Page 7 of Dancing Fools and All That Jazz
The format is a variation on the same tedious theme repeated every year by the IT recruitment company I’ve worked for these last eight years.
Present myself as a product. Again? I groan. I’m not in the mood for this.
I’m scheduled to give my – as yet unwritten – presentation to my team via shared screens later today. I’ll be expected to use all the management lingo I can muster. Blue-sky thinking, cross-pollination, ideation… My boss and my peers will then give their feedback on my performance.
I realise the point of the process is to emerge from the appraisal with a new sense of self, intended to trigger change and improvement.
It’s the usual corporate exercise bollocks. Nothing buta stupid game.
I remember last year’s fiasco.
‘Ruby, you are giving the impression you are not taking your job seriously,’ Giles, my Eton-educated boss had remonstrated. ‘Comparing yourself to a new fertiliser spreading much-needed nutriment in the company served only to bring into question the calibre of your colleagues, let alone prompting a distasteful image in our minds.’
I could hardly say that was my whole point. Since Giles took over the company, it’s all turned to chicken shit. He got rid of all the decent workers, replacing them with his cronies. How I’d love to shovel manure all over them. I should’ve been made team leader long before it finally happened. I mean, I brought in more frigging deals than the rest of them put together. The gobshite even had the cheek to expect my gratitude when he alluded to operating positive discrimination when I finally got my promotion. Little toerag.
I snap the laptop shut and head into my handkerchief-sized garden. The welcome April sun warms my face as I sip my coffee and look at the clouds skittering across the sky.
Who am I? What does make me tick?
My colleagues would be shocked to know the real Ruby. I keep her well-hidden from most people, but especially when I’m at work. I close my eyes and smile as I imagine a true presentation of myself to my colleagues – one they will never see.
Hi. I’m Ruby Anderson. I’m forty-four, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old son, Will. Yes, I know. My namematches my status, Ruby-and-her-son. Glad you find that amusing. So, you want to know all about me? Well, politically, I’m left of centre. I believe women rock, Black Lives Matter and plastic should be outlawed. I hate dog poo, misogynists, and any kind of pastry. I love music, dance, festivals – Glastonbury, Leeds, Creamfields… basically anywhere where you can dance all night – and my tipples are gin or red wine.
Oh, and by the way, I’m a sex addict.
I imagine their mouths dropping open.
I refuse to apologise for my addiction. I love sex; it’s true. I love getting naked, I love the buzz, the intimacy, the orgasms. Hell, I like sex more than music and dance, but the music and dance of a good festival with sex thrown in is the dream combination.
Pardon?
Yes, I know nothing at work would indicate this side of my character. When I’m at work, I’m at work.
I can see from your faces you want to know more…
So, I prefer men to women, although I’ve been with both and sometimes both at the same time.
I picture Giles’s eyes so wide they’re nearly popping out. I’m enjoying this.
If I can’t have sex at least once a week, I have to turn to my appliances. Yes, I said appliances. Sex toys, dildos, vibrators. I have several.I picture the photos of each little beauty flying up on the PowerPoint screen in glorious technicolour.
My team’s reaction would, I’m sure, match Monica’s shock at my Ann Summers party a few years back. She’dnever seen a vibrator, let alone used one. She’d had a glass too many when she confided in me. ‘I have never had an orgasm.’
‘You’re frigging kidding me? Never?’
She clammed up when Asha interrupted, wanting to know what we were talking about. I never managed to get Monica to discuss it again. So, I got her a Rampant Rabbit for her birthday. She nearly died when she opened it. In fact, she was so embarrassed she told me she’d hidden it deep in her wardrobe so her husband and kids wouldn’t find it. Mind, she didn’t throw it away. I smile.
Back to my presentation.
But my crazy sex life is now past tense. I’ve changed.
I can see you all sighing with relief. Oh, I’ll always be a sex addict.
Consternation.
However, I’m contemplating becoming a sex addict with one person. You may well ask, what’s caused this change? One word. Max.
Max. It all feels a bit surreal. I said I’d never go monogamous… The imaginary office scene melts away as Max’s face, Max’s body fills my mind. His beautiful, thick curly hair, his brown eyes, his toned stomach. He may be ex-army, but he still keeps ultra-fit.
