Richard Quatre, Office Worker who scores

Richard Quatre stared at the form with a skeptical eye.

It read: The H.M.M.E. Questionnaire

The acronym wasn’t what really caught his attention. What it stood for did. He wondered if just having something called the “Harem Maker and Male Enhancement” questionnaire left on his desk could count as workplace harassment.

First off, how the hell had this thing ended up in his cubicle? Second, who had put it there?

He’d arrived at quarter to seven that morning, half an hour ahead of the rest of his team. Setting up the computer systems was always a pain, and Richard preferred to get it done early in case anything went wrong and he needed IT support before the office filled up.

That meant whoever had used this cubicle on the night shift had left the form behind. In a normal world, he would have simply reported it to HR and let them deal with the idiot responsible. But this wasn’t a normal world.

HR existed to protect the company’s interests, not people like him. Given what the acronym stood for, Richard could already picture them deciding it was easier to punish him for “creating a hostile work environment” than actually investigating who left it. They had their quotas and metrics to worry about. Swift resolution always beat doing their actual job.

Bizarrely, despite himself, Richard found that as he waited for his computer to boot up, he felt compelled to read the questions.

He immediately wished he hadn’t.

1. Are you in a fulfilling sexual relationship with a woman?

What kind of question was that? The constant deadlines, the lack of any real advancement, the long hours, and the occasional mandatory weekend work didn’t exactly leave room for even an unfulfilling sexual relationship.

Richard wrote that he didn’t have a girlfriend or anyone he was seeing. He avoided the word “partner” — that implied some kind of mutual effort, and from his experience, relationships were rarely equal. Usually one person did most of the giving while the other just took.

2. Do you think you could be in a sexually fulfilling relationship in the near-term future?

Richard snorted in contempt. He didn’t have the time or the energy for that anymore. When he had tried in the past, he’d wasted it on someone who wasn’t even real. Now, two years shy of forty, he doubted it would ever happen. He’d mostly stopped looking.

He answered with the most contemptuous “No” he’d ever written.

3. Would you consider yourself a sexually attractive man? Please rate on a 1-10 scale, with 10 meaning one of the sexiest men alive.

That made him chuckle. Twelve years ago he might have answered with full bravado. Back then he actually took care of himself. His job had killed any hope of a healthy work-life balance, especially if you wanted to earn enough to live decently.

He took a moment to think. He was average. Not fit anymore, but not overweight either. He was just… himself. He wasn’t focused on looks. He wasn’t unattractive, but he wasn’t “handsome” in the way most women seemed to want these days. More like a polished antique or an old coin, that was attractive enough not to be ugly, but not enough to stand out.

So Richard opted to write 5. Middle of the road. Though from what his younger coworkers said, a five these days apparently registered as a two. Anything below four was basically in the negatives.

4. Are you satisfied with the size, shape, and functionality of your penis? Please rate on a 1-10 scale, with 10 meaning maximum satisfaction.

That was a bizarre question. Aside from basic hygiene, he hadn’t really thought about it in years. He didn’t particularly care one way or the other, so he put down 5 and added ‘so-so’ beside it.

5. Do you have any sexual experience outside of masturbation?

Richard wondered again who the hell had written this thing. Honestly? Yes, but it had been years ago. He’d probably be rusty now. He remembered a bad scare with a girl he was dating. The possibility of an STD had spooked him enough that he stopped dating or hooking up after he turned thirty-three.

He wrote: “Not recently. In the past, to varying degrees of success.”

6. Are you sexually satisfied? Rate on a 1-10 scale, with 10 meaning completely satiated sexual desires.

What did that even mean? Richard had gone so long without intimacy and without porn that he’d become mostly indifferent. However, not caring wasn’t the same as being satisfied; it was simply accepting something that was out of his control.

Ironically, he answered 1. No, he was far from sexually satisfied. It just didn’t matter to him much anymore.

7. Do you think the women in your daily life like or even respect you in any manner?

That one was easy. The women in his daily life were his co-workers, and he avoided interacting with them like the plague. It was hard to have any kind of decent relationship when you were constantly walking on eggshells.

He wasn’t bitter about his high school sweetheart ditching him twelve years ago after university. Not really. But she hadn’t respected him either. Neither had the ones who came after. His own sisters treated him more like a resource than a brother, and his mother had done the same. That was why he’d cut them off.

8. Do you think it is likely you would ever be a father?

Frowning bitterly, Richard wrote that he didn’t. In this day and age, it wasn’t something he was willing to risk. He added that at one point he had wanted it, though.

9. If you were someone’s father, do you think you would be good at it?

That was a tough one. He knew what not to do, but not really what to do. He could provide financially, but that came at the cost of time with the child. Growing up in a single-mother home with no strong father figures, he’d mostly been treated as a reminder of his father’s mistakes.

He decided to be honest: “I would try my hardest, but I doubt I would be perfect at it.”

10. Do you think you could ever satisfy a woman sexually, emotionally, or otherwise?

The friendzone had taught him he could satisfy a woman’s need for attention without ever being in a relationship with her. He’d stopped putting up with that years ago. In the past, the hook-ups he’d had usually resulted in the girls coming back for more because he was pretty good in bed. So yes, he could satisfy them back then.

But that was then.

Brutally honest, he wrote: “Not anymore.”

After finishing, Richard leaned back on his office chair before he heard the clicking of heels. Turning, he realised he had only spent about five minutes on the questionnaire—he hadn't expected anyone to arrive for another fifteen to twenty minutes.