Ty sat at his desk in his tiny cubicle lost in the memories of the previous two days. He thought about what he'd done with Shelia at his place and then about the strange woman in the park. It donned on him that he never even got her name. The idea of it all made him smile. It felt like a dream.
"You planning on working today?" Dean said interrupting Ty's thoughts. Dean was in his early thirties and was the only other person at the office who spoke to Ty in a friendly way.
They worked at a large insurance company. Ty's job was in processing. He probably had the most menial job in the whole place. He didn't like it, but he didn't like the idea of any job in any company either.
"What?" Ty said snapping out of his thoughts. Dean placed a thick file folder on his desk.
"Sorry, bud," Dean said. "We always have the most claims to process on Mondays and today's no exception. You've got a lot to do today. I just don't want you to fall behind and regret it later."
"Thanks," Ty said.
"What's up with you?" Dean said. "You look happy. I've never seen you happy at your desk before."
"Had a pretty great weekend," Ty said.
"Glad to hear it," Dean said. "Maybe we can do lunch together this week and you can tell me all about it."
"That'd be great," Ty said.
"Are you ready for your review?" Dean said.
"Review?"
"You didn't forget, did you? The regional manager is coming in today to meet with everyone. You should have got an email with the appointed time. Dude, you gotta be ready for that. I hear the regional manager is a pit bull."
Ty had totally forgotten about the meeting. Truthfully, he could have cared less. But even with his new ability he still had to have a job and make money, so he had to care a little.
"Thanks, Dean," Ty said. Dean shot him the finger guns and left. Ty looked at his email and discovered that his meeting was at 4:45PM. He sighed and opened a file folder and began processing claims.
The day moved by slowly. Ty paused a lot throughout the day and just thought about the weekend. His boner came and went throughout the whole day. It was frustrating to say the least. At 4:40PM Ty looked at the thick stack of papers next to him and realized he'd barely dealt with a quarter of it.
As he walked to the conference room for his meeting he couldn't help but realize how much more he hated his job today than he did just two days prior. His new ability made him look at the world as a playground of sexual possibilities. But his office felt like a pit of boredom, low wages and despair.
The door was open to the small conference room, so he walked in and saw a woman sitting at the other end of the table focusing her attention on the screen of her blackberry furiously typing away.
"Fucking lazy bastards," she said to herself. Ty stood there silent, unsure what to do. He knocked on the door next to him as if he'd just walked in. She looked up with a scowl.
Dana Velstock was forty nine years old. She had large shoulders for a woman and an overall stocky appearance. She wasn't fat in the sense that she looked soft and doughy, but rather she looked like she could play for a female rugby team. She wasn't always the 'pit bull.'
But after years of trying to survive and move up in the corporate world, her patience had run extremely thin. It didn't help that she'd been divorced fifteen years prior with almost no kind of dating life since.
"You must be Ty Baker," she said without so much as a hint of a smile. "Come in and sit down."
Her mostly gray hair fell just passed her shoulders. She looked like she used to be quite attractive, but lost it over the years. Kinda like Kathleen Turner except Dana's voice had a purely feminine tone to it. she wore a conservative navy blue pant suit. Ty sat in the chair next to her.
"Mr. Baker, your productivity is low," she said looking at a document on the table. "It says you've worked here two years. No requests for more work. No applications to move to another department. No request for a raise. No negotiation when we gave you a two percent raise after your first year." She stared at him in the eyes. "Seriously? You didn't put up a fight when we gave you a two percent increase? Hell, standard of living alone is three percent. Technically, you let is give you a pay cut."
Ty had no idea how to respond. He barely remembered the annual raise he got the year before. This woman talked to him like she was disappointed that the company saved money on his total lack of ambition.
"I guess so," Ty said. She shot him a look that made him feel like an idiot.
"You don't need to guess so," she said. "I just told you. Listen. I'm trying to foster a company culture where everyone's trying to move up. I want everyone who has a job here to know that they fought for it. You don't seem to care. This job is just a place to zone out for eight hours a day until you can go home and forget about it, isn't it?"
Ty hated this conversation. He felt bullied. For a moment he thought about leaving the room and quitting in a Jerry Maguire style, but then something clicked in his brain and he realized he had a way better idea than that.
"Are you even going to answer me?" she said. He smiled and looked at her hard in the eyes.
"You don't like yelling at me," he said. "I want you to stop."
Dana wanted to show instant rage. She was prone to snapping at subordinates who talked back to her. But before she could say anything, her mind filled with a sense of peace and pleasantness. She saw Ty's face and felt awful that she'd been so rude to him.
"I'm so sorry," she said genuinely. "I don't know..."
"It's okay," Ty said getting up to lock the conference room door. "You want to talk to me about whatever I want to talk about. You will be pleasant the whole time. Cool?"
"Okay," she said smiling at him.
"When's your next appointment?" Ty said sitting back down in front of her.
"Tomorrow morning," she said. "I was going to go to my hotel after this."
