Karen flipped open the compact and grinned ghoulishly. She wiped away an errant splash of lipstick, a particularly sparkly pink, and popped her lips. The reflection moved up to her eyes. Eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow. She had the whole crew working overtime this morning, but they didn't look to be up to the job.
Eduardo had insisted she stay with him, and this early in a relationship, she knew better than to act like a prima donna. She had wanted to go home, of course. She was getting too old for this nonsense, but she was also getting too old to walk out. Sitting there on the vinyl stool, bathed in the red light of a neon Coors sign, she had smiled gamely at Eduardo's idiot back-slapping with his fellow barflies and had even faked a smile when he insisted they all down some ridiculous flaming shot before heading home. Cooing and moaning as was to be expected, she had waited on all fours as Eduardo flailed around behind her, grateful when he finished with a spittly "Oh fuck yeah. Fuck yeah."
Now it was damage control time. A decade ago, she could have emptied a bottle of tequila and been fucked raw in a club bathroom and still looked ready for the runway by breakfast. Now the eyes looking back at her were surrounded by baby crow's feet, each little crevice telling a story of falling or failing, pieces of her cut away by the sharp grit of life, cruel little shards one after another from the men in her past, leaving dark, empty spaces that could never be filled again with any amount of cosmetics. Her baby blues, the ones whose giddy twinkle had once reduced so many swaggering young men to wide-eyed finger puppets, had become roadside gravel, their youthful shine clouded by the unwashable build up of thirty-five years of dust and filth.
Depreciated. That was the word. She had plenty of difficulty with most of the accounting concepts Jimmy had been trying to teach her, but that wasn't one of them. She was living it, straight-line depreciation from homecoming queen to Eduardo. She'd even made a lame joke about it during one of the afternoons he had been spent immersing her in debits and credits. His reaction had been fierce. Physically grabbing her, something he never did unless it was an after hours session, he had launched into a harangue, defending her, imploring her. Do not ever allow yourself to be defined by somebody else's bullshit, he'd said. You are wonderful, Karen, he'd said, you just need to have more faith in yourself. No one since Rodrigo had talked to her like that. She had wanted so much for him to kiss her then, but he hadn't.
She put the compact back in her purse and swiveled in her chair to look behind her. Through the frosted glass, she could see the soft, fuzzy outline of Jimmy at his desk. He had arrived early today, had hardly said hello as he'd walked past the front desk and shut the door. Not even a request for coffee. And the other thing, well, it had been three weeks since he had touched her. It had never been that long before, with him or his father. She pulled out the compact and checked herself again.
The phone on the desk beeped twice. She pressed a button. "Good morning, Jimmy."
"Hi Karen. Can you come back here? I need you to scan something for me."
"Sure thing, Jimmy."
She walked back to the office. She rapped twice on the door, and his father had taught her, and opened it slowly. Jimmy was seated, crouching over the giant oak desk, one hand signing, the other hand flipping from one page to the next. It had been two years, and she still couldn't get used to seeing him there. She had first met him, eight years back, in her first week of work. She thought he'd been a tenant, a college kid in a backwards baseball cap, coming by to explain why the rent money had been spent on beer, but he had bounded right by her, without a glance, and opened the door to the office with an enthusiastic, "Pops!". She had hurried into the office and found the kid hugging her new boss. "Karen, this is my son, Jimmy. Jimmy, our new receptionist, Karen." Jimmy had given her a lopsided smile and padded over with an extended paw.
Now he was the man behind the desk. The goofy college kid was long gone, but with his slim build and his tousle of blonde hair, he still looked out of place behind the ponderous two-ton relic of carved oak. Marv had ridden astride that desk, his prodigious bulk pushing up the ceiling, his glare forcing the walls into retreat. He had a laugh, loud and full, that would send pigeons wheeling into the air. His joy became your joy, and when he was delighted with you, you were delighted with life. When she had fucked something up, which wasn't uncommon, especially early on, his voice had boomed, a thunderclap across the office, warning of a tirade to come, one that inevitably would leave her in tears.
Jimmy wasn't anything like Marv. Where his father growled at life, daring it to challenge him, Jimmy smiled at it, trying to coax it to his wishes. The office that had once strained to contain his father's thrashing stood bemused at its quiet and good-natured new occupant. The bluster and cigars had been replaced by dimples and a dorm fridge full of Gatorade. The only time she ever saw any of Marv in Jimmy was on the rare occasion when the subject of boxing came up or when he came to her with his wallet open.
Looking at the desk, she remembered the first time. Of course, Marv had fucked her on every side, angle, and surface of the desk. He had been heavy and none too nimble, but he had been very imaginative about contorting her so he could use the desk as support. He had been a man of his generation, a man who learned sex when porn was still hidden in grimy theatres, the internet was science fiction, and BDSM was just four random letters. He undressed her, fucked her, and paid her. He was enthusiastic, and she always enjoyed it, but it was as vanilla as could be.
She had found Jimmy in his father's chair. They had closed the office for the week, but she had come up to change out of the heels into the boots she kept under the desk. The snow had fallen heavily during the funeral, and the buses were out of service, so she had resigned herself to walking. He was spinning the chair slowly back and forth. His eyes were red, and his blonde hair shot out at painful angles.
"Jimmy, are you okay? What are you doing here?"
She had felt stupid the moment she said it, but then what could you say at a moment like this that didn't feel foolish. Forty-eight hours before, she was wishing them well, ushering them out of the office, have a great night, enjoy the fights. Jimmy had been a Golden Glove star, like his Daddy twenty five years before, and the Friday night fights were their thing. They'd get a steak at Tomasino's, bullshit about everything under the sun, cheer dizzily for the neighborhood kids, and then talk the fights over a cocktail. Same thing every week. And as every week, after they said their goodbyes, Marv would stop at the corner bodega on the way home to grab some fruit for the next morning. Except this time, as he reached for a bag of clementines, some little piece of something came loose from somewhere, tumbled through his bloodstream, and got caught in his aorta. His knees buckled and his hands shot out for support. His arm caught in the hanging scale, pulling it down with him, as he tumbled forward. It clattered on the ground. Ding. Ding. Ding. Fighters, back to your corners.
"Hi Karen. I just came by to...I don't know...I didn't know where to go."
She walked over to him, unbuttoning her overcoat as she went and laying it on the desk. Her black dress was long and flowing, the top cut maybe a bit too low for propriety, but then, she didn't have any proper funeral wear.
She put a hand on his shoulder. "Jimmy, sweetie, you shouldn't be here. Go home." She touched his cheek. "Get some rest."
Jimmy let out a small, choked laugh and smiled through his tears. "I'm not sure you should call me 'sweetie' any more, since I guess I'm technically the boss now." The words set off a little convulsive cry from his chest, and he tried to swallow it.
Karen smiled weakly at the joke. She could feel her own eyes starting to burn. She knelt in front of him and put her hands on his knees. She whispered, choking. "Jimmy, I loved your Dad. He was a great boss, a great man, but you know, so are you. I have watched you grow all these years. You dad was so proud of you, and I know I will be happy working for you too."
He looked at her. Oddly, she thought. Then she noticed his pants. He had sprouted quite the collegiate erection. He saw her look, and his face went red.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't help it. You just knelt down, and you were so nice, and I couldn't control it."
She almost had to laugh at the absurdity of it, but then she had been on her knees under this desk before. Marv used to love getting a blow job while talking to contractors. He said it gave him power over them. She would kneel under the heavy oak frame of the desk, like a bunny in its dark, little hutch and wait for the meeting to start, then undo her blouse so he could her tits. She always waited until the meeting was in full swing to unzip his fly. It became a game for her to see if she upset his composure, while being otherwise silent. She tried different approaches. One time she held him in her mouth like a popsicle, just using her tongue to massage his shaft, while she reached into his pants to grab his balls. The overall lack of movement apparently drove him crazy. He couldn't speak at all for the last thirty seconds, and when climaxing, he painfully drove his knee into the top of the oaken frame. The contractor clearly thought he was dealing with a lunatic. Marv had given her an extra fifty dollars in appreciation for that particular effort.
