"As I have been trying to tell you, I cannot do that, Alan. My--"
"Get the hell out of my sight then!" He stomped off towards his office. I ignored the people peering over their cubicles to see what was going on. Alan wanted to blame me for the company looking bad? He was doing that himself. I marched straight down to Joseph's office and barged right in, not caring that Eddie was in there.
"I've had it," I told Joseph blandly. "I've put up with Alan's shit for long enough, and I can't take it anymore."
Joseph plastered a fake smile on his face. "Edward, can you give us a moment, please?"
"He can stay." I snapped. "The time for him to be out of it would have been before Alan chewed me out in the middle of the fucking hall." Eddie winced at the cursing, and I whirled at him. "You want to know who runs the tech department? Me. That's right. Not Alan, me. I do all the coding for the sites. I follow up with the other programmers to be sure they get their code working. I troubleshoot their code. Hell, I manage the employees as well -- they are all too scared to go straight to Alan. Alan can never handle vacations, so I make sure HR knows who is out, and when. I'm here early every day, and get on the programmers when they are late. Alan never knows, because he never comes in before nine. Why do you think they sent me up to talk to you? Because Alan doesn't fucking know anything. You stick those code samples in front of him, and he couldn't tell you which of us here wrote what, much less what any of the code actually does. He sits there all day pushing paper around his desk, playing with the toys sitting on top of it."
I continued ranting. "And you know what? I'm fine with all of that. But what I'm not fine with is busting my ass day in, day out, and then getting my ass chewed out in front of everyone for having the gall to have my apartment burn down this morning!" I screamed. "I'm not wearing shoes because I don't have any. All I have is the clothes on my back, and they. Aren't. Even. Mine. And that bastard won't give me a day off to figure out where the hell I will be sleeping tonight. So yeah, I'm done with this. I'll make damned sure that we get through this acquisition phase, but once it's done, either Alan goes, or I go." I turned on my heel quick enough to get carpet burns, and stalked off.
Everyone knows the phrase “so mad you were shaking”, but I always thought it was an exaggeration. Not any more. I was so pissed at Alan my hands were moving a good inch back and forth involuntarily. Even with that I couldn't bring myself to walk out the door – that was just something you didn't do.
"Schroeder, wait up," Eddie said, jogging after me. "Schroeder." He grabbed my arm since I was ignoring him, and dragged me into the break room. "Whoa. Slow down. What was that about your apartment?"
I tried to push past him. "I don't have time for this now."
"Yes you do. Globe theater, now." He grabbed my hand, and pulled the ring on and off. Nothing. He grabbed my chin in one hand. "Schroeder, concentrate. Globe theater. Shakespeare." Still nothing. "Ah, 'to be, or not to be, that is the question', 'out out damn spot', 'if we shadows have offended', and all that jazz." The corner of my mouth quirked involuntarily, and Eddie tried the ring again.
I took off down the street when the office disappeared and the theater appeared. I heard Eddie sigh and run after me.
“Where are you going?”
“To find something to kick or punch.” The borrowed sweatpants were too big, and I tripped over the extra material bogging down my steps. I would have fallen on my face if Eddie hadn't caught me. I realized that neither of us had taken our clothing into consideration before 'traveling', and also realized I didn't care whatsoever.
“You need to calm down, Schroeder. Talk to me, sweetheart.”
I pulled from his grasp and continued on. “Now's not good for me.” I wove through the crowd walking along the Thames, idly wondering if days were incrementing back here; there hadn't been this many people out and about previously. And the day seemed sunnier than the last few visits. I elbowed someone who didn't move out of my way fast enough because he was staring at the crazy woman in weird clothing, and Eddie grabbed my arm firmly and pulled me closer to the river, out of the way.
“Leave me alone, Eddie!” I gave him a shove, then gasped as he lost his balance and fell off the crude loading dock, right into the river. Oh, shit. Who knows what plague or disease Eddie was being exposed to.
“Man overboard!” A worker shouted, and several men rushed to pull Eddie out of the water. My arms were grasped harshly by a couple more men, and they weren't letting go.
Eddie climbed back onto the riverbank, soaking wet and pissed. He talked quietly with the workmen, and one pointed at some nearby crates.
“You want I should get constabulary?” One of the men holding me shook me roughly.
“No, I'll handle this. Come here, wife,” he said, making our relationship clear to the bystanders.
“I'm sorry, Eddie, I-- No!” I shouted as he grabbed me firmly about the waist and threw me face down over his lap on the crate. The love taps in previous days were nothing in comparison to the serious swats he gave me through the thick sweatpants. Even the spanking at Charles' cottage wasn't even close. Attempts to cover my bottom with a hand resulted in it getting secured in the small of the back with his left hand. He resumed spanking with his right hand, and I continued to fight him.
“You will listen to me, and you will. Calm. Down.” He emphasized the last words with his hand.
“Help! Abuse!” I cried to the onlookers, who were laughing at me and encouraging Eddie. “You're hurting me!” A constable pushed to the front of the growing crowd, and I plead with him. “Help me!”
“Sir, I find that the bare bottom works best on my wife,” he advised, and walked off with a nod of his head.
“Good idea,” Eddie said grimly, and wasted no time in yanking the sweats down.
“No!” I shrieked as his heavy hand stung ten times harder on the exposed flesh. I wiggled and squirmed in earnest as the punishing blows rained down. After a few more minutes I gave up fighting, and the tears started flowing. He released my right hand, and gave another dozen or so whacks before turning me over and gathering me in his arms.
I sobbed into his shirt, holding on for dear life. “I have nothing. It's all gone.”
“I know, I know. Let it all out.” He had kept a hand on my rear, and rubbed my burning bottom, to try to take the sting out. “You all can move along now, nothing more to see here,” he said harshly to the crowd. I didn't look to see if they left – I was embarrassed and humiliated enough as it was.
“My clothes, my books, my photos.” I hiccupped. “My laptop – Alan is going to kill me for losing that.”
Eddie hugged me tightly. “He'll do no such thing. It's not your fault. These things happen.”
My breathing finally began to even out, with a few hiccups here and there. “To top it all off, I lost my mind and went off on Joseph. He's probably planning out how to fire me right now. Oh God,” I buried my head in his shoulder. “I screwed everything up.”
“Hey, hey, hey, you didn't screw up. You've had a bad break. Can you tell me what happened? To the apartment?” He asked quietly.
“Neighbors left the stove on. They didn't even think to call 911. By the time the fire truck showed up, my place was on fire. It burned through everything. You saw my place – I had mostly clothes and books. They didn't have a chance once the fire hit them.”
“I'm so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered and kissed my forehead.
“I'm going to lose my job too, aren't I?” I started crying softly again.
“Baby, if you lose your job because your boss wouldn't give you the day off when your apartment burned down, you don't want this job. I don't want you to have this job.”
“I love my job, though. I love the company. Alan is just an old friend of one of the board members. Joseph told me once when he had too much to drink that Alan was only hired so that the board member would invest in us. They can't fire him without pissing off the board.”
“The board, which is
irrelevant once the buyout is finished?” He pointed out.
“I didn't think about that,” I admitted, a lot more calm.
“You weren't really thinking at all,” Eddie said, and gave a light swat on my already tender rump.
“Ow! And was that really necessary? To humiliate me like that?”
He considered the right words. “I needed to get your attention, and nothing was working.”
“It got my attention, all right,” I grumbled, and Eddie chuckled and started caressing the item in question with the attention getter.
“I wouldn't have done this in modern times,” he assured me. “I wasn't trying to hurt you, just get you to calm down. You were too wound up, and I had no idea what you would do next. Pushing me into the river was a step further than I expected you to go, and I needed to get you under control. I'm sorry. It was all I could think of to do.”
I relaxed into his ministrations. My bottom was on fire, and he was heating up other parts of me now as well. “Keep doing that, and I'll forgive you. In fact, think you can find those straw piles?” I pulled his head down to kiss him and show him what was on my mind. He inserted two fingers in me, and I gasped as I immediately came.
We waited a few minutes for me to compose myself, then went off in search of a place a bit more private. I didn't object when the sweats came down this time, and in fact found that the sensations were rather increased due to the earlier activities.
When we were lying on the straw basking in the afterglow, I brought that up to him. “I don't think you'd be able to do that again.”
“Sex?” He asked, confused.
“No, before.” I blushed, hesitant to talk about it.
“Baby, I promise. I won't spank you again. I crossed the line, and I'm sorry.”
“No, it--” I bit my lip. “It wouldn't have the same effect.”
He lifted up on one elbow, interested. “What are you saying?”
I turned away. “Never mind, it's nothing.”
“Schroeder,” he growled, his deep voice sending tingles throughout my body.
I rolled back over towards him, but still didn't look him in the eye. His chest was a much safer place to look. I chose my words carefully. “In private, it might have some....it wouldn't discourage behavior in the future.”
I could almost hear the gears clicking into place in his brain. “That bears investigating.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, and rolled back on top of me.
After another energetic workout, I was even less enthused to go back to work. “I just want to stay here. We can make a little nest out of the straw, and never leave.”
He chuckled and pulled a piece of hay out of my hair. “It might get a bit messy.”
“So?”
“So you need to go back to work,” he said firmly.
“You do realize I just quit, right? And after chewing out my CEO, I’m doubting they want me to stick around like I offered. Heck, they don’t normally even let people do their two weeks.”
“Well, they don’t have to, legally,” Eddie pointed out, then shut up at my glare. “Baby. You’re indispensable. Joseph knows and recognizes that, even if Alan didn’t. Frankly, I don’t see how or why you’ve put up with Alan for this long.”
I sighed, and snuggled closer to my husband. “Yeah, he’s a jerk. An asshole. Really. But it’s not written anywhere that you have to like your boss. I’ve cooled down, thanks to your...um...insistence...and if I could take back quitting, I would.”
“Wait, what?” Eddie sat up, dumping me off of his shoulder. I pushed him back down and cuddled again.
“I like my job. I like the work I do. If I have to put up with an overbearing, assholish, jerk of a boss, that’s life. What was that line I heard in a musical, ‘it’s not so much do what you like, as like what you do’?” I shrugged. “I’m doing better than a lot of people in liking what I do. And it’s not Alan’s fault he’s the way he is. “
“Schroeder, you’re seriously going to make excuses for him? It doesn’t matter if he was dropped on the head as a child, or whatever it was.”
I bit my lip. While Alan wasn’t dropped, he was abused. Matt, a co-worker who I was friendly with, had gone to high school with Alan, and had given me the scoop one day when we were ranting over margaritas. Alan’s stepfather had beat him on several occasions, and when Alan stood up for himself and fought back, the broken leg he had received in the fight cost Alan his college football scholarship. Ten years later, Alan was still bitter about that, and woe to the person who wore a Texas A&M jersey in Alan’s presence.
“People in your life influence you, that’s all I’m saying, “ I finally answered.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree for now. You have control over your own actions. You can’t control what someone else does, but you can what you do.”
“Heh. I learned that last night. No one else called 911 for the apartments being on fire. Just me. It was too important to tweet about it and post photos on Facebook. And now...I don't even know where I'm sleeping tonight,” I confessed.
“You can stay in my hotel room, but I can't guarantee how much sleep you'd get,”he waggled his eyebrows and tweaked a nipple.
“I thought we were going to keep our distance publicly – wait a few weeks before telling folk that we eloped.”
“I don't think we anticipated your apartment going up in flames.” He massaged the breast whose nipple he tweaked.
“No, we shouldn't.” I thought through the amount of money in my bank account, and the time frame the renter's insurance company had given me this morning on payout. “I can afford a room for myself tonight, and if I can get tomorrow off, find a new apartment.”
“Money isn't a problem, Schroeder.”
“Maybe not for you.”
“Wife, money is not a problem,” he repeated.
Oh yeah. He's a millionaire. I felt weird taking his money, though. “Eddie...”
“Sweetheart, taking care of you is my job. Let me do it, okay?”
“We should probably save money when possible, then. Like just getting one hotel room, instead of one.”
“Yes, it would make good financial sense.” He nodded solemnly. “Especially since the room is expensed.”
Eddie looked to where his watch would be, but it wasn't there. “I should get a pocket watch. I can probably wrap things up about two o'clock. Do you want to go to the hotel room now, and wait for me there? We can go shopping afterwards.”
I shook my head. “I don't have a laptop anymore, remember? I wouldn't have anything to do in the room. I'm not accomplishing anything anyway; they can dock me a vacation day if they want, but I'm just looking online for apartments this afternoon. Making lists, too, of what all I need to get. 'Everything' is a bit on the broad side.” I stood up, and began to put my clothes back on. The bottom of my sweatpants were stained from the dirt and muck, but I scraped as much off as possible. Eddie's clothes had mostly dried from his dip in the river, thanks to our lovemaking activities. We looked as decent as we could, for returning to modern times. But honestly, we had to find a better way to do this.
Chapter Four
Eddie kept hold of my hands when we returned to modern times. "What happened to your hand?" He asked, only now noticing the bruises on the knuckles, rubbing them gently with his thumb. "You didn't punch Alan and I missed it, did you?"
I pulled my hand from his before anyone saw. "I knocked a little too vigorously on my neighbor's door to wake them. I'm fine."
He frowned and looked like he wanted to say something else, but the surroundings kept him from it.
"I'll send you that document right away," I told him for the benefit of the salesman who entered the kitchen, and ducked under Eddie's arm and walked back towards my office.
True to my word, I avoided work for the next few hours, and instead checked out apartment complexes. Ideally I would just move into a new apartment in my current complex, but they told me earlier that mo
rning they were all full. They were hesitant to let me out of my lease without paying an early termination fee. Instead of getting angry like I had in the morning, I let it go. I'd just sic Eddie on them. The lesson he taught me earlier paid off, and still fresh in my mind; my chair was rather uncomfortable.
“Oh my God, have you seen the consultant?” Dylan, my best friend at the office, came in and sat down. “Wait, of course you have. You were with him in New York.” Dylan fanned herself with a folder. “He is so hot!”
I considered, then leaned over my desk to stage whisper to my friend. “Last week? He was voted one of the top eligible bachelors in New York.” Course he's not a bachelor anymore, I finished to myself.
Dylan slumped back in the chair. “Ah, heavenly. Think he'd be interested in me?”
“I think he'd imagine you're taken.”
“Darn. Tammy said she saw you two holding hands in the break room. What was up with that? Is something going on?”
I hid my left hand under my desk guiltily, and held up my right. “He was just admiring the bruises from waking up the upstairs neighbor.”
My friend nodded; she had heard the full story earlier that morning. Dylan pulled herself up out of the chair stiffly. “Sorry, gotta go. The baby keeps kicking my bladder. One more month, then he is so outta here!”
“Go!” I giggled after her. Dylan wore the glow of pregnancy well, and the love for the baby and her husband of five years showed on her face too. I looked down at my wedding ring, realizing that could be me in the not too distant future. A grin grew across my face. That wouldn't be so bad.
It wasn't long after lunch when I saw Joseph go past my doorway into Alan's office.
“Alan,” Joseph said loudly with the door open. He had to know I could hear. Eddie slipped down the hall and into my office and perched on the edge of a seat, finger to his lips for me to keep quiet. “Do you know why Schroeder is wearing sweats today?”
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