She ran a hand across his sun-scorched chest. His rippling muscles flexed as her fingers brushed against them, reaching past the…. Hmmm, where should I go from here? The sound of ringing phones and clacking keyboards break the rhythm of my typing. I glance at the clock, and then guiltily at the pile of work calling out for my attention. Rising out of my seat just far enough to peek my dark head above my cubicle, I quickly glance around to see if anyone’s monitoring me, but as it’s Friday, there seems to be a general laziness and indifference in the air. My fellow co-workers, slacking off themselves, are browsing on their computers, filing nails, or making personal calls. The difference is, they’ve met their weekly quotas, while I’m… well, I go back to typing, pretending to be very busy. …hardened bridge of desire, I type out feverishly, but then pause thinking, Already? And why would she want to go past it? “Erika!” my supervisor, Carmen, calls out, interrupting me from my important work. “Are you finished with those evaluations yet?” “Just putting the final touches now,” I lie, minimizing my heated love scene and pulling up the reports I should’ve finished almost a half hour ago. “Hurry up. I need those by three. It’s two fifty-seven.” Sounds as if she’s in a bad mood. She’s always in a bad mood, but today it seems she’s really pissed off. I rub a weary hand across my eyes, pulling my straight black locks away from my face. I have to stop doing this. I always tell myself I have to stop doing this only to keep doing it anyway. I’m better off asking myself, why can’t I stop doing this? It’s not as if any one of these silly stories is ever going to get published. I look at the evaluation, entering the information into the computer. Mr. John Mettleheimer, 39 Sycamore Drive, New Hav… and slowly, my mind wanders back to my story, making it virtually impossible to concentrate on anything else. I must finish the scene where Count Mafisto meets the impetuous Rosamond in the darkened streets of Romania. All the while, the moon is glowing brightly, without a sound to be heard, save the sweet melody of their erratic heart thumping. Enough. The shrill of the phone brings me crashing back to Earth. Before answering, I wipe it down with a tissue. Still not satisfied, I spray it with disinfectant before re-wiping. “Erika Seals, Enrollment Specialist. How may I help you?” Oh God, I hate my job. I absolutely hate it. Enrollment Specialist. Please. That’s one of those fancy, made-up titles they give to people in unhappy positions to boost their ego. Instead of giving you a promotion, complete with a hefty raise, they pat you on the back with a little title, as if that’s supposed to make up for the years of crap you’ve dealt with. The call isn’t for me anyway. It’s an irate customer, who wants to know how the hell did he use up three hundred dollars worth of natural gas? We’re in the middle of spring for crying out loud, he blares into the phone. I want to retort, ‘You tell me how you consumed that hot air?’ but I don’t. With great restraint I calmly explain his call has been misdirected, and I’ll need to transfer him over to a customer service representative. That bit of news sends him over the edge, and I become the target of his hostile profanities. As I sit there with the phone half an arm’s length away from my ear, I again wonder how I ended up in this position. Once upon a time, I had my dreams. I wanted to be a mystery writer. I thought it’d be a cinch. I’d write and everyone would love my novels. Agents would beat down the doors to represent me. Publishers would fight over me. Readers wouldn’t be able to get enough. I’d be high in demand, filthy rich, and traveling the world giving lectures and talks about my ideas and stories. It was all perfectly mapped out. And then life happened. I graduated from college with a dual degree in English and Communications. This was it. Ready to face the world, I spent my summer working on my story, Francesca’s Discoveries, a spine-tingling novel involving a reporter investigating a thirty-year old murder set in the streets of Berlin. I completed it in two months, sent it out to the first reputable agency found on the Internet, and in turn, received my first standard rejection letter. I’ll admit I was shocked, but undaunted. There were hundreds of other literary agencies that wanted my work; it was a matter of finding the right one. But the weeks turned into months, and all I had to show for my persistence was a rapidly growing pile of rejection letters in my desk drawer at home. “Give it up, Erika. You’re not mean to be a writer. You’ll starve first before you land a book deal,” Dad heartlessly said. Mom more tactfully responded, “You can still write, just after work. I mean, if you don’t work how are you going to save for the future? How are you going to move out?” And so, I gave up my fantasy of fame and fortune and marched towards reality of commonplace everyday labor, and this is pretty much it. This is my life, putting strangers’ names and personal information into a computer while verifying the validity of signed contracts. I do it from nine to five. So maybe I take a lot of breaks in between, but I’m not hurting the company. I’m helping the world by maintaining the creative arts alive. The man is done. I desperately want to yell back at him, but instead say, “I’m going to transfer you now. Thank you for choosing CE & G.” “Give me a bre-” I hear the man say as I end our lovely exchange. Placing the phone down, I wipe my hands with disinfectant soap three times. I then open the drawer with a napkin before placing it into the drawer, trying not to bring to mind a recent report concerning the massive amount of bacteria harboring on office desks, especially for women. My OCD is in full gear this afternoon. I suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I’ve been this way as far back as I can remember, but it really became noticeable in high school. I washed my hands after every activity. Complaints of the shampoo running out too quickly rang out often. I washed my hair three times straight in the shower every other day. School assignments became problematic. I counted lines in paragraphs, and homework that should’ve taken fifteen-minutes to complete, took me an hour. I constantly erased things, making sure everything looked neat and perfect. I became paranoid, worrying about worrying; ideas consumed my mind, leaving me a complete wreck. My parents attributed the change to normal teenage angst and wondered if I’d developed a crush on someone, but who had time for romance when they were too busy re-arranging the contents in their locker? Finally, in a moment of weakness, I betrayed my struggles to my guidance counselor. She suggested my parents take me to our physician, where he gave the official confirmation of OCD. Of course, I felt terrible. In my horribly imperfect life I now had this wrench thrown into it. Why couldn’t I have normal problems like other teenage girls? It would have been easier on my parents had they caught me sleeping around or found out I’d been arrested for shoplifting, like some of my high school peers. That they could have handled. For fear of drug dependency, my parents refused medicating me, instead forcing me to see a shrink. There is nothing more fragile on a teenager’s soul than spilling out their guts to a complete stranger. It’ll be ten years now since I’ve started seeing Dr. La Rue. He’s been able to plan his last three vacations with the money he gets from my insurance, oh, and my co-payments. So here I am, twenty-six years old, in a sell-out job with nothing but my disorder to count on. Not even my parents want me around, making it perfectly clear my habits were burdensome. I moved out two years ago and haven’t looked back. It’s been dark, trying times, but I’m trying to face life for what it is. I let out a long melancholic sigh. Looking at the contracts, I realize the call has put me past the three o’clock mark. I hastily print out the forms throwing them at Carmen as she marches towards me. “There you go. Just as promised.” I smile sweetly. You don’t want to mess with Carmen. She’s a scary woman, tall, thin, and wiry, with penetrating green eyes that cut through a person with a mere look. I don’t like having her glare down at me, which happens often, since I’m a lot shorter than her, and given my work ethic. Carmen humphs and turns away. Liza Gills, the office kiss-up, eyes me keenly out of her square-shaped glasses. “You know Erika, you really should take your job seriously. They’re watching you.” I shrug my shoulders and toss my black hair replying, “Let them watch. I’m not doing anything wrong.” I mean really, as if I give a crap. Other people waste company time by surfing the web, watching items on Ebay, playing computer games, or making personal calls. Unlike them, I am doing something productive. My seemingly idle behavior is a contribution to the literary society. One day they’ll thank me for my bold, risky moves. “According to the handbook...” Liza is still talking. “Screw the handbook,” I say rudely. “If I want to know what it says, I’ll read it myself.” I turn back to my screen, making it clear I no longer want to talk. I mean to focus on the new customer contracts, but after looking at the second one I start thinking about Count Mafisto with his fiery loins, and Rosamond with her ripe bosom, and I lose myself all over again. I can’t deny the impact romance has on my life. It’s one of the few things about myself I learned to accept. In my pursuit of having Francesca’s Discoveries published, I discovered I possessed the gift for creating intricately detailed bed scenes. During my season of rejections, one literary agency brought this to light. They rejected my story, but not in the standard way. Supportive and helpful, they provided feedback based on my query letter. They suggested I change genres and try romance. Romance? I thought shocked. My novels were suspenseful thrillers. That night, I re-read my story, which lay abandoned collecting dust on a shelf. I sat past midnight, reading every tiny detail, when it became painfully clear I had written a thriller, an erotic thriller. There wasn’t a chapter in Francesca’s Discoveries where someone wasn’t fondled, touched, or fantasized over. There were so many flesh pages, I wondered how it escaped my notice. The bed scenes took precedence over the entire investigation! At first, I felt embarrassed and my anxieties plagued my mind for days, but afterwards I saw the talent behind the art, and hope renewed. Perhaps I’d sent my stories to the wrong agencies. Forgoing sleep, I changed my story to Francesca’s Self –Discovery, but didn’t bother to resend. I decided to start from scratch, a fresh story with a different setting and new characters, trying to draw renewed strength and inspiration. Unfortunately, I’m so into it, it interrupts my daily existence. Like at that very moment. I do nothing else until five o’clock, where I then log off, pick up my bag, and head out the door, while Liza glares at me. She’ll stay another hour, just because. |