The red rose was waiting in a vase on her desk when she walked into work. It was Secretary's Day, and her boss had always treated her well, especially when it came time to thank her for her work at the office. The rose still had water droplets on its delicate petals, rolling down slowly toward the innards of the flower. "It was so beautiful," she thought to herself, the way the light overhead shone on it. The petals seemed iridescent, changing colors as you looked at them from different angles...but the main color was a bright red, with a lighter pink showing through. If you looked hard enough, you could almost see vein like lines through the inner petals. Sally loved the rose, and the white vase it was in.
Her boss, a young hotshot Ivy league grad, with dark hair and blue eyes, walked in shortly after eight-thirty. His full name was William George Habershom, but everyone in the office called him George. He was a friendly person, always chatting with someone. Sally had liked him immediately, willingly typing his reports and making his copies. She, like most of the secretaries, had speculated whether or not he had a girlfriend. It seemed she didn't exist. Occasionally, females called for him, and she willingly transferred their phone calls to him, but most of them were work related. These days, the bosses were more likely to be female. The minute he walked in, she was all smiles. She knew that he had ordered the flowers delivered, but she knew that he still treated her a little better than the average secretary.
Last year, she had had lunch with him at Morton's, where she had ordered filet mignon, as part of Secretary's Days festivities. He was really nice that way sometimes. She had had drinks with him after work once or twice, but it was hard to get a good read on his interest level. He seemed distant. He was like many of the young men she had seen at the bars downtown, in suits, successful, educated, and single. Most of them were looking for a night of pleasure without any conditions. But still...one never knew. Sally was thirty and still in her prime. She had, like all the secretaries, had a fantasy or two of him being her lover, but she knew it was a fantasy. Once, when the secretaries from work had had one of those lingerie parties where they try to get you to buy some love potion or new sex toy, she had won a vibrator as a door prize. When she opened it, it sort of embarrassed her. When the girl from the next cubicle to hers at work suggested it should help her take care of her itch when she thought of her handsome boss, she turned sort of pink. But, secretly, she had had a vibrating egg that she carried in her purse for just that occasion, sometimes leaving it in her crotch as she carried out her secretarial duties. She had had that fantasy for four years, as long as she had worked for him.
