Page 10 of Loathing My Boss
Cold blood. Bare hands. Half asleep.
Yup.
That checks out.
My husband is glorious.
“The first time you put ice down his shirt was weeks ago.” Crimson sips her tea. “I think it’s pretty safe to suggest that if he were going to fire you, he would have already. You’ve set that poor man up in a solidly abusive relationship, what with the way you spent months love bombing him. It’s hard to argue with the results you get. Sometimes, I want to steal you away as my own assistant, but then I recall how I like you and want to keep liking you.”
“Hey.” I point the prongs of my fork her way. “I’d be agreatassistant to you. Iamgood at my job, you know. Amazing at it, even. That’s why I’m able to flawlessly marry it with torture, which I wouldunwedjust for you.”
“Your skills do astound and inspire me, Cris.”
I sniff. “Thank you, Crim. You’re right. I am the greatest at being the worst.”
She shakes her head, tenderly. Then she sets her teacup down and breaks into her broccoli cheese soup. “I wonder if,” she murmurs, blowing on her spoon, “you did go alittletoo far with the bucket yesterday. Maybe he needs a break this morning and afternoon, and then tonight he plans to beg you to be gentler with him.”
Viktor Bachelor, begging, on his knees, would be a sight to behold. Especially since I’d find some way to clasp his praying hands and whispernot a chancewithout losing my job. I’ve gotten very good at the “disregard for work boundaries without losing my job” thing. It took several months to chart Viktor’s behaviors and slowlyeaseout ofgeneric perfect assistantmode intoperfect assistant from the centermost ring of Dante’s Infernomode.
I know how many times that man breathes in an hour.
And so I also know exactly what to do to make that breath catch.
Friends close, enemies closer, and all that yada yada.
“I would hire you, you know,” Crimson says, “if you ever get exhausted of living in a constant state of retribution. Good help is hard to find, and I’m sure we could take over the world together if we put half our effort into it. Maybe even a quarter of our effort.”
Please. Combined? The world would need one percent of our effort.
“Tempting. But. The spite.” I blink. “It fuels me.”
“Right… But, isn’t spite tiring? Most things you put Viktor through, you also put yourself through. You taste your death smoothies to make sure they’re adequately deathlike. You’ve suffered through eating foods you hate since you discovered Viktor also hates them and you plan his meals. Even these past few weeks you’ve also been up at five every morning. You used to start work at ten.”
I remember those glorious days when I could sleep in. The quiet mornings with my Potato…lounging about in the self-loathing, plotting the ultimate demise of Viktor Bachelor in a three hundred forty-nine step plan—as outlined with pictures on a Canva Whiteboard…
Fiveisearly for me. I dread the screech of my alarm, and the weariness in my bones usually doesn’t abate until distress of some kind creeps across Viktor’s face for the first time each day.
Tiring, it is.
However.
“If not live to torture Mr. Bachelor, what live for?”
“Surely you’ve other aspirations.”
My heart breaks. “My love. Do you not know me at all?”
She chuckles. “Dearness, I want better for you than the rancid taste of hate.”
“Hate isn’t rancid.” I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. “It tastes like flowers.”
“Hate is the last thing I’d expect to carry floral notes.”
“And yet,” I sniff, again, indignant, “it does.”
“What about writing again?” she asks.
A ripple of displeasure scales up my spine. “What about writing again?” I echo.
