Author's Note: There is no same sex activity in this segment. It is in the "Gay Male" category because of other portions of the story.
Part IV: The Ghosts of Transgressions Past: Tracy the Intern (Part I)
That Monday night, after my first day back at work, I was in a dark place. My employees, whom I'd previously exercised complete and appropriate authority over, now had me under their thumbs. I was theirs to control. I didn't manage them anymore; they managed me,
I couldn't bring myself to eat anything for dinner. I turned on the television, trying to distract myself from my woes—to no avail. I wound up drinking myself into a stupor and falling asleep on the couch.
It wasn't a restful sleep. I woke up about 4:30 am with a throbbing headache and a foul taste in my mouth.
I got up, took some aspirin, stripped off my clothes, and flopped into my bed, hoping to get a few more hours of sleep before facing another day of humiliation at work.
No luck on that, though. I decided to go to work early to avoid having to walk past the others. That plan worked fine. I was in my office with the door closed before anyone but the custodian was there. Unfortunately, that didn't mean I had avoided being humiliated and degraded for the day.
I looked at my office calendar and saw that Lori had scheduled a meeting for me with her and Phyllis at 9:00 am in my office. And, sure enough, promptly at 9:00, there was a knock on my door. I didn't have the option of ignoring it. They had me by the balls, so to speak.
"We want to talk with you about last Friday night," Lori said, taking control of our meeting immediately.
"What's there to talk about?" I asked defensively.
"You see, that's the problem," Phyllis responded. "You don't think there's anything to talk about. But there is." She paused. "What there is to talk about is
why
last Friday night was necessary—what you did to make it necessary."
"It's not like we had no reason to orchestrate last Friday night's activities," Lori chimed in. "We had our grievances."
"Yes," I said, "and you made them known at yesterday's 'meeting'. You made them known and you addressed them all."
"That's where you're wrong, Mr. Simmons." It was Lori again. "We addressed the horrible company policies you imposed on us but we barely scratched the surface of your horrible, disgusting conduct—what really prompted us to provide you with last Friday's adventure."
"You're going to have some lessons in how not to be a vile, disgusting creep," Phyllis said, spitting out the words.
"And lesson one," Lori continued, "starts right now." They were working like a tag team, passing back and forth the opportunity to manage me.
I braced myself, thinking I was ready for whatever was in store for me. I wasn't.
"Remember Tracy?" I didn't, but Lori went on quickly anyway. "Oh, sure you do ... the 18-year-old student who tried to do the internship her high school required here."
"Oh, yeah," I recalled. "She quit before she finished, right?"
"Oh, that's right. She quit! Do you have any idea why?"
"She told me she didn't think the internship was a good fit."
"So you think that was it?" I knew there was more to it but I wasn't going to introduce evidence against myself.
Lori continued. "You don't think she quit because you kept probing her about her social life: 'Do you have a boyfriend?' 'I'll bet you're popular with the boys,' 'Did you have a hot date last weekend?' and things like that. Do you think that might have contributed to her decision?"
Probably, but I didn't answer.
Phyllis chimed in, "That would have been bad enough—actionable if Tracy had felt she could pursue it. But what you did was much worse." I waited for the second shoe to drop. "You asked her if she found older men attractive and whether she'd ever dated an older, experienced man." she paused. "Do you think that's okay?"
"I guess not," I mumbled.
"Oh, and that wasn't the worst, and you know it!" The third shoe was about to drop.
Third shoe"?! What the fuck? Is that even a thing? Turns out it is.