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  He pulls away, giving me the most in-love look I’ve ever seen on him. It’s as if that kiss had more of a transformational effect on him than it did on me. It’s like it’s changed him into a completely different person. A person who doesn’t have a care in the world, or a job that might be sucking his soul out of him.

  “You’ve always been a sweet one like that. Patient and kind,” he says, as if he’s just now realized what I’ve been giving him for over a year through our long-distance relationship, and even before then.

  I lean forward and kiss my monitor. I kiss it more than once, actually. I always like to outdo him this way, when I can. So, he gets three separate kisses, and now it’s his turn to chuckle under them.

  “Mmmm,” he moans, letting me hear much more than just “I miss you” in his moan. “Such a beautiful mouth and lips. I forgot how beautiful and plump those are. I wish you could do more with that mouth than just kiss me.”

  My pussy wakes up a bit more at the tease in his words.

  “I know. I wish so, too,” I say, pulling away from the monitor, and giving him a bit of a pouty face. The one I use to use on him a lot when he and I lived together, and I was role-playing as his maid in an apron. “We could if my Dennis would just come home.”

  I put emphasis on come but I don’t stop what I’m saying. “If he would just—”

  “Come to Paris like you promised me,” finishes Dennis, looking a little drunk on wine and love, but also looking frustrated with me at the same time.

  He punctuates this with a hefty gulp from his wine glass.

  “If you did that, then maybe my dick wouldn’t be so lonely.”

  His tone is gruff and deep again, but this time, I’m caught between feeling horny and ashamed. I’m not sure which emotion I feel more. It’s enough to make me fidget in my seat.

  “If you miss me so much, Melissa, and if your boss pays you as well as you constantly tell me every time I bring up the fact that you could do so much better for yourself than being a secretary, then you could fly yourself here. Come to Paris for a while.”

  I nod, not sure if I have any right or reason to respond. Sure, I could say the same thing back to him. I could say so right now, but that wouldn’t do any good — not in the interest of keeping this conversation a good one.

  I do decide to say one thing, however. I say it quietly, demurely.

  “You could come back to New York. I would fly you here, Dennis.”

  “No.”

  The suddenness and harshness of his response makes me sit up. I hold my breath.

  “No,” he says again, trying this time to not sound so mean or frustrated. “I don’t want to come to America, Melissa. If I wanted to come there, I would have gotten a job there. But I have no interest in being there. Even on vacation. Even with my girlfriend.”

  I take a shallow breath, nodding. “Fine.”

  That’s really all I can say. It’s not fine. Not really, but what else can I say?

  I clear my throat, though I really feel like crying. My desire is not completely gone, but it is waning. I feel so unsupported by Dennis, when that didn’t used to be the case.

  Sure, I know some of it has got to be from how stressed he is at his work, how irritated he is with being buried with all these shows and all these demands, but that doesn’t excuse this, does it?

  That doesn’t give him a free pass with this, does it?

  I don’t think so.

  But I’m not going to tell him so.

  There’s no point.

  It would just cause us to argue, first of all.

  Second of all, I don’t have the time. I have to go to work. If I don’t leave now, I will be late.

  “I’ve got to go, Dennis,” I say.

  I try to keep my voice soft and free of pain or anything that he might take the wrong way.

  I do my best to give him a smile, another little kiss, though I don’t lean forward to give it to him.

  “I’m sorry to run out on you like this, honey, but I’ve got to get to work.”

  For the first time since we got into this conversation, Dennis looks energized. He is totally and completely behind this idea, and in a way that I find odd. I would think he would be upset at me; grouch or complain at me for having to leave him like this, so abruptly, but he looks completely fine with it.

  “Work’s important,” he says. “No harm done, Melissa.”

  He leans in a bit.

  “Listen. I don’t mean to be so hard on you, dear. But America’s not your lover. I am. Remember that when I say I’m tired of you not coming here.”

  I nod, feeling a little better and worse, at the same time, after his words.

  “I understand, Dennis.” I smile a little guiltily. “I like it here, though. You’d understand that, I think, if you come back here. If you visited in person, and are reminded of all the wonders that New York has to offer. If you met some of my friends, you would like them too, I think.”

  Dennis replies with a hmmm, and I take this as my queue to leave.

  “I’ve got to end this, for now, Dennis, but do you want to connect on Friday? Your Saturday afternoon?”

  “That’s our routine, is it not?”

  “Yes,” I say, “I just want to make sure you’re aware of what our agreement is.”

  Here, I’m not able to keep my resentment and confusion at bay. I’ve started thinking and having feels about all of his mood swings.

  “I haven’t forgotten our agreement,” he replies, sounding just as snappish.

  “Fine, then I’ll talk to you again in a few days.”

  “Fine.” Dennis moves a lock of his hair behind one of his ears. “In a few days.”

  “I love…” Before I can finish saying what I was going to say, the call drops.

  Or rather, Dennis hangs up.

  “…you.”

  I sit there for a few moments, completely blown away by his behavior.

  How could he just hang up on me like that without even saying something like “I love you” at the end?

  He always says that kind of thing.

  I can’t think about it for long, though. I do have to get to work. And that requires me to get up from my desk, grab my things, and get out to my car. That’s a bunch of things I’m not going to be able to do if I’m sitting around here, completely dumbfounded by my boyfriend.

  What the hell has gotten into him? I think, finishing up my tea, and shutting down my computer. What the hell is eating him at work so badly that he feels like he needs to act like that? Act loving and mean from one minute to the next?

  With these thoughts in mind, I quickly grab my keys, my purse, and other essentials and head out the door.

  I don’t know. And I don’t really care, I think from behind the wheel of my car and while preparing to drive out of my parking lot.

  I’ve got work I need to focus on, not Dennis’s mood swings.

  I think that, but I really feel completely differently: his mood swings are never a good thing.

  And they are never simple, either.

  Chapter Three

  Tommy

  Hoo-boy. Deep breaths, deep breaths. If you ever want to get out of the black hole, the cesspool known as the “legal assistants’ floor,” you’ve got to be braver than this and more in control than this, Tommy.

  I look at myself in my crappy rearview mirror, ready and willing to admit the truth. It’s not even 9:30 in the morning yet, and I’m already sweating like a well-dressed pig.

  Emphasis on the pig part. My clothes are rumpled enough to look like they came out of a pigsty, at least. My hair is a little on the unkempt side. And yes, before you ask, I’ve washed it this morning, like I do every morning.

  And of course, on the day I need to look my best and feel my best, this is what happens — I’m sweating, way too much. My clothes are already wrinkled and disheveled. I don’t look like I deserve a promotion. My suit, despite being “nice,” has the unfortunate “frump” vibe to it, even tho
ugh it was bought recently.

  It’s the only suit I have. The only one that fits me. It’s something my dad got me for my high school graduation. It was way too big then, and it’s way too big now, over ten years later.

  I sigh, fighting with the collar of my dress shirt and the collar of the suit jacket, to try to get them to lay flat or to do something other than looking like they don’t want to have anything to do with me.

  No such luck, though. Messing with the jacket and dress shirt seems to only make things worse, and I look more disheveled or frumpier. And now, I’ve got even less time than I had before.

  I swear under my breath and decide to get out of my car and get going. No amount of fiddling with my jacket or the slacks is going to make it look any better or any less ill-fitting. And I’ve got bigger things to worry about this morning.

  Like my interview with one Ms. Joan Vanacore, one of the new lawyers around here at McKenzie Tech. She’s been brought in to form the new legal department. It’s something bigger and more formal than the legal assistants’ group I’ve been part of for the last few years.

  I’ve heard she’s a recent transplant from Missouri. I also heard she ran a pretty big law firm over that way and was well-liked in the community and among her peers.

  I got the lead about the job through the grapevine on the legal assistants’ floor here at McKenzie Tech. Originally, I wasn’t going to even bother with it. I’ve been trying to get out of being an aid for at least over a year, since I got my law degree, and each time a job opening has come up, it’s been taken by someone else.

  So, when I originally heard about this inter-office opening, I wasn’t that interested. Except for when my “coworkers”— I prefer to think of them as co-conspirators in my pain and suffering — rode my ass again about always being in the assistants’ pool and never climbing the corporate ladder.

  Plus, I needed to make some more money. When you have a father like mine — an old guy who doesn’t seem to realize that it’s the twenty-first century and that no, that latest lottery ticket isn’t going to make all your worries go away — you learn to keep trying to move out of the house.

  I climb out of my car, grab my file folder full of resumes and letters of recommendation, and start the long journey across the parking lot to the main building of McKenzie Tech.

  “People give you a ton of shit once they see anything different about you, and the guys I have to work with down on the legal assistants’ floor are no fucking different. I have no allies there, so I need to leave them behind,” I whisper to myself, holding the folder close to my chest and picking up my pace.

  “I need to leave them at their level if I’m ever going to get anywhere.”

  I don’t have time to waste, trying to catch my breath.

  Focus on getting Ms. Vanacore to like you. She’s picky, I’ve heard. Not one to just take anybody for the job, so you’ve got to show her that you’re somebody. That you are not just another run-of-the-mill aid, and that you’ve actually spent time gaining skills and knowledge.

  While everyone else sits around doing the bare minimum, you’ve been taking over the work they’re too lazy to do or don’t do correctly.

  Finally, I make it to the main building. I stop for a moment, deciding I should catch my breath. Ms. Vanacore isn’t going to want me collapsing the minute I get to her interview or being so out of breath that I’m gasping out every answer. That’s going to make her send me right back down to the legal aids’ floor.

  After a moment or two of catching my breath, and of trying to get rid of some of the sweat, so it doesn’t soak too much into my clothes, I walk inside the main building. Jog is more like it, but whatever.

  From the main entrance, I make my way as quickly as I can to an elevator, hoping and praying that I don’t have to wait around for one to come to get me.

  Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long at all — no more than a minute or so. I quickly get on, ignoring the looks of some of the people already in the elevator. I’ve seen that look before. The “what are you doing trying to get ahead; you belong stuck down in the assistants’ pool forever” type of look.

  I ignore it, reminding myself that I have something more valuable than their perfect bodies. I have a brain. A valuable one. One that’s going to be worth a higher, more well-paid position.

  Though it’s still hard not to feel their eyes — their stares and their judgments about me. Those are blaring loud and clear throughout the whole elevator. I even hear them whispering about how sweaty I am or how disheveled my clothes are, and I have to ignore this too.

  I hold more tightly onto my folder of important papers and hope that, come this time tomorrow, I will be riding up to one of the partners’ floors, serving an actual partner and doing actual legal work as an associate lawyer and assistant, not just heading to my regular swamp.

  I get out at the executive’s floor at the top of the building. I move swiftly and decisively, knowing that my interview time is quickly approaching and that it’s being held in one of the conference rooms on this floor.

  I move so fast; I don’t even notice her. Not until I’ve already run smack dab into her, knocking her keys and drink container from her hand.

  Chapter Four

  Melissa

  Refilling my tea in the coffee bar at the entrance to the executive’s floor, I think over the conversation I had with Dennis this morning. I also make up my mind to not think about Dennis anymore today. My mind has been preoccupied with him, and what his attitude might be trying to tell me about his personal life, the whole entire walk here.

  But that all comes to an end when a frantic man comes barreling out of the elevator on my floor, clutching a file folder to his chest. Tall and broad-chested, he looks out of place here, as if maybe he should be playing the role of the Incredible Hulk rather than working behind a desk for a technology company.

  His face is sweaty and flushed, but his deep-brown eyes are determined. I see him before he sees me, but what happens next is unavoidable. He slams right into me, and it’s only then, only after my drink has flown out of my hand along with my car keys, that he notices me there.

  His eyes go wide in shock and horror, but it’s too late. Everything in both of our hands has already gone flying. My drink cup lands next to one of the tables.

  Some of my tea splashes onto the carpet, but thankfully it’s not the whole thing. Somehow, the cover has slammed down on the drink-hole on it before any more damage is done. My keys fly far. They end up on my desk, but not before knocking back my portrait of Dennis.

  The man’s papers and file folder, those are the biggest “casualty” of this whole collision. They go everywhere, like an explosion. Papers shift open into the air and flutter down all around us, like big-business confetti at a wedding nobody asked for.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, out of breath. “Fuck. Sorry,” he says again.

  Each time he gets more and more out of breath. I actually see sweat beading on his forehead and on his face. His cheeks are beet red. I assume that’s out of embarrassment rather than him feeling cold, since he’s also sweating.

  But surprisingly, he has this cuteness about him. Like a big, overstuffed teddy bear or something of that sort. His face and eyes are boyish. He quickly hustles to pick up my drink container. He doesn’t bother to get my keys, but he does stop and stare at the picture on my desk.

  What he thinks when he sees it, I don’t know, and I don’t care to know. Whatever it is, it’s something complex enough to keep him there a moment. Either that or catching his breath.

  I busy myself with picking up his papers, as well as the folder they go in. I move quickly, thankful that there aren’t dozens of these, just a good handful. I pick one of the last few pieces of paper up, unable to keep from looking at it.

  It’s a resume. Another paper I pick up is a letter of recommendation. There are a few different letters of recommendation, it looks like, and from a variety of professional relationships — mostl
y to do with the law. One looks like it’s from a professor, yet another looks like it’s from a boss at an internship or something of that sort.

  “Stop looking at his personal papers,” I grumble to myself, hurrying to pick up the rest of the fallen papers and put them in the folder. “It’s none of your business what he does.”

  As I turn around, this thought is in my head, but it quickly changes. When I see how totally and completely disheveled the man named Tommy is (I got this from looking at his resume), I know I can’t let him go to an interview looking like that. Not when he looks like a half-drowned rat dressed at its own funeral.

  I go up to him, handing him his folder. At the same time, he hands me my drink container, murmuring yet again, “I’m sorry,” but this time he adds something to it.

  He says, “I should’ve looked where I was going.”

  I take my drink container and grab his other hand. Without stopping to ask him whether he wants me to do this or not, I drag him with me to one of the private bathrooms.

  “Come on, Tommy. If you’re going for an interview, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go in there looking like that.”

  I say this as I take him with me, but he’s not even really putting up a fight — and he could if he wanted to. He’s nearly twice my size.

  Amazingly, he follows dutifully along, as if he is more than willing to have me give him an impromptu makeover. And he should be. I’m always impeccably dressed. Even today, even with running short on time, I’m dressed in my best. In a flawless blouse, fancy heels, and fancier slacks.

  I pull open the door to the private bathroom, pushing him ahead of me.

  “Get in there. I’m going to fix you up as quickly as I can.”

  Again, Tommy seems to follow my lead — my coercion — into the bathroom, even though he could resist it if he wanted to. I follow him in, close the door, and get to work. I only have a few minutes, if that, to work my magic.

  Chapter Five

  Tommy