Today:
“Why don’t you just quit?” He stood there, staring at her as she gathered her things.
She didn’t even look up at him.
“Honey?” he said.
Your mom smiled awkwardly, putting all her work from last night (its amount being mild compared to what her boss usually left her with) within the box and she lifted it by its handles, her hairs falling over her eyeline, obscuring the upper-half of her face from your father’s view. “Well,” she said, her mouth soft and unsure. “We can use the money.”
“Then work somewhere else.” He usually stood with his hand or shoulder against something. Now he stood up straight, his spine rigid, and she was scared to look at him because of it, not liking how serious he felt.
She shrugged.
“Baby,” he said. “I-“
The car pulled up outside. She looked out the window. “My ride’s here.” She hoisted the box back up at both handles, and, without even looking at your father, she moved to the front door, slipped on her shoes, and she slid outside, awkwardly pulling the front door closed with her pinkie finger, all the while avoiding eye contact.
He stared at her. And, just before the door closed, their eyes met for a single fraction of a second. And then he stared in the place she once stood.
He looked outside, seeing her petite body, the one he had fallen in love with all those years ago, work its way, after awkwardly opening the passenger side door with her pinkie, into that seat.
He stared at the side of her face.
She turned, looking directly at the house. He knew she couldn’t see him, not through the morning window, but she was looking directly where he stood, their eyes meeting, and then the sound of acceleration.
The car pulled off. She was gone.
He stood there, halfway in the hallway, frustrated internally, silent. And then he felt his posture slacken. He leaned shoulder first, against the hallway’s edge. He slowly breathed in. When he exhaled, he did so with a sigh.
As your mom sat there, participating in minimal small-talk with her coworker and car-pool partner, the box of work in her lap, the product of four hours of unpaid labor, all of it done after 8:30 PM, after she put you to sleep in your crib, her stomach crawled with the eight-legged scurrying of raw nerves.
On the radio, Paul McCartney played. The song was called Temporary Secretary, and though she couldn’t hear the song, nor its lyrics or subject matter, the word temporary flashed in her mind. And as the four corners of her own personal dread, that boring and grey concrete hell, loomed up over the horizon as the car approached it, she had decided: Your dad was right. She would be putting in her two weeks before four o’ clock. And, if necessary, she would quit on the spot.
She looked on ahead, and though she felt sure in her decision, she had to promise herself she’d be brave.
The Previous Night:
“…and like I said,” Eric said, his badge bulging like a sore heart through his coat. “They’re onto you. I’m sorry to tell you this. They’d have my ass if they knew I was talking to you.”
“Oh shit.”
He looked at his friend.
Your mom’s boss sat there, staring at his watch. “It’s March. 31st today, isn’t it?”
Eric’s mouth fell open. “Are you listening to what I’m telling you, Frank?”
“It’s my mother’s birthday today. I totally forgot.” Frank lifted his beer, the fourth of the night, to his lip. “Busy time of year.” He took back a swig. “Guess I should check in on her for an hour before I head home.” He took another.
“Frank, I’m telling you, you might end up in jail.”
Frank heard jail. He froze, then he slammed the bottle back on the table, swallowing harshly. “What?” he said, his voice strained.
“Jail. It’s serious this time. It’s not just a warning. They’re onto you. They know something. They know we’re friends. They know they can’t let me know. But they know something – I don’t know what – about what it is you’ve been doing. I’m-“ Eric adjusted himself in his seat. “I don’t want to put too much stress on you, I just need to be sure I’ve warned you.”
Frank stared at him, seeing Eric’s bottom lip tremble.
“I want it to be nothing. I obviously hope…” Eric shook his head. “It’s not nothing. It’s not. The only thing to do is…” He exhaled slowly, his fingers gripped clawlike against the neck of his untouched beer. “Just don’t… don’t do anything worse than what you’ve done… so far I mean.”
The waitress approached the table. “Another round, guys?”
Frank turned to see her standing there in her purple shirt, her breasts big, her cleavage exposed. She was always his favorite, the daughter of someone he had gone to school with, not just beautiful to stare at, but exciting because of who she was, and the freedom with which he could scan over her, ole’ Robert from Senior having no say in it anymore. He looked at her now, her purple shirt like a grey, her breasts nothing but objects to him, even as they drooped and jiggled, exposing their long line of cleavage, as she leaned down to grab the empties. She tipped the neck of his current bottle to check it, her tits jiggling as she did, then she sat it back at feeling it was half-full.
She leaned back up, her breasts falling and settling back into place. “Well?” she said, smiling with expectation.
“What?” Frank said, it tinged with bitterness.
“Another round?”
“No, no,” he said, waving her off with a clear shortness, doing it carelessly, shocked that he had.
She looked down at the side of his face, it locked in a near-scowl, not used to seeing him act this way. She was startled, frightened, even stung by it. She was used to him being a little bit too adventurous with his eyes, she had gotten used to that from most men, even if he was among the worst culprits, and she had even gotten used to his hand against her hip occasionally, or the double entendres, their origin naughty (nefarious even), he would say to her as if she were too stupid to pick up on them. But she could stomach all of it, at least for a tip. Now, as she stood there, feeling him watch her with the corner of his eye, wanting her gone, wanting her more than that, though trying to contain himself, she turned and left, knowing she would never treat him with her characteristic warmth again, not even for thirty-percent of the night’s usual tab. Her tits jiggled as she left, the rhythm of them that of her resentful, bitter, hostile steps, her ass, though not as impressive, no different.
He sat there, next to his friend, not even looking at her. “There’s gotta be something I can do.”
Eric noticed his lack of wandering, leering eyes, and he took it, as it was, as a despondency. “There is. Don’t make it worse.”
He shook his head, his eyes shut. “More than that. There’s gotta… there’s gotta be something you can do.”
Eric tipped his head to the side, with disapproving, yet empathetic eyes. “Oh Frank,” he said, sounding wounded. “Haven’t I done enough already?”
Frank exhaled quickly, his gaze falling low. He stared at the table, the coaster of the establishment sitting there. He was staring at that very coaster when he had first hatched this plan two years earlier, the one which was supposed to (and almost was about to) make him a millionaire. He now stared at the very same place, its wood worn and faded, and he reflected on how high that sense of exhilaration felt then, and just how low, how submerged in ennui, he felt now.
“Please,” he said, dry and hollow like straw.
“Frank,” Eric said, with emphasis, as if talking to a drug addict. “You know I can’t.”
Frank, after a moment of silence, suddenly shot up. His bottle fell, and Eric reached over the table, lifting it after only two volleys of beer gushed from its neck.
Frank stood there for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something, needing to, like he was about to burst, and then, thinking better of it, he turned in place and walked off.
The establishment, full of beautiful, well-endowed, and well-inebriated women, was invisible to him, even as he moved through it, his mind only occupied now by his miseries and not much else. He found the door with his trembling palm, pressed his bitter lips together, and pushed against it, feeling the cool autumn air suck through against his skin, really aware of how fresh it felt. And aware that it might be among the last time he’d ever feel it again.
Eric, his closest friend, sat at the table, looking at the door as it shut over his buddy’s leaving back. He tipped his beer to his lips. Took a swig. Then feeling it, tilted it more, feeling it pour over his tongue, baptizing it in numbing fire. And it was only when the bottle was empty that he lifted his finger in the air to signal for the waitress in the purple top.
Today:
Your mom was never secure at work, but today, she felt as if her stomach was about to eat her alive from within. She shook like a bird as she held files, some of them scribbled quickly, in her usual-pretty hand, the night prior.
She wanted water, but three hours through the day, and she had yet to a find a single moment of time to visit the water cooler. She almost never did. And the box she had carried in this morning, being heavy, forced her to forsake her thermos at home on the kitchen table. Your dad stood there, leaning on the kitchen doorway, looking at it.
Your mom stopped at Cheryl’s table, dropping the box on it, out of exhaustion, not anger, and then she put her palm out and apologized in a whisper. “Sorry, Cher.”
Cheryl smiled at her, her cocoa face against a white phone, mouthing “don’t mention it.”
Your mom dug through the papers, their volume mountainous, and she placed the relevant articles on Cheryl’s desk.
“Okay, yup, yup,” Cheryl said, her big-nailed finger already on the receiver. “Yes, yes. A snowman, you’re exactly right,” she said, laughing with her mouth alone. “Yeah, I’ll- yeah- I’ll call you later. Okay? Okay.”
She hung up, her face going flat. “Ms. Wilson…” she said.
“Yeesh,” your mom said.
“This is why I’m happy I married. If I didn’t, I might have ended up like that.”
Your mom smiled as she organized the sheets on Cheryl’s desk.
“Oh,” Cheryl said. “No, no, let me…” She took them from your mom’s hand, sliding them toward herself. Your mom looked down at her as she nodded her head to each. “Oh,” she said, still not looking up. “Have you seen Frank today?”
Your mom felt a shock run through her and an uneasiness in her belly. Frank was who she needed to see as well, yet the thought of seeing him, and the thought of what she was about to force herself to do, and to do it to his face, filled her with a jittery fear, one so intense it reminded her of becoming overcaffeinated as a child. “No,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “No, I haven’t. Why?”
“No reason,” she said, still looking through the sheets. “Just haven’t seen him today.”
Your mom shrugged awkwardly.
Cheryl continued: “Can’t say I’m complaining.”
Frank looked down at his palm. The thumb of his opposite hand was pressed into its center, pushing into it as if he were trying to poke a hole. Lines reverberated along the surface of his flesh, reminding him of blast damage. He grit his teeth, digging in harder. “Motherfucker,” he mouthed to himself. Then he froze. He leaned down, looking beneath his stall. The rest were empty. Chastising his employees for using the washroom too much was beginning to pay off. They either had learned to hold it in, or they were sneaking out back to piss in the alley. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen someone in here, even just to piss.
He liked the thought of that. Then his smile slowly faded, replaced by grit teeth which could have been seen through his lips if anyone was there to witness them. “What’s the use anyway?” he mumbled to himself. “They might as well use the bathroom all day! All they produce is shit anyways! Why not let them be productive at something!” The words came out of his gritting mouth, less like they were deliberately being spoken, and more like they, overfilling, were falling over the rim of his bottom lip. “Useless fucks!” His S’s, as pushed through his grit teeth, sounding like Th’s. He bit the mid-knuckle of his pinkie. Then his fist shot out and slammed, heel first, against the door of the stall, followed closely by a kick. “Aghh,” he screamed in pain, his stomach scrunching with his tightening posture. “Cocksucker!” He slowly placed his foot back down. “This fucking… wall…” He had to hold back from headbutting the stall partition.
The stall door swung inward with a tug, passing the cheek of his face by inches, slamming into the wall next to him. He then looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes wild, his cheeks permanently marked with his lifetime of scowling. He almost had a moment of self-reflection then, staring at his fuming form, his rising and falling shoulder and torso labored with tortured breath. Then his gaze lifted up to something in the mirror’s corner-most region, itself reflecting nothing of importance.
A smudge stared back at him.
His eyes burned red as he glared at it, only becoming more red the longer he stared. His lips curled over his clenching teeth. “That fucking spick…”
Outside, as your mom passed the bathroom, her arms tired, still occupied, as they had been all morning, with that box, her mouth parched, she heard a sudden cracking sound, tinny and acute like smashed glass, from within. She turned to look at the door, not knowing what to think initially, but with a worry inside her, concerned that maybe somebody had been hurt.
Then she heard a voice, growling draconically from within: “Fucking, cocksucking… shits!”
She turned, her face transforming red within a flash, and she continued on with her box, trying to get clear from the door as quickly as she could.
She rounded the corner before she heard it swing inward, and before she heard them, those familiar steps, dreaded as screams, as they stomped out and into the cubicle area.
She heard the silence, the sound of it worse than its opposite, and she knew it was him standing there, staring out at them from the doorway, their mouths zipped shut, their gazes downcast as they worked without joy, fearing joy would be what set him off this time.
Before your mom moved deeper down the hall, carried by her fear, she heard his voice. “Martina,” he said, it coming out clipped, a demand. “If someone sees her, tell her fat ass it’s siesta time.” There was a silence. Then she heard his shoes along the ground, moving in the direction of his office, mercifully away from her. “Forever.”
Nobody spoke, nor asked for clarification, but they knew, being acquainted with his language, that they had lost another janitor. Your mom, continuing on, her mouth dry now, not just from thirst, but from dread with it, saw Martina, the pleasant El Salvadorian mother of three, cart and gloves and all, moving toward her in the hall. She had a smile on her face, she was the only one in the office who always did.
Your mom tried to smile back, but just as the pleasant lady passed, your mom’s lip trembled. She dropped her box. And as she bent down, the occasional tear falling over her paperwork, she heard soft murmuring in the cubicle room, Martina’s voice, becoming more confused alongside it.
And just as your mom got up, box in hand, papers within it, she heard a door rocket open in the distance, and office chair wheels stuttering along the floor. “You heard them! Out!”
Your mom kept moving on.
“Just leave the mop, dummy! We’ll be using it to wipe up your tears.”
Your mom continued on, her two rows of teeth trembling against each other as she went. She heard weeping from behind her, getting closer, getting closer, before passing her, continuing on ahead. And she was strangely thankful to see Martina’s face sheltered within her clutching hands. The last thing your mom wanted to see was what that usually-so-joyous woman’s face looked like crying.
Frank sat at his desk, his palm rested flat against it, still sore, now bruised, and he stared out his office window. The silence was rich with the sounds of blood in his ears as he sat there. Then he spoke, his voice twisted of all color. “Downtown,” he said. “We were supposed to be downtown. In a high-rise.” He looked out at the parking lot, watching Martina get into her Chevette. “I should be looking over the city…” A semi-truck passed outside, its sound muffled but rich through the walls. Martina, pulling out with haste and haphazardly, almost clipped his Corvette on the way out. “…and a reserved parking spot.”
He leaned down, his eyes wide and lifeless, his torso stretched along the edge of his desk in animal despondency. He then turned suddenly. All their faces, sneaking looks in his direction, dropped or looked away to work or nothing within an instant. He stared at them, as if they were zoo animals, through the glass separating his office from their cubicles. “Morons,” he said quietly. “They left me with morons. And then they’re going to wonder why I skimmed off the top. They’re morons themselves if they can’t figure it out.”
Cheryl, coming from her office, walked over to Barnie’s desk. She began speaking to him, her pretty half-black features accentuated by the glasses on her face, and her solitary, wavy bang falling over its rim. She nodded as Barnie spoke, his voice inaudible to Frank within his office, and when he was finished, she said something, and then smiled. She turned to walk off, and Frank watched her body, its curves, as she did. Then Barnie, staring at her lower half with equal intensity, went carelessly to reach for something. He hit his pencil holder, and it rolled from his desk’s furthest edge, dropping to the ground.
Cheryl turned around. When she saw it, with Barnie sitting there, his arm outstretched in vain, his fat cheeks and jowls red with embarrassment, she, with pep maintained, walked back to the desk, then she leaned down, grabbing the pencil holder and its loose pens off the ground, doing so with a smile.
As she did, Frank watched her, just like he always did whenever the chance came to him, looking at her ass, gigantic, imagining its tone, trying to extrapolate what it looked like using the shade of the cheeks of her face, guessing at the length of her butt crack, and just how much it was her clothing which gave that glorious thing its shape.
Faces turned, seeing him, sitting there, staring at his co-manager’s backside without subtlety or shame. Even for him, it was brazen.
He watched as she stood back up, her stray hair falling over her reddening cheeks. She put the holder back on the desk, and Barnie, blithering as usual, thanked her as she did.
She seemed to say something like “no problem,” and then she turned, the smile on her face unaffected, and she walked back in the direction of her office.
As she did, Frank watching her every jiggling step, the thought, which would come fairly often some nights, came to him now, in the middle of the workday, and his mind was filled with the echo of her moans, ambiguous as to their pain or pleasure, consent or resistance, as she stood there, chocolate skin, from heel to lower back, exposed in his office, her chest pressed firmly against his desk, as he, feeling her naked ass, as he imagined it, against his pale pelvis, his body ramming into it from behind with such force that the desk squeaked and hiccupped across the floor, until, from the consistency of his thrusts, it inched toward the giant pane of glass, pushed against it, and shattered it, sharing jubilation with his orgasm, which he’d experience, loud and unashamed, in front of his employees’ shocked, sheep-like, faces.
He had imagined it like it were a dream, doing so every night, but the contrary thought, even with his erection on high, now assaulted him. He could imagine it vividly, him laying, chest down on the bottom bunk, the shadow from the steel bars fallen diagonally across his cheek, staring at white bricks, his torso chaffing against a mattress and sheets, as his ass, pulled clean from his bright orange trousers, was pummeled from behind in much the same he imagined pummeling Cheryl, and by somebody as comparably dark as her, but nowhere near as pretty.
As he sat there, he realized just how far his fantasy was from truth, and just how close his nightmare was to reality. He sat there, staring out into the office with eyes first cold, then despondent, then desperate, panicking wordlessly to his own reflection in the otherwise clear glass. And through that transparent reflection, a dozen plus faces stared through it, back at the man who looked at them with such panic.
That fear, as was known in Eastern philosophy, found its ledge through its sister emotion, and Frank’s face, slowly but surely, changed to match that emotion, his whole body being filled with it, it being the emotion he understood most. And, combined with his arousal, with the playing of his fantasies and his sins, his rage comingled, coupled, and became one with his arousal, his heart beating perfectly in time with the running clock, and with the imagined sounds of Cheryl’s chocolate ass, thwap thwap thwap against his sweating, pale pelvis.
It’s over, he heard his friend saying. They know. You’re done for. Just don’t make it worse.
“Fuck you, make it worse,” he said, out loud. Now everyone, even those who tried hard to avoid eye contact, was staring at him. “Don’t make it worse?” he said, shooting upward, standing with his hands, fingers outstretched, flat on the desk. “How could it get any worse!?”
Your mom, her box cast aside, stood by the water cooler, styrofoam cup in her hand, about to lift the liquid, cool and comforting, to her trembling lips and her dry, dry tongue.
Suddenly, she heard it rip and echo down the hall “…get any worse!?”
She dropped the cup. It fell down, before the plastic water container, which had been emptied to its last drop into that now-fallen cup. The cup fell, almost in slow motion to her, down past her scrambling hands, past her hips, past her knees, and her shins, and her kneecaps. It landed against her foot, splashing empty all over the floor.
And as she stood there, parched like sand, staring at the empty cup, and the wet spot, a Rorschach of her own growing rage against the floor, her hand, tiny and small, began to pull inward, each sinew at a time, into a tiny, but firm fist. Within her mouth, her teeth grit, her anger rose, and, quite unlike her, her eyes went wide with animal rage.
As she stood there, eyes looking down, mouth quivering, she suddenly felt a soft hand against her shoulder. She didn’t look up, but she heard a familiar voice. “If Frank asks, I’m taking my son to the dentist’s,” the voice said. “Have a good night, sweety.”
Your mom didn’t look up, but behind her, a cocoa brown woman moved toward the front door, her body swaying, her stance confident, and her black hair falling majestically over her spine. She adjusted her glasses before she got out of there and into the afternoon sun.
Your mom looked up, in the direction of the cubicle room, the little of it she could see, scowling, knowing that Frank’s office was just around the corner.
And when she took her first step, she felt herself, invigorated, rather than drained, by dehydration. And as she got closer, she knew it would be okay. She’d have plenty of time to get hydrated soon. She would be taking the rest of the day off.
“She can just not show up,” the text read.
Your dad looked down at it, his expression flat. You lay in your crib, sleeping peacefully, nearby.
His phone buzzed. He got another text. It read: “Like I said, I’ll hire her. If she’s worried she’ll lose a reference, well she’s gained me and everyone I work with, so that’s not an issue.”
Your dad stared at it. Then his flat expression gave way to smile. He looked up and out the window of his home office. It’s her boss, he thought. She’s terrified of him. He’s a completely sociopath, how could she not be? A bird fluttered before him, landing on the tree branch outside his window, its delicate frame bobbing from the bird’s weight. If she knows she can just leave - no argument, no two weeks notice, no demeaning comments, no threat – she will. She would have quite a long time ago if she knew this was an option.
The bird looked around, blinking its black eyes, then it pushed off the branch with its skinny legs, flying free.
Your dad looked down at his phone, his belly rich with excitement. He texted back: “Thanks mom. You’re a lifesaver.”
He was staring so intently at his haggard expression, it seeming to be in the process of accumulating the scars of aging right before him, that he didn’t even notice your mom, who he liked to take long looks at under usual circumstances, now passing on the opposite side of the glass, passed all the shocked faces, toward his office’s doorway. It wasn’t until she stepped into his office, doing it with unusual force, and stopping with unusual firmness, that he turned from his transparent reflection to look over at her, his features affected more by gravity than his state of mind now.
“I’m done,” she said.
Those outside who heard her say it wore the expression that her exclamation deserved. His expression, on the other hand, didn’t change. He just stared at her.
She stood there, steadfast, her brow firm, showcasing a subtle anger, her thin body, while unthreatening, still upright with her chest poking out and her shoulders back.
His mouth slowly opened. “The HSS reports…?”
“No. I’m done. Done.” She didn’t faulter, not even for a second. “As in I’m quitting.”
He stared at her longer, something which may have unnerved her on any other day, but the thought of Martina’s face, itself couched, hiding, within her trembling palms, kept your mom from losing poise, her thirst, its tinge of animal terror, keeping her firm and uncompromising.
He stared at her longer, then, both to her terror and excitement for what was to come next, his expression took shape. He looked at her with a forming disgust. He turned away, ignoring her pretty face, which he enjoyed, and her tiny boyish body, which disgusted him. He looked out the window at the empty spot where Martina used to park. “Yeah, that’s fine,” he said dismissively. “You can fuck yourself if you need a reference though.” He stared out there, unbruised by the moment, it being small potatoes compared to what occupied his mind. His empire was collapsing, the tragedy in another falling brick was nothing compared to the obliterating force against its entire structure. Your mom was a crumb in his world, but the cherry on top of his cake, the one he wished to taste the juices of before the iron fist of the law smushed it against his table, was a black cherry.
Cheryl’s ass, big and cocoa brown, flashed into his mind, its cheeks, whatever they looked like, clapping as she screamed in front of the whole office, each of them helplessly watching as their other boss, the one that they liked, was raped by the one they couldn’t stand. Frank was no stranger to rape. He had raped two girls, both drunk out of their minds, in college. Both of them were white, blonde, and pretty, but only one of them had a half-decent body. He smiled, staring out at a world that would no longer be his to move through, feeling a rising joy at the thought of it; the thought of having enough freedom left to go out with a bang (in a manner of speaking, of course). Adding to what was already fated to be a life-ending sentence with quite the experience, the ravaging of a strong and successful black woman.
Your mom, pretty and blonde and boring, stood behind him, staring at the back of his head as if in duel with him, as if she had something over him. He smiled, pondering over how little she mattered, and pondering over the shock she’d receive when he, hearing her, ignoring her, and moving past her, moving swiftly and toward Cheryl’s equally shocked body and expression, and then committing the most insane act she would ever witness, being done against a woman so randomly it would appear as if life had just popped a non-sequitur into existence for its own sake, would truly show her, and would show the whole office, the depth of his depravity and just how little he cared about them, the world, and what it thought about him. His grin grew wide, doing so proudly, but, as he was facing away from her and everyone else, almost as if it were behind the cover of his head, building in strength before popping out from cover to reveal its design.
Then he noticed something as he stared out at the lot.
Slowly, he began to lean forward. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Cheryl,” he said. He looked outside at the parking lot, noticing something was missing. He stood up, moving toward the window. Standing at it, he looked along the lot and its various cars. One of the spaces was empty. “Where is Cheryl?” His voice was strained when he asked. “Where is…?” almost helpless.
For the first time since being there, your mom was taken aback. “Sh-she…”
He turned around suddenly.
“She left,” your mom said, furrowing her brow at him quizzically, her body turning away from him now.
A panic took hold, itself spreading like wildfire, first to your mother, then to the entire office behind her.
Then there was a buzz.
He stared for a second longer. Then, realizing the buzz came from his waist, reached down and grabbed his phone. He had a text. It was from Eric. “I’m so sorry Frank,” it said. “They’re coming.”
Cheryl drove down the street, smile on her face, happy about what her little boy told her the day before. “I’m going to be brave,” he said. “I’m not afraid of no dentist.” Her heart warmed, thinking about his face as he said it.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” she said. “As long as you face your fears.”
The look in his eyes showed a great relief at hearing it. But his mouth lied. “I’m not afraid though. I’m ready.”
She stopped behind a car, waiting at the light.
When the light went green, the car stayed there, unmoving, the old woman in the driver’s seat staring ahead, but still not reacting.
Cheryl sat there, waiting for the woman to realize it was her turn to drive.
The car behind her honked. The woman didn’t react. It honked again. Then a few more times, this time the horn being leaned on and the driver yelling “go! What are you-”
The lady, as if defibrillated into life, shook, then she looked up at the lights, stepped on the gas, and by the time she was through the intersection, the light had gone red. Cheryl stopped at the line, smiling to herself despite the setback. She could hear the driver behind her swearing. She only sat there, waiting for the next green. There was nothing to be upset about in her world. She was off early from work, she would get to see her son soon, and, most importantly, it was such a beautiful day. Perfect even.
Frank stood there, his phone dropping to the floor, the lines of his expression dropping along the canvas of his face, leaving everyone before him, your mom included, jarred by the sensation of a sudden and surreal panic, the only head of their pack, as much of a prick as he was, suddenly lost to an idiot terror.
His world swirled about, and then, he heard what he only assumed could be inside his own mind, the sound of distant sirens. It wasn’t in his mind. His employees heard it too, though they paid it no mind, assuming, sanely, that it moved across the city with a random target in mind, one they would never know or need to be concerned with. They had no reason to connect the horrible expression on their boss’s face with those wailing sounds in the distance.
He looked out at the cubicles, and, seeing in the sheepishness and weakness of all who stood there, a rabid crowd, persecuting him with their own mediocrity as weapons.
And then, among them, the face nearest, drawing the eye with its beauty, he saw your mom, her expression no less panicked.
He stared at her for a moment, much to her unease, doing so as if she were some anchor to his own sanity, his expression even lessening in dread as he did, but it wasn’t because of any lessening of emotions. No, it wasn’t. It was because, as he watched her, a sudden realization came to him, one ripe with purpose, one which left him with what he knew he needed to do. It was so obvious. And, as he realized it, his mouth, wearing the expression of desolation, now, without shedding desolation, gained a further element of happiness and contentment until he was looking at her, and only her, with a smile.
Before your mom could react, he shot toward her. She shot backward, her reflexes animal-like, but he felt her small, boy-like body fill his arms. He pushed her, doing so with the intent of slamming the door with one hand and holding her with the other, but her body, striking the door, ended up closing it for him.
She shrieked, both in fear and in pain, and his arms rounded her arm and clicked the lock shut.
He heard the sirens rising as he swung her around. A few chairs rolled on the ground or fell outside as those sitting in them shot up, shocked by the sudden act of violence against their admired coworker. Your mom flew within the center of the office, and they looked upon her as if she were a poodle thrown into the lion’s den.
He shot toward her, and everyone winced, expecting him to finally make good on the violence his threats and volume always implied.
And then, much to the horror of their drooping mouths, the violence came, but not in the shape they expected.
Her tore at her shirt, and their bright, young, happy coworker, her disposition helpful and well-wishing, always, now stood there, stunned, looking down at her small breasts, which sat there, naked and exposed in a sudden tug, being looked upon by the men and women of her office.
It took a moment for some excitement, no matter how disturbed, to take effect in male onlookers, but it came much quicker to them than it did to Frank. He looked down at those tiny breasts, seeing in them the negative space where Cheryl’s sizable C-cups should have been, and his happy mouth transformed into a scowl. And the disgust, overpowering, then powered him on further the way a squeaking toy, sounding like pathetic cries, would a dog.
He grabbed at the waist of her pants, tugging at them as she screamed, realizing what was happening to her, realizing it was a fear beyond any she could reasonably hope to expect. He tugged and she resisted, and his strength versus her tiny form was no contest, her pants being pulled upward, with her torso, head and arms falling downward, until she was nearly upside down, with her pants sliding off her, and, with them being her only supports, her falling to the carpet, crying out in pain as she struck it, when the pants came loose, underwear with them.
He looked down at her skinny legs, and her unimpressive ass, and, being disgusted with it as he was her boring personality, not only felt the need to push on to spite her, but felt that the small oasis of her pussy, which stared up at him as she kicked and cried, was enough of a draw, matching her face in beauty, that he had something to extract from this beyond just revenge against her, his employees, the law, and society.
He thrust down toward her screaming body, eager to make himself into a headline for rape rather than a headline for embezzlement, but as he did, she screamed, giving him another idea.
The women of the office watched, terrified, and the men watched, terrified and excited beyond their wildest imaginations, as their pretty coworker which they loved so much was thrust to a seat, her nude ass running against it, and their boss, his masculine anger and rage more intense than it had ever been, as if it had discovered its bottom, began to strip nude before her.
She looked at him, frightened to the point of a ridiculous, half-human expression, and then, as nude as an animal himself, he thrust toward her.
Her screams, which had been competing with the sirens up until now, was silenced suddenly, leaving the sirens to scream for her alone.
Your mom’s mousy voice, though she never the biggest extravert, had been silenced for once. She was a low-talker, but the tone of her voice, their plucky notes, would often find themselves through the halls, assaulting his ears in a way that always broke his concentration. Employees would often see him throw his pen, with maximum force, against his desk and then he’d stare off into space, and they would all look down, not even daring to question what it was which had set him off, none of them even noticing the sound that he had noticed, or, if they had, none of them minding it.
His felt his cock now within that warm and humid mouth, enjoying now, for the first and only time, the occasional squeak which made its way through, enjoying the sensation against his cockhead and shaft, and enjoying the fact that she wasn’t enjoying any of it.
Any masculine thought of coming in, maybe in a heroic act of smashing glass with the office chair, and becoming her white knight in shining armor, died with this sight, every man there, as horrified as they were with the injustice of it, was utterly aroused by its sight. Unlike Frank, who had a lot of bodies to choose from thanks to his good looks and wealth, they looked at your mom’s naked body with astonished wonder, the older ones aroused by its youth, the younger ones aroused by the way it was exposed to them without shelter.
“Small ugly tits,” he said, defying the sentiment of every man who watched, enamored by those small tits, and every woman, who sat jealous of them.
His body, being introduced beforehand to them, clothed, through years of terror, now was free, its energy tinged with the fear he caused in others, making his nude form, from head to toe, possess some live aspect as if he were dynamite. His employees watched him, both aroused by the classical attractiveness of his body, as well as by the fear that they had for him, though few were self-aware of this.
The cock plucked itself from her mouth, but before her screams could come back to her bitter, chalky tongue, his hand snatched at her throat, gripping it, lifting her, and thrusting her against his desk, pinning her so she could receive the closest thing she’d ever get to a severance package.
It wasn’t just arousal which quieted the gasps of the onlookers, but some sort of animal appreciation for pack dynamics, one written into their genes, though with the appearance that it had been ejected from their souls. They all stood there, watching as their coworker, their equal, was punished, almost being done so in their place, and at witnessing it, they felt themselves being humbled with her.
As the thrusting continued, each one tallying within their souls, they felt their shock giving way to anger, and then that anger, initially for him, being transferred, bit by bit, toward her, somehow blaming her for the punishment which, through its intensity, they could only feel she must have done something to deserve.
Every opinion he had had of them, the opinions which lead to his growing contempt for them, were being proven true now. They were like sheep, or dogs, always waiting at the table for their master’s scraps, and when they couldn’t get them kindly from Cheryl, they sheepishly hovered around the edges of his table, waiting for him to slip. That’s why he had to be quick with the whip.
Thinking about it, looking down at your mom, seeing her as the living personification of it, his open palm shot toward her throat.
The cruelty of it only made her coworkers further feel she deserved it. Sensing this, he choked her even harder to send a message.
They watched him, existing to him as a microcosm of the world which he hated so. He lied, cheated, and stole because respect was only due to humans, and they (and the world with them) were not that. As far as he could see it, they were walking manicans which only held the most shallow pretense of humanity, and, because of that, needed to be kept in place with same strong arm and hand which kept your mom, despite her struggling, pinned to the top of his work desk, gasping for air and freedom from the cock and its thrusting which bobbed the universe back and forth before her tearing eyes.
As he thrusted, your mom’s tightness and freshness overpowering, despite the deficiencies in her body, he thought of Cheryl and a warmth came to him, not one of love, but of respect. A strong black woman, a go-getter, a product of a tragic upbringing, someone who had pulled themselves up from it, and, with her own hard work and ingenuity, making something of herself, rising above the riff-raff and the trash of the world. Frank had always admired her. His thoughts of raping her were less necessary to him out of his sense of his justice, and more necessary to him out of his sense of competition and striving. If he could have raped her, he could have raped an equal, one of the few, and it would have made the last few moments free in a world that persecuted him the best few moments in his entire life, the moments which proved to him, and to every other sane person there was (as few of them as there were), just how truly great he was capable of being.
The thought of it all, and the joy that came with rape, was likely what was leading to the sudden warmth he felt coming over him. The sirens rose in the background, the murmurs of the crowd picked up, and your mom’s labored breaths for air, now that her throat was free to breathe, picked up.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Just let me make you an example.”
Your mom, like her retirement fund, and the retirement fund of everyone else in the office, including Cheryl’s, belonged to him. He had siphoned from it so thoroughly, putting it offshore in foreign accounts, doing so with the help of others like him, some of them rapists themselves, people who didn’t play by society’s absurd rules and social contracts, the likes of which only existed to deprive him of what he deserved. The sirens, sitting, shining above the tops of the cavalry which rode, bloodthirsty, in service of this society, came down on him. He could hear their wailing, impotent and humorous, as they moved up and down the hills of the city, in a rush to destroy what was left of his life.
All of this, he thought. For moi? And the thought of it only entitled him further.
Not only had his audience on the other side of the glass buckled to his natural high place in the hierarchy, but she, above him now, buckled with them. The distress still swam along the vagaries of her face, but she still dripped with an accommodating wetness, from a submissive arousal that came with animal, self-preserving fear. He knew that Cheryl wouldn’t be like this, that she would have put up a fight, that her pussy would have stayed dry to the very end. Your mom, her brain being smarter than her ego and superego, gave her enough of an attraction to him, enough of an enjoyment of what was happening, not to rob from her her fear (that was still necessary in case she could find a moment to run away) but to make her less threatening to him as his victim, and therefore more safe to keep alive.
It's not that he wanted to kill her, even she knew that. But her mind, the product of her sheepish, submissive line of genes (a slave or peasant’s genes) didn’t know any better and reacted entirely on instinct.
Your mom, after five years of working here, had nothing to her 401K, all of it stripped of her. And though he, as a soon-to-be convict, would have no access to that money, his friends in the Caribbean would take what was left it like lots cast within the sand.
Even before calling my lawyer, he thought. I’ll be getting a hold of them and letting them know to pay attention to her account, no matter what her new job is. I can’t let her weasel her way into a retirement after I’ve worked so hard to deprive her of one. His body chilled at the disgust of the thought of it. I just can’t.
He knew his victory over her, and over them, would be shortlived. Regardless of this Dionysian height, regardless of their need to work until death to support themselves, he would ultimately be the one to live within a cage for the rest of his life. But he didn’t care. He was having his blaze of glory now, and though it, and its memory, would fade, both within his visceral memory, and within the Apollonian memory of history, he knew, as well as he had ever known anything, that this moment existed in a place which defied space and time.
He shut his eyes, and he still saw her, not Cheryl now, but her face adorned with Cheryl’s glasses, a final piece of her worthiness and class, making up for the hefty amount your mom lacked.
“You’re awful,” he whispered into her ear. “A solid six-and-a-half.” He thrust passionately. “Tops. Sometimes, when I see you from behind, I wonder how an nine-year old boy had found himself in my office.” He laughed to himself, feeling her buckle even under this indignity. “But I’d be lying if I told you this pussy isn’t spectacular.”
Like all successful rapists, Frank was a winner. Even if he lost in life, he won in rape, a victory which could never be robbed from those who had achieved it, and everyone watching now knew this. The sirens, signalling their coming, had only given him advantage in this one endeavor, and, through doing so, had given him victory.
She stroked his arm as orgasm came to her, the most intense she had ever known, not because fate had determined he deserved to have that distinction, but because her body had determined she deserved to live. Her orgasm had never reached this height before, and it would never reach this height again, your dad existing as but a speck in its looming cavernous shadow.
The crowd, again in their animal brain alone, took this orgasm as more proof that he was their leader, that his excellence was beyond question, and with it his authority beyond defying. Your mom, her recent haughtiness, however short-lived, was defeated by her moaning, this man, like all men, more attractive in his douchebaggery and dominance than in any aspect of his face or body, his cock delicious because of the pain it caused, and the humiliation it painted the lives of others with.
And though she was the one leaving for greener pastures, it was him who had received a new reference through her, one which wouldn’t free him from the bars and rifle-towers of prison, but which would be used as a tally for the angels who watched from above, above the authority of man and his petty laws and concerns, guarding from the towers which rimmed the confines of this world, doing so with glowing arrows, pulled tightly to be released by translucent, luminous bows.
The crowd watched, now in a glee that was almost open, as their boss, the one who sent terror through their hearts, nutted, one satisfying gob at a time, over your mom’s expecting, submitting face.
They had all been defeated now, but now in a way that they could live with and enjoy.
And they sat there, watching, as nude in their soul as your mom was nude in body, as the sound of the sirens rose.
Their boss, stood aside, his face growing grave again, but now not without dignity, as he put on his clothes.
He turned, facing the window as he buttoned up his shirt, his softening cock still hanging out.
He saw the first squad car screech onto his street, and he watched as it got closer, more screeching into view behind it, along with two ambulances and a fire truck. The cop car passed, the sound of it muffled through the building, the other cars following it, and, as they went, the sirens went muffled, getting quieter and quieter.
He stopped buttoning his shirt, staring outside at what was now a blank parking lot with an empty street behind it.
The sirens were quiet now.
And then they were gone.
He was frozen.
He didn’t know what to do. He stood there, holding his pants.
Then his phone vibrated. He looked down, feeling his pants vibrate in his hand. He reached into the pocket.
“Come outside,” said the text. “I told them I would talk you out.”
A strange comfort, however strange, came back to him, thought he was in no mind to question it or wonder why. He slipped on his pants, then he turned around, moving past your mom, who watched him, herself nude and defeated, following him wordlessly with her eyes as he went. He cut through his employees, almost through the dead center, as they all turned as one singular unwashed mass to watch him go.
He went down the hallway, leaving them behind himself, seeing the front door get closer as he approached, its gaps pierced by a harsh, but salutary, light, the run-off of what awaited him on its other end.
He found the doorknob against his palm, knowing that fate was waiting, he, with duty, pushed open the door.
He was blinded by the sudden light. When his eyes adjusted, Eric stood there, in his uniform, looking at him. A single squad car, like a monument, sat crookedly behind him. There were no other cars in sight.
Frank looked around, then, as Eric approached him, his face grave, he approached Eric in turn, not hesitating to face the music, not even for a moment.
And that’s when the sombre expression on Eric’s face faltered. The dam burst with a snort and then a chuckle. Eric lifted his wrist to his lips, laughing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t keep it in.” He looked at Frank with a huge, eye-creasing smile. He opened up his arms for a hug. “April Fools, Frank!”
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