"Liz, have you read this s**t?"
I shook my head.
"No, I've just been handing them out onto everyone's desks. I figured I'd read it when I was done."
"Well lemme tell you what I'm looking at. They're talking about doing a mentoring program where the office managers work one on one with employees they "see potential in". Like, what the f**k does that mean?"
"Seems to me that they're saying some of us here don't have any potential, Maya." I chuckled as I said the words. It wasn't lost on Maya that I was talking about myself.
"Girl, you need to calm down with that s**t. You know damn well you're good at your job, and more than that, you're consistent. I don't know about being a big shot upper management, but you've definitely got what it takes to be an office manager."
"You mean other than my invisible presence half the time?"
"Well I mean that and the way you dress…"
She mumbled the second part of her sentence, but I still heard her.
"I don't like wasting money on clothes for a place I don't even want to be most of the time."
Maya didn't need to know that most of my clothes besides work clothes were pajamas.
"I'm just playin, girl." Maya chuckled, but it seemed more because she felt uncomfortable than that she had been joking. "But anyways, read through that when you're done passing them out to everyone. They said they're having a meeting this afternoon at four to answer questions."
"Of course at 4. That way if the meeting goes too long it makes us stay later and doesn't cut into our work time."
Maya nodded with a look of annoyed fake amusement. She was my best friend in the office and even though we didn't have much in common as far as personal lives, we got along fairly well in the controlled environment.
---
In the end it took me almost an hour to hand out all the packets, not because there was a lot, but because everyone, even the people I rarely talked to, had to start a three minute conversation about how the new policy seemed like bullshit. The worst part was that it put me in limbo for work. There was only forty-five minutes until the meeting, which was not enough time to finish what I had been doing before Sarah had cursed me with handing out the pamphlets, but enough time that if I didn't do anything someone was sure to notice. Thankfully, I'd been in this position before, and between my non- existence to most people and knowing how to avoid chatty people, I snuck to the bathroom unnoticed. As I sat down on the toilet (which, if you think about it, is kinda gross if you don't pull your pants down) and pulled out my phone to play the stupid matching gem game my mom had gotten me into.
Kissing.
The idea popped into my head and I realized that I had come into the stall my dream had taken place in. My body heated up, and before I knew it I could feel myself getting frisky. I tried to focus on my game again, but the more I tried the more I thought about my dream. It was obsessive, and before long I couldn't stop myself.
I closed my eyes so I could picture the dream more vividly and leaned back the best I could. I imagined Sarah's slender, perfectly manicured fingers sliding down my stomach and into my pants. My own hand followed suit, and I took a shuddered breath as I began to rub myself. My panties were damp, though thankfully not as much as they had been after my dream.
My body trembled as I moved my fingers, and before long I had my back arched forward, trying to keep my trembling breathing to a minimum.
"Sarah…"
I whispered her name without meaning to. Before I knew it, I was repeating it, over and over again, like a magic spell that would get me off. And that's exactly what it did. My body shook as I came, and I had to bite down on the side of my lip to stop from crying out. I grasped for anything around me for support so I didn't fall to the floor as my knees shook.
Knock, knock, knock.
I froze. This was not happening. How could I have been so stupid? It had all happened so suddenly that I hadn't even thought to check the other stalls. Or had someone walked in while I had been distracted. It didn't matter. I just needed to play it off the best I could.
I desperately pulled some toilet paper into my hand so that the noise would make the person think I was actually using the facilities.
"One second!"
The person on the other side of the door cleared their throat. All I could see were their shoes, and as I pretended to pull my pants up, I realized I knew those shoes. I had looked them up. $1300 limited edition designer black heels. Only one person in the office had a pair.
As I opened the door to the stall I was greeted by a pair of glaring brown eyes.
"My office. Immediately."
That was all she said before turning and walking from the room, her heels clacking on the tiles as she did. There was no way I wouldn't have heard them if she had just walked in. Had she been in the other stall the whole time?
"f**k f**k f**k f**k" I couldn't stop. Where as her name had been a s*x spell, this was a desperate plea to the universe that the situation wasn't as horrible as it seemed. I was about to lose my job, or at minimum get written up with HR. I couldn't even fathom the consequences.
I slid my phone into my back pocket and washed my hands excessively. That's all I could do to delay the inevitable. All I could do now was pray.