The BACHELORETTE Project (The Project: LESLEE Series) (6 page)

“You know, I never really thought of
that,
” I say as I try to nonchalantly scoot my chair away from him. “I, um, like
my job, but I believe that becoming
your senior paralegal would be a great opportunity for me.” He stands up from the desk and strokes my face lightly with his finger. I feel my body shiver with fear and disgust as I turn my face away and begin fake coughing furiously on his hand. He pulls away. “Sorry, my asthma can be vicious at times.”

“Would you be willing to do anything for the position?” he says in the most perverted way possible.

“Yes,
” I say quickly wi
thout thinking. “No, I mean, no,
” I reply nervously. “I believe that I can compete for this position in a fair manner and earn this positi
on in the most respectful way
that I can.”

“Oh,
” he says disappointedly. He walks back to the chair behind his desk. He puts out his hand to shake mine. “Well, thank you for your time, Leslee. I hate to rush you out of here, but I do have to be at court in thirty minutes, and you know how traffic can be in this city. Just to let you know, I do have other candidates who are interested in the position as well so you may have some heavy competition. I will let you know how it goes.”

“T
hank you for your consideration,
” I say as I rise from my chair. “I really appreciate it.”

“No, thank you,
” he says as I walk toward the door.
I want to say something to him
about how inappropriate it was for him to cop an erection directly in front of my face, but I can’t. I don’t want to lose the job that I have. Besides, maybe he wasn’t trying to do anything. Maybe he was just being a man—a really perverted man.

I exit his office and shut the door behind me. I take a deep breath. That wasn’t as hard—difficult as I thought it would be. It could’ve been worse. He could’ve just pulled his pants down in front of me and tried to shove his thing in my mouth—sexual harassment as its finest—or worse.

I walk into my office like a zombie and sit down in my desk chair. I stare at my blank computer screen trying to rethink my situation. “Sooooo, how’d it go?” Minnie asks me. “Did you get the promotion?”

“No,
” I say. “I don’t know … maybe?” She walks over to my desk and starts waving her hands in front of me. “What?”

“It look
s like you’ve just seen a ghost,
” she tells me.

“It’s nothing,
” I say. “I just …” I’m speechless. “I, um, I think I need a vacation.”

“Okay …” Minnie says and walks back to her desk.

The missing paperwork!
I think to myself. If I put it in his office now while he’s at court, I will never have to run into him, Mr. Thomas … and little Thomas, Jr. I don’t want to be reminded of his little erection (
little
being the key word) and I would like to save myself the embarrassment. Maybe Minnie could …

“Minnie, do you mind if you could just run these papers to Mr. Thomas’ office for me?” I a
sk her. “I have some work to do,
” I say s
lowly, “o
n … my … computer.” My
blank
computer screen
.

She rises from her seat and shakes her head. “No can do,” she tells me. “Right now I’m scheduled for my third break of the day.” She picks up her coffee cup and exits our office.
Shit!
I think to myself.
What if the perv didn’t leave yet?
I sigh. I just pick up the missing paperwork and walk toward his office, almost striding. I hate my life. I really do hate my life … right now, that is. I take a deep breath and open the door to his office. I gasp in pure horror and shut my eyes quickly.

Do my eyes deceive me?
I ask myself.
Did I just see a visual of Mr. Thomas getting ORAL sex…on his desk? No, it can’t be. He’s m
arried…with children in college!
No.
 
I open my eyes again to verify the visual and hope to God that I’m wrong.
Oh, God!
I am right! I’m officially scarred for life! The horror! The horror!

“Oh, God!” I say, gasping as the papers in my hand hit the floor. Mr. Thomas opens his eyes to spot me then tries to zipper up his pants quickly.

“Leslee, what are you doing here?!” he asks me. “Did you knock?”

“Yes, um, I mean no, I, um, don’t know?” I stutter. “I just wanted to drop off the missing paperwork while you were at court. I didn’t know that you would have—” Just then, my worse nightmare happens. The mystery woman turns around in her chair and wipes
off her dirty, probably disease
-infested mouth. My eyes widen. “Chloe?” I say. Why should I even be surprised?

“Hi, Leslee,
” she replies slyly.
What … a … whore!
I think to myself.
She’s just casually blowing her way to the top, literally.

I try to cover up my eyes and pick up the papers from the ground. “I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas. I am so sorry! So
utterly
sorry!”… and disgusted for that matter. How can people stoop so incredibly low?

I place the papers on his desk and rush out of his office shutting the door as quickly as I can. I grab my chest. I can’t breathe. I have no words, no words whatsoever.
I didn’t see anything,
I tell myself.
I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at all…I DID NOT SEE CHLOE CURANO GIVING OUR BOSS A BLOW JOB!
I will act as if it never happened at all except the fact that my mind will be continually interrupted all day by this horrid image, an image that I will want to shake out of my mind but it will stay the
re only to torture me.
The other thing that I won’t be able to shake out of my mind is the fact that I’m now out of the running for the promotion that I longed for. The opportunity of becoming senior paralegal for one of the most prestigious law firms in the city is completely out of my hands. This opportunity might as well take a plane ride to Fiji because that’s how far it is away from me. If only I was as “giving” as Chloe is. God knows how disgustingly sloppy and skanky she looked sitting in that office chair, the chair that I sat in for
my
interview, with her stocking torn, shirt unbuttoned … ugh! I don’t even want to think about it! And what really ticks me off is that even if I wanted to stoop as low as that skank has, I truly believe that I would’ve done a much better
job
… literally speaking. But, gross! Just the thought of it! I couldn’t! I wouldn’t! I’m a freakin’
lady
for crying out loud!

I walk back to my office and think.
What should I do now? Should I blackmail him, convince him to give me the position instead of her?
I could tell his wife, announce his scandalous ways to the public, and completely ruin his creditability. If only I had proof. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tell something like this to his wife … and his children. I couldn’t ruin people’s lives like that.

Pacing back and forth, I bite my nails nervously, not knowing what to think at this point. I want to be evil and vindictive by exposing his little secret, but I want to fair and non-judgmental; professional. People have urges, even if they are in the office. But, people have rights, too, and I have the right to—

“Boo!” Minnie shouts loudly behind me and I jump.

“Don’t do that!” I say to her. “You scared the shit out of me.”

She sips her coffee and laughs. “Why are you so uptight? It was just an interview.”

“Yes, it was just an interview,
” I say quickly. “I don’t know anything.” I sit down at my desk and pretend as if I’m working. Minnie doesn’t buy my act.

“Hmm …” she says with a questionable look on her face. “You know something, don’t you?”

“I know nothing.”

“The fa
ct that you just said that you don’t know anything
means that you know something so tell me what you know.” Minnie’s eyes widen and a huge grin erupts on her face. “You got the promotion, didn’t you?”

“I tol
d you earlier that I don’t know,
” I say, annoyed that she keeps asking me the same thing.

“You know you probably did.” She elbows me playfully. “You must have had a good impression on ol’ Thomas, didn’t you?”

“Some better
than others,
” I reply as the secretary enters our office.

“Leslee,” she says, “Mr. Thomas wants to see you again.”

“Oh, a second interview!” Minnie gloats. “Go get ‘em, tiger!” She winks at me.

What does he want, a threesome?!
I think to myself.
It will never happen!
I don’t have sex with middle-aged men and dirty people. It’s disturbing and unsanitary. If he
thinks he’s getting some of me too, well
then he is sadly mistaken. I am Leslee Robinson, not some easy whore.

“Does he
really
have to see me now?” I ask hoping that this isn’t at all about the … incident.

The secretary nods her head. “He insisted that he will speak to you now about a very important matter.” Matter meaning he’s a perv—a nasty, diluted perv.

“Very well,
” I answer. “I will be right there.” She leaves the office and I feel like screaming.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I think to myself.
Why?! Why?! Why?!
Can’t we just act like it never happened? I can bypass the fact that he’s a nasty cheater and she’s a homewrecking whorebag. I wish I could just go back in time and had never gone into his office in the first place.

Deep breath,
I tell myself.
Everything will be fine.
I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not wrong!
They
are wrong!

I walk back to Mr. Thomas’ office and knoc
k on the door … again. “Come in,
” I hear him say from the outside.
Cum is right!
I think to myself.
Nasty office freak!
With my hands wrapped in a ball in front of me, I enter his office and see the array of pictures and papers on the floor.
Ugh, they totally did it on his desk.
And they did it rather quickly, too. How can they possibly enjoy something like that so quickly? I swear it must’ve have only been like five minutes since I saw him—
them
in his office.

He motions to the chairs in front of his desk. “You want to sit?”

“
No, I think I’ll be OK standing,
” I reply nervously. “Is something wrong with the deposition transcripts I turned into you?”

“No,
” he answers.

“Oh, OK,
” I say, turning to the door. “So I can just go, right?”

“No,
” he jumps up from his chair and shuts the office door. “We need to talk.”

“Are you sure? Because I can really just walk out right now and act like nothing happened today,” I ramble. “As far as I’m concerned, I did not see anything, you are still happily married, and we can both move on with our lives
…
our very, very
innocent
lives.”

He sighs. “I don’t think that I can do that, Leslee.”

“I
n fact, I can help you clean up,
” I reply cheerily. I begin to gather the papers and pictures from the floor. “See, Mr. Thomas! Nothing ever happened! NO EVIDENCE!” I smile nervously. “No evidence at all.”

“I’m sorry, Leslee, but I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” I ask, almost begging for him to forget that I was even there. “I’ve forgotten about it already! I’m not going to blackmail you for the promotion, even though I thought about it; I truly thought about it.”

“W
ell, that doesn’t matter anyway,
” he tells me. “You didn’t get the promotion. Chloe did.”

I gasp. “But why?” I whine. “I told you that I’m smart, I’m educated, I’m a motivator, all that ‘feel good’ interview stuff that people like to hear. Why give it to her and not me?”

“She does good work around here,” he starts.

“I bet she does,
” I reply sarcastically.

“And she has her master’s from Harvard.”
And what would that be in:
the concentration of blow jobs? The concentration of using sexual manipulation to get her way?

“Tha
t’s not at all just, Mr. Thomas,
” I argue. “I work hard. You know I do! I’m a great worker!”

“And you have a bachelor’s whereas she has a master’s. It was an easy decision for me to make.”

“Okay,
” I say. “Fair enough … can I leave now?”

“No, I did want to talk to you about what you saw.”

“Sur
e, how you cheated on your wife,
” I say. “The wife that brings you lunch every other day, the wife that has given you two beautiful children, the wife that has more than likely been faithful to you through the years. Is that the same wife that you would like to talk about, the one that you betrayed?” At this point, I’m just bitter. He didn’t give that promotion to Chloe because of her education. He gave it to her because she’s just as low as he is; a scumbag, the scum of the freakin’ Earth.