Page 9 of My Boss

“I am of a similar opinion.” Jan reaches for a paper towel and wipes his hands carefully. They are strong, masculine, with clearly defined vein lines and a bit of black hairs peeking out from under the white cuff of his shirt.

A seemingly trivial activity—wiping hands. Meanwhile, not knowing why, I’m looking at it with evident interest. This jerk has damn neat fingers. The kind whose touch can make you shiver. Especially when they glide up the bare skin of my thighs,tilting back my underwear, dipping between the hot folds, rubbing against the moist spot…

My heart rate speeds up, I feel a tingling in the bottom of my abdomen.

Jesus, what am I doing! I’m having some fucked up visions. After all, this is Stiff Jan! My rude boss!

“What are you actually doing here?”

“I should ask you the same question.” He throws the towel in the trash and points with his head to the wall on the right.

I follow his gaze and freeze. I notice three hanging urinals on the big, brown, shiny tiles.

In a split second, a red light goes off in my brain. Damn it! I’ve mixed up the toilets!

I turn around, embarrassed, seeing my reflection in the mirror—my eyes are as big as the drains in the aforementioned urinals, my mouth is gaping, and my cheeks are pink like a country milkmaid’s. Bravo, Maria, you retard!

Well, no, this is not really happening. I’m about to go down in flames with shame.

“There is a meeting with Spendimex in fifty minutes.” Jan adjusts his tie in front of the mirror. “Get to work and prepare the documents I asked for. You have half an hour.” He shifts his gaze to me, sweeping me from head to toe. His face mellows a bit, a strange gleam appears in his eyes, but only for a moment. Before I can blink, his features become sharp and inaccessible again. “You should adjust it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your skirt has rolled up.” He turns around and walks out of the bathroom.

“What?” I glance down, but everything is fine with it. I look at my reflection in the mirror from behind and… Holy shit, half of my ass is showing!

I pull the fabric down quickly; my cheeks are burning. No, no, no. Out of embarrassment, I’m about to drown in the toilet from which I emerged with a rolled-up skirt.

Jesus Christ… Could this day get any worse?

Sure, it can.

Immediately after leaving the bathroom, I call the woman from the ad. And I find out that literally a moment ago she gave my beloved wing armchair to some gofer. To no avail are my explanations that we had an agreement that she was supposed to wait for me. The silly bat says that she was convinced that I had sent someone to fetch the chair, and besides, she doesn’t want to bother with it anymore because she has more important things to do, after which she rudely hangs up.

People are full of it!!!

I sit down at my desk, full of fury like a bull in the arena and glance at my watch. I have less than fifteen minutes left to prepare documents for Engler. I search through the folders, copy all the files to a flash drive, and let the most important ones go to print to give to Jan for review. As if to spite me, the frigging printer decides to act up, squealing like a hungry pig seeing pigswill. It has run out of black ink, and I no longer have time to report to the supply department that it needs a new toner.

I hastily changed the font color in the documents to navy blue, hoping that the piece of crap would print the reports in this hue. It prints, but, damn it, in pink!

I’m about to kill myself.

“What are you doing?” I hear Jan’s voice behind me.

“Printing the documents you requested.” I arrange the sheets in an even pile.

“And this? What is this?” Engler takes one of the sheets of paper the printer has just spit out in his hand and grimaces.

“The documents you asked for,” I repeat, trying to keep myself in check.

Jan catches my gaze and looks me straight in the eyes. He is neither angry, nor confused, nor amused (although this one should not surprise me, after all, this dour never smiles). I can’t read any emotion from the expression on his face that I can relate to. I feel insecure, and at the same time remain ready to fend off a possible attack. Totally unhinged. I can’t stand this type, it will be the end of me on this job. I’m not suitable for this kind of work—under stress, in a hurry, needed yesterday, right now, like a machine. Without any thank you, good job, keep it up…

“Maria. What is it?” he repeats the question in a low voice.

I clench my teeth. I feel like rolling up the piece of paper and answering in the same poised tone as he did: “This is a kaleidoscope. I’ve painted your black-and-white world pink, say thank you nicely or leave me alone and kiss my ass. Goodbye.”

But common sense prevails.

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