I could not help but feel a pang of guilt as I packed the last picture off my desk. I loved my firm. It was the first firm I had worked for after law school. In truth one of the only firms that would offer me a job. At first divorce law did not interest me, but I had over come it and found that not all divorce lawyers are sleazy creeps. (Just the good ones.) Which I guess was why when an offer came in from a firm in Indianapolis that would let me branch out a bit, I took the interview and finally the job. It wasn’t bad money and I would finally be in my own office and not sharing a cubical with Susan.
Susan. Susan is about five feet one inch tall with shoulder length blond hair the cradles her face in the most sensual way. She has a great body with a slender waist and hips. Though she is thirty-one, she has the energy of a much younger woman. (She refers to herself as a ball of sexual energy.) But since my first day at the firm, Susan and I have had this love hate relationship. Her ego often gets in the way. It seems that she often goes out of her way to embarrass me or to prove the she knows more law than I do. Though this may be true, nobody likes being reminded of that. She had two children of her own and two stepchildren.
She appeared like any modern woman, shopping, having a career and squeezing in the inevitable parent teacher conference when she could, but when you got to know her, there was one thing that mad her stand out. Susan was a sex maniac. On slow days we would often talk of nothing else. Just hot, steamy sex. She would give me ideas and pointers and often tease me with her speech and body just enough to make me want to explode, and then she would be all business again. I would go home and usually masturbate out of frustration. Mean while she would come home the next day and tell me how she had fucked her husband on the interstate on the way home. I have often fantasized about her at night wondering what it would be like to do her, just once. Not to make love to her, but to fuck her hard and get lost in the sensation.
I stifle a laugh, sometimes I find myself surprised that the hard man inside steps on my gentle nature. Well, regardless, it never happened and now I am almost late for my going away luncheon. Whenever an associate leaves, the firm goes through this ridiculous ritual of having a potluck where everyone he can’t stand makes a little speech about how great he is and then they give him a pair of cuff links and talk nice about him for an hour. I would have rather billed a client and gone to lunch on the expense account, but tradition is tradition and what the hell. Every lawyer has a vain side anyway. I stopped at the door of the associates’ pool and looked in the full-length mirror. My navy pin striped suit looked pressed and sharp. Hair neatly combed tie centered. I sprayed some breath spray in my mouth and proceeded.
I walked slowly down the mahogany-paneled hallway, passed the reception desk. Shirley the middle aged secretary smiled at me. I had suspected that she had a crush on me at for some time. I liked her a lot; she was a warm friendly person. I would miss her. I nodded to her as I walked passed the desk.
"They are waiting for you Mister Richards."
"Thank you Shirley. Come join us if you are free."
I walked into the conference room. Forty-two of the greatest lawyers in the Baltimore area stopped talking almost at once. Thomas Frederickson the senior partner, a man of about forty-five, stood to shake my hand. His tailor made suit clung to his body like an expensive glove. I always felt ill at ease around the partners. He boomed in a loud voice
"Jack My boy, we were wondering if you would show up."
"You know me Mr. Frederickson, Had to be late to my own funereal." I responded coyly hoping to mask my discomfort. The room exploded in laughter. The ploy seemed to work.
Next each of the partners I had worked with stood to pay tribute to my three and a half years of service to the firm and say how great a lawyer I had become. The last was Susan. She stood behind the podium, wearing a brown business suit with a skirt almost short enough to be called a mini and a loose silk shirt underneath. She had a very sensual presence about her as she told the firm how she had not liked me when I first came from college but how I had impressed her as the months went by. She continued saying how I was a promising young lawyer and that she would miss me. It was sentimental and sweet. And it really torqued me off. I could see right through her. She spent so much time in our cubical belittling me and now I was Perry Mason or something.
I led the prosession through the potluck table. I sat at a leather sofa in the center and greeted people as they walked by. I enjoyed it really considering how I felt about these kinds of luncheons. After forty minutes or so it seemed that every one had come by and there were only two or three people left. Shirley wished me good luck and left. A junior partner came by to ask if he could move into my desk. (The joys of opening a spot in the food chain.) Then I suddenly felt alone as the door closed. I finished my plate and tidied up my area and then I heard a soft voice behind me.
"I wanted to give you this." It was Susan. She handed me a small oblong black box with a bow on it.
I took it and opened it, finding a tie. "Well thank you Susan it is really quite lovely."
