Megan Hart - Switch

thoughts were focused more on the fact I was bare

beneath my skirt than anything Paul was having me do. His

list was longer this time, more detailed, and while I

enjoyed the new responsibilities and projects he'd left for

me, I hadn't finished by the time the food came. I'd only

just managed to colect it from the front desk downstairs

and set it out on the smal conference table in Paul's office

when he and the woman from marketing showed up.

Vivian Darcy. I'd seen her before, a tal woman with blond

hair she wore in a sleek twist. She wasn't thin but dressed

like she was and managed to carry it off. Her shoes cost

more than my rent.

I had my own lunch, chicken and broccoli, to eat at my

desk. Paul gave me little more than a glance and closed his

door. I heard them laughing behind it. They were in there

for a long time. When the door opened again, I'd finished

eating and set back to work on the filing I hadn't managed

to finish before lunch.

"Paige, bring me the advance proof packet," Paul said

from the doorway. He'd loosened his tie and taken off his

jacket and roled up his sleeves. From behind him I heard

the flush of water running in his private bathroom.

I nodded as he disappeared into his office, but a moment

later my stomach sunk. I hadn't actualy finished copying

the packet. I'd known I needed to do it, it was part of my

regular weekly projects, but it hadn't been on Paul's list. I

also didn't want to admit I'd been distracted.

"Paul?"

They both looked up. She had puled her chair close to

his, their heads bent over what looked like a spreadsheet.

She'd taken off her suit jacket, too, and her breasts

pushed at the front of her silk shirt.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I haven't finished with the copies of that packet. It wil take me about fifteen minutes, but I'l do

that packet. It wil take me about fifteen minutes, but I'l do

it right now."

I'd been made to feel smal before, but I hadn't expected

the look both of them gave me. Different looks, neither

pleasant. Hers was cutting, an arch of brow to indicate

surprise but not too much, as though she'd expected as

much from the likes of me. Hers I could deal with.

Paul, on the other hand, looked blank for the span of some

long seconds. Then he looked disappointed. "We need

that packet now, Paige."

He didn't need to tel me I'd screwed up. I'd have liked it

better if he had. I could have been angry, then, at being

scolded. Instead, al I could feel was the vast wash of guilt

for knowing I hadn't done what I was supposed to do.

"Ten minutes," I promised.

"No need to jump through hoops," Paul said. "Just get it done."

I did it in seven minutes, though it meant cheating and

taking up al three copy machines at the same time. When I

handed the packets, properly colated and stapled, one

handed the packets, properly colated and stapled, one

each to her and him, I didn't expect a reward.

I didn't get one. Not even a smile. Not even a terse thank-

you. Both of them took the papers and bent back to their

work without more than a glance at me, and I slunk out of

Paul's office in disgrace.

My mood only lasted another ten minutes. I worked for a

paycheck, not approval, and I'd never given him a reason

to have any complaint about my work, not even in the first

few weeks when I hadn't known what I was doing.

"Paige, can I see you for a minute?" Paul said when Vivian left, finaly, at a quarter to five.

"Sure. Of course."

He stepped aside to let me into his office and gestured at

the chair that had been returned to the front of his desk. I

sat. Paul sat, too, and looked across the desk at me with

his hands folded together.

"I wanted to make sure you were doing al right."

This wasn't what I'd expected. "I'm fine, thanks."

"The job's not overwhelming you?"

I had a bad feeling about where this was going. "No…."

"Good." Paul looked down at his hands, now clasped

tightly. "Because I'd hate to think you were unable to keep

up with the position, Paige."

One mistake in six months, and he was worried I couldn't

keep up? I wanted to stand up and walk out, flipping Paul

the bird. I might have, had he sounded sarcastic or

condescending. He didn't. He sounded…cautious.

"I'm sorry I forgot the packet, Paul. It won't happen

again." I knew it wouldn't. I might forget a dozen other

tasks, but I wouldn't ever forget to copy the fucking proof

packet again.

He stil didn't look at me. His voice quiet but not soft, he

said, "I hope you won't."

That was it. He nodded at me and I got up, and I went out

to my desk to shut it down for the night. My fingers had

gone cold and stiff and I mistyped the password I needed

to log out three times before I got it right.

You wil masturbate in the shower, but you wil not alow

yourself to come. Your orgasm is a reward for good

behavior, and you haven't earned it. You wil write, on

your best paper and with your best ink, how you

masturbated and how it felt when you stopped, and you

wil return it to me no later than tomorrow afternoon.

Disobedience wil not be tolerated.

You said you wanted discipline.

With shaking fingers and hot cheeks I passed the

mailboxes without looking to see if the note I'd shoved into

114 was stil there. I'd done what it said. Rubbed myself in

the shower that morning until my breath came tight and

close and my entire body tensed until I eased off. It had

been close. I knew my body too wel not to bring myself

off within a few minutes. But I'd stopped myself, because

unlike the intended recipient of the notes, I did know

discipline.

I'd written the letter, too, describing how I'd touched

myself with fingers slick with my saliva and tilted my clit

against the spray of water until my thighs shook and my

breath came hot and hard and fast. How I'd had to turn

breath came hot and hard and fast. How I'd had to turn

the water to cold to keep myself from getting dizzy as I

rubbed and stroked. I'd used the finest paper in my

colection, my favorite pen, and I'd taken such care with

each letter, every stroke, that I was almost late for work.

I didn't give anyone the letter, of course. But I couldn't

bring myself to throw it away. I put it in my nightstand,

instead, tucked into the pages of the book on movie

history.

The ache between my legs flared as I shifted the gears of

my car, and as I walked, and as I turned in my desk chair

to pul files from the drawer.

Paul was not out of the office today, but he hadn't come

out yet this morning. Not even for coffee. Him hiding away

with his door closed was not unusual, but him not at least

caling out to me for a mug was.

Two weeks ago it wouldn't have occurred to me to think

he was stil angry with me for screwing up the files the day

before. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have much cared.

Now, I listened hard for the sound of his voice and stared

at my computer screen without typing anything.

"Paige." Paul stood in his doorway. I'd been so

"Paige." Paul stood in his doorway. I'd been so

preoccupied, I hadn't even heard him. "Can you come in

here, please?"

I nodded, but was clumsy when I stood. I knocked a pile

of folders, so the papers inside slid across my desk in a

messy heap. Paul stopped me when I tried to gather them.

"Now, please."

I nodded again and folowed him into his office. He didn't

tel me to sit, so I didn't. I could tel nothing from the look

on his face, which was carefuly blank. Over his shoulder, I

could see the red numbers of his clock radio, tuned to a

station playing soft jazz. I swalowed hard, my nerves on

fire.

"I think we need to have an understanding."

I said nothing, not trusting my voice.

Paul cleared his throat and folded his hands together on

the desk. He didn't look at me. I couldn't look away.

"I believe I have a reputation for being…difficult. To work

for."

for."

"I don't think so." The pulse beat in my throat, forcing my voice to deepen.

He looked at me then, straight in the eye. His hands on the

desk tightened inside each other as though he wanted to

be holding something else, something precious, but was

afraid he might drop it. I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

Without speaking, he unfolded his hands and pushed a

piece of paper across the desk to me. Neither of us

looked at the paper. We looked at each other.

I didn't look at it when I touched the tips of my fingers to

the paper, nor when I puled it toward me, or when I

clasped it in my hand. I didn't look at it until I sat at my

desk and laid it down in front of me.

The list.

I sat at my desk and looked at the list. It took up the entire

sheet of ruled paper. It was insultingly long and infuriatingly

detailed. He hadn't yeled at me yesterday, he'd done this

instead, and it was infinitely worse than if he'd caled me on

the carpet.

It was also infinitely, inexplicably better.

Not only did the paper have the projects he needed me to

work on today, but it contained detailed instructions on

duties I'd been performing without supervision for months.

He'd left out breaks for me to eat and use the bathroom,

but every other minute of the day had been accounted for.

In high school I'd had a teacher who didn't like girls. I

don't mean he was gay, just that for whatever misogynistic

reason, he'd thought females somehow lesser creatures

than males. Considering the boys in my class, I thought the

man was an idiot, but at sixteen there's not much you can

do about it but get through it. This teacher hadn't been

impressed by good grades earned through hard work, and

I'd had to work very hard for al my good grades. I've

already said I wasn't the brain. Even so, I wasn't a bad

student, and so when I got an A on my first test and this

teacher, this man put in charge of young adults to mold

them into something fit for future society, sneered and

suggested I'd cheated off the boy next to me in order to

have earned that grade, I learned a very important lesson.

No matter how hard you worked, there was always going

to be somebody out there who thought you were a fuckup.

to be somebody out there who thought you were a fuckup.

Part of me pictured myself storming into Paul's office,

tossing the list on his desk and quitting in an outrage, but I

knew there was no way I'd ever do it. I needed my job. I

wanted it. I could put up with a lot more than a stupid list

to keep it.

So instead, I did what I'd done in high school with that

dumbass teacher who thought girls couldn't be better than

boys.

I worked my ass off. It was a game, that day, going down

that list and completing each task on it. And as the day

wore on and I finished item after item, my sense of

accomplishment grew. I'd never realized, actualy, how

much work I accomplished in one day.

I'd never thought to write down everything I did. Looking

at it at the end of the day, this job no longer seemed a

mindless drone. I'd done something. A lot of somethings,

as a matter of fact, and when I took that list into Paul's

office with each item boldly checked off and my neat

annotations in the margins, there was no hiding my triumph.

"Finished," I said and stepped back, waiting to see what

"Finished," I said and stepped back, waiting to see what

he'd say.

But, unlike my teacher who'd have probably dismissed my

efforts with a snide comment, my boss looked over the list,

ticking off each item with the point of his pen.

He looked up at me. I'd never noticed how blue his eyes