Sophia is my boss. A beautiful soul, sadly trapped in a boring, mind-numbing job. She was older than me at thirty-seven, but hell, I was only nineteen so everyone at work was older than me. I needed a job and since she was a good friend of the family she took me on. We worked together in a small office in just another anonymous office complex. Our parent company leased this little office for her team of engineers when they ran out of room at the corporate headquarters or the manufacturing plant. But since most of the engineers were able to work from home except when they needed to travel, we had the office to ourselves. She sat in her office and handled assignments and managerial paperwork while I ordered parts for the team and handled getting them shipped to where they were needed. Some days were busy enough, but far too many were rather slow, filled with the occasional irate calls from people (customers and co-workers) who were upset that things weren't going the way they wanted.
Sophia was bright, I mean really, really smart. She had a great sense of humor and actually liked football, a lot! The team respected her for the most part too, she was a good boss. But we had to downsize and lost two engineers a few months ago. The rest of the team stayed busy and only skyped or emailed us. No one from corporate ever came out either. Her boss didn't like driving out here and so if needed, she had to drive downtown to see him. Maybe it was a power trip for him, I don't know.
Anyway this day started out pretty crappy and I arrived at work pissed off. I tried to focus on getting things done but after having a vendor drop the ball yet again, I stood up and screamed "FUCK!"
Sophia came out, "What's up?"
"Oh, even though I told Bruce at Decker Wholesale that we expected to replace a lot of those BX-4500's, he never stocked them! Now it's gonna take ten days for him to get them and another three to get them out to Ryan!"
"Okay, maybe I'll reach out to his DM, see if I can get them to understand what this is doing to us." she offered. She started to turn away then stopped. "Sam, is there something else wrong? You seemed upset from the time you walked in."
I sighed and sat down. "Nothing. Well, nothing you wanna hear about."
She smiled and sat down. "Oh I don't know, try me."
"Uh, well, Candi broke up with me last night."
"Ouch." Sophia replied. "I thought you guys were pretty solid. Why would she do that?"
"You really wanna know?"
"Oh, shit.. Let me guess something to do with rushing her or need personal space?"
"Actually that's true but the other way around." I blurted out. I needed someone to talk to.
"What? Oh hell, you mean.."
"Yeah, she wanted to have me AND her girlfriend on the side. And she was pissed that I wouldn't sleep with her yet."
"Damn!" Sophia said. "She's Bi?"
"Yeah but her girlfriend doesn't like me, wants nothing to do with me. I knew something was off, you know? I told her she needed to chose and she did."
"Oh fuck, Sam. Wait, you guys hadn't had sex?"
I blushed. This was more information than I'd planned on revealing. "No, not yet. I always felt like... maybe feared is more like it, that she was hiding something."
"Looks like you were right." She replied. "You probably dodged a bullet there."
"Yeah, yeah you're right. I'm just so fucking tired of being alone at night. I really hoped that she'd be the one. And damn, she was so pretty!"
Sophia turned in her chair and looked out the window. "God, do I understand. Everyone I fall for, either leaves or disappoints me. Either way I get hurt. Then I end up alone in bed again with my vibrator and a bottle of Bailey's watching porn on my laptop."
I choked and stared at her.
"Oh dear," she said softly. "Did I say that out loud? Fuck. I, uh don't suppose you could forget that, could you?"
"I doubt I'll ever forget that, sorry. But your secret's safe with me."
"Thanks." she said.
We sat there in an awkward silence for a minute until I couldn't stand it.
"So, uh, what kind of porn do you like?" I asked.
We both burst out laughing.
"Oh just about anything that doesn't involve midgets!"
"What? Why? What have you got against midgets? Small people need sex too!"
"Oh god Sam, I know it all too well! My first husband was only 5'3!"
"No way! Really?"