The humiliation of all the revelations made me turn tail, slamming first his door then mine. That left me standing in the open area, the subject of stares from over a dozen, suddenly idle, secretaries. I turned abruptly and went into the break room. One of the other girls—Sharon—followed me in.
“Finally gave you the ultimatum did he?”
“What?”
“The ultimatum that he gave your predecessor. Give up your ass or piss off. My advice is to tell him to fuck off. I reckon that if you don’t stand firm, and give it up, you’ll end up servicing some of his clients as well as him.”
An embarrassing silence fell. Well, embarrassing on my part. Sharon just stood there with a faint smile.
“How long have you known?”
“Since the first week you gave it up. Hang on, are you really saying you thought we didn’t all know? Surely you can’t be arrogant enough to think you’d kept it secret? Come on, girl, you made it so obvious. You waltzed right through the office with his cum on your lips for Pete’s sake. How unobservant do you think we are?”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. I was sure I’d hidden it from everyone. Hang on. If it had been so obvious to them, what did Dave see? I suddenly realised what I’d seen as a character flaw in Dave, his naivety, was now my only possible saviour.
Utterly embarrassed, I headed back towards my office. On the way, I passed Peta’s desk. Not one to hide my head in the sand, I stopped in front of it.
“Have you told Dave?”
She gave me an almost sad smile.
“Would a friend do that?”
“Do you intend telling him?”
“No, he won’t hear it from me, but I can’t say the same about the other girls.”
I looked around at over twelve threats to my perfect life, any one of which could be motivated to blab in the hope of snagging Dave on the rebound. Not being able to handle their judgemental stares, I retreated to my office. I couldn’t wait to give John the news and wipe the smug smile off his face.
Wipe it off I did. It was then I found out he was only the manager of the business. It was originally his wife‘s father’s. He immediately went into damage control planning. Typically, it was all about covering his ass and saving his marriage. He actually came up with a fairly good plan. He would tell his wife Dave had gone off the rails and was convinced, incorrectly, that he and I were having an affair. He was demanding money from the company or he would go public. John would pose it as a question to his wife as to whether she thought he should give in to that. That way, if one of the office girls told Dave, and Dave decided to retaliate by telling John’s wife she wouldn’t believe him. With his acting skills, I’m sure John would be able to pull it off convincingly. I briefly wondered if I could modify the same plan. I could tell Dave John had been pressuring me for sex and was threatening to get one of the office girls to out me to him, unless I gave it up. I knew my acting skills weren’t even close to being up to that challenge though. The only thing in John’s plan, for me, was that it guaranteed my job. John would have to keep me around to back him up and stop me vindictively telling his wife. I’d need this job if Dave ever found out. I’d stay in what was obviously going to be an uncomfortable environment until I was sure my marriage was safe, then leave. Maybe I could be a woman of leisure until I had a baby.