by Jamie Knight
When I said my mission was going to end today, I didn’t think it was going to end this way!
The feeling of dread I felt haunting me down in the parking lot climbs to a peak. I think of Melissa as I knock the phone off its receiver, and punch the “speed dial” button I have for her, praying she’s there at her desk. Praying she knows what to do and that she’ll see me through it ‘til the end.
Chapter Fifty-Seven - Tommy
After dialing out of the office, praying I reach Melissa at her desk, and that she hears some of what’s going on, I don’t stop trying to dodge Vanacore. But it doesn’t matter where I go, how many obstacles I put in my way, she keeps coming for me. Nothing I do slows her down.
In fact, it seems to only make her that much more tenacious. That much more committed to get to me. This is true now, as she has me cornered against the big windows to her office.
She pushes my face against the glass and has begun to undo my belt and pull down my pants. Unlike when she tried to do it against her desk, she actually succeeds in getting it down over my hips, exposing some of my cock to her.
I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to hit a woman, but I don’t have much choice. I push back against her, using only half my strength, and knock her off of me. I pull up my pants as she stagers to her desk. When I hear her open a drawer, I turn.
She has a gun pointed at my head.
Her eyes are crazed.
“I’m going to ruin you, Tommy. Starting with your cock, and ending with your career here, and anywhere in Manhattan.” She laughs menacingly here, starting to stalk back towards me. “I’m going to fuck you so bad, and so hard, you’re not going to be any use to your girlfriend. You’re not going to be any good for any other woman after this!”
I put my hands up in front of me.
“Please,” I whimper, “Please, Ms. Vanacore! Don’t do this!”
For the first time since I started this whole mess with Vanacore and trying to reveal her as the monster, she is, and my pitiful tone is not an act. Not this time. I really am feeling afraid. Terrified by what lies ahead of me.
“I told you I was a demanding individual when I hired you, Tommy,” she growls, keeping the gun centered on my forehead.
“I told you I had very specific needs. Very specific requirements of those who work for me, and you told me you accepted them all. So, you will accept this now. It’s what you deserve after playing with me the way you have! Undo your pants and pull out your cock!”
Here, I do as she orders, pushing down my pants until my cock is free, and she can see it. She eyes me with a hungry smile on her face, and she bites her lip gently.
It’s just as the phone on her desk cries out with a shrill ring. An urgent one. Unfortunately for me, she lets it ring. Let’s the sound fill her office, no doubt, so it can cover my continued protests.
“Get yourself hard for me,” she orders, pulling at her own pants one-handed. “Stroke that big dick until it’s ready for me to ride.”
The phone goes silent, and immediately it starts to ring again. As the second round of ringing enters the space, I know it’s Melissa.
I feel her fighting to protect me and insert herself in the space where I’m about to be overpowered. Dominated by my cruel, demanding boss. A woman who thinks she deserves everything she can take, all without ever having to give or get what she deserves.
This inspires me to act. I need to keep up my fight. I have to move.
And in doing so, I manage to actually break away from the window, grabbing the top of my desk chair in my hands. I pick it up, swing it, and toss it towards the gun. Once away from the window, I don’t stop.
I head directly for the door, not looking to see the aftermath. I can feel Vanacore right behind me. I can feel her trying to get a grip on me. My leg, my back — anywhere.
Somehow, I manage to dodge it all. Maybe it’s God coming to my rescue, maybe it’s Melissa, protecting me. Whatever it is, I’m able to get out of the office. Because it’s early and there are not very many people in the offices yet, I’m able to run down the hallway and get my underwear and pants up around me again before anyone sees.
As I practically dive into the elevator and bash the button for the ground level, I’m shaking. I’m scared out of my mind and filled with regret.
Why, oh why! Why oh why did I ever think I could take her on! Why did I ever think I could control the situation! Why oh why did I ever think it was a good idea for me to try to be a hero! I’m no hero!
I collapse momentarily against one wall of the elevator, feeling it scoot smoothly down the elevator shaft. Due to the early hour, the elevator makes no stops on the other floors, it heads straight for the bottom level.
I’m no hero. I’m just a big, fat victim. A pig everyone always wants to slaughter. A pig that is really of no use or value to anyone, no matter what he thinks of himself! A pig in a suit is still a pig!
With this thought, the elevator slows. It comes to a stop on the ground floor. As the doors start to come open, I right myself, and dash out the elevator.
I book it out of the building, out of the main doors of the office, and head as far across the parking lot as my legs will carry me. I come to a stop near Melissa’s car because I don’t know where else to go or where else to be right now, except here. That’s how much comfort she gives me, even now. Even after what I’ve just experienced attempted rape.
As that thought crests my conscious mind, I have to do everything I can to keep from fainting.
What was I thinking, trying to get evidence on a monster like her? What was I thinking, trying to be all brave and heroic? Thinking I could take her down. If I take her down, she is going to take me down with her.
As I lean against the car, try to get myself to breathe normally, another frightening thought enters my mind. After everything I’ve been through this morning, and what’s likely to happen because of it, there’s no way I’ll be able to continue working for her.
There’s no way I’ll be able to continue working at this office, either. And if Vanacore makes good on her threat, I’m not going to be able to work in this field again. Not in Manhattan. Not in anywhere in the world, despite the world-famous reputation McKenzie Tech is gaining.
I’ve sacrificed everything I worked so hard for, for some good deed I couldn’t even achieve. Some righteous actively trying to protect myself and others, to be a symbol of the goodness and rightness of justice in law, and for what? For nothing but pain. I
slide down along the car until I’m sitting on the asphalt.
For nothing more than more physical, emotional, and mental pain.
I start to shake, putting my arms across my lap and burying my head in them.
Who knows? In addition to the pain this has already cost me, I might get more. My girlfriend might leave me.
Melissa already looked worn down by what I was doing. She might just decide that I’m not worth any more time or effort. Just like everyone else in my life. She might decide to break up with me and after less than a week of officially going out.
This makes me shake even harder, on top of everything else. So much so, that I don’t even hear Melissa approach. I don’t even know she’s out there in the parking lot with me until her hands come around my arms and pulls me from the ground. And then pulls me into her embrace.
“I’m not going to leave you,” she whispers, and that’s when I realize I must’ve said some of those things aloud. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go someplace far away, where she can’t do anything to you.”
Like I did the very first time Vanacore overstepped her boundaries with Melissa and me came to the rescue, I let her pack me into her car.
She buckles me up safe and sound and drives me away. Drives me somewhere to think. To come down off of my adrenaline, and to think about where I go from here, now that I’ve been sexually assaulted and had Vanacore not just harass me sexually, but also attempt to rape
me.
Chapter Fifty-Eight - Melissa
Immediately upon entering the office and heading to the top floor, where my desk and phone await me, I’m filled with dread. The dread I’ve been feeling all week, except this is so, so much worse. Where I’ve just been feeling like something bad is looming on the horizon, today I feel like I have a hood over my head. And executioner’s hood, being led to the guillotine.
Though I’m not sure why, until I hear my phone ring. It feels like that executioner’s hood has turned into the phone cord, and it is wrapping around my neck.
As it rings, I instantly get a picture of Tommy. I instantly get a feeling that something very, very wrong is happening with him.
I pick up the phone, dreading what I might hear or not. I don’t bother to say anything. I just pick up the phone, put it to my ear, and listen.
At first, I don’t hear anything. Just static. Just garbled sound, from the speaker being rubbed up against something. And then that silence is broken, and by the very thing I feared more than the silence. A sound from Tommy.
A cry of fear, followed by, “No, Vanacore! No! I’m not doing that with you! This needs to end. I don’t want to have sex with you.”
Ms. Vanacore is who I hear next. I barely recognize the sound of her voice with how angry and dark it is. “You are going to, Tommy! You’re going to have sex with me, even if you don’t want to. It’s the least you can do after taking me around. Making me think you were interested in me! That you were uninvolved.”
I hear sounds of stumbling, of things getting knocked over, and Tommy crying out again. He doesn’t say anything. Just screams, and I can hear his terror.
I feel mine escalating.
I need to do something! I need to try to find a way to slow Vanacore down, but what can I do? How can I help? I need to stop this before it gets any further, but what?
Around these thoughts, I hear Tommy continuing to struggle and fight Vanacore off. He continues to scream and cry, but from the sounds of things, Vanacore hasn’t succeeded in subduing him.
“I’m going to take that thick, big cock of yours,” she says. “I am going to completely and totally wreck it, Tommy! I’m going to make it so that no one, not your little girlfriend, Melissa, can enjoy fucking you ever again!”
Hearing this, my stomach drops out. My head spins, and I have to fight passing out. It’s just as Isabella comes to sit at her desk.
She looks at me, looks at my face, looks at the way I’m clutching the phone in my shivering hands, and asks silently, “What’s the matter? You okay?”
I don’t answer her. I just hang up the phone, deciding I’ve heard enough.
“Someone called for Vanacore,” I say, feeling numb, “and now I’ve got to call her to let her know who called and why.”
I pick up the phone and hit the series of numbers that will get me to her office and her desk. As I do, I pray that it will be enough to interrupt her and take her attention away from Tommy and her mission to destroy him, though I’m not optimistic.
No one answers my calls.
Not sure what to do, I stay frozen in my chair, wondering if I should call security. Movement catches my eye. Looking out the window, I see Tommy. He’s in the parking lot running towards my car.
Without a word to Isabella, I grab my purse and leave to join him.
****
After leaving the office, I take Tommy to the only place I can think of. To the nearby park. Not to get out and walk around, but just to have somewhere nice and safe to park the car, while I find out what exactly happened — though I already have some idea — and what to do next.
I don’t speak to him until I parked the car in the shade, in the furthest part of the park, in the furthest parking space in that parking lot. When I do, it’s straight to the point.
“What did she do? What did she try to do to you, Tommy?”
While I already know what went on, or tried to go on, based on what I heard through the phone, I need him to tell me exactly what happened and how it happened, so I have something to corroborate my story with. Especially since I didn’t get any actual evidence of what I heard.
It’s just my testimony against Vanacore’s. A woman who knows more than one way to get out of trouble.
“She tried to rape me,” says Tommy. He says it unfeelingly, numbly, as if it didn’t happen to him, but to someone else. “She pulled a gun and tried to rape me against the window in her office. She told me I owed it to her after lying to her. After jerking her around, when I was really going out with you.”
He pauses, looking completely out of himself — out of his body and mind.
While I’m not really surprised to hear this admission, given what I heard about Vanacore wanting to “wreck him”—make him useless to me—hearing it directly from Tommy is sickening and disheartening, even though I know there’s no way to get around it.
Vanacore did sexually assault him. She did just try to rape him, no matter the fact that nothing and no one at the company has ever gotten so out of hand or has ever been so cruel.
I let Tommy sort things out in whatever way he needs to for a while. Then, when he’s silent, I say what I know should be obvious to both of us.
“You can’t go back there after this. You can’t go back to work for a while. Not until that woman is confronted about what she did and shipped off like the garbage she is!”
My voice trembles around this, as do my hands.
Now I’m caught between fear and rage. Anger at what Vanacore represents. Now it’s not just a general dislike of her. It’s personal. It’s deep-seated hatred. A hatred I know is going to make me stop at nothing to see her face charges and face karma.
“I know,” admits Tommy, sounding as weak and vulnerable as I once felt. “I’m sorry I put you through all of this stupid shit. I’m sorry I even came up with the stupid idea to try to do anything about her. To try to do any good for anyone.”
He looks down and wraps his arms around himself.
“If you don’t want to be my girlfriend anymore, I don’t blame you. I’m probably going to lose my job and my ability to work in any kind of law firm after this, too, so I might as well be without a girlfriend!”
“Oh, hush!”
For the first time ever, I actually yell at him. I shove his arm a bit, though not roughly. He’s been through enough rough stuff.
“You stop talking like that right now, Tommy!”
I glower at him, feeling simultaneously protective of him and frustrated. Lost. Confused.
“You are not going to lose your job, you are not going to lose your career opportunities, and you are certainly not going to lose me!” I pause, gripping the steering wheel. “Though I am frustrated at you for taking such a risk! For putting yourself in so much danger.”
I take a breath in, forcing myself to speak gently.
“But I understand why. I still feel proud of you. I’m just afraid. And angry that it’s come to this. That a woman like that continues to think she owns everyone and everything in the world, never caring who she hurts!”
After that, I go silent for another long while.
When I speak again, I say, “I’m going to take you somewhere for a bit of a drink and food. A bit of a distraction. Then I’m going to go take you home, and then head back to the office. When I get there, I’m going to put you ‘on vacation.’ I’m going to block out the next two weeks for that vacation, while we try to sort this out. While I go to Kane with whatever evidence I have.”
I pause, feeling queasy.
“I heard things over the phone call you put out to my desk. I’ll be able to use that to start proceedings, but I’ll need more. But we will deal with that later.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine - Melissa
I look at the clock on the dashboard. It now reads just after ten-thirty. We’ve been in the car for almost 2 hours, discussing things.
For now, I’m going to take you to get a little fo
od and pray that there’s something else I can think of to do to resolve this situation once and for all. To protect you from Vanacore, and get you the kind of job you deserve and the kind of life you deserve to live after everything you’ve been put through.
While I’m not sure how in the hell that’s going to happen, a place like Sadie’s — which mostly serves comfort food — something about it feels like the right place to go. Almost like God is guiding me there to meet someone or do something important.
So I followed my intuition, start the car, put it in drive, and head toward my predetermined destination.
Sadie’s is one of the swankiest bars in all of Manhattan that also doubles as a daytime restaurant and lounge. Somehow, I know there’s going to be something there for us beyond good food and good drinks.
Dragging Tommy out of the car and across the parking lot in front of Sadie’s, the more steps I take toward the front door, the more I’m sure that this is going to be our salvation. Not only in terms of being a distraction from what’s just happened at work, but in terms of being another answer to our problems.
As soon as we step into the cool, trendy atmosphere of Sadie’s and are greeted by our waiter, we are waved down by someone it takes me a minute or two to recognize. He keeps calling over to me, waving, and finally, the waiter asks if we’d like to sit with him when he offers. It’s only when I get close to the table, see the old fashioned he has sitting in front of him, that I recognize who’s just waved us down.
It’s Jake Davies, one of Kane’s personal lawyers and the brother of one of my coworkers. While I don’t typically have many friendships with any people outside of work, Jake and I have gotten to know each other over time — over successive moments of bumping into each other just like this.
With his brown, honey-tipped hair, gray-green eyes, and serious features, Jake is the quintessential fastidious type. Always clean, always orderly, he holds himself to high standards of conduct. Not just himself but others around him. He looks at me now, already trying to read between the lines between Tommy and me.