Bev: The Interview (3 page)

"I told you no," Victoria stiffened when she realized her escape route had been cut off by the back wall of her cubicle. The last things she wanted were causing a scene or losing her job but she had simply endured enough of the sleazy VP’s relentless, boorish, daily advances these last few months. She leveled her gaze on him, hoping she could somehow negate the confrontation. She spoke slowly but loudly enough to be heard by the entire office, "And I'd appreciate it if you'd please leave my area and let me get back to my work."

The VP of marketing smirked then flashed a set of laser polished pearly whites. "Come on baby, I see the looks you give me every day. You know you want me."

She turned away from him and his advances but the shark was far from put off. His eyes widened at the sight of her backside. He slid his hand up the back of her leg and pinched one of her healthy cheeks.

SLAP!

An enraged Victoria breathed heavily, while still holding her rapidly reddening hand in the air. There were a lot of things she tolerated in her life, but his greasy hands on her person were most assuredly not one of them.

His smirk turned into a sneer. "That freaking hurt bitch!" He struck out like a snake wrapping his long gnarled fingers around her wrist. He squeezed until he could see pain dance across her face. "I'm well within my rights to fire you right now, so why don't you admit that this is what you really want. Why else would you wear such tantalizing clothing for me and shake that extra juicy ass every time you pass by me. Just admit it Terran slut."

Victoria bristled, anger burned in her sapphire blue eyes but all she did was hold her head up high and say nothing. In spite of the crushing hot pain on her wrist she didn’t flinch, she didn’t cower. She refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead she shot him a look of sheer contempt that only seemed to infuriate the shark even more.

“You ought to know your place female,” he barked, veins threatened to pop on his head. Evidently, he thought it was well within his rights to show her what that meant because he raised his left hand and pulled it back to strike.

Victoria’s leg took off, her John Fluevog’s Resurrections came to life aiming for the deranged VP’s genitals when the sudden release of her wrist jarred her out of balance.

She looked up at the VP’s wincing face as the sleazy shark’s shoulder was nearly wrenched from its socket. The predator whirled his menacing head back with a roar ready to pounce on his attacker. His dark, cold eyes went wide and the snarl that curled his upper lip froze in his sullen face. He seemed quite surprised to find his wrist being crushed in a vise like grip. A grip that belonged to the chairman of the board.

The smaller fish tried to backstroke. "Mr. Azule! I...I just caught this woman trying to break into the company database, eh... obviously looking to steal insider information to sell to our... – Mr. Azule?"

The vice president of marketing, Lassiter Quagmire, slipped off of whatever level of surprise he was currently skating on and dove headfirst into unbridled astonishment. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets when the hand holding his wrist began to turn a mustard yellow, and grow. And grow. And grow...

"Huh," the blue female said out loud for all to hear, approaching the scene and coming to a stop next to Victoria. Her self-preservation alarms wailed as the blue female’s daunting frame towered way high above her head. "I didn't know the chairman was part Texidate," the female offered.

Victoria gasped, as she shuffled a couple steps back. “Texidate?” she mumbled, her gaze fixed on the enormous yellow-skinned male who seemed to have eaten her boss.

"They get bigger and stronger when they get angry,” the blue female tried to explain. “He looks to be about 6'10" now, but he'll get close to my height, and put on about 400 pounds of muscle. A shame about the suit though."

And as if timed the expensive fabric of his silk suit began to split, threads bursting under the pressure of his ever-expanding mass.

"It was all her Sir." The puny shark wheezed in a straggled cry, as the hulking yellow hand that held his arm lifted him into the air. Twisting in agony, the VP of marketing screamed, "I caught her snooping in the private files – when I confronted her about it - she tried to hit on me – when I told her I wasn't interested - she tried to force herself on me –."

A pair of cerulean blue, muscular but feminine hands with razor sharp claws enveloped Victoria’s small frame and held her firm in place, stopping her from rushing the pitiful excuse for a male.

"Not from where I was standing," the chairman bellowed his voice deep and strong as two crashing boulders.

The primal vibration of his voice sent unexpected shivers down Victoria’s spine. His sudden transformation and enormous size had socked her for sure. Though hearing the familiar, intoxicating, now rougher, sexier tone of his voice put her mind at ease and sent her pulse racing. All these years working for him... She never knew about the beast lurking inside the reserved and gentle chairman.

The Texidate shook the VP, who looked like a fish on a hook.

Victoria stifled a chuckle. The tension piled from the last few months suffering the VP’s unwelcome, distasteful advances and the fear of losing her job suddenly released.

"This isn't the first report I've seen with your name on it Lassiter. In the past you got away with only a warning since all we had was their word against yours. Today, everyone was watching, everyone saw what happened, including me."

The chairman of the board, Mr. Azule, the boss that everyone loved and respected because he respected them back let out a floor shaking roar. The entire office except Victoria and the gorgeous blue woman instinctively shrank back. His newly turned golden-green eyes quickly scanned the room taking note of the empty cubicles by the far wall near the
Hebizian
stink plant. He hurled the VP of marketing like yesterday’s trash through the unused cubicles.

The massive Texidate stomped over to where the VP laid crumbled in a pitiful heap on the floor, covered in dust and stink plant juice. He looked down at the pathetic excuse for a man and gave him a grin that would scare the scales off of a Terran crocodile. "By the way Lassiter, you're fired. Effective immediately," he growled.

The stunning, blue, female visitor sauntered up, a small wispy man in tow. Victoria recognized the man. He was the head of the Alien Resources Department. The little man’s nose wrinkled up, assaulted by the putrid smell of the broken Hebizian stink leaves filling the air. A long, blue, clawed finger pointed at the pile of whimpering crap on the floor. "Here we go Cecil, this is the vermin I was talking about."

Who is this blue angel?
Victoria wondered.

The short spindly man whose hairline had retreated ages ago pushed a pair of thick oculars up the bridge of his long, thin nose. He pulled out a stiff piece of pink and blue paper from a well-worn leather folder he had clutched to his chest and held it up to the gorgeous blue woman.

"He needs to sign this paper or put his fingerprint on it. Right in the box at the bottom," Cecil instructed, before pushing his glasses up once again and stepping back to wait patiently with the gathering crowd.

The scary blue angel scanned the paper quickly using her long deadly claw as a pointer. She pursed her lips and smiled in satisfaction then passed the paper to the chairman.

Victoria tentatively held up a questioning pen for him and smiled with all her heart. He tossed her a quick tender look and his large, mustard yellow fingers brushed against hers, infusing her skin with warm tingles that spread up her arm then reaching low, heating her feminine parts. He grasped for the pen. A futile attempt. His fingers too large to handle the small instrument.

"Oh you two..." the blue angel jumped in and guided the large man's thumb into the signature area. She let go of the paper, and it floated in the air for several seconds making a sort of revving noise and then – DING – there were two pieces of paper floating in the air notarized by the chairman, one pink and one blue. Then she snatched both copies out of the air and presented them to the small man from AR. " Here you go Cecil."

He reached for the blue one, and the blue fairy godmother dropped the pink one on top of the shark’s semi conscious head. "Best you leave while you still have all your limbs attached," she hissed near his ear, and then looked at her watch. “It’s way past my lunch time, you know,” she added, curling her upper lip to reveal a double row of serrated, razor sharp teeth.

The VP stared back at her, eyes wide, bottom lip trembling.

Victoria’s rattled nerves had settled and was able to assess the situation that had just unraveled before her. The sleazy VP who had tormented her for months had finally been fired. Her boss, whom she thought was Syalantian had turned all space-Hulk on her, only condiment yellow and beat the crap out of the VP. The boss she secretly had been in love with for the last three years, the one who always stumbled and turned away when she was around, had defended her and come to her rescue.

Now Mr. Azule stood apart from the others arms crossed on his massive, naked chest, a pensive look in his stark face. Everyone was focused on the sleazy VP’s exit from the building, various alien expletives trailed after him. Victoria watched as the gentle, mild mannered, usually not so big, not yellow and not so naked chairman turned his back and plodded toward the large door of his office. His backside was as sinfully delicious as his front. Wide muscular shoulders framed a strong sensual back sitting on top of two very tight, rounded and perked up gluts that begged to be squeezed. His tattered pants hanged loosely around two impressive thighs and two sexy as hell calves. An image of his powerful legs sprawled between hers entered her mind and a heat wave blasted her aching core. She closed her eyes and she could almost feel his large hands touching and exploring every inch of her skin, tendrils of desire invading every intimate part of her body. Making her wet down low and just like that all the longing nights and the restless days at the office thinking, dreaming about him all rushed back.

That was it!
She screamed inside and fluttered her eyes open. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She was mad. Mad at herself for being too shy to confess her feelings to him. Mad at her job because she truly enjoyed working there. Working under him. Even if she mustered the courage to profess her feelings to him and somehow he didn’t laugh at her face and agreed to be with her she’d have to quit her job. Romantic relations between supervisors and employees were strictly prohibited. She loved her job and she was damn good at it. She was mad at
him
for never having shown an interest in her.
Did he even like her? Why would he even fight for her today if he didn’t?

Her chest tightened and her head reeled as her heart prompted her to do one thing and her mind another. As the distance between them increased so did the pain in her chest. Before she realized what she was doing, she called out to him, “Mr. Azule, please wait a moment.”

The chairman paused, his massive back visibly stiff, but he didn’t turn around. He simply stood there.

“Mr. Azule?” She darted across the room in his direction. And it felt right. Her stomach did somersaults and her hands were sweating but her mind had been made. Nothing would stand in her way.

She stood right behind him and asked again, “Mr. Azule, a word please?”

He started to turn and his massive frame was overwhelming especially standing so close to him. She waited for him to face her.

“Miss Paisley,” he growled softly, his chin dropping to his chest and his eyes looking down as if embarrassed or maybe too angry to look at her. He had nothing to be embarrassed about. Was he angry at her? Did he believe the lies the VP said about her? Her heart hurt at the thought of him thinking any less of her.

“Ummm, I just wanted to thank you for defending me back there and I’m truly sorry for all the fuss,” her voice trailed off.

“Miss Paisley there is absolutely nothing you should apologize for,” his voice boomed as his eyes pierced through hers. For the first time she noticed the fire burning in his now golden-green but usually forest green eyes. “I have been amiss at my job as your employer. And I...I am truly sorry. I should have seen it. I should have paid more attention. I should have protected you from that lowlife. I’m ashamed and I beg that you will find it in your heart to forgive me.” His golden-green eyes sparkled, silently pleading with hers and revealing a passion she’d never seen before.

A force beyond her control propelled her forward. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around the Texadite's hugely muscled neck and kissed the very large and very handsome Mr. Azule squarely on the lips.

This had the unexpected result of forcing the chairman to change back to his normal size, so quickly that he almost dropped what was left of his shredded pants.

"Um, Miss Paisley. So um, um." The chairman muttered, his face turning a deep crimson.

"Oh for goodness sake. I'm sorry sugar, but I just can't watch this no more." Bev turned to the young secretary. "Miss Paisley, is that correct?" She flashed the young woman a half smile. She learned long ago that her full smile showcased her double row of sharp teeth and scared the bejeezus out of people, or at least that's what Emery always told her. The skittish secretary nodded lightly in the affirmative.
Good
.

"Hi darling, I'm Bev." The woman tentatively held out a hand, but Bev shook her head in the negative and wiggled her clawed fingers for the young woman to see. "Sorry hon, for your safety. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that Extravagance Corporation specifically forbids any unwarranted advances in the workplace, along with any kind of relationship between supervisor and employee. As a duly appointed representative of this company, along with my friend here Cecil from AR, your employment under Mr. Azule, is hereby terminated immediately."

Bev's heart bled as water started to well in Miss Paisley's eyes.

"I understand," the young woman whispered as glistening tears fled her beautiful, almond shaped eyes streaming down her cheeks.

“I don’t believe you do sugar. Go on Cecil, go-go-go." Bev reached back to tap Cecil, prompting him into action.

The diminutive man grinned sweetly at the beautiful secretary before pushing his oculars back up his long nose and pulling out a green paper from the same worn out leather folder he carried. "Hello Miss Paisley, I'd like to inform you that we just had an opening in the marketing department. Due to your exemplary record and an obvious misunderstanding of the circumstances here, we at Extravagance Corporation would like to offer you this new position. It includes a 37% pay increase, your own personal staff member, a second level parking space and an additional two weeks of paid vacation."

The stunned secretary gawked at Bev. This time Bev favored her with a smile that was all teeth. Miss Paisley surprised her, meeting Bev’s frightening smile with her own little sweet one. Bev’s heart sang a happy song. It warmed her heart when people could see beyond her Zedrovian heritage and saw her for who she truly was. A thought raced into her head and was out of her lips propelled by her own excitement and anticipation of what she knew was coming, "And I know exactly where you should spend your vacation sugar," Bev winked at her.

Then to everybody's surprise, the mostly naked chairman of the board and majority stockholder of the Extravagance Corporation stepped forward to stand beside Miss Paisley. Afraid to upset this momentous turn of events, the room held its collective breath.

"Well Miss Paisley, after the excitement of the day’s events settle maybe you'd be interested, possibly, maybe, sometime... in having a drink with me to celebrate, or something – maybe, if that's okay?" His eyes darted around the room a couple of times before he gathered the courage to look her straight in the eye.
Got to love a male with confidence.

Milliseconds turned into light years as the entire office waited for her to answer. She stepped closer, and gently took his now normal size hand into hers. She turned her eyes up to his face and then said in a voice that was barely audible, "Call me Victoria. And as far as going to get a drink with you, sometime – the answer is no."

The chairman's dejected sigh was the only sound on the floor. His chin dipped to his chest. All hearts in attendance broke. He turned away from Miss Paisley, gathered his tattered pants tighter around his waist and headed toward his office, but stopped when he realized she was still holding his hand. He looked back at her, raising a questioning eyebrow. A slow, naughty grin slid across Miss Paisley's face.

"I said no, to some time, Armon," she purred, then leapt at the chairman, grabbing the back of his neck with one hand, and his hair with another and smothering his lips with hers.

The office let out a collective whoop! Several employees rushed forward to pat Cecil on the back, and one of Victoria's coworkers even gave him a chaste kiss on his cheek, turning Cecil what to Bev looked like a rather dangerous shade of gray. Bev maneuvered herself to the edge of the crowd to let the office personnel enjoy their moment, and smiled at her handiwork.

The chairman wrapped up Victoria with one, though now decidedly smaller, but still very muscular arm. She slid into his embrace, grinding her hips against his tattered pants. Theirs tongues explored each others’ mouths, and those closest to them tried to look everywhere but at the new couple, while the rest of the crowd began to fidget nervously. When what last remained of the chairman’s tattered pants fell to the ground – only a pair of Aqualian silk
blue boxer briefs hugged his tight heinie – a resounding
Oooohhh
filled the room. Bev rushed back on the scene to take charge.

"Okay folks, nothing to see here,” she snarled using her massive form in a feeble attempt to block the now happily moaning couple. "On behalf of the Extravagance Corporation, with the express approval of chairman Azule and sanctioned by Alien Resources, I would like to offer you all the rest of the afternoon off." This lit the office up in another round of cheers, and the employees began to scatter. Except for Cecil, whose open mouth stare was transfixed on the new couple. She shooed him like a stray baby chicken back to its nest.

Then she gently guided the oblivious couple towards the chairman's office. "Maybe it's better if you two take this behind closed doors."

They may have moaned in agreement, or they may have just moaned.

When Bev finally had Mr. Azule and Miss Paisley safely behind locked doors, she let out the breath she'd been holding since giving everyone the day off. Leaning against the door, her shoulders dropped. She couldn't wait to tell Emery about this one. And then it dawned on her, "Who'd have thought I’d be playing matchmaker here too. I must be a love genius."