Danielle
On Monday morning, I arrived at work the same time I always did, but Rodney wasn’t on his way to the elevator. I was a little disappointed. I had dressed up for him. I had taken extra time to put my hair up in a bun, and I had tried a new makeup technique. It hadn’t even been about seducing him. I just wanted to look good for him.
He usually walked through the doors at the same time every morning like clockwork, which made it easy for me to slip in behind him. I looked forward to our little elevator rides where I could be sexy and inappropriate without anyone seeing. I knew Rodney liked it, even though he pretended that he didn’t want what was happening between us.
Friday evening in his office, when he had fucked me on his desk, had proved that to me. We had said it wouldn’t happen again, and I would respect his wishes, but it had been hot as hell, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I doubted he’d been able to stop thinking about it, either.
I rode the elevator to the top floor when Rodney didn’t arrive in the few minutes after I did. I couldn’t wait in the lobby for him forever. It would seem weird if he was late, and I was still sitting there. People would notice. Even worse, if Rodney came in and saw me waiting, I didn’t want to come across as a love-struck teenager. I wanted Rodney to see me as an adult, which was already a challenge given our age difference.
He didn’t seem to think I was a child when it came to sex, though.
I unlocked the office door with the key Rodney had given me–the key I hadn’t needed to use yet. He must have been running late. I knew it couldn’t be easy being a single father, and he wouldn’t always be able to stick to his routine.
I knew what Tommy could be like. Sometimes, he was just being obtuse for no reason at all, especially lately when he seemed to be angry about everything.
When I reached my desk, I found a note.
Took a personal day. –Rodney
I looked around, wondering how he had managed to put a handwritten note on my desk when he wasn’t in the office. He must have written it between Friday evening and this morning, coming into the office specifically to leave it on my desk. Rodney and I were the only two people with the key for the office, besides the cleaning lady, and I somehow doubted that Rodney would ask the custodian to deliver the note to me.
I sat down behind my desk, feeling oddly empty. Why was Rodney trying to avoid me? We had agreed that our sex on Friday evening had been the last time. We had known where we were headed. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t have picked up the phone and told me he was taking a personal day himself.
The phone rang, and I answered it with the standard, “Mr. Jones’s office.” I took a message after explaining that Rodney wasn’t in the office. The phone rang the moment I filed the note, and I had to go through the process another two times before I could sit back and think about what was happening again.
I sifted through my emotions, trying to decide what I was feeling. I was disappointed and a little hurt, but mostly, I was irritated with Rodney. Yes, sleeping together had changed our relationship. It had driven a wedge between us in some ways, but it had made us extremely close in others. I knew our relationship was in a tough spot at the moment. Neither of us knew exactly where we stood, and I realized I hadn’t made it easier on him.
But we had known each other my whole life. Rodney had relied on me to help him with Tommy for years. Our relationship might have become sexual in the past couple of days, but it had always been a close relationship, albeit in other ways.
I didn’t understand why he couldn’t have picked up the phone and spoken to me about not coming in to work today. I didn’t understand why he chose the coward’s way out and left a note like a teenager who was too shy to do something face to face. It irritated me because I had thought I was worth more than that. I’d thought our relationship–even when it hadn’t been romantic or sexual at all–warranted more than a note left on a desk.
If he had called me and told me how he felt, I would have understood. It would have been a better way to deal with it. Okay, so, I hadn’t exactly respected his wishes when he’d said he didn’t want to fuck again after the first time. But I had known his hesitation wasn’t about me and him, but about everything else that was in the way. Like my dad and my age and my job.
I had tried to seduce him because I had known it was what he wanted. I hadn’t been wrong. Again, Friday night had proven that. If I had thought at any point that he didn’t want me, I would have backed off.
It hurt that Rodney didn’t know that about me, that he didn’t feel like he could speak to me about it. I had thought there was more between us than that. I had thought we were on the same level, both adults, able to openly discuss something when it bothered us.
The phone rang again. I took a deep breath and forced a smile so that I wouldn’t sound as irritated as I felt. I wouldn’t let Rodney get me down. If he thought the note would get to me, I would prove him wrong.
I didn’t think it had been his intention to get to me at all, though. I had a feeling the only person Rodney had thought about when he’d written the note was himself.
By lunch time, I had stewed about the whole situation enough that I was downright pissed off. I had waited the whole morning, hoping Rodney would call me, despite his note and despite his obvious attempt to avoid me. He didn’t call, and the more time passed, the more irritated I became.
After I returned from lunch, having gone out to get away from the office and the empty desk on the other side of the glass partition, I decided something had to give. I would be the bigger person. I would pick up the phone and do what Rodney didn’t have the courage to do.
The phone rang. While I waited for Rodney to answer, I prepared a little speech in my head. I wanted him to know that his actions were completely unnecessary, that if he wanted me to know something, he could pick up the phone or tell me face to face. I knew it wasn’t my place as his secretary to tell him how to act, but this was between me and him as people, not as employer and employee. And if we could be straightforward with each other when it came to sex, we could be straightforward about other things that mattered, too.
The call rolled over to voicemail when Rodney didn’t answer. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, to assume he wasn’t near his phone, but I knew Rodney. If he wasn’t at the office, he would be married to his phone so he wouldn’t miss any business calls. Which could only mean that he didn’t want to speak to me.
Like a child, Rodney was avoiding me.
When the voicemail message finished and I had to speak after the tone, I didn’t give him a piece of my mind the way I had been prepared to. I wouldn’t be a coward and leave him a message about my feelings. Instead, I would wait until I could speak to him directly.
“Rodney, hi,” I said into the phone instead. “It’s Danielle. I got your note this morning. I’ve taken care of calls and emails, but I’m checking in to see if there’s anything specific you need me to do. Let me know.”
I hung up. I stared at the phone once I did. I had so much I’d wanted to say to him, but I would stick to my guns. I would be the bigger man, and I would say it directly to him when we spoke.
Not five minutes later, my phone beeped with a text. I opened it.
Keep doing what you’re doing. Take messages and let them know I’m not in the office today. R.
So, he had been with his phone if he could respond this quickly. I had expected to be angry about it. Instead, I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. I felt let down and disappointed. I had hoped he would be better than this, that he would handle it better. Until now, I had put him on some sort of pedestal, seeing him as an Adonis, and I had seen myself as the damsel in distress. Things were changing. I was starting to see another side of him.
Everyone had flaws. I knew that. I hadn’t wanted to see them, of course. I had grown up with Rodney being the unreachable man, the very fabric of my fantasies. It turned out he was just a man. And sometimes, an asshole of a man at that.
I was upset that I hadn’t meant more to him than a text, that he hadn’t even been able to answer my call when I had gone out of my way to speak to him. Maybe he had known I would speak about more than work if he answered, but that wasn’t the point.
What bothered me the most was that I had no idea what his problem was. We had agreed we wouldn’t have sex again. We had agreed we couldn’t keep playing this game. When we had been able to fuck like adults and agree on something like that as adults, why couldn’t we handle everything else as adults?
I was getting seriously angry. The more I thought about it, the fewer reasons I could see for Rodney to be so difficult about this. I had done nothing wrong, nothing more than he had done. I hadn’t fucked alone, after all. But Rodney was acting like I was the problem, and I didn’t appreciate it.
I may have been the one to open my legs in the office on Friday, but Rodney had been the one to take charge. God, had he taken charge. So, he had no right to be like this about it. No more than I would have had the right to be so childish about it.
I struggled to do my work for the rest of the day. I struggled to sound kind and upbeat over the phone, and I struggled to be in the office until it was time to go home when I felt I was only wasting my time doing something that Rodney could easily have set up an answering machine to do. That was all I was now. A glorified answering machine.
When it was finally time to leave, I packed up my things and slung my bag over my shoulder. I switched off the lights and closed up the office. I walked to the elevator alone and waited until the doors opened.
“Hold it,” someone said. A man was jogging toward the elevator. He had light brown hair and brown eyes. “Thanks.”
He stepped into the elevator with me, looking me up and down once before standing next to me. I knew I looked good, but I felt it didn’t matter now. We rode to the lobby in silence, and I was painfully aware of how this man next to me wasn’t Rodney, how strained it was in the elevator compared to how comfortable or sexually charged it always was with Rodney.
Was this how it was going to be now?