Chapter6
After a month and a half of watching Jessica’s work, Brad felt confused. The first three--almost four--weeks she had been absolutely flawless in her performance: engaged, on top of things, almost anticipating what he would want her to do next. Weeks later, however, he’d noticed a change in her, subtle though it was; she was still getting her work done, still on top of things, but she seemed distracted whenever he spoke to her.
More recently, a few times when surprise visitors had come to see him, she’d been in the bathroom when they’d arrived--leaving them in the atrium that separated Bradley’s office from the rest of the building for about ten minutes.
He was concerned; it didn’t seem like Jessica was shirking her work or that she was disengaged from the job--slacking off--but there was definitely something different going on. Brad’s instinct was that maybe his new employee had a health problem going on, but she didn’t want to bring it to his attention or mention it in any way in her first three months on the job. Her insurance enrollment had started on her first day--she could go to a doctor anytime she wanted--but it was possible, Bradley thought, that she didn’t want any hint to get back to him that she even had a problem.
He considered the issue in one of the few, brief lulls he had in an otherwise busy day, as he skimmed through emails with reports on different departments in the company, reports that Jessica had actually compiled for him based on the raw data given to her. They were thorough, and she had a habit--which he appreciated--of putting the most important information not only up front in the first few paragraphs, but also scattered throughout in bullet points that were easy to find when he needed to speak to whichever department head was relevant about something.
She is genuinely a good employee, he thought, mentally reviewing her work over the month and a half she’d been his employee. Brad sighed. If there was something wrong with her health, he needed to address it with her. If it was a chronic thing, then as long as she was still able to do the work, he had no problems letting her get whatever treatment she needed.
If it was something that was acute--maybe some issue of bad plumbing at her apartment, or something like that, which was making her sick--then he would do whatever it was she needed to help resolve it and make sure she saw a doctor, and had time for both. He had never been the kind of boss to cut an employee loose who was otherwise dependable or who showed excellence in their position.
Bradley came to a decision: he would call Jessica into his office and--hopefully diplomatically--he would discuss the situation with her. If she’s having a health problem of some kind, you need to be as gentle as possible. She probably will feel defensive--maybe even guilty. He turned the words over in his mind a few times and pressed the button on his desk to buzz Jessica.
There was no answer on the other end. Bradley frowned. He buzzed her again and heard the slightly echoing silence on the other end of the intercom. “Jess?” She had approved that nickname during their second or third week working together, and now it was as comfortable as any other name. “Jessica?” Still no answer.
Bradley frowned more deeply and stood, considering for a moment. Technically, he had no call to be terribly annoyed with her--if she was in the bathroom, she had no reason to have expected him to buzz her. He could text her phone, leave a quick message for her to come into his office as soon as she saw it. But that might put her on edge, realizing she’d missed him, and she’d come in feeling defensive and guilty right off the bat.
Acting on impulse, Bradley locked his monitor down and stepped around his desk. He would wait for Jessica at her desk and see where she appeared from; maybe she was making copies or something of that nature--in which case, he really couldn’t blame her for not being at her desk. But he didn’t think that there was anything at that moment that she would even need to make copies of.
Don’t be stern. Be patient. Be ready to hear her out. Brad walked across his office and opened his door, stepping through it and into the empty atrium. Fortunately, there was no one waiting to see him--unfortunately, the sign on Jessica’s desk that she used whenever she wasn’t sitting there indicated she was, in fact, in the bathroom.
Bradley settled in to wait next to his assistant’s desk, trying to think of what kind of health problems would make a woman go to the bathroom so often; of course, it wasn’t necessarily his business--he wasn’t even allowed, really, to ask, except in the context of providing accommodations.
But the thought that Jessica might be facing something serious, isolated in a new state on the opposite side of the country from her previous home, stirred up sympathy in him. She would need some kind of support, surely; he wasn’t being unprofessional to offer it, was he?
After maybe five minutes, the discreet door to the atrium bathroom opened, and Jessica emerged, her cheeks looking flushed; but other than that, and the fact that she was holding something in her hand, there was no indication to Bradley’s gaze that there was anything wrong with her--until she looked up and spotted him standing at her desk. All at once, the color fled from her cheeks, then returned with a vengeance, and then dissipated again, and he caught a brief glimpse of a flash of color--turquoise--between her fingers as her grip on whatever was in her hand momentarily loosened.
“Mr. Holt! I’m so sorry,” Jessica said quickly, her filled hand migrating slightly behind her as she advanced. “I didn’t realize you needed me for something.”
“I just wanted to talk to you for a second,” Brad said, keeping his voice carefully--carefully--neutral. “When I buzzed you and realized you weren’t at your desk, I decided to wait for you.” He saw Jessica’s eyes gleaming, and then saw her blink quickly a few times to clear them.
“I’m so sorry, if you’ll just let me get by you and get my notepad, I’ll be right in your office,” she said, sounding breathless.
“It’s not something you’d need the notepad for,” Brad said. “But I do think it’s a private conversation--will you step into my office with me?” He was curious about whatever it was in her hand, whatever it was she was so intent on hiding, and what bearing it might have on her health situation--or whatever it was that kept her going to the bathroom. She didn’t look sick; the flush in her cheeks as she’d emerged had looked like the aftermath of desire, rather than fever or anything else untoward.
“Sure--absolutely,” Jessica said. “Could I just check something at my desk really quick?” Her full hand migrated just a little further behind her, and Brad’s interest and curiosity intensified. The color rose up into her cheeks, and he thought that Jessica looked like nothing so much as a girl called before the principal: a little ashamed, eager to get herself out of trouble as quickly as possible. What’s in her hand, and why is she ashamed of it? He couldn’t think of anything that would be turquoise colored that would go along with a health problem of any kind.
“It’ll be faster if we just step in right now,” Bradley said. Jessica looked down at the floor for a second, and Brad saw the color in her cheeks intensify before finally dissipating.
“Sure,” she said, smiling at him in what Bradley was sure was meant to be a confident, bright expression, but the look in her eyes--which awakened his sympathy once more--was dread.
“After you,” Bradley told her, gesturing as he pressed the button on his key fob to unlock the door to his office. Jessica’s hand moved around in a curious way, Bradley noticed as she walked past him towards his door: she was trying to act as naturally as possible, while hiding whatever it was she’d been holding as she left the bathroom. He followed her into the office, and when she would have gone to her usual seat on the other side of his desk, he stopped her.
“Why don’t we sit over here?” He gestured to the more casual seating area where he met with colleagues and peers and his few friends. Jessica looked at him uncertainly for a moment, but then turned in that direction instead, her hand doing something that Bradley couldn’t quite make out, along the side and then the front of her body.
She’d worn a dress that day, and Bradley realized that she was trying to find some way to conceal what she was holding without having to keep it in her hand. Poor thing, he thought with a little bit of amusement as the door to his office closed and locked behind him. He moved to take one of the other seats, giving Jessica the couch to herself.
“I really--truly--am sorry I wasn’t at my desk,” Jessica said, looking at him with such worry in her eyes that Bradley was briefly torn between curiosity and sympathy; he needed to know what was happening, but it was obvious that whatever it was, Jessica was either ashamed or otherwise deeply concerned about it--and there was a momentary impulse in his mind not to pry. But she was his closest employee; he needed to know if there was something getting in the way of her work.
“It actually bears on what I’d wanted to talk to you about,” Bradley said, sitting down. He watched Jessica settle on the couch, and her hand slipped under her thigh in the midst of her movements to smooth her dress along her legs, concealing the item she’d been trying to keep him from seeing, and then both hands, empty, appeared--folded on her lap.
“I hope I’m not slacking off or missing anything,” Jessica said earnestly. Bradley shook his head.
“I mean--I did notice that there have been a few times when you weren’t at your desk when someone came to see me, but those weren’t planned visits, so that’s not really an issue per se,” Bradley said. “And it isn’t like I’m constantly monitoring your bathroom breaks or anything, but it did make me concerned that there might be something going on with your health.”
Jessica’s eyes widened, and he saw her mouth open slightly, saw her tongue dart out over her lips to moisten them, and then her gaze shifted, she closed her mouth, and pink-red color danced up into her cheeks once more.
“I don’t know what to say,” Jess told him finally. Brad considered her for a moment, thinking about what to do.
“Why don’t we have a quick drink?” He rose to his feet and walked over to the service area a few feet away. “A glass of wine, maybe?”
“I think that might be okay,” Jessica said. Clearly, whatever problem there was with her, it didn’t have to do with alcohol. Or maybe it does? Maybe she’s an alcoholic--no. She hasn’t shown any signs of being anything less than sober all this time.
He picked out a Riesling, and poured them both glasses, bringing them to the seating area while he considered how best to tackle whatever the issue was. Obviously, Jessica wasn’t comfortable with the situation--she was outright ashamed. He needed to put her at ease, and he definitely wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was affecting his assistant.
“I want to tell you, first of all, that I’m not mad at you,” Bradley said. “I’m really only worried. If you’re having some kind of health problem, and you need help--or you’re worried that you’re going to get fired for it, anything like that--I want you to know that all I’m interested in is making sure you’re okay.”
“Thank you,” Jessica said. He handed her one of the glasses of wine and briefly raised the other in a half-salute that Jessica wryly mimicked before they both drank. Brad sat down once more and waited a moment to let her nerves settle a bit.
“Is there some kind of health issue that you’re having?” He made his voice as gentle as possible. Jessica opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then took another, larger sip of her wine before setting the glass down.
“It’s...I guess you would call it a mental health issue,” she said slowly. “And I hate--I hate-- that it’s coming up. I feel…” Bradley heard the creak and break in her voice. “No. I’m going to be completely up front and live in honesty,” she added, almost to herself.
“Please, just tell me what’s going on,” Bradley said. “I promise there will be no judgment from me--I just want to make sure you’re good.” Jessica took a deep breath and met his gaze.
“I’m a sex addict,” she said, all at once. It was as if the words had tumbled out of her mouth before she was even ready to say them; Bradley saw her cheeks flush again, and she looked away for a moment before meeting his gaze once more. “It’s never--directly--affected my job performance,” Jessica added, speaking more slowly. “But it’s why I left my last job, and why I moved to the other end of the country...and why I’ve been a little erratic lately.”
“Okay,” Bradley said, keeping his voice neutral in spite of the natural curiosity the admission piqued in him. “Could you explain that last one? If you feel comfortable.” He realized that it had to be something deeply personal--just telling him about her addiction was, surely. But what did her bathroom breaks have to do with her addiction? A tiny little tingle of what it could mean wriggled in his brain, but he dismissed it.
“So...I thought that it would be easier to be away from all the places I used to…” Jessica looked at her glass of wine and then met his gaze. “Away from where I’d formed some bad habits, basically.”
“Of course,” Brad said with a nod.
“God, this is…” Jessica licked her lips anxiously and picked up her glass of wine. She quickly drank down a third of it and then set the glass down once more. “So, one of my triggers for--let’s say--bad behavior is being attracted to someone I can’t have.” She smiled wryly. “It’s a stupid trigger, and I’m still trying to work on it…”
“Any trigger is valid,” Bradley said. One of his friends from Stanford--one of the few he’d retained--had gone into psychology after nearly destroying his own academic career, and specialized in addiction and post-traumatic stress. “So--correct me if I’m wrong--what you’re saying is that I’m...triggering you?”
“Not you, exactly,” Jessica said. “But...you being my boss, it kind of…” She took a deep breath and exhaled on a sigh. “The fact that I know I can’t do anything with you, it sort of...makes me want to do other things. Feed my addiction.” She shook her head, and Bradley saw tears gathering in her eyes. “So, instead of doing that, I’ve been sort of…”
“Handling it yourself?” Bradley kept his tone as carefully gentle as he could. Jessica nodded, swallowing hard.
“That was what I was doing the times you couldn’t get me at my desk,” she admitted. “Including this most recent time.” Bradley sipped his wine slowly, considering the predicament.
He was attracted to Jessica; clearly, she was suffering. She’d been masturbating in the bathroom pretty frequently--though not enough to get caught at it, exactly. He had a sudden insight as to what she’d been trying to hide in her hand when she’d seen him standing at her desk: some kind of sex toy. Bradley felt a little ribbon of heat unfurl through his body, ending up along his groin.
“Do you want to keep working for me?” Bradley set his glass down. “This isn’t a threat--what I mean is, if you’d rather work for someone else...someone who might not trigger your addictive tendencies, maybe, I could get you a job elsewhere.” Jessica shook her head.
“I do want to work with you,” she said. “I want to be in a stable job for at least a year--it’s kind of part of my recovery, you know?” Bradley nodded.
“Okay, so we’ll keep you working here,” he said. “But I have to tell you: masturbating on the clock is not going to be a tenable solution. I think you know that.” Jessica nodded.
“I know, I know,” she said, her voice tight with stress. “I...I guess I could see someone about medication.”
“That’s one possibility,” Bradley agreed. “But I think it would be good to look at all of the ways we can both help you keep your job here, and function without falling off the wagon--so to speak.”