by Rita Ciresi
“No.”
“Here?”
“No.” I knew this sort of coy innuendo was silly. But I liked it. It reminded me of the old TV commercials for deodorant soap that showed handsome, healthy, muscled men taking a shower. Parked in front of the boob tube, Carol and I used to gawk and hoot at those hunks—and provided Mama was out of earshot, we dared the cameramen to go lower, lower, lower.
I wanted Strauss to go lower and lower. I wanted everything I had learned about him to dissolve in the act. Making love makes people stupid, and I wouldn’t have minded going dumb for the next half hour. But then I remembered—again—the birth—control issue, and I regretfully moved his hand away. “I got you coffee,” I said. “Now give me something to eat. Unless you have a pack of condoms upstairs—”
“I’ve never used one in my life. But now you’ll really think I’m hopeless for making the woman always take responsibility.”
“Just as long as you don’t tell the waiter, ‘She’ll have the fish,’ we’ll get along all right.”
“She’ll have the granola, then,” Strauss said, and pulled down a box. In the cabinet I saw three more boxes of the same brand.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You have the same thing for breakfast every day.”
He confessed he did. To further incriminate himself, he told me that on weekends he put coconut on top. On holidays—M&M’s.
“Plain or nut?”
“Both.”
“That’s sad, you know.”
“A guy’s got to take his pleasure where he can find it.”
“So what do we get today?”
“Coconut and M&M’s, of course.”
“Hedonist.”
We took fresh coffee and our cereal bowls out to the dining area and sat at the glass table in front of the gargoyle print. Then, for some reason, I felt awkward, embarrassed about my body, as if eating candy-laden granola with a man was a more intimate act than taking off my clothes for him. It certainly had the potential to be more fattening. Strauss really had loaded on those M&M’s.
“So what’s with all the Confucius and Boethius on your bookcase?” I asked.
“I switched to religion after pulling out of premed.”
“What did your parents make of that?”
“It was the sixties,” Strauss said. “The late sixties—”
“I repeat: What did your parents make of that?”
“Well—if you must know. Not much. But they kept it to themselves. I guess they hoped it was a phase.”
“I guess it was.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You can’t tell me you use Augustine to do a better job at Boorman.”
Strauss admitted that the author of The City of God didn’t figure much into corporate politics. “You, however, do,” he said.
I balanced a green M&M on the end of my spoon. “I guess this is the start of our little talk.”
“Would you rather wait?”
“Let’s get it over with,” I said.
Strauss really had been going to too many meetings. In any case, he asked if he could hold the floor first. He said he had given it a lot of thought and what he thought was that there wasn’t anything wrong with our enjoying each other’s company. Others, of course, might misinterpret the situation as an abuse of power. There was a common perception that most people couldn’t maintain their professionalism under these circumstances.
Everything he said from that point onward was prefaced with qualifiers: I hope I don’t need to tell you … it would be best if we both agreed … you know and I know … it goes without saying.…
But it didn’t go without saying. For a full five minutes he went on and on, trying to impress upon me the need for caution and telling me that no matter how much we both abhorred the dishonesty involved in such a situation, it was unavoidable, because we both would suffer if this should get out.
“For now, at least, this can’t get out,” he said. “Now. Your turn to speak.”
I looked down at my almost—empty cereal bowl. I couldn’t believe I had eaten all those M&M’s. I picked up a lone piece of oat and examined it under the dining—room light. I knew that what he was saying was right. But I didn’t necessarily like the way he was telling me. It seemed impossible to link his lecturing style back to the much more vulnerable voice I’d read just half an hour before.
“I don’t have anything to add to the discussion,” I said.
“I can’t believe that. Of you.”
“You think I have a big mouth, don’t you?”
“I think you have strong opinions.”
“And you don’t like that.”
“Not at all. I just invited you to voice those opinions.”
“All right,” I said. “My opinion is that it’s nobody’s business but ours what we do off—hours.”
“A year ago, maybe, the company would have frowned but looked the other way. But once the new policy is put into place—”
“The policy makes a clear distinction between unwanted advances and consensual relationships.”
“It says no supervisor shall insinuate, either explicitly or implicitly, that an employee’s submission to—”
“Please stop,” I told Strauss, finishing the phrase in my head: or rejection of sexual advances will in any way influence any personnel decision regarding that individual’s employment. “It’s obvious we’ve both taken the policy home and practically memorized it. And if you’re worried about Peggy—”
“Of course I’m concerned. She’s not without compassion, but this sort of thing wouldn’t sit well with her at all. I wouldn’t want this getting back—in the wrong way—to Peg. I owe a lot to her—”
“You also owe something to yourself. You have a right to be happy.”
“I don’t think you understand. I lost my position before under very uncomfortable circumstances. And it’s not what you’re thinking—”
“What am I thinking? You always seem to know what I’m thinking.”
“That I made a move on someone. It had to do with something much more unethical. Not that making a move on someone—without caring for them—isn’t unethical.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t talk about it. There was a legal settlement—”
“Hush money?”
“Do I act like someone who would take hush money?”
“Then were you let go because you wouldn’t hush up?”
“Forget that. For now. For now we’re at Boorman, and in due course, I can speak to Peg—”
“Are you nuts?” I asked, and when he looked offended I said, “Strauss, you’re not the only one who wants to keep his—I mean her—job.”
“But Lisar. Maybe I’ve misunderstood you, but I had the feeling you weren’t totally wedded to your position at Boorman.”
“Last night you implied as much about yourself.”
His face flushed. “I regret if I gave you that mistaken impression.”
I put down my spoon with a clang. “This isn’t a power breakfast. Could you please stop talking to me like we’re negotiating some kind of inner—office political coup?”
“It’s habit.”
“Break it. The bottom line is, we both need to eat and support ourselves. Which means we just keep quiet about it. And no one will guess. Really. Believe me. Unless you take me to the office Christmas party and smooch me in front of the CEO and all his minions.”
Strauss told me I obviously had yet to attend the end—of—the—year Boorman gala—but once I’d gone, I’d immediately see it was hardly the sort of thing any caring man would inflict upon a date. He also said that by the end of the year we would have a better read on how we felt about this whole situation and by then we both might feel differently about bringing it out into fresh air.
I didn’t want to tell Strauss our secret was guarded by the fact that I was an excellent actress when I needed to be and that the general office consensus was that he and Peggy were birds of a feather: She was inte
rested in women, while he was not. Rumors sometimes were useful. Had I dared to be so bold—to throw any busybodies off the track—I might have dropped a few hints to that effect myself But I held my tongue and let others wag away. And the next time I stayed overnight with Strauss, I noted with dismay he had taken a cautionary measure against my own curiosity by removing The Cursed Generation from his shelf
I went on the pill. Strauss went on the road. When he returned, he picked me up at my apartment and brought me back to his place, where he uncorked another bottle of California wine and announced he had brought me back a present. The gift came wrapped in a pale pink silk pouch—an equally pale pink and silky chemise with spaghetti straps. I did the modest—girl routine and retired to the bathroom to try it on. It fit perfectly.
No man had ever given me such a gift. But I knew the protocol: I was expected to model it. Through the cracked bathroom door I announced, “I’m coming out.”
“I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think I can handle it.”
I tiptoed around the corner and peeked my head into the bedroom, where I found him lying on his bed with his hands propped beneath his head. He had taken off his coat and loosened his tie. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror—the creamy pink chemise was the exact opposite of what I imagined was the color of lust—and tried not to laugh.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“Beats an apron.”
He threw a pillow at me.
“If there’s more where this came from—”
“There may be if you behave—or misbehave—”
“—I feel obliged to warn you—record it in the minutes—I don’t do wires. Or leopard skin. A modest cheetah print might be acceptable on the top, but not on the bottom.”
“I can’t quite picture you as a large jungle cat, Lisar.”
“And I don’t dance to Bolero. Although I did dress up as the Cowardly Lion once for Halloween. My cousin kept stepping on my tail.… But you—you actually went into a store and picked this out?”
“Why not?”
“Weren’t you embarrassed?” I asked, thinking about how mortified I always was just to try on a bra in a department store and how I always cringed when the salesladies with their half-glasses on chains around their necks hovered outside the dressing—room door and said, “Are you finding the right fit, honey?” I smoothed down the chemise. “Weren’t you afraid they might think you’re a cross—dresser?”
“It’s not my size.”
“How did you know which size to get?”
“Checked your bra when you were in the shower. I hope you don’t mind?”
I didn’t mind. I had a respectable number—neither too large nor too small. When Strauss gave me more gifts and said, “Wear this? For me?” I obliged him. Then I found I was starting to do more than just play along. I liked going into the bathroom and then making my grand entrance into the bedroom; I liked straddling him on the bed and slowly taking off his loosened tie, and unbuttoning his shirt, and undressing him while still wearing what he had dressed me up in. I liked the way he fucked me with the outfit torn aside—never totally taken off—the straps in disarray, the pants pulled down only halfway. It was his game. His fantasy. But after a while it became mine too, and we got into a groove that felt too good to break, full of rhythmic breathing and muffled bed thumps and intense cries that practically made the skylight shake until he put his hand over my mouth and whispered, “Shh, I have neighbors.”
Afterward I always fell asleep, a habit noted by Strauss, who was that rarity among men that most women, at least in magazine advice columns, seemed to long for—the kind of guy who liked to talk and cuddle.
These sessions thrilled and bothered me. I went home and read Betty Friedan. I checked if Gloria Steinem had anything to say about sleeping with the boss. I thought Simone de Beauvoir did it with Sartre, and he was hardly a big proponent of women’s rights. I remembered Hannah Arendt made it with Heidegger, and he was a Nazi. Then I thought: Fuck it, Strauss is a nice guy, he’s my friend, this feels good, and why shouldn’t I enjoy my body? It’s just as much a part of me as my mind. And why shouldn’t I enjoy making Strauss feel good? It was the first time in my life I had ever even cared if it felt right for the other person. Why did I have to think about the oppression of women while his tongue was in my mouth and his hands were running through my hair? We already had agreed to bar the lawyers from our bedroom. But if that old theory was correct that there were six people present at every act of love—the lovers and both sets of their parents—then the bedroom was crowded enough without me bringing in some social scientist to sit on my shoulder and evaluate my feminist or antifeminist behavior.
Wear this? For me?
Well, maybe. But more and more I found I was wearing it for myself. The chemise was followed by a pale—green camisole and tap—pant set, a black full slip, and lace bras. I took the hint. I retired my saggy old Bestform bras to the back of my drawer, tossed out my Jockeys, and underneath my professional Monday—Friday garb, I wore what Strauss gave me to work. Late one afternoon I was deep into a grant proposal—trying to clean up some clotted, circular prose—when I was distracted by the feel of silk under my blouse. I remembered how one night I came over to his place—after working out at the gym so late the security guards came around to lock up and I couldn’t get into the shower. I showed up at his door a sweaty, disheveled mess. “Don’t touch me,” I said. “Don’t even kiss me.” Without a word, he pulled me inside by the hand and led me upstairs, where he ran a bath. “Take off your clothes,” he said, as he went into the hall and fetched a couple of fluffy white towels and a washcloth from the linen closet. I stripped off my leotard and bike shorts, got into the tub, and turned off the water. I was surprised when Strauss came back in and knelt by the tub.
“Humor me,” he said, then rolled up his sleeves—he still had on his pressed shirt from work, Egyptian cotton with a windowpane pattern—and he dunked the washcloth into the water. I leaned back and let him dribble warm water over my body. After a while he admitted that before we went to bed together this was his fantasy: to give me a bath, to soap my back and squeeze warm water off a washcloth over my breasts.
“I wanted you to screw me on your desk,” I said—which really wasn’t true, but I thought it would make interesting research for the latest chapter of my novel. My Don Juan character now sat in the waiting room of his chiropractor, having discovered it was murder on his spine to have sex on hard surfaces.
“There are too many important papers on my desk,” Strauss said. “Such as your biannual employee evaluation.”
“But I haven’t been at Boorman for six months.”
“Doesn’t matter. Everyone gets evaluated at the same time.”
“Did I pass?” I asked.
“On a flying carpet. All eights and nines except for collegiality—”
“What’d you rate me on that, zilch?”
“Six.”
“Six! Change it.”
“I won’t. You’re argumentative.”
“With who?”
He smiled. “Your immediate superior.”
I splashed him with water. “I am not—”
“See? Not that I don’t enjoy it. But I do think you should eat your lunch—I’ve noticed you get a little cranky with me in the afternoon; maybe it’s a blood—sugar problem. As for getting along with your inferiors, it’s been reported you have yet to attend a single Tupperware party—”
“I beg your pardon. I have a lot of allies in Editorial. I clean out Mr. Coffee and the refrigerator and the microwave, so I feel like I deserve at least a seven—”
“An evaluation is like a letter of recommendation, Lisar. It has to have one slightly less positive thing so the rest of the superlatives sound believable.”
“What are the superlatives?”
“Works overtime—and more. Gives her all to the task at hand. Pays close attention to detail.”
I slipped down farther in the bathtub—he’d made the water awfully hot, which made me feel lazy and desirous—and opened my legs. “Shut up,” I murmured. “I hate the office. Soap me here. There. Oh God. Right there.”
“Shameless,” Strauss said. “That’s your middle name.”
Sitting at my desk at Boorman, the memory of the warm water and the washcloth was so strong and real, and I was so distracted from the manuscript, I was afraid I’d have to run into the bathroom and do something wild that would cost me my job if I got caught. I closed my office door. I knew Strauss would be at his desk that morning, and in spite of our agreement that we would not engage in unprofessional behavior while on the job, I logged on to All-in-1 and shot through the following message.
Are you there?
After a ten—minute delay, Strauss gave me a cautious answer. Yes.
Alone?
Yes.
Thinking about me?
Another five—minute delay. I am now.
Tell me what you’re thinking.
The answer shot back fast. Follow me home. 12:30.
What if I don’t?
Expect another kind of pink slip.
I prefer the kind I already have.
I might have worn that pink chemise that afternoon—had he not met me in his driveway and bent down through my opened car window, his voice anything but authoritative as he said, “I’m embarrassed. I forgot. It’s Wednesday. The cleaning woman is here. She’s got soap all over the kitchen floor.”
“I guess it’s a no—go then. Let’s take a walk along the creek.”
“You’ll get mud all over your shoes.”
“They’ll come clean.”
He held my hand as we went around the back into the shade of the trees. After a few moments of walking in silence, he told me, “I shouldn’t have sent you that message.”
“I deleted it,” I said. But if the truth be told, I had hesitated more than a few seconds before I pointed my cursor to kill off that missive from Strauss, E. I told myself I would have been a complete fool if I hadn’t at least contemplated hanging on to it. You never knew when you might need some powerful ammunition. But I hated the Fourth of July, and firecrackers—even the mild sparklers and the shower—of—spark explosives named Jade Flower or Lotus Blossom that Jocko called “girly crackers”—always made me nervous. Guns terrified me. I couldn’t even imagine holding one in my hand, much less pulling the trigger.