33.
Ian
Lynn was all business-like, all two hundred pounds of her in a form-fitting maroon-colored knee-length skirt and matching jacket, which was way too hot for this sort of weather, even with the air conditioning on. Midway through the day, she removed the jacket, revealing pasty white arms, the flesh jiggling tremulously whenever she moved to answer the phone or reach for a pen.
I missed Daisy.
But the fastest way to get over that, I knew, was to not think about her, and find somewhere else to put my dick, pronto. Except I didn’t think I could get it hard even if I wanted to, and though it was strange for me to not want, I just didn’t. It wasn’t a matter of waiting until the right thing came along to turn me on; it was like when Daisy left, she took my libido with her.
At least I knew that Noah wasn’t going to be giving her a hard time anymore. Ben and Kevin had seen to that.
I was just sitting there, staring off into space, jerked out of my reverie by Lynn, clearing her throat from the doorway.
“Earth to Ian,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Call for you,” she said. “Line two.”
I picked it up. “This is Ian,” I said.
“Ian.” It was Annie. I felt my balls shrink even more.
“Ian, why haven’t you been answering your phone? Why is it the only time I can
get in touch with you is when I call through to your office?”
“I didn’t realize you’d been calling,” I said, patting my pockets, not feeling
my phone. “I don’t even know where my phone is.”
“That’s kind of irresponsible of you, don’t you think?”
I sighed. “What do you want, Annie?”
“I wanted to tell you that I’m going to be going in for some testing next week. One of the tests is a blood test that checks for genetic disorders.”
“Okay,” I said.
“It can also tell you what the sex of the baby is, even though it’s still pretty early. You don’t have to wait until the twenty-week ultrasound anymore if you don’t to.”
“Okay,” I said again. She might as well have been speaking another language.
“Did you . . . did you want to know? If the baby’s
going to be a boy or a girl?”
Didn’t we already talk about this? I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the
bridge of my nose. When I re-opened my eyes, I could see Lynn at Daisy’s old
desk, writing something on a steno pad, underarm fat wobbling. And then, as
though she could feel my eyes on her, she lifted her head and looked right at
me. I swiveled in my chair so she couldn’t see my face, Annie still barking
away in my ear.
“I don’t think I want to,” I said.
“You don’t?”
“No. There are so few surprises left in the world.”
“Well . . . okay, then. If you don’t want to know, I won’t find out, either.
But the other thing I wanted to tell you is that if something comes up in the
test, like some abnormality, that I’m going to keep it anyway. I’m not going to
get rid of it.”
“You’ve already decided this?”
“Yes.”
“Then why get the test in the first place? What’s the point?”
“The point is so I can be prepared. So you can be prepared. So it’s not just this big surprise the day the baby’s born. And depending on what it is, and how severe, the doctors might need to be prepared to take the baby right away and do surgery or—”
“Okay,” I interrupted. “I get it. I don’t think we need to start speculating about all of this just yet, considering you haven’t even had the test yet.”
“I’m just trying to keep you involved,” she said. “I don’t want you to feel like this is all happening and you have no idea about it.”
“Just do what you want,” I said. I hung up the phone, realizing that more and more lately, things were happening and I felt like I had no control over them whatsoever.
At the end of Lynn’s third day, she found me in the office kitchen, looking for the Tylenol that was normally kept in the bathroom.
“Did you move the Tylenol?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“It’s usually in the bathroom,
but it’s not there.”
“I haven’t touched it. I’ve got some in my purse. Well, actually it’s Midol.
But I think it’ll do the same thing.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just a headache. I probably
didn’t have enough caffeine this morning. You taking off?”
“Yes,” she said, but then she didn’t say anything else, she just stood there,
watching me. Was she waiting for me to give her permission to go?
“Well, thanks,” I said. “It’s been working out pretty well so far—”
“I saw the way you’ve been looking at me ever since I started,” Lynn said, closing the distance between us and pressing up against me. “I normally wouldn’t do this sort of thing, but you are probably the finest man that I ever laid eyes on.” She gave me a coy look. “And Jonathan told me that you’re not seeing anyone, and that in the past you haven’t been against a little office hanky panky.”
I cringed, feeling like a trapped animal. Her tits literally had me pinned against the wall. At another time, something like this might’ve been the stuff of fantasies, but I felt nothing, other than a growing sense of claustrophobia.
“Lynn,” I said, holding my hands up like she was a cop telling me to keep my hands in the air where she could see them. “Look. I think you got the wrong idea.”
“I’m seldom wrong about these things,” she said. “I can tell when a guy looks at me and he wants to fuck. I’ve got this sixth sense about it. I know I’m probably not as pretty as some of the other women that you’ve had work for you, but trust me, I will blow your fucking mind.”
She leaned in, like she was going to kiss me. I jerked my head back, hitting it against the wall, craning my neck, a drowning man getting his last breath before he sunk below the surface of the water.
“Really,” I said. “I’m not . . . I’m just not ready for this sort of thing, actually.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Not ready?” Her hand went to my crotch, and I had the very odd, first-time feeling of being violated. But there was nothing there for her to grab; nothing hard that she could hold onto, anyway.
“Oh,” she said. She looked back up at me. “I see.” She
stepped back, those enormous tits of hers finally releasing me. “I’m sorry.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Shit, I’m really sorry. That must seem incredibly
unprofessional.”
I straightened my shirt back out. “No, it’s fine,” I said. “Just don’t let it
happen again. We don’t actually ever have to mention it, okay?”
“That’s fine by me. I should probably get going, anyway. I’m really sorry I was
so forward.”
She hurried out, leaving me standing there, wondering if I had just imagined that whole thing to begin with.