You're Not The Boss Of Me

** Prologue **

Sitting down at my desk I fall into my now standard morning routine. I put my purse into the bottom drawer and lock it, leaving my phone to put in silent mode in the top drawer. Smoothing out my tight black skirt I sit in my Herman Miller Aeron chair, still wondering why a corporation as big as K Edison Global would waste the $1500 on a chair for a secretary. Oh sure, they spice up the title to ‘Executive Personal Assistant to the Director of Mergers and Acquisitions’, but I wouldn’t be here if the ‘Director of Mergers and Acquisitions’ would treat his ‘Executive Personal Assistants’ like human beings instead of 1950s stepford secretaries.

I can’t help but muse that it IS a comfortable chair though, as I wiggle into place.

Starting at six in the morning, an hour and a half before my boss normally wanders in, is rough but I follow the routine that was laid out for me. After checking the calendar for any last-minute changes, changes that could only be made by the small handful of executives above Mr. Orpheus, I go through my email and voice mail. I respond quickly to the office pool, my bright red nails flying over the almost overtly sexist pink keyboard, stating that I could attend Claire’s cupcake birthday bash on Wednesday. I ignore the two companywide voice mails regarding parking and the newly posted lobby hours and only then do I dig into Mr. Orpheus’ email.

Where almost all my emails are on the personal side or companywide blasts, Mr. Orpheus’ are all business. Three emails from Gena Corporation that get quick responses of receipt, five from headhunters that get deleted, two from the CEO’s office that get marked as high priority, one from the Vice President of Investments that gets marked as read first. And those are just the emails that came in before midnight last night. It takes me a good thirty minutes to organize Mr. Orpheus’ email into the categories he laid out on that first day. Delete, safe to ignore, not important, important but not current, important and current, high priority, and read first. There were a full ten emails that got piled into the read first category.

Thankfully his voicemail is far easier to go through. I’m not to respond to, categorize or prioritize them, just delete the ones that he won’t want to listen to. After three weeks on the job he has only had to come out and publicly shame me for screwing that up once or twice. I’d complain about the small humiliations, but I’m not here about professional misconduct. I’m here for something far more important.

With the morning routine done I check my own phone for anything new. I had to manually pull the phone out and look at it as it was constantly in silent mode while at work. The first time Mr. Orpheus heard it ring, that stupid girly ring that Grace put on it, he calmly walked over, took the phone from my small hand, and tossed it across the office into the wall. It scared the living fuck out of me. Not his uncaring nature as I was warned about that beforehand. No, the scary part was the fact that he never stopped talking to one of his fellow directors while performing this destruction of personal property and never even looked angry. He didn’t even say anything about it although his message couldn’t have been clearer if he shouted in my face. I wasn’t important enough to have personal time at work, and my phone was just taking me away from him. Now that my phone, my new phone, is almost constantly in silent mode I have to peek at it when he’s not here, which is rare, or when I’m sure he won’t see it. For now, I’m only mildly disappointed that Grace hasn’t messaged me. I know she, like me, starts early in the morning and I was really hoping she would have heard about Mrs. Birdie.

A mild sigh of frustration is all I allow myself before falling back into my role. Taking out my compact… a phone takes me away from business but keeping myself beautiful is evidently essential… I check my makeup. A quick touch up of my lipstick is all that’s needed before I lock down my computer and step over to the break room. I see that I’m already behind as several other personal assistants are here. Frank, as always, is literally leaning on the water cooler and talking to Thomas and Darnell about the football game last night. Even before this whole charade I didn’t follow sports and that serves me now as I don’t have to pretend to not have interest. Frank and Thomas are both managers in the sales department while Darnell is a manager in marketing. Jennifer, Claire, and Margret are all seated at a table enjoying their cups of coffee. I mentally call them the mean girls but wouldn’t dare say anything aloud as they’re executive personal assistants to the CEO, CFO, and COO. Margret, executive personal assistant to the CEO, is also the head personal assistant and works on the 37th floor. She comes down here to the 34th floor just to visit with her bffs Jennifer and Claire. As I’m playing that I actually want this job, these would be the women I’d have to impress to get a more prestigious position. As is, they all looked down at me for working with Mr. Orpheus and his obviously sexist demands. There are a handful of other assistants here but thankfully the large coffee machine is open.

Out of every out-of-this-world thing I’ve had to learn how to do, I never in my life thought I’d have to learn how to make coffee as good as any barista. But like everything else for my boss, there was his way and there were wrong ways. Nothing in between. In this instance Mr. Orpheus wants his morning cuppa to be a double cappuccino with five shots of espresso, exactly three ounces of steamed half and half, exactly five ounces of foamed fresh milk, and topped with two dashes of cinnamon and one of nutmeg. After making the drink so many times I could now make it in my sleep. But that’s Mr. Orpheus to a tee as he not only demands exactly what he wants, he knows when it’s not exactly right. The first day I didn’t get it quite right. He reminded me, rather brusquely, what he wanted but accepted it. The second day I had the recipe memorized but saw that there wasn’t any fresh milk. I used the milk that was already in the fridge as it was only three days old. After only a sip the bastard actually made me drop everything else, walk four blocks away to a market that sold fresh milk, get a pint, and make the drink again. A few days later, after I’d successfully made the drink correctly several times, I evidently messed up the ratio of cinnamon and nutmeg. And how did my boss express his displeasure? By pouring out the drink on the floor and making me clean up his mess. I tried calling housekeeping to send up one of the janitors with a quick mop, but he sent the poor guy away and had me clean up the coffee drink on my hands and knees instead.

With his coffee beverage in hand, I return to Mr. Orpheus’ suite and unlock his office. Setting his drink down I glance at the clock knowing that it will remain at the correct temperature, once delivered, for exactly twenty minutes. If he’s running late by more than fifteen minutes I’ll have to collect it, pour it out, and make a new one. All part of the joys of working for one Mr. Malachai Orpheus.

While I’m in his office I take the opportunity to straighten up. He rarely lets housekeeping in, instead relying on me to do the majority of the cleaning. Thankfully he’s rather tidy leaving only some haphazardly piled files, a couple log books with dozens of flagged pages, and the pile of notes on his small meeting table. From what I’ve heard that pile wouldn’t ever be left out, but all he’s been doing for the past two months is work on the McGregor acquisition. K Edison had tried to acquire McGregor corporation three times in the last five years and had failed each time. If Mr. Orpheus gets it done this time, he not only would be the cock of the walk, but he’d also earn a massive bonus. He’d even be on the fast track for a Vice President position as soon as one opens up. And according to the email I flagged for him, it looked like the VP of Investments, Mr. Orpheus’ direct supervisor, was already planning his own retirement.

“Good morning, Miss Beaufort. I trust you were cleaning up and not just wasting your time?”

Hearing Mr. Orpheus speak stopped my heart momentarily. His voice wasn’t evil or cruel on the surface, and his tone was in no way mean or untoward. He wasn’t even loud, but there was no emotion in the tenor of his voice at all. No caring, no sympathy, no anything. After tapping the notes together into a quick neat pile, I turn around and put on my well-practiced, brilliant, smile. While my boss was allowed to be a monumental prick to me, I was expected to be nothing but smiles, giggles, and a soft sultry voice. Thank God Grace had me practice speaking in this tone for so long that it’s become second nature to talk this way. And thank God that the lozenges that Mrs. Birdie gave me were still working. “Good morning Mr. Orpheus. Your coffee is ready. The VP of Investment sent an email that I know you’ll want to read soon. There wasn’t any reply from McGregor corp. A quick reminder that you have a departmental meeting at ten. It’s a Zoom meeting as the conference room is still being re-carpeted. I left the files and logs on your desk as they looked like you weren’t finished with them, but I’d be happy to take them with me if you’d like.”

I could feel my heart still beating hard. For just a moment as Mr. Orpheus’ eyes crawled over my body, I see the exact look that I’m here to capture. The way a wolf looks at a deer. The way a lion looks at zebra. The way a polar bear looks at a seal. In other words, the way an apex predator looks at its prey. Unfortunately, while that very look could be seen as sexual harassment at most firms, the human resources director for K Edison Global needs hard proof. And without Mr. Orpheus on the video camera we set up in his office or on the audio recorder snuck into my bra, being overtly sexually harassing toward me, I had to keep up the appearance of just another ‘secretary’.

The look only lasts a moment and while I was happy to see it go, nobody wants to be looked at that way, I’m disappointed that I have to keep playing this part for another day. Mr. Orpheus’ answer is as curt as ever. “No. Leave them. Come here. I want you to take this down.”

Mr. Orpheus moves to his desk and sits down. Knowing that for no other reason than he likes to look at my legs I sit on the edge of his desk facing him and cross my legs at the knee. I suppress a groan as I feel my cock and balls shriek in complaint. It’s not bad enough that I have to keep them tucked back in my panties, it’s especially uncomfortable when I sit on them like this. Grabbing a pad and pen I wait for him to speak. It takes a moment as he gathers his thoughts before he starts speaking as if laying out a business memo. “Go out and order a dozen white roses for my wife and have them delivered today. Have them put a card on it. It should read ‘Darling, I’m sorry about the Mercedes. As ordering a new one will take too long, I’ll have the dealership pull out the carmine red leather and the piano black trim and replace it with your desired grey leather and natural walnut trim. Please forgive me this mistake. Yours, Mal.”

I wait while he considers the note, knowing he’s smart enough to remember exactly what he said without my reading it back to him. With a nod, I know he’s done but his hand casually lands possessively on my knee letting me know I’m not to leave just yet. “She told me she wanted a Mercedes S 580. She wanted it custom painted in an almost garish red wine that cost an additional fifteen thousand dollars. I got her a Mercedes S 580. I got them to custom paint it at the factory. She wanted it red and black in the interior. I got it red and black. And what does she say when this one hundred- and fifty-thousand-dollar monstrosity arrives? She says the interior looks garish and I should have ordered it with the expensive grey and wood trim.”

My skin crawls as he looked away, lost in his thoughts for a moment, while his hand casually rubs at my pantyhose clad knee. “Fuck it. Dad was right, I should have got a pre-nup. If I don’t get her car right, she’ll just have another reason to withhold sex. Now if I divorce her, she takes half. I bet her shyster lawyer would even get half the McGregor bonus. Anyway, once you have the flowers on the way, call up the dealership and explain what they’re going to do with the car. Put a rush on it. Cost isn’t important but don’t let them run you over. Now get out of here before I find out if you’re wearing a garter or not.”

I make a few more notes before giving him an academy award worthy smile and hop off his desk. While walking out of his office, taking special care of course to keep my ass shaking just as Grace taught me, I can’t help but wonder for at least the hundredth time; How the hell did Grace talk me, a lanky male photographer, into playing the bimbo secretary damsel in distress to catch an sleaze bag executive into sexual harassment that will end his career?