Saffi

“Yo, Saff.”

God, I loved Tom’s nickname for me. Actually, I loved a lot of things about him.

If he only knew.

“Hey, how’s your day going?” I poked my head in his office door. Was he going to ask me to lunch? Finally? Or insist I join him in co-authoring a piece he was doing for the newspaper, which would be sure to win us both a Pulitzer prize.

“Saff, on your way back to your cube, would you mind running this stuff down to the mailroom for me?”

What. The. Fuck.

Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to his computer where he was most likely working on that Pulitzer prize winner, without me.

“Finally got my damn bills paid,” he muttered to himself. He reached for the ringing phone on his desk.

“San Francisco Post. Tom here.”

I lumbered down to the dark and foul depths of the news building I worked in to drop off Tom’s bills, without a thank you I might add, and slunk back to my own hole of a cubicle. I’d been assigned a remote location in the office on my first day there a few months before, conveniently stuck between the kitchen and the restrooms. I got to enjoy my coworkers’ smelly lunches and flushing toilets all day long.

But even a shitty cube location in office Siberia was not without its perks. No one happened by unless they had a reason to, and I could always hear them coming. It was lonely, but gave me plenty of opportunity to read things like How to Get the Career You want, Do Nice Girls Finish Last?, and You Don’t Get What You Don’t Ask For. And to look at the shoes on Zappos, of course.

In fact, just that morning I’d read an article about “taking the bull by the horns” and “making it happen,” right before I’d dribbled coffee down the front of my white blouse.

Like it was that easy.

But what if it was?

* * *

I was the office bitch, no doubt. I got the bottom of the barrel assignments, had to run for Chinese food every day, and made all the trips to the nasty mailroom. What if I came up with a challenging assignment on my own, rather than waiting to be given one? And what if I dazzled everyone with a great job?

I could see it now. A new cube away from the kitchen and toilets. Maybe even an office. With a window, of course. But I wasn’t greedy. A little spot where I could see even a slice of the sky would be so lovely…

And then, imagine not having to be the Chinese food/mail room gopher. No, I’d suggest something more fair like having people take turns running for the food. Or even better—paying the extra ten bucks and having the food delivered. Imagine.

But for now, I had to get back to my shitty little assignments covering Little League and the Garden Club.

* * *

The day crept by. I’d managed a first draft of both my lame story assignments, leaving plenty of time for perusing career websites and my favorite dating blog, Getting that Guy to Notice You.

Just setting the damn world on fire…yup, that’s me.

Because my cube was off the beaten path in the office, if I wanted to join the gang for after work drinks, I had to listen for when they were heading out. I’d been forgotten on more than one occasion. But instead of feeling sorry for myself, I’d just joined the party as if they couldn’t possibly have a good time without me. Bright smiles and witticisms all around. They were gonna love me if it killed them. Or me.

And today was like no other. There was a rustle of backpacks, coats, and purses coming from the other side of the office—my signal to catch up with the group and casually blend in.

“Hey guys,” I said, hoisting my backpack on one shoulder.

“Saffi!” the editor in chief said. “Glad you’re joining us. This will be fun.”

“Never miss it!” I said.

You jerks are not leaving my ass behind. Not today, anyway.

My coworkers from the paper crammed into the elevator for the ride down. There really wasn’t room for me, but I laughed and pushed inside anyway, stepping on several toes, and pretending not to notice. I followed everyone to the divey Irish bar not far from the office.

The place blared sporting events from around the world—mostly soccer—on TV screens hanging from every corner. The furniture consisted of rough, splintery picnic tables covered in graffiti carvings. You had to be careful what you touched. At least, I did. But the place had ninety-nine cent happy hour beers, which suited my budget just fine. After all, I still freaking lived at home, and there was no end in sight to that. I’d have to make three times as much money as I currently did just to afford a crappy room in a crappy group house in a crappy San Francisco neighborhood before I could even think of moving out of my dad’s house.

Everyone grabbed a seat, which left me on the end, which was not so bad because it was next to Tom. The noise in the bar made it difficult if not impossible to hear the banter, but I pretended to understand and was sure to burst out laughing when everyone else did. A second and then a third round of cheap beer was served, and I pushed closer to hear the conversation, no longer much worried about office decorum. Beer did that to me.

My boobs brushed against Tom’s arm, but I was feeling a bit slutty and didn’t care. He ordered me another beer, and then another beer, gentleman that he was. The plight of my life faded into the background, and it wasn’t long before the group thinned out by ones and twos—folks needing to get home to make dinner, pick kids up from school activities, that sort of thing.

A hand landed on my thigh. I looked around to realize Tom and I were the only ones left.

He turned to me. “I gotta go soon, too. What about you?”

I flipped my hair. “Oh yeah. I have tons of things I need to do, too,” I said, looking at my watch for emphasis. Except I’d forgotten to wear it.

I reached for my wallet, but Tom took my hand. God that felt nice. Maybe today was the day he’d see me as something other than the office newbie.

“Don’t worry about the bill,” he said with a smile. “The boss got it. I mean, it’s the least she could do when beers are only freaking ninety-nine cents. Don’t you think?” He rolled his eyes.

“Oh yes, absolutely. I just wasn’t sure she remembered before she left.”

“What were you going to do if she had? Foot the bill? On your measly salary?” He laughed, shaking his head.

Well, that was a douche thing to say.

Heat ran up and over my face. “Well, if she hadn’t paid it, one of us would have had to.”

He slammed the last of his beer, set it down, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Um, no,” he said with a furtive glance around. “I’d just leave. They’re so busy here, they wouldn’t know for hours.”

What?

“You’d just walk out on the bill?”

He looked like I’d told him the Earth was flat. “Well, you don’t have to put it like that. I mean, it’s not something I’d do anywhere else besides here in this dump.”

“Anyhoo.” He slid closer and put his hand on my thigh. “Have I told you how cute you are, Saff?”

A warning stirred over me, however weak. Seemed the beer had dulled my bullshit detector. It wasn’t completely out of order, though.

“Thanks,” I said, looking down at his hand, which had just made itself home further up my thigh. As I tried to figure why he thought he could touch me, and what I might do about it, he smashed his lips against mine. I yanked my head back in reflex.

He leaned closer. “C’mon Saff. You can’t deny there’s an attraction between us.”

“Um. I don’t know, Tom.” I looked around the bar to make sure everyone from the office was gone. I had hoped Tom would like me, but had not expected it to start out like that.

“I think I’d better head out. Gotta catch my bus.” I stumbled as I stood, whacking my knee while extricating myself from the picnic bench. He stood, too.

“Ouch.”

“Hey, careful there,” he said, making no effort to help me catch my balance. Nor did he wait for me before heading to the door.

I hustled to catch up. I’d not given up yet.

“Well, beautiful,” he said, turning to me out on the sidewalk. “Guess I’ll see ya tomorrow. Maybe you can help me with fact-checking that big profile piece I’m doing on the mayor. That would be fun for you, right?”

Ugh. Fact checking. Shit job of all shit jobs.

“Uh, yeah, sure, Tom.” I looked up the street and saw my bus coming. I could make it if I ran. “I gotta—”

But before I could get the words out, his lips pressed against mine once again. This time I kissed him back, letting his tongue tease my lips and explore my mouth. If he hadn’t reeked of beer, he might actually have smelled good. But his hand on my breast snapped me out of my trance.

“Hey…” I said.

“Well sweetie,” he replied, unfazed, zipping his jacket. “See ya tomorrow.” He smiled and strode off, as if he kissed his colleagues all the time. Maybe he did.

Like a dipshit, I stood there on the curb as Tom disappeared around the corner.

The bus!

I turned to sprint for it, but was too late. Half a block away, its doors slammed shut, and it drew away from the curb, engines gunning in preparation for the climb up the steep San Francisco street that lay ahead. Figured. And there wouldn’t be another bus for twenty minutes, so I got comfortable in the urine-scented bus shelter and watched the traffic go by. The evening wind was picking up and the fog blowing in, which sent all kinds of flotsam and jetsum blustering through the street. Included in the frenzy was a torn business card, which wedged itself under a corner of my black pump.

I wouldn’t normally touch street garbage, but the word “erotic” caught my eye. Erotic what?

I picked up the tattered paper using my fingernails.

Club Silk

San Francisco’s most exclusive, erotic—

But the rest was torn off. All that was left was a barely-readable phone number. And the card must have been old, because it was missing the area code now required of all phone calls.

Club Silk? What the hell was that?