with another fifty-year-old female office manager who blamed our software package for losing her files fifteen minutes before quitting time. Most of the these women had probably kicked the plug out of the wall causing their remote control vibrators to switch gears seconds before they reached an orgasm and they were pissed at the world of high technology because of it.
"No ma'am, you can recover the file if you..." I looked towards Melissa and mouthed "your late."
Melissa shrugged and turned away.
"...yes ma'am. I'll let you talk to my supervisor, Melissa. Hang on a sec." I spun around in the chair. "I'm sorry, Melissa. I can't make her happy. Can you..?"
She had already plugged in and was apologizing for my poor performance. The 110 volt-vibrator lady was informed that I was new and not very bright. Melissa suggested that I might have a promising career in politics if I could learn to wear a tie properly.
I forced a smile and nodded a half-hearted thanks at Melissa. The day had started like this. My girlfriend broke up with me because I wasn't willing to pack a hundred dollars worth of cocaine a day into her pretty little nose. Then a job interview, earlier that day, had ended poorly when a twenty-one-year-old human resources specialist said my forms were filled out incorrectly and that I "...couldn't follow instructions."
"Melissa, when you're late I get backed up with calls..." Before I finished she had picked up the next call and was ignoring me. It was just another day at the office working with Melissa.
Melissa stood out in a crowd: amidst a crowd of naked Playboy Bunnies, Melissa stood out. She had long auburn hair, slim tapered legs and high set breasts that moved like a ship at sea when she walked. In reality, it didn't matter what the rest of her body did; running, walking or beating a sociopathic marsupial with a sand wedge, her breasts seemed to be rolling on the waves like a sailboat cutting through a balmy sea. She was gorgeous and, unfortunately, she knew it all too well.
"I have to leave early tonight. Tony is picking me up."
I had watched this Tony guy come to pick her up in his 500 series Beemer several times. He was some slick lawyer-looking poof with expensive tastes in suits, cars and, undoubtedly, women.
"Well, you were late and..."
"Thanks. You're a love." She aimed a small "air kiss" sound in my compass direction and continued chatting with someone in Russia.
"Da... nyet." Laughter.
I, on the other hand, looked like I had been run through the dryer with a hand full of baseballs. A thin scar across my chin, where I stopped a hockey puck that would've been a certain goal, was my most prominent feature. A twice broken nose and some smaller dings rounded out the mix.
I had gone to college on a football scholarship but when the scouts failed to offer me pro contracts — and pro dollars — the wellspring of interested women dried up quickly. I finished my MS while playing lacrosse and water polo, neither of which were exactly chick magnet activities. Tall and strong, as I am, these are not the prerequisites most hot women put at the top of their lists of "things that guys I'm going to fuck, need to have."
Running my hand through my unruly blond mop I turned to take the next call. As things slowed down I caught pieces of a conversation between her and Tony. Their date was off. He was sucking some big-shot's dick at an exclusive club that didn't even allow women in the parking lot.
"So you'll be here 'til closing?" I asked after she hung up.
Tears streamed down her face. "How can I work when I feel like this?"
Something inside me snapped. "God damn it! I feel like that every night but I still work." My fists were clinched. "What the fuck is your major malfunction?"
"Can we talk about this after work? Maybe over a drink?" she sniffed. I was stunned. She had never asked me to empty the garbage much less have something as passé as a drink with her.
At the bar, she confided that Tony was a wanker. But he paid her Visa bill no matter how outrageous it might be, she continued, though she could never love someone who didn't care about her as a person.
Great, I thought. So, now I get to be your girlfriend and listen to you piss and moan about Tony paying your obscene Visa bill month in and month out... what an inconsiderate asshole this guy must be.
I spoke briefly to her about my troubles with the Hoover money/coke vacuum but, by now, she was more interested the 11 o'clock stock report on the television hanging over the bar.
"Would you walk me home?" she whined.
Gee, what could be more entertaining? I nodded my head.
She fumbled with the key while she continued to cry. I grabbed it from her hand and pushed on the door which swung open easily. It was already unlocked and partially open.
"Can you check to make sure he's not here?"
I was thinking, If he is, can I stomp on his trachea? I made a cursory walk through.
"Okay, you're on your own."
"What's wrong with you?" I looked over my shoulder to see if she was addressing me with that question. "Why'd you let your girlfriend use you for so long?"
"Well, I guess I thought..."
"You don't think. That's your problem." Her tears gave way to anger.
"Huh?" This was taking a surreal turn.
"What would you do if she were right here in front of you? Right now?"
I hesitated. "Where is this going?"
"Sometimes..." She sighed before she continued quietly. "Girls behave badly because they need someone to take charge of their life. Someone who'll show them that... they care. Like a father figure..." I shrugged my shoulders. Wetness welled up in her eyes again. "Tony doesn't do that for me," she sniffed.
I had no earthly idea what she was getting at. "Okay... so?"
Melissa stood in the doorway and let her stare burn through me. Shaking her head she started in on me again with ire. "Oh, you deserve everything she gave you! What a putz you are."
"Shut the fuck up," I complained. "We're not friends and you don't know anything about me."
Nodding, she continued sarcastically. "Oh, I think I do. You loser... every woman will use you like a fucking tampon..."
"Shut... up!"
"... and drop you in the trash when they're done..." I moved towards the door. She stepping in front of me blocking my exit. "...and you'll tell your mama that it was..." I pushed her to one side to leave but she pushed back, hard. "... all their fault!" Putting on a mocking voice she continued. "I don't have the balls, mommy..."
For the first time in my life I was rough with a female. I did not hit her, instead I shoved her out of my way: hard. Harder than I needed to, really. The poison from Melissa's tirade stung me and I reacted poorly.
"Please, don't go," were the last words I heard from her as I stormed out the door.
The next day she arrived twenty-two minutes late. Handling a call, I looked directly at my watch but she ignored me.
"I'm sorry about what happened last night," I said after I finished the call.
"No. I'm sorry. I thought you were something different." Her voice had an edge to it. "I thought the man who got all those scars would show up."
"I got those scars from rough games." Her look was unmistakable. I set my jaw. "After work little lady." A flicker of fear shot through her eyes. We didn't speak the rest of the evening.
Arriving in front of her apartment she fumbled with the key, again.
"Open it." My voice sounded stern: even to me. There was no more fumbling and the door flew open.
"Sit down over there." I pointed to the couch. I didn't know what to do next so I went into her bedroom and turned on the computer. Snooping around as the computer loaded up I spotted handcuffs, alligator clips, leather paraphernalia and a wide razor strop hanging in her closet. I needed to consult the internet experts for further instructions.
"Get in here!" I barked.
