“Okay,” I said, sniffling. I wasn’t sure I meant it. Then again, I didn’t think I could move from this bench much less go all the way to the HR building. It felt like there was a void all around me, and if I took one single step I would fall into it and never climb out. How the hell was I going to get through this day? Then it hit me. Xanax!
“Mom,” I said, sounding noticeably more perky, “I gotta go.”
A dab of Xanax got me through the panicky stage, but now it was tomorrow and I felt no clarity about what to do. All I knew was that I felt like crap and I couldn’t even blog about it. I didn’t want to be one of those bloggers who got fired for their indiscretions. Just recently, a temp at Empire Corp. had been fired for posting a picture of Rodney Rolands taking a bong hit at a party. (How the temp had managed to get admission to an event where the likes of Rodney Rolands was partying was never quite explained.) Outside, lightning flashed, and within two seconds, another clap of thunder shook the building.
Something came loose inside me.
Fuck it. If I wasn’t going to tell HR what they really should know, I could at least blog about it. What was I being so paranoid about? It wasn’t like I was giving away proprietary company information or posting pictures of The Rod. Loser was never going to find this thing, and if he did, so what? Like the happy couple were going to make an issue about it after what they had done? True, I didn’t know for a fact that they were fucking, but they’d been running together. The evidence spoke for itself. As the storm raged outside—the next day The Seattle Times would call it “biblical”—I typed the truth into my computer.
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
9:13 AM Breakup Babe
I knew coming back from vacation would be hard. I just didn’t know it would be THIS hard.
That, people, is because my worst paranoid fantasies about Loser have come true. He is f*cking my manager. Not my direct manager, thank God, but my manager’s manager’s manager—otherwise known as the vice president of our unit. Who, if she wanted, could fire me any old time. And who, judging by the way this woman (let’s call her Loserette) reacted to me last time she saw me in the hall—averting her eyes and squirming away from me—would like to do just that.
Well, I’d like to see her do it! Because I’d be at HR’s doorstep in no time, pointing out the little conflict of interest that we have here. At which point, her poor underwear-model boyfriend might get wind of this whole thing too.
And you know, I can’t help but wonder, was she the one, the one that he cheated on me with back in May? If so, they are even more pathetic, selfish, and unprofessional than I imagined.
I’ve suspected this putrid little relationship for some time, but was too afraid to mention it here, for fear I’d get fired. Well, f*ck that. I can’t be fired for telling the truth, can I? Well, maybe I can. But I just can’t keep it from you, my loyal readers, any longer.
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You poor thing, it just gets worse and worse! Can you find another job? That is a terrible situation! Want to come be a dental hygienist in Cleveland? Fun, fun! At least there is no Loser and Loserette, only dorky dentists.
Little Princess | Homepage | 10/29/02—3:04 P.M.
My guess is Loserette would bend over backward not to do anything bad to you, i.e., give you a bad review. It still sucks, though. My advice would be to get out of that situation.
CandyCane | Homepage | 10/29/02—7:38 P.M.
Why don’t you tell her boyfriend?
Anonymous | 10/30/02—12:56—A.M.
Those two sound like they deserve each other! My ex-boyfriend and my best friend started dating and I had to see them all around town in the same places he and I used to go. I felt so awful I was suicidal. Finally they got married and then divorced after three months, after she cheated on him! Something like that will happen to these two.
Tabitha | Homepage | 10/30/02—10:11 A.M.
I think all you can do in this situation is try to take the high ground. Don’t stoop to their level. Don’t try to exact revenge. (In fact, are you sure you want to blog about it?) Just know that eventually their relationship will implode, and if it doesn’t, they’re at least keeping the world free of their shit by being with each other. You’ll be moving on to much bigger and better things. This phase of dealing with it will be the toughest.
Jake | 10/30/02—1:15 P.M.
Chapter Seventeen
At work the next day, shaky from three hours of sleep and three cups of coffee, I blogged from my desk. Though I’d been full of defiance when Arthur broke the news, ready to confront either one of those abominable adulterers, I’d now reverted to postbreakup behavior: keeping my door closed and scurrying around the hallway like a vampire afraid of daylight. I feared the sight of them might cause a meltdown on an epic scale: one to bring the men in the little white coats. General Celexa was hard at work in the trenches, but even he might not be able to handle an enemy incursion on this scale.
I still hadn’t decided what, if anything, to do about the situation. I’d changed my mind at least five times: I’d talk to Lyle. I’d talk to HR. I would take a baseball bat to Loser’s black BMW. I’d quit. I’d change jobs. I wouldn’t do anything.
What I had done thus far, however, was to lose myself in the oblivion of the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy’s copious charms. I was supposed to be finding someone more “suitable,” but there was not a suitable boy in sight and I needed comfort, damn it.
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
3:17 PM Breakup Babe
Until the revelations of two days ago, I was determined to stop seeing the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy.
On the plane home from New York, in between episodes of fearing for my life, I mentally rehearsed different variations of my breakup speech:
“Look, you’re great, but we’re in such different life situations.” (Was this really true? He was gainfully employed after all.)
“I’m really attracted to you, but let’s face it, I’m looking for someone to get married and have kids with. You’re too young for me.” (But, wait, wasn’t I trying to recover from my last long-term relationship and just have “fun”?)
“I’m still pissed at you for flirting with all those girls at that party, jack-off.”
But I didn’t get the chance to make any of my little speeches. Because he called last night when I was in a most vulnerable state and said, “Hey, I’m climbing in this little competition at Vertical World, wanna come watch?”
Now, tell me how could I possibly turn that down?
And so the first I saw of the LRS upon my return was not at a dimly lit bar where I would let him down gently over drinks from a position of strength and serenity. It was in a bright climbing gym swarming with shirtless young males where I would watch him display his physical prowess from a position of desperate neediness.
To tell the truth, I was quite apprehensive about this event—and not just because I knew I should be breaking up with him. After the LRS’s behavior at our last group function, I assumed he would probably ignore me in favor of all the lithe li’l rock climber girls in attendance. I would skulk in a corner, watching him flirt and climb, meanwhile remembering the glory days when I’d climbed rocks with my old boyfriend, Josh. I would feel rejected and morose, like an earthbound loser.
But no!
I arrived at Vertical World and looked around in confusion at the mass of bodies. Within seconds, the LRS made a beeline toward me, kissed me on the lips, in front of every rock climber girl and boy in the place—not that anyone was paying attention—and said, “Hey! Welcome back!” Then he put his arm around me and led me toward the other end of the high-ceilinged climbing gym. “Come on, I gotta do my first round in a few minutes.”
Stunned by this display of boyfriend-like attention, I followed him in a daze. For two hours I watched him scamper up three difficult routes, along with several other scantily clad young studs, and my horniness was at an all-time high.
But I got even more excited when he won first place in the speed category.
As I watched the LRS accept his award, Sensible Girl and Needy Girl crowded around me.
“Holy sh*t!” Needy Girl panted. “Can you believe you’re dating such a stud?” For the occasion, she had donned a sporty pink tank top that showed off her nonexistent shoulder muscles and a mid-length denim skirt with embroidered flowers on the hem. She stared at the LRS, mesmerized, as he received his little trophy.
“Dating is a strong word for what they’re doing,” Sensible Girl said through gritted teeth. Her attempts at sportiness tonight included a visor, of the kind housewives from Oklahoma might be spotted wearing at Disneyland. “You were going to break up with him tonight, remember?”
Needy Girl laughed a loud, happy laugh. For once she sounded sure of herself in the face of Sensible Girl’s sternness.
“I don’t think so,” she said, taking her eyes off the LRS long enough to wink at me. “After what she’s gone through this week, you need to cut her a little slack. Besides, she’s waited a long time to find a guy like this!” Then she nudged me with her elbow and went back to staring at the LRS.
“A guy like what?” Sensible Girl spat out the words. “A teenager who looks good in spandex?”
We ignored her.
Two hours after that, the LRS and I were in my bed, a place we’d been numerous times before. But this time, after a mere five minutes, he’d started to peel off his pants. I didn’t stop him. Five minutes after that, he took my shirt off, then my pants. Again, no resistance on my part. We’d been this far before, but never this fast. This time, however, the Smart switch in my brain was firmly in the off position.
And because of this flipped switch, I didn’t stop the LRS when he started to slide my underwear off (Victoria’s Secret, $10). He almost stopped himself, because he was so surprised that I didn’t stop him. He paused when they were halfway off, looked at me, started to say something, then thought better of it and pulled them the rest of the way off. Then he lay down gently on top of me.
I stopped typing and looked around my office, which had finally become a little less sterile, and a little more me. I’d hung a tapestry from Guatemala, a whimsical poster from France, a silk screen from China. Displaying my travels on the wall reminded me, and everyone who walked in, that this drab office did not define me. But still, it felt jarring to be writing about such intimate things in this colorful yet undeniably corporate space.
I stared at the words I’d just written on the screen. I seemed to be getting bolder every day. The first time I’d written about the LRS “kneading my breasts gently with his strong hands” and waited for a thunderbolt to smite me on the head, it did, sort of, in the form of an e-mail from my sister.
FROM: Sarah Cooper
TO: Rachel Cooper
SUBJECT: Blog
Hmm, funny blog yesterday, but don’t you think you’re getting just a little risqué?
Her comment had bothered me. For about an hour.
Dear Sarah (I wanted to write back),
Is there some reason having to do with birth order that you feel you must always be morally superior? Is it simply a way of getting back at me for hitting you one too many times on the head with the Wiffle bat when we were kids?
Instead, I just didn’t respond. Then I mostly got over it, even though her question still rankled. Not because I thought it was bad to be risqué—and God knows, my stuff wasn’t really that risqué—but because I had my own concerns about why I was writing this stuff. I worried that I was now pandering to my readers, dishing in order to keep them satisfied rather than to satisfy my own creative urges. Funny—for so long I felt like I’d written in a vacuum, and now, all of a sudden, blogging had given me an audience to whom I felt an allegiance. A responsibility.
I remembered a job interview I’d had about six years ago. When the dot-coms had just started to boom. I’d applied for a job as an editor at an Empire-sponsored online city guide (now long dead, but popular while it lasted). And the hiring manager asked me a question that I was totally unprepared for. He said, “What do you think is the biggest benefit of the Internet?”
I didn’t have a clue. I was not one of the “early adopters” who was communicating via chat rooms and newsgroups. Even though I’d been the editor of a travel Web site for a year prior to this interview, I still didn’t see the appeal of the Internet. I’d rather read a book or a real magazine than go online, except maybe to get directions somewhere or track down long-lost boyfriends. So I gave a lame answer about being able to post new content every day and have “cool multimedia.”
He grimaced and I knew I’d given the wrong answer. “It connects people in a way that nothing else has before,” he said, drumming his fingers on the table, and looking at me intently. “Don’t you think?”
“Oh yeah, definitely!” I said in an overenthusiastic way. I didn’t get that job. But now I think I would probably do a lot better in the interview. Here I was, typing my self-indulgent brokenhearted musings from Seattle, and now—just three months after I’d launched my blog—people from all over the country (the world, even) were reading it. And not only reading my entries, but leaving comments for me, writing e-mail, and putting links to my site from theirs. And I loved it.
Perhaps I was even getting a bit of a movie-star complex about it, but was that so bad? My ego needed all the boosting it could get.
I went back to typing.
Then, suddenly, I realized what kind of trouble I was in. I felt his smooth, hard body against me. Every inch of his skin pulsated with heat. He breathed raggedly in my ear as he kissed my cheek, my neck. Bit my shoulder.
And, without the shield of stiff denim between my torso and his, well, I felt how big he was. Before this moment, I’d only ever sensed the hugeness of his manhood. Because, up until last night, I had not, at any cost, allowed the LRS to remove his undergarments. I had touched his deadly weapon, without looking at it in its entirety. I had made conjectures about its length, its girth—which seemed, to my relatively experienced hand, to be somewhat larger than usual. But I had not seen it. Because until now, the Smart switch had still been in the on position. Now, however, I realized that the word “Li’l” should never have been part of his name.
Damn!
This realization pulled me out of the moment just long enough that the Smart switch almost flipped back on. I struggled out from under him and sat up straight. I felt longing so intense it made me want to cry. I reached for the water on my nightstand and gulped it.
“What is it?” The LRS looked startled. Startled but gorgeous.
The candlelight in my room softened the contours of his face and highlighted his cheekbones. His chest and shoulders seemed to glisten.
“Nothing,” I whispered. It’s just that I’m afraid of what might happen to me if I do this. Afraid of how good it will feel now, and how bad it will feel later, when it all falls apart.
Right then, the evening could have changed course. If he’d done anything else but what he did, I would have pulled my pants back on and called it a night. If he’d reached out to touch my breasts, for example, or sighed in exasperation.
Instead, he touched my face gently with the tips of his fingers.
As a scent of jasmine wafted through the room from the candle, he traced my cheekbones with his fingers, brushed them gently through my hair. And watched me. Patiently.
And that was it. The Gesture. I am a slave to that gesture. Touch my face like that and I will do anything you want. It always feels like the most loving gesture in the world to me. Fighting back tears, I turned toward him. Whatever resistance that had briefly, bravely flared was gone.
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When I looked up from my computer screen again, I was practically in tears. Of course, my weepiness was probably partly due to sleep deprivation. I’d gotten a whopping three hours of sleep last night before the LRS slipped out of my apartment at 7 A.M. to go to work. He�
��d attempted to be quiet, but at his first movement, I was wide awake. Listening. Wondering. Waiting. To see if he would say good-bye. To see when this whole thing would crash and burn. He walked quietly over to my side of the bed. Kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “Bye. I’ll see you soon.” When, I wanted to say? When? But I just whispered back. “Bye.” Pretending to be sleepy and nonchalant.
I slumped forward on my desk. Images from last night flitted through my brain. For a twenty-four-year-old, the LRS sure knew his way around the bedroom. I supposed that if one had to be on the rebound, one could do worse than an amply endowed young stud. A mix of happiness, fear, and grief swirled through me. I felt sad, scared, and happy all at once. Then I realized something. I had to go to the bathroom. Damn it! I didn’t want to leave my office! Especially on the verge of an emotional swoon. What if Loser saw me like this? How I hated it that I had to feel hunted and ashamed in my own workplace! But as I stood up and prepared to brave the dangerous hallways, I had to admit that last night was like a shield that fitted right over my heart. It felt like protection at the moment, even if it would disintegrate under the least pressure.
POST A COMMENT
Oh, jeez, didn’t I tell you to ditch this guy already? I swear to God you need to move back in with us where we can keep an eye on you. I Feel Like Your Mom | 10/30/02—6:04 P.M.
This is your best entry ever!
Delilah | Homepage | 10/30/02—9:09 P.M.
Bad idea to sleep with him. Now he’s got what he wanted you won’t hear from him again. At least you had fun.
TJ3 | 10/31/02—8:41 A.M.
Chapter Eighteen
Two weeks passed. The trees caught fire as fall progressed. I breathed in the cool air with relief and relished the tang in the air. But sometimes the days went by excruciatingly slowly, especially if I didn’t have a date lined up for the evening. My unspoken agreement with the Li’l Rockclimbing Spy was that we saw each other once or twice a week. The other days I found myself anxiously perusing Nervy.com from my office, wondering if I should finally respond to one of my applicants.
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