Rich Burton was in office at the usual time of 9 a.m. ready and raring to go. He wasn't very tall at a height of 5'8" but what he lacked in height, he made up for in stature.
Rich was head of the marketing department at Zanster Inc. and had been for the past 3 years. Under him Marketing had seen vast improvements in turnover; He was the chief reason for Zanster bagging most of the advertising rights to some of the hottest products that were selling like hot cakes in the market. He ran a tight ship and above all hated tardiness.
So his surprise was evident when his secretary informed him as he passed by her desk that a Miss Mary Iverson wanted to see him immediately.
'Mary Iverson.. that bitch has some nerve he thought to himself.
"Send her in immediately."
When Mary entered his office cabin, Rich gave her a look of extreme contempt.
"Thank you for gracing us with your presence! Where the hell have you been!"
"Sir, please I implore you, give me a chance to explain."
"Usually I do not extend that courtesy to anybody but in your case I will make an exception.. not because I like you nor do I feel an iota of sympathy towards you.. but I would like to hear your reason for abandoning one of the most crucial assignments ever given to somebody with your experience.. abandoning it and not having the common courtesy to inform us of the reason for your absence.. or when you would be back.." the constrained anger in his voice was evident.
"Please sir.. I would like to tell you the truth. I know that I messed up but you have to understand sir and I am not lying or looking for sympathy here.. I was in a very dark place emotionally."
"Save the sob story for somebody who would give a damn. You better say something to convince me real quick or the next words out of my mouth will be - you're fired!"
"Give me the Rosherfort project."
"Give you the Rosherfort project?" scoffed Rich.
"You audacious little.." Rich almost uttered an expletive.
"Get out of my office. As a matter of fact clear out your desk."
"I know that the pitch is due tomorrow and I have a very good idea as to how we can land the deal."
"An idea better than the idea my team came up with! As a matter of fact your team that you abandoned when they needed you"
"Yes. Hear me out and you will not be disappointed. Look I know I made a mistake but I assure you it was just a one off and I will never disappoint you or let anybody down again. I promise."
"Well you won't be getting away without consequences Miss Iverson. Consider the days you were away as leave without pay."
"Done.. now would you hear me out?"
"Now? I'd rather you pitch this idea to the team.. Let me call a meeting. You have 5 minutes to prepare to say whatever it is you're thinking the pitch should be about."
As Mary got up to leave, Rich spoke again with a finality in his voice..
"Oh and Miss Iverson. If it turns out to be a waste of my time and the team's; Consider yourself out of a job."
Rosherfort was a new Chocolate manufacturing company that was only just setting up base. They wanted a marketing campaign that would drive home the idea that their chocolates were genuine liqueur filled dark chocolates, the likes of which did not exist in the world. They wanted to drive home the point that consuming one bite of chocolate would transport the consumer to another world, give them a feeling of euphoria like no other narcotic could give. Not that this held true for their product, but the marketing campaign had to portray that and instil that false sense into their customers.
Mary started one of the most important presentations of her life. She had worked all night on the presentation and if she was exhausted, she did not let it show.
Her presentation was short and sweet and it took her fifteen minutes to pitch her idea to the team. The idea was very simple.
'Rosherfort chocolates will make you transcend. Why aim for a galaxy when you can aim for infinity and beyond.. take a bite and travel to the edges of the universe."
Rich looked sceptical. Her heart skipped a beat as he turned to the team and asked for their opinion. This was it.. her moment of reckoning.
But instead of burning her at the stake, her team members started to come up with suggestions to improve the pitch. Soon the meeting room was filled with excited voices discussing how to enhance the idea that Mary had come up with. Mary gladly joined in and for a while it looked as if everybody had forgotten about her absence.
But at the end of the meeting as everybody prepared to go back to their desks and get started with the final pitch, Rich brought back the topic of her absence.
"Hold on guys, I wanted to say something related to Miss Iverson here. Won't take but a moment.."
The color drained from Mary's face.
"Now Miss Iverson kind of left us in the lurch last week to disappear of the face of the earth for a few days. I'm sure a lot of you may be thinking that it is acceptable. Well I would like to assure you it is not.."
He turned to Mary and said
"Miss Iverson you will not be eligible for a promotion this year. Your pay grade will remain the same."
Although Mary was a tad annoyed at this, still she felt that it was better than losing her job. She accepted her sentence gracefully.
"Well let's get to it then." Said Rich getting up signalling that it was go time.
Mary immediately got back to her desk to incorporate the ideas they had come up with in the meeting. Although she was feeling drowsy, she fought back the sleep and continued to work. Around lunch time she got a call from her mother.
"Just calling to see if you are ok honey. How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine ma, kinda busy right now.. would it be allright if I call you back later?"
"Sure sure honey, talk to me later. Take care."
By around 8 o'clock in the evening, Mary had finished incorporating the graphics and other paraphernalia into the presentation that the team had provided to her. Most of the people had left. She added the final slide to the presentation and finally mailed it out to everybody so that they could take a look. Then she hung around for a bit in case somebody wanted something incorporated.
She allowed herself to take a bit of a break and headed to the coffee machine. It was so quiet in the office, just like the first time when she had made love to Rumpelstiltskin in that conference room. For a moment she felt a pang of remorse but then she shook it out of her head.
She took the coffee back to her seat and as she unlocked her computer screen, she saw the familiar blue writing blinking on her instant messenger.
"Where have you been?"
She chose to ignore it and closed the messenger window.
Immediately she saw it blinking in the taskbar indicating that somebody had sent her another message.
'That son of a bitch. How dare he!' She opened the IM window and blocked the sender.
But soon after about 10 minutes she got a ping from another sender. It was Rumpelstiltskin again. Mary was a bit surprised that for one he was able to send her messages even though she had blocked him and two why the fuck did he want to talk to her after he had left her in such a sorry state of affairs.
Flaring up, Mary opened the IM window and typed furiously
"Leave me alone damn it! I don't want to talk to you or see you.. ever!"
She blocked the sender again and closed the window.
She sat there fuming, sipping her coffee waiting for any mails to show up. A little while later the exhaustion caught up with her and she lay down her head on the desk to rest for a bit.
She was woken up by a hand placed on her shoulder. Startled she turned around to see Rumpelstiltskin looking dapper in a suit, his blue eyes probing hers.
"Wake up sleepy head." He said smiling.
"What is your problem? Which part of leave me alone did you not understand?"
"Look.. I know I behaved like an ass. And I'm sorry.. really sorry, but you have to understand you came on too strong."
Mary pushed him away and stood up to her full height which came up to his shoulders.
"I came on too strong! You fucked me and had your way with me. All I wanted was to know what it is we were actually doing. Making love! I could do that with anyone. But you! I gave myself to you and all I wanted in return was to know if you felt the same way about me. All I wanted was to put a name to a face, a face and a body that I fucked almost every night. And you self centred unemotional prick! You threw it in my face and walked away. Walk away now, cuz this.." she made a circular motion with her hands "is never going to happen."
