For while the world had succeeded in shaming Ellie out of biting, it couldn’t make her forget the joy of tiptoeing behind Robbie Kettrick while he was standing at the craft table, smugly stacking blocks. Everything is normal, quiet, boring, and then here comes Ellie—CHOMP! Now Robbie Kettrick is screaming like a baby and everybody is scrambling and yelling, and Ellie is no longer just a little girl but a wild creature pacing the halls of the preschool, sowing chaos and destruction in her wake.
* * *
The difference between children and adults is that adults understand the consequences of their actions, and Ellie, as an adult, understood that if she wanted to pay her rent and keep her health insurance, she could not run around biting people at work. Therefore, for a long time, Ellie did not seriously consider biting her coworkers—not until the office manager died of a heart attack at lunch, in front of everyone, and the temp agency sent Corey Allen to replace him.
Corey Allen! Later, Ellie’s coworkers would ask each other: What on Earth had the people at the temp agency been thinking, sending him? Green-eyed, blond-haired, pink-cheeked Corey Allen did not belong in an office environment. Corey Allen, like a faun or a satyr, belonged in a sunlit field surrounded by happy naked nymphs, making love and drinking wine. As Michelle in Accounting put it, Corey Allen gave off the impression that he might, at any second, decide to quit being an office manager and run off to live in a tree. Ellie, who was something of an outcast at work, often walked in on hushed conversations about Corey Allen that presumably centered around how much the other women in the office wanted to sleep with him. Corey Allen was beautiful and fey.
Ellie didn’t want to have sex with Corey Allen. Ellie wanted to bite him, hard.
She’d discovered this while watching Corey Allen place glazed donuts on a platter before the Monday morning meeting. When he had finished arranging the donuts, he turned around and, noticing her staring at him, winked. “Why, Ellie, you look hungry,” he said with a leer.
Ellie had not been checking out Corey Allen, the way he seemed to be implying; she hadn’t even been thinking about the donuts. But suddenly she found herself imagining what it would be like to lock her jaws onto the soft part of Corey Allen’s neck. Corey Allen would yelp and sink to his knees, that entitled look wiped right off his face. He’d slap weakly at her and cry, “Oh no, Ellie! Stop! Please! What is going on?” But Ellie wouldn’t answer, because her mouth would be too full of Corey Allen’s sweet and gamy flesh. Not that it had to be his neck. She wasn’t picky about location. She could bite Corey Allen on his hand, or his face. Or his elbow. Or his ass. Each would have a different taste, a different mouthfeel; a different proportion of bone to fat to skin; each would be, in its own way, delectable.
Maybe I will bite Corey Allen, Ellie thought after the meeting. Ellie worked in communications, which meant that she spent 90 percent of her time crafting emails that no one ever read. She had a savings account and life insurance, but no lover, no ambition, no close friends. Her entire existence, she sometimes felt, was premised on the idea that pursuing pleasure was less important than avoiding pain. Perhaps the problem with adulthood was that you weighed the consequences of your actions too carefully, in a way that left you with a life you despised. What if Ellie did bite Corey Allen? What if she did? What then?
That night, Ellie changed into her nicest pajamas, lit a candle, and poured herself a glass of Cabernet. Then, she uncapped a pen, opened her favorite notebook, and turned to a fresh page.
Reasons not to bite Corey Allen
1. It is wrong.
2. I could get in trouble.
She nibbled on the tip of her pen, then added two subsidiary points.
Reasons not to bite Corey Allen
1. It is wrong.
2. I could get in trouble.
a. I could get fired
b. I could get arrested/fined
* * *
Ellie thought: If it meant that I could bite Corey, I would not mind getting fired. For the past year and a half, she’d spent most of her lunch hour, most days, on her phone, swiping through job postings on Monster.com. She was ready for a new position, and felt perfectly well qualified for one. However, finding a new job after quitting your old one was not the same as finding a new job after you’d been fired from your old job for biting. Would it be impossible to get a new job in those circumstances, or merely very difficult? It was hard to know.
Ellie sipped her wine and turned her attention to b. I could get arrested/fined. Well, that was certainly a possibility. But the truth was that if a woman bit a man in an office environment, there would be a strong assumption that the man had done something to deserve it. If, for example, she went up to Corey and bit him, in full view of everyone at Monday Morning Meeting, and then later, when they asked her why she’d done it, she answered, “Sexual gratification,” then yes, she’d probably be arrested. But if, instead, she bit Corey in private, say, in the copy room, and when they asked her why she’d done it, she said, “He tried to touch me inappropriately,” or even, so as not to mar his reputation, “He came up behind me and scared me; I bit him instinctively, I’m so sorry,” then people would probably give her the benefit of the doubt. When you got right down to it, as a young white woman without a criminal record, Ellie probably had at least one get-out-of-jail-free card. As long as she spun some semi-reasonable story, she would be believed.
In fact, Ellie thought, as she stretched out her legs and refilled her glass of wine, there was another possibility for how this could all play out. What if she went up to Corey, in private, and bit him, and the experience was so bizarre that he didn’t tell anyone about it, because he had trouble believing it himself?
Imagine. It’s late in the afternoon, past five. Dark already. The office is empty. Everyone but Corey and Ellie has gone home. Corey is loading paper into the Xerox machine when Ellie enters the room. She stands behind him, inappropriately close. He thinks he knows what is coming. He stiffens, preparing to politely reject her, not because he has standards for workplace propriety, but because he’s already hooking up with Rachel in HR. “Ellie . . .” he begins, apologetically, as she grabs his forearm and lifts it to her mouth.
Corey’s lovely face contorts first in shock, then pain. “Stop it, Ellie!” he cries out, but no one hears him. The tendons of his arm roll and snap beneath Ellie’s jaws. Finally, Corey gathers his wits enough to shove Ellie away. She stumbles backward, lands against the stacks of copy paper, and slides to the ground. Corey stares at her in horror, clutching his bleeding arm. He’s waiting for her explanation, but she gives him none. Instead, she stands up calmly, straightens her skirt, and wipes the blood from her mouth before she leaves the room.
What does Corey do? Of course, he could run straight to HR and say, “Ellie bit me!” but after all, it was an office, not a preschool. Everything about the conversation would be ridiculous. “Ellie, did you bite Corey?” they would ask, and Ellie would raise her eyebrows and say, “Uh . . . no? What a weird question.” If the HR people tried to push, and said, “Ellie, these are serious allegations,” all Ellie would have to say was, “Yeah, seriously insane. Of course I did not bite the office manager and I don’t know why he’s saying that I did.”
Really, the odds were high Corey wouldn’t say anything at all. He would stay in the copy room for a while, contemplating the situation, and then the next day, he’d decide that the easiest thing to do would be to pretend it hadn’t happened. He’d show up to work in a long-sleeved shirt, to cover the ugly bruise on his arm, the little half-moon where she’d marked him with her teeth. And then part of Corey Allen’s brain would be reserved for keeping track of where, exactly, Ellie was. She’d catch him looking at her in meetings, and when they were at office parties together, he’d continually be moving, trying to keep as far as possible from her; in a way, it’d be like they were always dancing, even if he never spoke to her again. Months later, when no one else was watching, she’d grin and snap her jaws at him, and he’d t
urn ghost-pale, and hurry from the room. He would remember her for the rest of his life; they’d be joined by the glistening strands of his fear.
Later that night, the sweat drying on her body, her legs tangled in the sheets, Ellie forced herself to go back out to the living room and get her notebook. Fantasies were fantasies, but it was important to keep at least one foot in the realm of the real. She got back in bed and opened the notebook, and rewrote her list:
Reasons Not to Bite Corey Allen
1. It is wrong
2. It is wrong
3. It is wrong
4. It is wrong
Ellie took her notebook into work, where she put the list at the bottom of her drawer, and looked at it every time the temptation to bite Corey Allen grew too great. She invented a game, a game called Opportunity. Ellie wasn’t going to bite Corey, even though she wanted to, and she thought she deserved some credit for that. So whenever she found herself in a situation where she could have bitten him, and didn’t, she awarded herself a point. She recorded the time and place in her notebook, next to a little star. One point for passing him in an empty stairwell. One point for noticing when he went into a single-occupancy bathroom and didn’t immediately lock the door. One point when, just like in her fantasy, she spotted him going into the copy room, by himself, after everyone else had gone home. When she reached ten points, she took herself out for ice cream, and while she ate, she allowed herself to fantasize about biting Corey Allen to her heart’s content.
After a few weeks, Ellie noticed something interesting about her Opportunities. If you drew a graph illustrating the number of Opportunities she’d achieved across time, it would have started out low at first, then grown steadily as she started learning Corey Allen’s schedule and identifying the prime locations in the office where you could bite someone unobserved. But then, in mid-December, there was a dramatic drop-off: Corey Allen’s schedule became unpredictable, and when he entered those prime locations, they were rarely empty. There was some noise in the data, so it took Ellie a little while to realize that the person who was most often in these locations was Michelle from Accounting. Who was married.
Hmmm.
By the time the annual holiday party rolled around, playing Opportunity wasn’t very much fun anymore. Ellie didn’t want to fantasize about biting Corey Allen; she wanted to bite him, and the fact that she couldn’t made her mad. Yes, sometimes you wanted something and couldn’t have it. But it was also true that sometimes people knew what they wanted was unethical, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Like, sleeping with a married person: that was wrong, but people did it every day. Right over there, for example, was poor Michelle from Accounting’s husband, wearing a Christmas sweater covered in holly berries. Imagine that guy lying awake at night, trying to figure out why his wife had become so distant. Imagine the hurt and shame he’d feel if he went through her text messages and discovered a series of romantic exchanges between his wife and Corey Allen, the very person she’d once described as “a creepy little elf.” Surely, the emotional pain Michelle from Accounting’s husband would feel under those circumstances would dwarf the physical pain from one tiny little bite. Especially if Ellie bit Corey somewhere without that many nerve endings—his back, say, or his upper arm.
Stop it, Ellie, she told herself firmly. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Corey Allen is responsible for his own behavior, and you are responsible for yours.
Still, she couldn’t help glaring as he mingled flirtatiously, distributing goblets of punch. He really was making some intense eye contact with Rachel from HR. Michelle from Accounting was probably feeling pretty jealous right now. But then, most likely Corey Allen was feeling jealous of Michelle from Accounting’s husband, so maybe that was the whole point. It really wasn’t nice of Corey Allen to flirt with Rachel like that, just to make Michelle jealous. Corey Allen was pretty much the worst.
Ellie stood around, wondering if Corey Allen would notice her. The dress she was wearing was tight, black velvet, floor-length: sexier than what she usually wore in the office, but possibly also funereal, not quite the thing to attract the attention of a person as playful as Corey Allen. Now Corey Allen was on the far side of the party, chatting up someone Ellie didn’t recognize, probably a coworker’s wife. Maybe Corey Allen played his own version of Opportunity, awarding himself points for every woman he could make giggle and blush.
Ellie felt overwhelmed with despair, close to suicidal. What was the point of anything? Maybe she should bite Corey Allen and then throw herself off a cliff.
Go home, Ellie, she thought. You’re drunk.
She left her emptied glass on the table beside her and headed to the single-occupancy bathroom to splash some water on her face. When she emerged, there he was, alone in the otherwise empty hallway, waiting for her: Corey Allen.
A point to Ellie! Here was a golden Opportunity. Which meant, if she didn’t want to do anything she’d regret, she needed to leave.
“Hello, Ellie!” Corey Allen said brightly. “I thought you were leaving! I didn’t want to let you escape without saying good-bye!”
“I was just peeing,” Ellie said, and tried to brush past him.
Corey Allen threw his head back and laughed, and Ellie imagined sinking her teeth into his Adam’s apple like it was a Granny Smith. Goddamnit, Corey Allen, she thought. I’m trying to exert self-control here. Let me pass.
“Wait, Ellie,” Corey Allen said, taking hold of her arm. “Do you see that up there? On the ceiling?”
“Huh?” Ellie said, reflexively looking up. And as she did, Corey Allen grabbed her, sealing his lips over hers, and shoving his tongue in her mouth. She tried to push him away, but he was able to restrain her with one hand while using the other to grab hold of her ass. He was remarkably strong for an elf.
When he finally released her, after what felt like an eternity, she fell back, gasping, certain she was going to puke.
“What the fuck, Corey?” she said.
Corey Allen giggled. “I thought I saw mistletoe!” he cried. “Whoops! My mistake!”
That was awful, Ellie thought. Worse than being bitten. Truly grotesque.
But then, she thought, oh right. Here’s my chance.
Though she was twenty years out of practice, Ellie’s nerve was steady and her aim was true. She opened her mouth like a lamprey and lunged for the mound of his cheekbone, which crunched spectacularly beneath her teeth. The bite was everything she’d dreamed of. Corey shrieked, and flailed, and clawed at her, but she did not let go; instead, she snapped her head back and forth, three times, like a dog inflicting a death shake, and bit off a chunk of his face.
Corey Allen collapsed at her feet, clutching himself and screaming.
Ellie spat a wad of his skin from her mouth, wiping his blood from her lips with the back of her hand.
Oh dear.
She’d gone too far.
He’d be disfigured.
She was going to go to jail.
At least she’d have this memory for the rest of her life. She’d use her hours of imprisonment to sketch loving pictures of Corey Allen’s contorted face in the seconds after she bit him, and she’d tape them to the walls of her cell.
From behind her came an accusing voice: “I saw what happened. I saw the whole thing.” It was Michelle from Accounting. Before Ellie could say anything, Michelle from Accounting wrapped her in a hug.
“Are you okay?” Michelle asked. “I’m so sorry.”
“Huh?” Ellie said.
“That was assault,” Michelle said. “He assaulted you.”
“Oh yeah!” Ellie said, remembering. “He did!”
“He did the same to me. He followed me into the stairwell and grabbed me. More than once. He’s a total predator. I came out here to warn you. Thank God you were able to defend yourself. You’re such a fighter, Ellie. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” said Ellie.
And she was.
Because it turned out that Co
rey Allen had groped not only Ellie, and not only Michelle, but several other women. The response from HR was quick and severe. Corey left, and Ellie didn’t even get a letter in her file; in fact, she ended up with many more friends in the office than she’d had before.
Even so, she left within six months, in search of a fresh start, and after that, she changed jobs regularly every year. Because, as Ellie quickly learned, there was one in every office: the man everyone whispered about. All she had to do was listen, and wait, and give him an Opportunity, and, soon enough, he would find her.
Acknowledgments
Lalise Melillo. Marc Shell. Biodun Jeyifo. Glenda Carpio. Bret Anthony Johnston. Jeff VanderMeer. Ann VanderMeer. Claire Vaye Watkins. Laura Kasischke. Peter Ho Davies. Eileen Pollack. Doug Trevor. Petra Kuppers. Helen Zell. The Hopwood Foundation. Clarion Class of 2014. Michigan MFA Class of 2017. Jenni Ferrari-Adler. Taylor Curtin. Sally Wofford-Girand. Deborah Treisman. Alison Callahan. Meagan Harris. Brita Lundberg. Jennifer Bergstrom. Jennifer Robinson. Carolyn Reidy. Jon Karp. Michal Shavit. Ana Fletcher. Emma Paterson. Joe Pickering. Carly Wray. Lila Byock. Michelle Kroes. Darian Lanzetta. Olivia Blaustein. Marion Grice. Jill Kenrick. Alison Grice. Carol Roupenian. Gary Gazzaniga. Armen Roupenian. Alex Roupenian. Elisa Roupenian Toha. Martin Toha. Vivian Toha. Jenn Liddiard. Melissa Urann Hilley. Liz Maynes-Aminzade. Lesley Goodman. Andrew Jacobs. James Brandt. Nick Donofrio. Schuyler Senft-Grupp. Christin Lee. Lucy Eazer. Ashley Whitaker. Ingrid Hammond. Callie Collins.
Thank you.
About the Author
KRISTEN ROUPENIAN graduated from Barnard College and holds a PhD in English from Harvard, as well as an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. She is the author of the short story “Cat Person,” which was published in The New Yorker and selected by Sheila Heti for The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018. She is currently at work on a novel. Follow her on Twitter @KRoupenian.
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