Love to Hate You

by Jo Watson

  He chuckled. “Just joking, Sera De La Haye.”

  “Oh.” I forced a nervous laugh. “Of course.”

  He closed the file, leaned in closer, put his elbows on the table and locked eyes with me. “Well Sera …” He kept saying my name. No one had ever made it sound so wonderfully filthy before. “I’m looking forward to working with you … Sera.”

  I stifled a gasp as my name dripped from his lips once more, “Th … thank you. Me too. Everyone is very, very excited …”

  “Well,” his voice suddenly went all husky, like it had been at the bar. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.”

  That was it!

  His voice coupled with those smoldering eyes, his smile and smell, the seductive vibe that was oozing out of every one of his tattooed pores was driving me insane. I needed to put as much space between us as possible—right now. I stood up and stepped awkwardly away from the table. “I … I need to get home, so I better … leave now and … because it’s the end of the day and that’s what you do at the end of the day is … leave.” My nonsensical words cascaded out like dropped marbles.

  “Sure, I wouldn’t want to keep you from going, because that’s what you do at the end of the day, is go.” He was smiling broadly now.

  He was mocking me. “Okay. Thanks,” I said flatly and headed out the door … until he stopped me.

  “Oh Sera, I think you’re forgetting something.”

  I turned and that’s when I saw them. It took a few seconds to register because they were so out of place here, like seeing a polar bear take a leisurely stroll across the desert. But when I finally accepted what I was seeing, my brain felt like it was going to shatter into a billion fragments. Because there they were. Peeping out of an envelope he was pushing across the table.

  Pink.

  Lacey.

  Panties.

  My panties.

  5. Posing For A Playboy Spread …

  I gasped and then slapped my hands over my mouth in utter gut-wrenching shock. I closed my eyes tightly, hoping that when I opened them again, my underwear would not be laying on my boss’s table.

  I heard a small chuckle and opened my eyes again. He was wearing his backseat look now. His eyes were doing that intense staring thing that had the power to make you feel completely naked. His lips were slightly parted and he was running his hand through his hair like he was posing for a Playgirl spread.

  Then the words poured out …

  “I … I … can explain. I mean … I … I’ve never done that before … seriously. It wasn’t really me … well, it was me, but it wasn’t in a way. Someone else dressed me, I don’t even dress like that, so you can’t blame me … the real me anyway. Shit. I didn’t know who you were; I swear I had no idea that you were my boss. I’m not the kind of girl to sleep with my boss so I can get ahead or anything like that, if that’s what you’re thinking. If I had known, I would never have done it. Not that I ever do that! Ever. Please don’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell …” And then I caught myself and stuck my finger out at him accusingly, “Hey, it was sort of your fault too anyway; you plied me with vodka cocktails all night and—”

  He cut me off with a laugh. “Well, I hope it wasn’t only the cocktails that made you do it. I wouldn’t want it to be like that next time.”

  “What!” I half shouted. “Next time? Seriously?” I couldn’t believe the audacity of this man and it made me instantly angry. “Firstly—” I was fuming now. “Firstly, Mr. Pervert, there will be no next time and secondly, this is sexual harassment. I could report you for this, you know. Sexual harassment in the work place is a very serious crime. And don’t think I won’t … Jesus.” I slapped my hand over my mouth again and bit down on my lip. “I’m threatening my boss. First I sleep with him and then I threaten him …” I sat back down in the chair. I needed to, it felt like my legs were going to give way under me. I slumped down and put my head in my hands.

  “It’s fine. You can fire me if you want. I’m okay with it. It’s okay …” I placed my hand over the envelope and slowly slid it toward me, then quickly shoved it into my jacket pocket. I wanted the floor to swallow me up and never spit me out again. My head was still down when I heard him laugh again. “Fine. Fine,” I said, “Laugh at me, too. Whatever. Ha, ha, ha.”

  His laughing stopped. “No one is getting fired,” he said. He sounded calm. I looked up at him and noted that his demeanor changed to something that was completely businesslike. This waylaid my fears a bit.

  “Really?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Sera, I’m not going to fire you.”

  “Thanks.” I said faintly. “How did you even recognize me anyway?”

  He leaned across the desk, coming in as close as possible. “I could never, ever, forget a face like yours.”

  I shivered. Goosebumps ran up and down my spine and my skin pebbled instantly. I had to get out of there, before some uncontrollable force threw me onto his large, oh-so-large and hard and perfectly shaped and … I shot out of my chair at the thought of it. Then I straightened myself and tried to look as dignified as possible.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Ben Black, and I look forward to a good PROFESSIONAL working relationship where we can become great COLLEAGUES and COWORKERS.” I shouted the words.

  “Ben White.” He stood up and walked around his desk toward me. “White.”

  “Doubtful,” I half muttered under my breath.

  “I can show you my ID book if you like?” He continued his approach.

  “No, no. That won’t be necessary.” My breath quickened and I took a step back as he suddenly extended his hand. I looked at it in horror, as the various body parts that had come into contact with that hand began to tingle … especially my breasts. I quickly folded my arms across them.

  “Can’t we at least shake hands?” he asked, taking a step closer and looking at my folded arms.

  “Sure. Okay.” I reached out tentatively and took his hand, but as I did, something incredible happened—you know how psychics have those clairvoyant flashes and visions when they touch something significant? The necklace of a deceased person, or a missing child’s toy? Well, it was like that.

  Vivid, colorful visions of the two of us flashed through my mind. He was pulling off my panties with his teeth. He was running his tongue over my breasts. I was ripping the buttons off his shirt and unzipping his jeans with manic vigor. I pulled my hand away as quickly as possible and looked up at him. He had that look in his eye again, that look he’d had just before he’d kissed me for the first time in the club. He bit his lip and leaned in. Oh my God, was he going to kiss me? I couldn’t let that happen.

  “I … I … I’m going now.” I leapt at the door and turned the handle, but it was locked. I jiggled it around a few times in a frenzied panic. He locked me in his office! The sick twisted pervert had deliberately called my name out last so he could get me alone in his office after everyone had gone home. My heart started beating fast and that primal fight-or-flight instinct took over.

  “Let me out! Let me out, now. What were you hoping for? To have me on your desk?! Let me out—”

  He cut me off by reaching out and putting his hand over mine. He turned the handle in the opposite direction and the door popped open, much to my relief and surprise … and utter embarrassment.

  “You were turning it the wrong way.”

  “Oh,” I managed pathetically. I looked at the floor quickly and didn’t say a word as I exited.

  “Sera,” he said. I didn’t dare to look up. “Please close the door behind you on your way out,” he continued. I nodded. “And Sera,” he added, just as the door was almost shut. “Now I know I’m in love …”

  6. ICBIJCIFOTHGOTPWAHTBMNBWIAHSW!

  My teenage sister sends me SMSs sometimes that I barely understand. Punchy terse messages with CAPS-a-plenty. This felt like one of those moments that required a whole string of them.

  “Now I know I’m in love…” WTFH! OMG!
AB bloody fucking C! Had he really said that?

  My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I clutched the steering wheel. The road was long and straight, but we were creeping along slowly. All I wanted to do was speed up and away from the office as fast as possible.

  My office had always been a happy place that I loved going to. But all that had changed in only a matter of hours. And I seriously doubted it would ever feel the same again. The implications of Ben working there were huge. It was only a matter of time before it came out and everyone in the office knew. I would no doubt be branded the office ho-ho. And it would only be a matter of time before he notched many more of my coworkers’ names onto his bedpost. The thought revolted me.

  I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. I wound down the window—my car was invented before such fancy things as electric windows and power steering—and stuck my face into the wind like an excited dog. I needed air. Air is good. Breathe.

  The deep breathing did little to help, though. My pink panties were burning a hole in my pocket and a question was now burning a hole in my brain: Why the hell had he been carrying my panties around with him, in an envelope no less? Does he have a panty-thieving fetish?

  I looked at the time on my cell phone, it had only been thirteen hours since I’d slept with him, and in that time it felt like my entire world had come crashing down around me. I needed to get home; at least I would be free of him there.

  I drummed my steering wheel and turned on the radio in hopes it might distract me. My car had been built around the time dinosaurs walked the earth, so it only had a cassette player in it. But the music did little to distract. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. The thought of walking into work day after day scared the living shit out of me. I’d been mortified enough when I’d had to make the run of shame across the parking lot the night before, and now it would feel like I was making that same walk of shame every single morning as I marched past his office to my desk wondering if anyone in the office knew about it.

  I felt sick. I needed chocolate.

  I turned into the nearest gas station convenience store and raided the closest shelf of chocolates. Normally, it would be hard to choose, but at a time like this, less was definitely not more. I shoved several chocolates into my basket—dark, white, nuts, mint, M&Ms, you name it.

  I had absolutely no shame at this point—hey, half a gay club had seen me semi-nude and my boss had been walking around with my panties—I started unwrapping the chocolates right there in the parking lot. I shoved a handful of M&Ms into my mouth and suddenly remembered that I needed milk, so I turned back toward the shop, but as I did …

  “Sera.” It was him.

  I jumped as if I’d just seen a ghost.

  “What the hell are you—”

  But before I could finish the sentence, one of the M&Ms went down the wrong pipe and I started choking. Real choking. Real gasping for air and going blue in the face choking. I grabbed Ben’s shoulders in a total panic and tried to communicate the seriousness to him. I couldn’t breathe and for a moment there I actually thought I was going to die. But, just before it felt like I was going to black out from lack of oxygen, I felt two arms wrap around me tightly.

  He was strong, and with every squeeze, my whole body lifted off the ground. He did this several times before a blue M&M shot out of my mouth and bounced off the pavement. He clearly hadn’t seen it, though, because he kept on going.

  “Stop!” I finally managed to say in between coughs and frantic gasps for air. “Stop.”

  “Are you okay?” His voice came out fast and urgent as he turned me around and looked at me with wide, frightened eyes.

  I nodded, while grabbing hold of my throat and still coughing. Crap. That hurt like hell.

  “Fuck, you gave me such a fright. Don’t ever do that again,” he said while putting both hands on my shoulders and trying to look me in the eye. “You sure you’re okay?”

  Was I sure I was okay? Okay you ask?… NO!

  I was absolutely not okay. It was not okay that I’d slept with my new boss, that I’d left my underwear in his car, that I’d threatened to sue him for sexual harassment, called him a pervert and had now choked on an M&M in front of him. I was not okay at all. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to shrink down to the size of an ant and disappear.

  “Sera? Are you okay?” he persisted, still trying to meet my gaze while I glanced anywhere but in his direction. He sounded genuinely concerned, more concerned than I thought he should be.

  I nodded. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

  “Why are you saying sorry?” he asked as one of his hands came up and touched my cheek in such a strangely intimate gesture.

  I shrugged him off and took a step back.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to drive? I could drive you if you want?”

  I shook my head. The last thing I wanted right now was to be in his car again. And the absolute last thing I wanted was for him to know where I lived.

  “Thank you. I’m fine.” And then a thought struck me. “Hey, what are you doing here anyway?”

  “Following you of course,” he flashed me a cheeky, devilish grin.

  “What!” I gasped, and then proceeded to cough a few more times; my throat was clearly not ready for dramatic gasping.

  “Joking, Sera. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is the closest gas station to our office.”

  I looked around. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

  “Well, I’m really glad I was here,” Ben said. He smiled at me again, but not like before. Not with that smile. The one that made you lose your wits, your clothes, your sense and your virginity, if you still had it. It was a warm, friendly smile now, which was completely strange and made me even more uncomfortable than his take-your-clothes-off-and-climb-under-me smile. He was standing with his hands on his hips, and still looked totally ridiculous and utterly hot in that overly formal suit. He’d loosened the top button and tie now, so it had a slightly more casual look to it. The open button revealed a tiny bit of the chest tattoo that I’d run my tongue over 13 hours before.

  “Well, thanks then.” I gave him a tiny appreciative smile and started walking back to my car before my whole face flushed red and I burst into tears from sheer humiliation.

  ICBIJCIFOTHGOTPWAHTBMNBWIAHSW! (I can’t believe I just choked in front of the hottest guy on the planet who also happens to be my new boss who I also had sex with.)

  7. A Panty Smuggler …

  I’ve always loved collective nouns. A murder of crows, a business of ferrets, a mischief of mice. As I sat with JJ and Bruce, I wondered exactly what collective noun would apply:

  A cackle of queens.

  A gaggle of gays.

  A hullabaloo of homosexuals.

  To say they were screeching with laughter was an understatement. Bruce was currently bent over the couch squealing, broken up by fits of even higher pitched laughter. “He gave you the Heimlich maneuver?!”

  And JJ … well, he was lying on the floor, tears running across his face, sobbing, “He’s a panty smuggler.”

  It wasn’t pretty.

  “It’s not funny, guys!” I said, slamming the dishwasher closed as if I was out to kill the thing. And just in case the dishwasher still wasn’t aware that I was totally pissed off, I punched a few extra buttons for added effect. Still, their laughter continued. They clung onto each other for support now, hooting and snorting like toddlers that had been given crack.

  “It’s a pity you didn’t pass out cold so he could give you mouth-to-mouth,” Bruce added in between his huge guffaws.

  “He’s a panty smuggler,” JJ repeated. At least Bruce had moved on somewhat.

  “It’s not funny. This could seriously jeopardize my job,” I said, as I stomped through the lounge and threw myself onto the couch. “What if it’s really awkward working together, and then everyone finds out and he has to fire me?” A lump formed in my throat and I choked on the words slightly. Losing my job, especially now, would be the worst
thing that could happen, especially for my sister. Her future would be over. I wouldn’t let that happen, not over my dead body.

  JJ and Bruce finally stopped with the hysterics and looked over at me. “Babe, he’s not going to fire you,” Bruce said, coming to sit next to me. “He said so.” At least he was showing some compassion now.

  JJ nodded. “No, he won’t, besides …” He put on his drag queen Miss Ginny Tonic voice now. “He’s in lurve with you!” Both JJ and Bruce ooohed with childish excitement.

  “I hate you guys right now,” I said, and shot them both a disapproving look. But of course I didn’t hate them. On the contrary, JJ and Bruce had saved me when I was at my most vulnerable—and by extension, they’d saved my sister, too. There was a thirty-year age difference between me and them, so I looked at them like father figures—my two weird adopted dads. And they certainly treated me like that, apart from the totally inappropriate father/daughter conversations like this one.

  “You’re right, we’re being totally insensitive,” Bruce said.

  JJ nodded. “We’re just jealous. I would have paid good money to have him come up from behind and give me the Heimlich maneuver.”

  I laughed. “That’s because you’re a total ho!”

  JJ cocked his head to the side and pouted his lips. “Um, look who’s talking Miss-take-me-in-the-backseat-of-your-BMW.”

  At the mere mention of it, I felt my blood pressure rise and I wondered if my face looked as hot as it suddenly felt. The answer soon became obvious when JJ asked, “That good, huh?”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “You dirty bitch.” Bruce nudged me playfully. “But seriously. I really think it will be okay. You made things clear and you’re a professional. I’m sure he’s reasonable and professional, too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the job he has. It’s going to be okay.” Bruce put his arm around me.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said, finally starting to feel better about this whole thing.

  “We’re off to the restaurant now,” JJ said. “See you in the morning.” They both blew air kisses and left.