Page 35 of Claimed by the Alien Warrior Triad

I might have told my therapist that I’m considering putting myself out there, but it’s a lie. In my heart, I know I won’t date. The one thing I have is work. I’ve put myself fully into it. I consider eighty hours a week a light workload. I even have my assistant transcribe notes to audio, so I can listen to them while I’m on the recumbent bike.

The only time I’m free from work is when I’mthere.When I sleep, I’m back on that distant, jungle planet – replaying the day and night I spent there, over and over in my mind. The way I surrendered control, the spanking, the fucking, theloveI felt from those three men.

Oh, God. Why did I ever come back?

I’ve long since stopped caring that it was all a delusion. I’d go back in aheartbeat.It felt so real. For years, I’ve been going to therapy to deal with it – but secretly, at night, I still say out loud:

“Please!Pleaseopen a portal.”

I’ll beg, to no one in particular. Wishing. Hoping. Sometimes, when I’m walking to and from the office, there’ll be a trick of the light, or a reflection that makes me suddenly think I see a portal for an instant…

But it’s always just that – a trick of the light, or merely the reflection of something that turns out to be utterly mundane.

“We made some excellent progress today. I’ll see you this time, next week,” says Dr. Rosewood, smiling. I leave her office and take my company car to our brand-new, downtown offices. The firm has exploded recently, expanding massively, and we’re now billing among thetop tenlaw firms in New York.

But our massive success has done nothing for me.

All I feel isdull.

I take the elevator up to our office.

“Incredible work on the Tolmouth file last week! You were a force to be reckoned with. They increased their billings by thirty percent!” It’s Marissa, greeting me as I walk into the main floor of our office building. She’s juggling a stack of papers in one hand and a venti macchiato in the other.

Marissa’s the rising start of our firm. She’s working her way up the ranks, already showing huge promise. I took her under my wing. It was the only thing about returning to New York that made me feel good. I hoped that somehow my own success – despite being meaningless to me – could mean something for somebody else.

She’ll make partner maybe even younger than I did. Marissa blossomed from a secretary to a junior lawyer, fighting aggressively and smartly in court in a way that reminded me of myself when I was her age. Seeing her rise is the only thing that can make metrulysmile from my heart anymore.

“Flatterer, you,” I quip back, feeling a little lighter. Marissa gives me a nod of respect and ducks away into her office, probably just as buried in paperwork as I am.

Well…Nobodyis as buried as I am. I’ve got a reputation for acceptinganywork.

You know what they say – if you want something done, you give it to the busiest person. As long as the work is high-level and will increase billings, I’ll take it and use it to distract myself from the pain and emptiness I feel every day.

I take a folder from one of our assistants. I know it’s old-school, but I still prefer to have paper copies of important accounts. It cements the importance of the work more than an email could ever do. I’m about to start flipping through the folder when I glance over at a flash of color on the computer screen of our new secretary, Lila.

The brunette is pretty enough that men would discount her as nothing more than eye candy – but I’ve discovered that she’s clever as well. Yet, she has a flaw – the work is too easy for her, which leads to distractions and the appearance of a terrible work ethic.

Lila can do her job just a littletooeasily, thanks to her quick brain, and it makes her think she can afford distractions. As her eyes dart up to meet mine, I notice that whatever she was looking at suddenly disappears from her screen – and she has an Excel file open instead.

I walk over to her and put my file down next to her. If she wants to do more than be a secretary, she needs some tough love.

“How can I help you, Mrs. Wells?” Lila says, smiling so sweetly and innocently that anybody without my legal background might have thought she’d been diligently working away.

“You can switch your tabs back now, and show me what you were doing instead of working.”

Her innocent expression disappears into guilt. Lila shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Um, it was nothing, okay?”

I raise my eyebrow. I’m not about to ask twice. Lila sighs, then opens the other tab.

It’s some kind of online forum.

“Well then. What’s so important you decided to stop paying attention to your job?”

I keep my tone firmer than I actually feel. Truly, as long as she gets her work done, she can go on whatever forums she wants to. But that’s not going to be the sentiment of the other lawyers, and if one of them catches her wasting time she could lose her job.

I’ve already heard a couple of rumblings that Lila isn’t suited for the job. Worse, if she continues with this bad habit, she might never develop the attitude about work that could help her reach her full potential.

“Iwaspaying attention, I can…”

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