by Lexi Archer
Her New Boss
Lexi Archer
Copyright 2015 Lexi Archer
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Individuals pictured on the cover are models and used for illustrative purposes only.
This story contains previously published material rewritten for this novel.
First digital edition electronically published by Lexi Archer, March 2015
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Table of Contents
1: The Old Boss
2: Home Early
3: Corporate Ennui
4: Fantasies Revealed
5: The New Boss
6: Changes
7: Worked Up
8: Confession
9: Unique Workout
10: Guilt
11: Going Up
12: Setting Boundaries
13: Lunch Date
14: Reporting Back
15: Trouble Brewing
16: Private Show
17: Changing Room Tryst
18: Invitations
19: Two Tomcats
20: Moment of Truth
21: Rule Four
Epilogue: The New New Boss
More from Lexi Archer
1: The Old Boss
“What have I told you about wasting time on that computerized crap?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. The last thing I wanted to do was go off on the old asshole when he was about to retire. I definitely wouldn’t be happy to see the back end of his ass for the last time, let me tell you.
I minimized the window in the HR software we were supposed to be using and turned to fix ancient Mr. Johnson with my sweetest smile. It galled me to have to smile at him like that, but when he was the person running the whole department there wasn’t much that could be done about it. So I put on a good face and did my best to act like I was actually happy to see him stopping by my desk with another stack of papers. Another stack of papers that could’ve been completed in a matter of minutes if he bothered to use the expensive software the company bought to improve productivity in the department.
But no, he insisted that we still use the ancient paper filing system because he didn’t know anything else. Because he hadn’t bothered to update any of his technology skills since he was originally shunted into this “executive” position that was really glorified middle-management where he couldn’t do too much damage.
God his retirement couldn’t come soon enough!
I eyed the stack of paperwork he was bringing into my cubicle the same way somebody might eye a live snake that had appeared out of the grass and started rattling to let you know how happy they were to make your acquaintance. Only to be perfectly honest I’d almost rather deal with the snake than another pile of paperwork from Johnson. This meant I was going to be working late again. It meant Derek would be home alone for another night. That I probably wouldn’t get home before he’d crawled into bed. He worked long hours in his studio which left him exhausted at the end of the day.
I sighed as Johnson sat the paperwork down on my desk. Then I tried not to reach out and smack him as the asshole’s eyes traveled up my legs and to my skirt. I was sitting with my legs up on my desk, keyboard in hand, as I worked on data input. Sure it wasn’t the most professional of poses, but he sure as hell didn’t seem to mind that it wasn’t the most professional of poses as he looked me up and down!
“More payroll?” I asked, quickly repositioning myself so that he wasn’t getting a free show up my skirt, but he just turned his attention to my chest. How I hated these older managers who came up in the company when Mad Men was a way of life rather than a fun anachronistic TV show.
“You bet!” he said.
There’d been a time when he tried to conceal that he was making me do all of his work, but even that had stopped as he got closer and closer to retirement. It was the same old problem. Once somebody was on their way out, well they usually decided they didn’t give a fuck whether or not they were actually seen doing their job. And since he was on his way to a nice condo in Florida where he could spend all his time golfing or playing shuffleboard or whatever the hell it was balding overweight middle managers whose career progress had stopped a decade before I was born did when they went down to God’s waiting room to watch the clock ticking out on the remainder of their life.
I started looking through the stack of papers. It still amazed me that a corporation as big as this one could function on paperwork like this. Then again part of the reason they could function on paperwork like this was because there was no shortage of young men and women fresh out of college looking for their first job in the industry. And that was the problem in a job market like this. There was no shortage of people willing to put up with this crap at least long enough to get a year or two in until they could move on to greener pastures with some experience on their resume.
I was coming close to the one-year mark myself and I kicked myself every day for thinking that a master’s in HR was a good idea. Sure it got my foot in the door here with an assistant director position directly under the manager, but I’d quickly realized part of the reason I got the damned job was because the position was more or less the Defense Against the Dark Arts position for HR with a new person every year or two.
And it was easy to see why. All my hopes about bringing the 21st century to the department had long since been dashed under the crushing weight of Johnson and his old-fashioned ideas about how things should be run. I could only work and hope some of the feelers I had out with other companies might actually bear fruit soon. I was past the one year expiration date and feeling the itch to move on even if Johnson was leaving. Work here for a year, put in your time, and get the hell out.
Usually the old man left when he dropped off his paperwork, but I noticed his shadow still darkening my cubicle doorstep. I sighed. So it was going to be one of those days.
“It’s really a pity we never got a chance to work together more often,” he said.
“I offered to work with you on converting the department to the new software,” I said.
Of course it wasn’t entirely accurate to call it the new software. No, the “new” software had been purchased almost a decade prior and it seemed like nobody knew what the hell to do with it. All the people who’d been part of the project in the first place had long since quit or retired. I could only imagine that most of them got frustrated and went out the same revolving door that took so many other new hires that went to work directly under Johnson.
“You know I’ve got a new condo down in Florida,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. Here it came.
“It’s a pity a pretty thing like you couldn’t come down too. I’m sure we can have some fun on the beach! I wouldn’t mind seeing you in some two-piece beach attire, if you catch my drift.”
I turned and arched an eyebrow at him. He gave as good as he was getting and his eyes raked up and down my body taking in every curve which would’ve been kinda nice if he was hot but was kinda gross from the old crypt keeper here. Was he serious? I mean of course he’d stopped by and he’d made comments before, but it appeared that now that he was only a day away from retirement he’d decided to be a little more brazen about his flirtation. And why not? He was a middle manager that ran the HR department
and he was on his way out. What was I going to do with one day left?
I stood and took a step closer to him. Reached out and grabbed his tie. I’d had enough. I was sick of it. I ran my finger up his chest and took his tie in both hands. He gulped, his face suddenly turning red and sweat beading on his bald forehead.
Honestly. What would make him think that a career oriented person like me would be interested in an office dalliance? He knew how a by the book I was. What in the world would make him think a girl like me would ever be interested in an asshole like him?
He had all the sex appeal of a toad. Bald head, almost no hair, a turkey jowl where his neck was supposed to be, and a gut so big that I liked to call it a keg gut rather than a beer gut both because it looked like he’d swallowed an entire keg and because that seemed to be what he drank every weekend to get such a rotund expanse of fat.
“Mr. Johnson…” I whispered.
He licked his lips, his eyes going wide as though he couldn’t believe this was actually happening. And as he did so I couldn’t help but laugh just a little at how ridiculous this was. How many times had Derek talked about exactly this scenario? How many times had Derek told me how hot it would be if I did something like this?
Only I’m sure he never imagined anything like old man Johnson when he had those fantasies. I know I certainly didn’t imagine anything like old man Johnson when I was spinning fantasies for him in the bedroom on the rare occasion I decided to indulge them. On special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries only, because it was just a little weird for me.
And now here I was with my hand on my boss’s tie in some sort of bizarro world approximation of the fantasy Derek was always going on about. Only it was probably the least sexy scenario I could think of. I don’t think I could ever think of anything in the workplace as sexy again after working under this jerk and having to deal with him hitting on me like this.
“Yes Kristi?” he croaked. And it was apt to say that he croaked considering the strong resemblance to an oversized bullfrog.
“If we were the last two people left on this planet and the only hope for the human race was for us to go down to Florida and have a little bit of fun on the beach then you can rest assured that I’d stay put right here, let you go down there to wait out the few years you have left until you die, and let the last hope for the human race die right along with you.”
His eyes widened and his bald head went from red to purple. From the color of being turned on, God how I didn’t want to think about Johnson being turned on, to the color of anger. If you worked long enough in this department you learned how to gauge his mood based on the color of his bald head.
“Kristi! How dare you talk to an executive…”
I cut him off by pulling up on his tie. By tightening it around his ridiculous turkey jowl of a neck until I was almost cutting off his breath along with his circulation. That color on his forehead was quickly going from purple to a dark blue. Once again I had to hold down a laugh. He’d gone from looking like a menacing middle manager to resembling nothing so much as a middle management Jabba the Hutt in a cheap suit and tie who was being strangled by the beautiful and frustrated assistant director of HR. Only to complete that image I’d have to be wearing one of those bikinis he was talking about seeing me wear on the beach. No, this asshole wasn’t going to get that lucky!
“How about we come to a little understanding Mr. J?”
“Understanding?”
Damn. I must not have been pulling his tie tight enough if he still had enough air to actually talk. I resisted the urge to pull it even tighter. He might start flailing, and all it would take was for him to stumble back to send one of my cubicle walls crumbling like some sort of pasty white overweight Godzilla.
“How about you forget about my little slipup, and I forget about the fact that you just violated about twenty different HR rules that could get you fired and get your nice little retirement package and pension thrown out the day before you’re about to go down to Florida to wait to die.”
I hoped that would work. To be honest I wasn’t sure exactly how empty the threat was. The fact that he’d been pushed into this job nearly forty years ago and hadn’t advanced since showed that he was ridiculously out-of-favor with upper management, but at the same time I knew that upper management tended to take the side of their own. Only from the way his eyes widened and he started spluttering he seemed to take my threat seriously enough.
Good. I released my hold on his tie and patted it as I readjusted it.
“I’m glad we could come to an understanding on your last day, Mr. J.”
“Yes, well…”
I smiled and decided to push it. “And I’m afraid I also have plans tonight, so I’m not going to be able to go through all of this paperwork and double check your work. I’m sure you’ve done everything up to your usual standards though, right?”
His mouth worked silently for a moment, once again bringing to mind a giant bullfrog who was gasping for breath or doing whatever it was bullfrogs did, and this time I couldn’t help but smile. Only it wasn’t an amused smile. No, this was a malicious smile. I was enjoying giving a little bit back now that he was on his way out, now that it seemed like he took my threat at least half seriously.
He must have really been on the outs with upper-level management if he was that worried. I’d never seen an exec get that flustered from a threat from one of the peons, even if I was a peon who was technically one level below him in the org chart. That was the problem with merely being management and not an executive in this organization, even if he was a ridiculously low level executive who was more of a glorified middle manager as I’ve already said. That still gave him a wide gulf of power over me, and it had driven me nuts up until this moment.
To my amazement Johnson reached down and picked up the pile of payroll paperwork that he always had me double check, where “double check” was a euphemism for me going through and doing all the work for him. All the work he was supposed to do. All the work that would’ve been automated and taken about five minutes if he’d ever bothered to convert to the new software.
The asshole.
“Yes, well,” he said, clearing his throat and looking around the cubicle farm suddenly worried.
Probably worried that somebody had might’ve overheard that little altercation. Whether he was worried because he thought somebody else might get it in their heads to report him or he was simply worried because he didn’t want anybody else to hear his power challenged since that was the death knell for petty dictators around the world even if it was his last day, was beyond me.
“I suppose I could double check these myself and give you the evening off,” he said.
I smiled sweetly. “That’s very nice of you Mr. Johnson. Especially since this is your last official night here on the job!”
“Yes, well, least I can do and all that…”
And then he disappeared from my cubicle. The man was actually surprisingly fast considering how ridiculously overweight he was. I figured he could only move for short sprints though. He was probably completely useless in any sort of endurance run. I leaned back in my chair and sighed as the tension drained from my body. I couldn’t believe I’d actually done that. I actually got so ticked off at him that I risked my job. Sure it had worked out for the best in the end, but still. That was entirely out of character for me.
Though I don’t know why I didn’t do that sort of thing more often. It wasn’t like I needed this job, technically speaking, but I’d always wanted a career of my own. And so I kept at it. I toiled away even though I knew more often than not I’d come home from another late night and see Derek smiling and shaking his head at me. Whatever.
I turned back to my computer and started working on some more macros. With any luck the next person to take over would actually see the value of using the damned computer software the company had supposedly paid so much for a decade ago. Not that I knew much about that time considering I was just
starting high school when they originally put in the requisition to order the damned software. But still. I could only hope the next person would see the usefulness of the digitizing everything and finally bringing the department into the twenty-first century along with the rest of the world.
Of course I figured we’d probably get another old suit, probably not much different from old Johnson, who would continue doing things the same way. Who’d probably get a job because they happen to golf with the CEO.
I toiled on though, because I had a faint hope now even if I did feel like I was grasping at reeds.
2: Home Early
“You’re home early,” I said.
To be honest I was a little annoyed that Kristi was home this early. I was still washing paint off my hands in the kitchen sink which she didn’t care for, she preferred I use the sink in the studio. It was just more convenient and I was busy getting everything ready for the Midnight Marathon charity exhibition. Only instead of getting mad she walked over and wrapped me in a hug.
“Well hello baby,” I said. “What’s the occasion?”
“It was just a rough day at the office is all,” she said. “You won’t believe what happened at work today.”
I had a pretty good idea as to exactly what probably happened at work today, but I didn’t want to seem too interested. I didn’t want to give away that I had that good idea. I especially didn’t want to give away just how much I wanted to hear about what happened at work today.
“What’s that?” I asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible as I washed some vegetables for dinner.
“Old man Johnson was talking about how he’d like to see me in a bikini down at his beach house.”
I turned and raised an eyebrow at her. “Who did what again?”
My wife’s eyes widened. She looked so hot when she got a little angry like that. Hell, she looked hot no matter what she was doing. I especially thought she looked sexy in the skirt and blouse she wore today. It was skirting the line of what was acceptable at an office, but I didn’t care. She had a suit jacket she put on which she said made it okay. I didn’t necessarily agree, but I also wasn’t going to stop her from wearing it. I knew what happened when she went to work in an outfit like that.