collection of stories you shouldn't read at work
#—Chapter Three—
*Author’s note: Only one scene left to write before the official book release! Don’t worry, the whole story will continue to be posted here, aside from the bonus novella and scene. Thanks again for reading and for all your comments!*
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***Author’s Note:***
I’m super happy with the reception so far! I’m going to keep posting every week or so. There’s 23 chapters in total, so it’ll take around 5 and a half months to post everything. I may have jumped the gun a little, as the “bonus chapters” I’m writing for the smashwords edition are turning into a bonus chapter and a bonus novella. But it’ll be worth it, I promise! As always, I’ll post the link in the comments to the other chapters and metapost discussion. Enjoy! -JC
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*Author’s note: Thank you all for your patience. I’ll link the meta-post for this story in the comments. If you haven’t already read the Prologue, I recommend you do so.*
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***Three months earlier***
“…so anyway,” Jeremy said, fidgeting nervously, “I, uh, think that it would be bad if your mom found out, or your dad’s work, or if someone put up a picture on a power pole somewhere, y-you know?”
Petra glared at him. She’d been glaring at him, silently, for several minutes, sitting with her arms crossed in her father’s recliner. Jeremy sat on the couch, wringing his hands together as he detailed how much – or how little – he knew about Petra and Jake.
“Wow, Jeremy,” she said dryly, “I knew you were a creep. I didn’t know you were a complete asshole.”
Jeremy put up his hands, palms out. “I’m just, um, looking out for you. You know.”
Petra rolled her eyes. “Right. And I suppose you’d like some sort of ‘gratitude’ for that, yes?”
Jeremy grinned. “Something like that,” he replied.
Petra shrugged. “Alright,” she said neutrally.
—
I woke up the next morning to the familiar call of nature. Yawning, I stumbled into the bathroom to relieve the pressure. I stood in front of the toilet, dropped my shorts to the floor, and promptly pissed all over myself.
I’m pretty sure the neighbors downstairs heard my relieved laughter as I threw myself clumsily into the shower.
The next day was more of the same, as was the next. I endured stares and false smiles in the office, then went home and abandoned myself in pursuit of easy sex. I told myself that I was reclaiming my life, but as days turned to weeks, I found myself withdrawing instead. I couldn’t go to the gym for fear of running into Chris and his hurt gaze. The clubs and bars bored me; my conquests felt hollow and meaningless. Even Kat eventually stopped coming around for her little booty calls.
My mood darkened as well. I found myself angry or cranky all the time, with no patience for the social engineering I’d used to fill my days with. I couldn’t keep my face warm long enough to convince everyone around that I was as important as I needed them to believe, and they’d seen that my untrained “sister” could do just as good a job as I could.
And of course, they asked after her constantly. Where had she gone? How was she doing? when would she be visiting again? Why had I never told anyone about her? After a while, I just started locking my office door in the morning.
It was my sixth week as a man – as myself, I kept correcting, my sixth week as myself – I got a message to meet Diana at the cafe. I headed over at noon, ordering my liquid lunch from a dark-haired barista with a bad attitude. She glared at me while she made my coffee, slammed it on the counter, and told me to “have a nice day” in a voice that could have melted paint.
“What a bitch,” I said, sitting across from Diana. Katlyn joined us as about the same time, taking the third seat at what had once been our usual table. I pulled a flask out of my jacket and irished up my coffee while she got comfortable, then realized she and Diana were both staring at me.
“What?” I asked angrily. “Can’t a man have a drink with lunch?
“It’s not that,” Diana said gently. “Well, not just that. It’s…”
“You’re circling the drain,” Katlyn declared.
I glared at her. “What is this, a medical drama?”
Kat held up her hands, palms out. “Socially. Emotionally. Look at yourself. Do you feel like you’re the king of the mountain? Because you sure don’t look it.”
I looked down at myself. My shirt wasn’t ironed, and my tie wasn’t sitting as straight as it should have been. “Whatever. I’m having a bad day.”
“You seem to have had a lot of bad days,” Diana said firmly. “I talked to Debra.”
“Remind me to fire her.”
“Shawn!” Katlyn leaned over and grabbed my arm. “What the hell is wrong with you? You weren’t like this, when-”
“When what? When I was a woman?” I scoffed, pulling away from her grip. “That was never me. That was a prison.”
“Do you feel released?”
Diana touched Katlyn’s hand to shush her. “We talked to Pam, too,” she said. “She said… well, they’re considering replacing you.”
“Good! I’ll quit! Retire even! See America! Fuck a girl in every state! I’ll call it the Shawn Milner Boner Tour!”
“Shawn, stop!” Katlyn grabbed at me again. “Why are you so angry?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? You two don’t like who I am. Everyone in the office wants my goddamn ‘sister’ back. Even the coffee girl fucking hates me for some reason.”
“Coffee girl?” Katlyn leaned over. “The new one”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe she’s in the wrong line of work.”
“Oh, Shawn,” Kat said, smirking, “that’s… oh jeez.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you see her name tag? It’s right there on her boob, I figured you’d glance at least.”
“I didn’t really care. Why? What’s it say?”
“Tammy.”
I nearly sprayed my drink across the table. “Tammy??” I asked in a hushed voice, glancing back at the counter. “As in Tommy Tammy?”
“Yeah. I guess she’s coping a little worse than you did.”
I snuck a better look over there. It was Tammy all right, dressed in the silly green uniform and apron, slinging coffees and looking generally exhausted. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Diana sighed. “I wanted to show you where she ended up just out of interest, but looking at you now… are you sure you’re all right?”
“Apparently not. I thought I’d just slip back into my life, but it’s not…”
“Yeah. It’s not right, for a bunch of reasons.”
“Well, it’s not like I can undo any of it. I did what I had to do… we all did. And I’m still grateful to both of you. But it is what it is. This is who I am, now.”
“Well…” Kat looked over at Tammy. “It doesn’t have to be, you know…”
“You’re shitting me.” I thumped my cup on the table between us. It splashed hot coffee on my hand, but I ignored the pain. “After everything I went through. All that work. Using a good man like that. Ruining the lives of those people who cursed me. Fucking my ex-friend. And now you want me to… to undo it all?”
Kat shrugged. “It was just a thought.”
“Yeah… just a thought…” I shook my head. “Got a few too many of those, lately.”
Diana reached over to lay her hand on mine. “What thought are you having now, Shawn?”
I looked up and met her eyes. The words came out before I had a chance to think about them. Hell, for a second I wasn’t certain it was me talking. But I spoke nonetheless.
“I’ve made a huge mistake.”
The whole process took about ten minutes, plus two more for clean-up. I guess gyspies value efficiency when they’re passing curses around. ExpressCurse, for when you just have too many lives to ruin today. After I was done, I returned to the living room in my robe and a plain bra and panty set.
“Hey, everything cool?” Tommy asked, grinning at me.
“Yeah. Just had to do a bunch of gross shit, you know how it is. Bitches, man.”
“Bitches,” Tommy agreed. “So, you wanna watch some TV or something?”
“Dude, it’s cool. You can ditch. I know you want to.”
“Shit,” Tommy said with a chuckle, “I keep forgetting you were a guy. Thanks, uh, bro.” He went in for a fistbump, which I allowed to keep up appearances. “I’ll call you.”
“No you won’t, asshole,” I replied. “But it’s cool, I’m sure I’ll see you again real soon.”
I called Tommy after talking to Kat the night before. I’d made my decision, I told him, and I was going to give him a chance. Dinner and a movie, no strings.
Tommy was thrilled at my concession. His car pulled up to my building the next evening at about 5:30; I met him at the door.
I felt at once disgusted and flattered at his reaction. He stood speechless, staring me up and down, taking in the sight of me in a little black cocktail dress, dark leggings, and a pair of low-heeled pumps that I’d finally got the hang of walking in. Mostly. I’d even put on a little gold chain to draw the eye to the top of my cleavage, which was tasteful yet copious in the tight-zipped dress.
“Yeah, yeah, I look hot,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Pop em back in the sockets and let’s go, yeah?”
The mood in the car was awkward as hell. Tommy sat behind the wheel, clearly trying not to show any creepy giddiness at the prospect of having me, and I sat next to him pretending to be cautiously eager about the whole thing.
It was the same way all the way to the restaurant, but after we ordered our drinks Tommy finally broke the ice.
“So,” he said, “have you figured out how to fix your problem yet?”
“Oh yeah.” I smiled. “I think I know how to change back. With any luck I’ll be back to normal soon.”
“Oh? What do you have to do?”
I felt my cheeks flush. I should have said no! “Uh… it… has to do with my girl-parts,” I said quietly. “It’s better if you don’t know the details.”
“Aha. Well, let me know if you need help or anything. After all, we’re still friends, right?”
“Right… yeah. Will do.” Well, he’d asked for it, right? That meant nothing was my fault anymore. Yep.
With that out of the way, it was surprisingly easy to talk to Tommy again. We’d been best friends for years, and I’d missed having someone to talk about sports with. Hell, I’d missed sports. I hadn’t had a chance to really relax in front of a game all week.
We laughed and joked and got funny looks from the waiter, but I didn’t care. The food was great, and if I forgot about why I was there, so was the company.
“So anyway,” Tommy said, taking a sip from his wine, “the next period started and immediately the ref slipped and fell on his ass! They had to stop the game!”
“Oh my god, that’s hilarious!” I grinned, reaching over the table and touching Tommy’s hand.
I froze, blushing, as Tommy took my hand and squeezed it. “Uh… sorry,” I said. “This… fuck, this is weird, huh?”
He smiled, letting go so I could withdraw my arm. “Yeah, but it’s fun, you gotta admit.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
*Hey everyone, I’m sorry about the delay. I lost my job and haven’t felt up to writing in some time. I’ve been sitting on this chapter for a while, so it’s high time to post it. I’ll try to get back in gear ASAP! -J*
I must apologize for the month and more of delay on this. There was a unique alchemy of me running out of steam (I wasn’t feeling the love scene, I hope it came through hot enough), being busy looking for a new job as my contract is up at the end of the year (anyone in Calgary hiring for IT or writing?) and a serious hospitalization in the family. I should be back on track soon! Thanks for sticking with me!
Trying to get back into writing. I finally finished the chapter I was stuck on, and I banged out this little scene in response to a writing prompt. Enjoy!
"You're ridiculous," I told him as we left the bar, punching his shoulder. "If we go straight home, it blows the whole plan! The point was to make that guy who's following me thing I have a big tough boyfriend, but if we go home he won't see us!"
"Well, we can always try again tomorrow," he said with a wink. "C'mon home and we'll put the proper ending on the night early."
I glanced around. "Hey now, there's nobody here to impress, you can drop the act for now. Don't forget that you're my brother or anything."
"Yeah, sure," he said, rolling his eyes. "Well, if you really wanna go see some dumb movie, okay. I guess we've got the time."