Daisy takes Paul out back to explain herself

Daisy was frozen. It must have been over a hundred degrees in the club from the body heat, but she was frozen. She should have known someone would figure out their arrangement sooner rather than later. The other office ladies teased her for how little she got done, but she was higher on the payroll than all of them. The official-sounding words that would come with her firing documents (and maybe a lawsuit) started to rattle around in her head. Daisy wasn't just frozen, she was fucked, and not in the way she liked it.

"I can't hear you," she said. If she couldn't give him a good answer, she thought she could stall for time. "Wjy don't we go out back?" she shouted. There was a door nearby with a big FIRE EXIT ONLY sign, but a doorstop had wedged it open, so she figured they weren't going to set off any alarms if they went that way.

Paul looked at her for a second. It didn't make her feel safer. He rolled his eyes and pointed toward the side door, and she led him in that direction.

The outside air was a big relief. Daisy was feeling overheated even before her coworker had confronted her, so she desperately needed this. The back alley was dingy and small, but it got decent light from the street. There was another light above the metal door to the bar. It was bright enough to make the graffiti on the door easy to read: SLUTSTOP, said some giant, blurry red letters. Daisy gulped.

"Sorry, what'd you say back there?" she said.

Paul rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Cut the crap. You know what I said. Ninety-two K? I'm only making a hundred and I've been here for six years. What the hell are you doing making ninety-two K with only a BA?"

*Not even,* thought Daisy. "I don't know, I guess I just did well in the interview," she said. She kept glancing back at the graffiti. It was only 6 PM, so they were the only ones in the alley. If they'd come out here at midnight, what sort of things would they see?

"Nobody's that good in an interview," said Paul. "Do you have dirt on somebody? One of the big guys?"

She hemmed and hawed. "Sort of," she said. She had gotten dirty on one of the big guys, definitely.

"You can't just keep that to yourself. If it's something serious, the company has to know. I can protect you. We can even keep most of your compensation if you play your cards right," said Paul.

Her mind was racing a mile a minute. "No deal," she said. "This is, like, my insurance policy. If things get bad, this is all I've got." It sure was her insurance policy. That included dental, medication, and even psychotherapy if she needed it. It might be better than Paul's policy, even.

"Things are bad now. That's why I'm telling you to tell me, or else I'm taking it to the partners," he said.

*No easy answers,* Daisy thought. If she lied about which partner she had dirt on, she would just look like a lying bitch instead of a regular one. But she wasn't about to sell out Mr. Johnson. She went down her list of options like a checklist, and found the one that might actually get her out of this situation.