Newly in Charge

"Just call me Alex," she told the women across in first class, while the Acela train swooshed across the Housatonic River Bridge. The orange, rust colored beams of the bridge were fluttering past the eye because the train shot ahead so fast. A few kayaks followed each other like ducklings. It was still summer. Then the view went back to the all look alike monotony of suburbs and shrubbery.

"What takes you there?" asked the woman. She was in her late forties right at the intersection where her beauty of youth still glowed here and there, like in her hair that insinuated that she had been a blond party blond, but her lips had wrinkled a bit and lost any sensual contour, turning it into an orifice that was meant for talking, even a bit on the mean and tough side, like she had her fair deal of shit to deal with in her life and she had learned to deal with it. And that's how Alex categorized her: The woman wasn't in her peer group of Columbia grad students. She was too old. But there was wisdom to her, like a wise elder, who could teach her the ways. And that's why she opened up quickly to her.

"I'm going to take over the family business. My uncle died last week. We weren't very close, but he was so focused on business that he didn't have time to raise children or even find a wife. So I'm the closest heir. I feel so scared. I'm told that his entire C suite team are old crusty men. It's a farming machine conglomerate. They are supposed to live in a past that's from before when I was born. I don't know how they are going to take it that a woman is in charge. In our e-mails, I've left them in the belief that Alex is a man's name. It simply seemed easier. But now they are going to see me. I couldn't eat all morning." Alex explained.

"That serves them well. I wish I could be there to see their faces when they realize that they have to suck up to a woman and kiss her ass," the woman chuckled with bitter laughter. The laughter seemed to shake her deep innards like she pictured the humiliating moments in her life and saw payback happening to the misogynists of the world.

With a serious face, the woman turned to Alex: "You have to follow through. If you are timid, they are going to be dancing on top of you. Especially, on the first day, you can't let them get away with anything. You have to follow through until they comply no matter how scared you are or how silly the matter is. Take Lucy." And with that, she opened the carrier on her lap and a black nose appeared followed by a brown and gray furry face. The adorable terrier sniffed around. The dark, black button eyes curiously explored the new environment and he came out.

Alex gasped "How adorable!" and scooped the little fellow up with both her hands and cuddled that shaggy ball to her face. She rolled her cheeks and nose in the soft and clean fur. One could tell on her face and body language how much she was still a kid at heart. Her body had let go of her composure of pretending to be a serious adult fitting in with the business crowd on the Acela first class train wagon. That was Alex's life intersection. She was still sheltered with her party and play girlfriends in Columbia grad school while she had been prepared to enter the serious business world.

The woman carefully took Lucy out of Alex's hand. She placed Lucy on the floor and gently said "Sit!" Lucy waddled around. The woman yelled with a blood curling intensity "SIT!" Lucy instantly slammed her butt down and started shaking. The nearby passengers craned their necks around. With sweetness and a victorious smile, the woman looked deeply into Alex's eyes: "That's follow through. Now, you try. Do not stop until she complies."

The woman pulled on Lucy's leash to make her walk around a little bit between their feet. The woman was wearing pristine clean white tennis shoes, evidently caring about her comfort and not giving a shit what people thought. Alex was wearing ornately decorated with small gems and snake patterns shoes with skinny straps, a delicate body, and very high, needle thin heels that let the luscious, moist and smooth shape and skin texture of her foot feature very prominently. As expensive as the heels were, they were poorly sized and fitted. Her toes extended past the shoe like an overbite, all awkward and embarrassingly eye popping. She was used to flip flops and yoga pants on campus. Trying to fit into luxury business clothes showed her like a fish out of water, which made her cute, adorable, and relatable.

"Okay Lucy, let's have a sit," said Alex with a friendly smile bordering on the grin of a Chinese fisherman.

Lucy kept sniffing around. The woman gave her a scornful look.

"You have to be straight and direct: One word. The dog simply hears blablabla sing song when you talk like that," explained the woman.

Alex took a deep inhale and said with a wafer thin voice, "Sit." The Acela was rattling past a train station at full speed. The windows and doors gave that booming pressure on the ear of quickly oscillating over and under pressure.

"If they can't hear you, they don't follow. You have to be loud and clear. Be a little too loud, but never too quiet," the woman directed her.

"But I'm afraid that the other people will hear me," Alex blushed.

"You are taking the reins of a conglomerate. You'll have thousands of people watching your every move and the tiniest fart that you make. Get used to it quick!" The woman warned her with a drastic look on her face that said that this was going to go horrible if she couldn't get past that.

"Sit!" shot over Alex's lips real fast and like it had sucked all the air out of her. The woman shook her head. Lucy sniffed to narrow in on a spot on the wall to pee on.

"Okay, I'm going to give you a visual. Imagine your boyfriend wants to put his tiny dick up your ass. Really picture him, his face real clothes, naked bodies..." the woman extolled while slightly rolling her eyes as to say that she couldn't believe where she had to go to get it out of Alex.

"SHIT! FUCK! CUNT! YOU MOTHERFUCKER! (pause) SIIIIIT!" the terror and rage on Alex's face was intense. Lucy looked confused and quickly sat down. Lucy couldn't stop looking all around to figure out what had happened.

"Wow," said the woman, "anger works." Applause broke out in the train car. Alex blushed.

"Men are dogs. That's all they are. Only, they sometimes forget." With a last look at Alex before she disappeared behind her laptop, she said, "Make them suck up to you and kiss your ass!"

Evidently humored, the woman continued: "Here is another tip. If they are old boys, then there will be whisky canters on the desk and in the drawers. What are you? You are not even a hundred pounds. They probably have a belly and come in at two hundred pounds. Your blood alcohol level will go up four times as fast as theirs. Trick number one is to eat something fatty before, like a really greasy burger. The fat will line the intestines to slow the fat absorption..."

"I'm vegan," stopped Alex with a haunted look in her eyes as if the woman was brazenly slaughtering a happy cow that only wanted to prance around a wild flower meadow and be cuddled.

"Well, okay. Two worlds collide today," continued the woman shaking her head. "Trick number two is to drink two shots fast in the beginning to create the illusion of a hard drinker. Then get a third drink right away, but only hold it, maybe wildly gesticulate with it like you are about to drink it at any moment. After two drinks, your blood alcohol will be around 0.8. It takes their big bodies eight drinks to get there!"

Words to the wise thought Alex and the conversation petered out.

Later in the early afternoon, she stood in the lobby hall of the Mandarin Oriental. The hall was giant. The marble was polished to reflect light nearly as well as a mirror. There was no furniture, artwork, or flower works. All there was was Alex standing in the center of the hall. The gleaming walls and pillars had no resting point for the eye, except for her. She stood. She hesitated. She knew that once she stepped up to the reception to ask for direction everything would be nonstop. This was her last moment.

She stood still. An old, rich woman hurried past her with a veil, gloves, and an air that called old money. The old woman was put together to display her status. The clothes looked like they had be worn and were part of her identity. Alex on the other hand had traded her black yoga pants for a gray pencil skirt. The fabric grabbed her butt so tight that it restrained her movement. Yet, the waist was loose by two inches. The white blouse was a size too large. The top bottom was permanently gone to encourage the wearer to show some cleavage, but being a size too large, the opening revealed the skin in between her breasts all the way down to the bottom of the breasts. The bra was a size too small and corralled the breasts into two tight perfectly round balls that were sticking straight out from her chest. All of it was Versace and Prada -- high end fashion brands that she had heard on TV and that she was wearing now in an effort to match her stature as CEO of Russel Conglomerates.

Clickety-clack, her heels echoed the hall as she walked up to the reception. A man in an expensive looking black suit with carefully manicured head hair rested his arms wide on a gold rimmed leather writing pad. A tension built as he acutely watcher her walk up without saying anything or a hint of a smile. She felt a little like a phony, like there was a chance he would ask her to leave because she obviously didn't belong.

"Hm, yeah, I'm looking for the Russel Conglomerate. My name is..." Alex started unsure.

"No need to say. I've been informed of your arrival. They are waiting for you in suite 455." He raised his right arm to point to the elevator. He was so on point -- instant and precise.

"Wow!" Alex said and thought to herself. "This is my life now. People will know me before I even know them."

As she turned and walked to the elevator, she heard him pick up the phone behind her and discreetly speak: "The lady has arrived. I'll pull security back now so that she won't get trouble. No, still no sign of the boss." There was a click followed by radio crackle. She thought that was a little strange.

Ahead of her was the elevator bank. Two security guards in equally expensive suits stood motionless until one pushed the ear piece to hear better. After a short moment when Alex was half way there just barely in earshot, the security guard said, "Time for a smoke break.", with a staid voice and demeanor that marked him as a longtime guardian of the rich.

"But I don't you that I stopped smoking," complained the second guard with a cadence and credulousness in his voice like he had been picked up recently from the street and stuffed into a fancy suit. The first guard gave him a glare with barely moving a facial muscle that yet effectively make the second guard rush to catch up to a service exit door.

Right before the second guard disappeared out of sight, he turned around and called to Alex with a loud voice, "Hey ma'am, we don't allow..." The first guard must have given the second another one of those looks. The second guard froze, and a moment of recognition ran across his face. He gave that look that admits that he had been a complete full. The door closed behind him.

Alex felt alone. The elevator opened right away as it had been waiting. The elevator inside had a chandelier and golden buttons. She got a strange feeling about the opulence inside here that barely anybody got to enjoy. While out on the sidewalk, she had seen homeless cramped on the sidewalk in the middle of their piles of stuff. What a strange world she was in. For a moment, she thought of herself as a fairytale princess who would break of the gold buttons to hand them out to the homeless in the street. That goes to show how much she felt out of her family experience of reality ushered into a foreign world.

As the elevator door opened onto the fourth floor, a medium tall brunette with a balayage and toned body waited swaying her body short and impatiently. She held a clipboard with a tablet and two phones on top of it, and all pressed against her chest to hold on. The business clothes was very tight on her body. The calves had a sexy curve. The lips had a liquid pink color that made them look wet and glossy like a private pool surface. Despite all the sexy features on her body and clothes, her attitude was tense and closed up.

"You are late," she said and turned around without checking for a response. Off she strutted down the hallway expecting Alex to keep up. Alex hated her. Alex didn't like the cold treatment. Every pore of the woman seemed to think that she was better than Alex.

"You must be Mindy the executive assistant," said Alex trying to warm up the interaction.

Mindy turned to the side to give Alex, who had caught up, an up and down look. Mindy's corner of the mouth twitched down in a derogatory way.

"That looks like a $10,000 outfit, but you couldn't find fifty bucks to get it tailored to your body. When you stepped out of the elevator, I wondered why someone as pretty as you would come. It's normal for someone who agrees to all the services that you agreed to. The pretty ones usually say no. And the ugly ones know saying yes is their only way into the business." Mindy talked at a quick pace without any moment for words to sink in or for Alex to cut in.

Mindy's tone switched to a friendlier and more approachable vibe. "I know exactly why I'm hired. The old boys want something sexy for their eyes. That's why I dress like an elegant slut. And when they say something lewd, I smile and think about my fat 401k. You gotta face reality, the way that the world works. I feel that we are both cut from the same cloth." Mindy even finished with a smile.

Alex was daunted by the quick, rush of startling words that were nothing like the staid introductions that she had expected.

Almost amicably, Mindy added, "Did you get my last e-mail? The boys wanted to move the entertainment an hour earlier. They weren't sure if the new boss would approve of a stripper. So they wanted to get it out of the way. Maybe, you missed the e-mail and that's why you were late." With that Mindy swiped a key card on the suite door.

"Hey, I'm the new boss!" protested Alex.

Mindy gave a nervous smile. "You let me worry about the new boss. I'll run interference. Fuck of a way to start a new working relationship by deceiving the boss."

Alex's body stiffened. Her face was red. Mindy punched Alex in the back to shove Alex forward. "Bitch, do your job!" Mindy hissed and shut the door behind Alex.

Alex's eyes opened wide. The CFO James, a gray haired man in his fifties with a big belly, sat on the bed with his knees wide apart and a whisky bottle resting on his thigh. The tie was loosened and the top of the shirt unbuttoned. A half smoked cigar was lazily hanging in the corners of his mouth like he had been talking like that for a while. The CMO Mark was a tall Indian in his fifties. He was skinny but not in a lean way but rather in a ravaged way from a complete lack of exercise. He was sitting in his wife beater undershirt with the entire basket of coffee and teas on his lap. The CHRM Don was in his forties with a red head. He seemed riled up and had his shirt sleeves rolled up. His straw blond head made him look like an Idaho farmer with a bull like body. He was typing away on the phone. The CTO Harry was the only one looking straight at Alex. He was the one who seemed the least intoxicated. His eyes were clear and blue. He was sitting in a big leather armchair with his fingers folded like a tent.

"You are all in trouble," Alex yelled. "This is absolutely not acceptable." Her heart was pounding. She was shaking from the rush of adrenaline. She was scared. She was terrified. She was the cornered street dog lashing out, trying to survive.

"Who does she think she is?" CTO Harry asked CFO James as if Alex wasn't even in the room.

"I'm your new boss! And you better shape up right now!" yelled Alex. Her belly completely expelled an entire breath of air to get those words out big and loud. And when she was at the bottom of her exhale, she could feel how tiny her Pilates tones belly really was. The navel button touched all the way to the front of her spine.

"I don't know. It's some kind of roll play. It's making my balls tingle. I like it," replied CFO James back to CTO Harry with a hand wave of I-guess-this-is-what-it-is.

Alex looked around the room. She locked onto luxurious leather armchair that CTO Harry was sitting in. She stomped towards it. Her feet slipped so far forward in her expensive heels that even the balls of her feet touched the ground ahead of the skinny leather soles.

"That's my chair. Get out!" she yelled at CTO Harry. Harry was startled and looked a bit scared being addressed so directly. From the distance it all seemed like fun and games, but now this furious and energetic sex bomb was right in his face. He clenched his butt cheeks and froze with a confused look on his face.

Alex remembered the lesson with Lucy. "Now or I'll fire you on the spot and have you flying out of this room high angle."

CTO Mark got up confused and mumbled, "I was going to get another drink anyway."

CFO James changed the demeanor on his face completely. Somber and with regret, he looked straight into Alex's face and said, "Look we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Let me make it up to you." He grabbed a shot glass from the counter and poured whisky into it from the bottle in his hand. He held the glass out to Alex.

Alex snatched the glass out of his hand. She knew that this was the test of the pack to prove that she was one of them. She put the glass on her lips and cocked her head back. She kept her face towards the ceiling so that they wouldn't see the grimaces chasing across her face as she tried to keep her composure as the burn drizzled down her throat and echoed hot and warm until it subsided to where she could manage herself again.

"Hit me again," she snarled at him with a cold blooded murder face. The boys raised their eyes. Their full attention was on her. She watched the liquid pour in an arc into her glass. She through her head back again. This time, the burn wasn't so bad. There was this no feeling that told her that things weren't so bad. It's burning but, yeah, whatever. The glass dropped to the floor. She hadn't quite intended that, but it was a momentary lapse of her mind to remember to hold on.

"What kind of pussy, do you think I am?" she yelled at CFO James and ripped the whisky bottle out of his hand. She made it seem like she was about drink full barrel from it, but then she swung it around in the air to start a tirade. "This all has to change. We are going to put a new page on this company. We are going to move into the 21st century with both our business processes and also our culture."

Every man in the room paid full attention to her. She liked that attention and respect, but there was a sticky, icky feeling that their eyes were crawling all over her body. And they eyes grew more lusty. She paused to peer at them with squinting eyes for a moment to get the read on the room.

"I really like this roll play," whispered CTO Harry. "Why did we never do this before when Paul still ran the company?"

"This is real," yelled Alex! To emphasize, she swung the whisky bottle wildly through the air and made CFO James duck. Part of the momentum caused a spill of whisky to fly out of the bottle opening and land square middle on her left breast where the nipple was. "Dang" said Alex. Staring at the spill, she had a pensive moment taking in all that had happened and that instead of addressing everyone on a roundtable of desks with canters of ice water, she was feeling the first signs of intoxication in the middle of this frat house hotel room. This wasn't how she was supposed to take the reins of a billion dollar conglomerate.