I strolled down the hallway of the company that I worked for, my heels clicking quietly on the tiled floor as the tails of my trench coat rustled behind me with each step. I had the earpiece of my glasses between my teeth as I started to remove my sunglasses from my face. In one hand I held the largest cup of coffee that the gas station on my way to work sold, I think it was 20 ounces, but I would have liked it if the cup were at least twice that size. I was dressed the way that I usually dressed for work, a pair of Dockers, a button down dress shirt and a pair of loafers. Today the Dockers were black and the shirt was white. I absently let my sunglasses slip into my breast pocket finally freeing the other glasses from my mouth so that I could drink some of the coffee that my body was begging for. The coffee had already begun to cool from its exposure to the cold winter morning outside. I was the network administrator for my company and also served as an outside consultant to other companies who could afford the fees that we charged. As a result of my position I had more leeway than the average employee, which gave me the opportunity to essentially create and enforce my own dress code regardless of how the others in the company thought I should appear.
My office was situated in a corner of the building that sometimes gave me the feeling of being in a closet. It was almost as if I was a child that the company was embarrassed by and kept hidden away from the general public. Personally, I thought it was funny and actually preferred being lost in the labyrinth of corridors as I was. It was a rather small office that had an equal small waiting room of sorts in front of the door. Actually the waiting room was just a wide section of the hallway where a chair had been placed against one wall and a small desk for a secretary against the other. The whole area had originally had an antiseptic hospital appearance to it, which I had tried to rectify. In actually I ended up created what seemed like a teenagers room with cheap carpet and a couple of ratty posters. However, my previous secretary had taken it upon herself to help me do a better job. As a result, there was a nice patch of dark blue carpet that covered the waiting area and the walls had been painted in a soothing cream color with two tastefully framed prints from some famous artist that I had never heard of before. Unfortunately for me, the secretary had retired about two months ago leaving me once again on my own. Although, my new secretary was much more interesting to look at than had been the other one, although I did wish that she would dress a little more suggestively than she did.
At the time that my previous secretary had retired, there had been quite a fight within the secretary pool as different people jockeyed and tried to get the position with me. I'm not entirely certain why they thought that I would not hear about what they said and why they wanted the position, but they had spoken quite freely. This attitude prompted me to insist on interviewing the people and I choose whom I wanted rather than the customary assignment system that the company employed. Apparently, many people had the opinion that I was easy to work for, I did not ask my secretary to do a whole lot and actually did a fair amount of their work myself. This led to a general opinion that working for me was the ideal place to be as there was hardly ever anything to do. I thought that that assessment was fairly accurate, however, I did not want someone unwilling to help me as my secretary, which gave me the idea of the interviews. I asked each person why they wanted to work with me; most of them gave me some rehearsed answer about wanting to learn more about computers or some other kind of bullshit. However, the one that I chose, a lady named Raylene, actually gave me an honest answer. She had said that she heard that I did not give a heavy workload to my secretary and since she was going to night school she hoped to have some time to study. Anybody who was willing to go to night school and be honest was someone I wanted. It caused quite a stir, but I insisted on having her and eventually got my way, after the computer systems within the personnel department mysteriously crashed and could not be brought back online, it seems everyone needs their access to the Internet. Raylene had been my secretary now for two weeks.
I rounded the last corner and found myself in my little waiting room. Raylene was sitting behind her little desk; it was one of those cheap wood things from Wal-Mart. She had her flat screen monitor on one corner of the desk, her phone on the other and an open textbook in the middle. It was almost comical as I looked at her, the first time I had seen this I thought she was asleep. Her face was close to the book and her long brown hair had fallen all around her head, given the impression that she was actually sleeping on the book. But, I now new better. She was majoring in psychology and had just begun her senior year. I figured that meant she would only be with me for another year, but I tried not to think about that too much. She was wearing a long yellow dress. The dress, if she were standing, would come down to her ankles. The neckline was a little low and gave a hint of the sizeable cleavage that she could display if she so chose, however, she kept it buttoned up and revealed next to nothing save for a small V coming down from her throat.
"Looks fun." I said as I placed my coffee cup on an edge of her desk. She jumped slightly and then looked up, using her hands to brush the hair back from her face and over her shoulders. Her hair was pretty long and surprisingly thick. She wore a delicate pair of wire frame glasses that perched on her equally delicate nose. Even though she had only been with me for a couple of weeks, we had developed a friendship of sorts. Which means that she did claim sexual harassment for the crude or suggestive comments that I sometimes threw at her. It was strange, but somehow I seemed to be able to make a comment that would get another guy slapped and all I would get is a blushing laugh or at worse a nervous laugh. With Raylene, I always seemed to get the blushing laugh.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you coming up." She said with a smile as she slid a piece of paper into her book and quietly closed it. She knew that I did not mind her studying at work, in fact I encouraged it, however, she still seemed as though she felt she was doing something wrong when she did it.
"That was the point." I told her taking another sip of my coffee and briefly wondering how pathetic life must have been before it, "I was trying to catch you naked." She laughed with this as we both new the absurdity of such a statement, she just did not seem like the type who would be naked in public. Although, there was a part of me that believed there was more to this lady than met the eye.
"What have I got today?" I asked her drinking more of the coffee. With a flick of her wrist she moved her mouse around and with a couple of clicks brought up a new screen. Usually I checked my schedule myself, but I had gotten in the habit of asking her to do it, mainly because it kept me by her desk for a few more minutes.
"Uh," she started then pushed her glasses up her nose, "ten you've got an onsite inspection and meeting with First National Bank, new network ground up. And, that is it. But, tomorrow you've got to be here at eight, meeting with CEO's."
"Great, just shoot me now." I said realizing that I would basically be gone all-day and then in the morning a dreaded meeting with my bosses. I leaned forward and glanced at her textbook, the title was "A Sexual Odyssey: From Forbidden Fruit to Cybersex". "Interesting, got an exam?" I asked her nodding towards the book. She glanced down at the book and blushed, not realizing that the title was showing as it was.
"No, research project that I'm trying to get a basis for." She replied, still keeping her eyes on the book. I grunted a response, sensing that she was uncomfortable, or, or what? I thought.
"When you get a chance, could you get me copies of the Bank's folder so I can take it with me?" I asked her, most of the preliminary work had already been done for their network.
She scooted her chair back and started rummaging through a little filing drawer in her desk. I grabbed my coffee cup and started towards the door to my office. Once upon a time there had been a large window next to my door, however I had had that replace with a one-way mirror. Many people thought it was strange, but that way I could see who was waiting to see me. During my time with the company I had learned that there were some people who had genuine problems with the computer systems and some who created their own. Thos who caused their own problems, tended to wait longer than those who did not.
"Well, if you need to do any hands on research, I'll be in here." I said to her as I neared the door. I knew that the smile on my face was evident in my voice. I glanced into the mirror, and saw her looking up over the edge of her desk. Her bangs had fallen onto her forehead and a length of hair had fallen to obscure her right eye. However, I could clearly see her looking at my butt. The surprised me and I considered wiggling it back and forth but decided against it. Her eyes shifted and she saw that I could see her in the mirror, she saw the smile on my face as I opened the door and just before I stepped through, her head darted back below the surface of the desk, she had turned a shade of red that I do not recall ever seeing before. I closed the door behind me.
My office contained the same dark blue carpet and cream walls as my little waiting room. My desk was also one of those imitation things from Wal-Mart, although it was the biggest model that they had. There were three flat screen monitors on my desk all of them hooked up to my computer. Along one wall was a bookshelf that was stacked full of books; occasionally I used them but not very often. Behind my desk was my chair, a black leather full back reclining thing that also came from Wal-Mart. Raylene had one as well and there were two more on the visiting side of my desk. I also had a little futon kind of couch against one wall that had in the past served as a bed when I dealt with serious network problems. I shivered as I remembered the chaos of the 2000 switchover and that despite my calming reassurances; everyone had been in a panic.
I placed my nearly empty coffee cup on the desk and dropped into my chair. I moved my mouse, to kill the screensaver and watched as my three monitors all cleared. Nothing interesting on the network, no emails, a good start to the day. I leaned back in my chair and propped my feet on the desk. I looked through the mirror as Raylene placed a folder on one edge of her desk then opened her textbook again. Once again she looked as though she had fallen asleep. I toyed with the idea of trying to mount a hidden camera out there somewhere, but decided that there was no real point. Glancing at my watch, I decided that I had about an hour before I had to leave for the day. My coffee cup was empty, so I decided to just sit and wait. I watched Raylene through the window, letting my mind drift this way and that. She had pulled out a notebook and was now writing some things down on a blank piece of paper. Eventually it was time for me to leave.
