Chapter 18 - Everybody is screwed

Sitting in the waiting room outside of the HR suite, Trixie was nice enough to bring Grace and me some coffee and apologize. “The new director is, like, super busy and is running a touch behind.”

It looks like the new HR director was talking to a lot of employees. It’d be a lot of employees on a normal day, but being a Saturday made it quite spectacular. I counted at least six people come and go from Mrs. Birdie’s old office before I heard that intense voice, “I’m sorry, my secretary didn’t contact me about this meeting. Do I have an appointment to see HR at nine am?”

Mr. Orpheus walked right up to Trixie’s desk and didn’t even seem to notice Grace and me. We looked at each other, communicating the same thing without words. Our appointment was at nine o’clock. If this new HR director wanted to see just the two of us, it would be about what we did. If they wanted to see both of us AND Mr. Orpheus, it would be about what HE did. Before we could confirm our thoughts or even let Mr. Orpheus know that we were here Trixie stood up and said in her happy sing song voice, “Yes sir! Now that all of you are here, Mr. Stirling will see all of you. Please follow me!”

Mal turns and sees Grace and I but doesn’t seem to care one bit that we’re here. Instead, he straightens up and follows Trixie into Mrs. Biridie’s old office. Grace and I follow and walk in just as Trixie is setting up the three chairs in front of Mrs. Birdie’s desk. “Mr. Orpheus, Miss Thompson, Miss Beaufort, this is Alstair Stirling, our new Human Resources Director. Can I get anything for you? Tea? Coffee? Danish?”

We all take a seat, shaking our heads at the offered refreshments. Once Trixie has stepped out of the office and closed the door behind her, the man behind the desk stands up. At first impression, Mr. Striling struck me as a nerd. He was tall, but not in any kind of fit or athletic way. He was wearing an ill-fitting shirt, a thin badly tied tie, and a sweater vest like Mr. Rogers wore. His hair was badly styled and in need of a trim. And he, I swear to God, was wearing horn rimmed glasses with tape holding the nose piece together. But when he spoke, I immediately knew that I couldn’t judge this book by his cover. His voice was loud, strong, and like Mr. Orpheus’, full of confidence. “Good Morning Mr. Orpheus, Miss Thompson, and…” he looked over his glasses at me “…Mr. Beaufort.”

Without even looking at Mal, Mr. Stirling pointed a finger at him, silencing whatever he was about to say. “Yes, I know about what you, Miss Thompson, and my predecessor were doing. In another life and in another time, I might have even approved of your plan as I have no love, need, or want of a misogynistic pig like Mr. Orpheus in any organization that I work for. What the three of you did, however, was illegal.”

Without asking a single question of Grace or I, Mr. Stirling turned to Mal. “As for you Mr. Orpheus. Yes, your personal assistant of the last three weeks was in fact born a man. So far as I can ascertain, he was a man right up until he started working here. He lied on his application. He lied on his supplied resume. He lied on his supplied references. And most worryingly, he lied on his supplied identification papers. You see, Mrs. Birdie, Miss Thompson, and Mr. Beaufort were all working to **** you into quitting. Mrs. Birdie and I had a short conversation about this, and she showed me all of her files on what they had planned. If it were up to me, you’d be fired. With cause. You’d be denied any future bonuses, any part of the company going public including stock options and would owe back any bonuses that were paid early. At last check, that would cost you in excess of twelve million dollars. I’d then support turning you into the police for attempted ****.”

I could feel my back straightening in pride, feeling that Mr. Stirling appeared to be on the side of the angels. Or at least Grace’s and my side. That was until he turned back to Grace and I. “Miss Thompson, you conspired with Mrs. Birdie to **** one of our directors. No matter the honorable nature of your intentions, you intended to commit **** and fraud in the company’s name. If it were up to me, I’d pursue the same consequences I just laid out for Mr. Orpheus. You’d be fired, denied bonuses, and be turned over to the police. And Mr. Beaufort?” He turned to me and slipped his glasses off. Without the glasses giving him that overall nerd vibe, he was now quite intimidating. “You would be in the most trouble. While Mr. Orpheus and Miss Thompson both were attempting crimes, you actually committed crimes.” Holding up a copy of my passport he continued “I won’t go over the small varieties of crimes you committed like fraud and impersonation, your major crime was altering your passport and submitting it as valid identification. That’s a federal crime. You could be imprisoned for up to twenty-five years and fined up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And while I’m not in law enforcement, I believe this would be a slam dunk case for any federal prosecutor.”

We all sat in silence. Mr. Orpheus was fuming, obviously hoping to save his millions of dollars. Grace was fearful of losing her job. And I was trembling in fear of going to prison. I’m fairly sure Mr. Stirling is waiting extra long just so that we could all stew in our personal hells before continuing.

“Now any of these outcomes would look bad upon K Edison Global. And while the executive team has tasked me with cleaning up the mess that is the Human Resources Department, I’m also tasked with keeping the name of the company in good standing until the public offering is complete and K Edison Global is a publicly traded company. Any of your crimes would lead to bad press and probable loss of valuation. This could cost the company millions if not billions of dollars. So, we’re not going to go down any of those paths.”

Grace was the one that finally leaned forward and spoke. “So… we’re free to go? Paris leaves, while Mr. Orpheus gets off scot-free?”

Mr. Stirling shook his head negatively and put his glasses back on. “I’m afraid not Miss Thompson. You see, Mr. Orpheus had the unfortunately earned reputation of abusing his staff. While we don’t want to lose his business acumen, we also can’t have him continue that trend. No, he’s going to continue to work with his personal assistant, MISS Beaufort. You will all continue your employment with requirements. Your job, Miss Thompson, is requires your continued assistance with MISS Beaufort’s transition.”

I finally found enough oomph to speak, although some of the punch went out of what I was saying as it came out in my Trixiesque mezzo-soprano feminine sounding voice. “Wait, you’re saying you WANT me to continue working as HIS secretary? You must have seen the video… that bastard tried to **** me. I’m not going to work for him. Besides, you said it yourself, I’m not MISS Beaufort, I’m MR. Beaufort. What’s your company policy on continuing fraud?”

My use of a curse word and talk of the company committing fraud didn’t faze Mr. Stirling at all. “Yes Miss Beaufort, we want you to continue to work for Mr. Orpheus. I don’t believe he will be making further sexual advances to you now that he knows your gender. And as for committing fraud, we’re going to help fix your gender identity so that you never committed fraud and that the company doesn’t commit fraud at all. We’re going to add an addendum to your application that you are transitioning from male to female. We’re going to replace your identification papers with your current passport and driver’s license and update them once you can get us new copies. Copies that state you are female. Our generous health benefits, which I see you’ve already used to schedule an appointment with a surgeon, will be used to get you counseling for your transition. Now, what you say to your transition counselor is a medical issue and therefore protected by HIPPA. I can’t know anything other than the fact that you are in therapy. And so long as you ARE in therapy, there won’t be any reason to believe you attempted fraud. That is your requirement. Go into, and remain in, gender transition therapy. In other words, go along and we’ll avoid prosecution.”

Mr. Orpheus’ stood up and seemed about to simply walk out before Mr. Stirling started talking to his back. I’d never seen Mal get turned around when he was already leaving, let alone without even being told to come back, but here he was turning around and listening. “Mr. Orpheus, your requirement should be obvious but I need to state it clearly. Until the company goes public you are to retain the services of Miss Beaufort as your executive personal assistant. In addition, you are to have no sexual harassment, sexual ****, and of course sexual **** claims, charges, or rumors come to this office. Once the company goes public, you can choose your own staff as you’ve done in the past and your behavior will be between the executive team and yourself. But until then, I expect you to have a clean record with all women. Both here in the office and outside. With ALL women.”

Mal’s agreement to the terms was a simple, barely perceivable, nod. But it was clearly there. He was on board. With that done he turned and strided out of the human resources office.

I really didn’t like the fact that we were both being blackmailed while Malachi was seemingly being let off the hook, but there was no working around the wall that was Mr. Stirling’s plan. From the company’s standpoint it was bad if we all went down, but they’d still have the moral high ground and would end up just fine after the bad press blew over. Hell, the company might end up BETTER for standing up against ‘bad employees’. If we didn’t play along, Grace would lose her job and might serve some jail time. I’d be prosecuted and probably spend years in prison. Mr. Orpheus would go down with us, but unless the other women came out of the woodwork, he would only be losing money as my testimony against him would hold no weight with a purported **** on my part. If we did go along, Grace would keep her job, and I’d have to not only continue to work as a woman I’d have to go to a gender transition counselor. All of this until the company went public which was hopefully this year. At that time, I’d be allowed to leave along with the promised severance package.

A year. I can last a year.

Mr. Stirling emphasized that he would work diligently on keeping the company’s side quiet. So far as anybody else was concerned, there was nothing going on with Mrs. Birdie, Grace, myself, or Mal. Even Mrs. Birdie was getting a deal. So long as she stayed quiet about what we were doing and stayed away from K Edison Global, they wouldn’t press charges for her embezzlement. Without seeing any other way out, Grace and I agreed to the plan and signed our non-disclosure agreements. I was then given Mr. Orpheus’ NDA and sent back to ‘my desk’ to get his signature.

I didn’t even get to my desk before Mr. Orpheus was calling me into his office. I walked in with the NDA and saw something I hadn’t ever witnessed before. Mr. Malachi Orpheus, Director of Mergers and Acquisitions for K Edison Global, out of control. Kind or angry, cocky or busy, throwing my phone across the office or pouring his coffee into a trash can, Mal was always in control of himself. But now he was pacing back and forth in front of his desk. His jacket was tossed toward the seating area, but it had missed the chair and was crumpled on the floor. His tie was pulled loose from his throat, but his tie clip was still in place letting his tie bulge out just below his open collar. When I closed the door behind me, he turned to face me and again, his disturbed nature was reflected in his broken and hesitant speaking, “I want to be clear, because I just can’t buy it. You’re a… I mean, you were born a… you have a….”

I had to step in to help him because he just looked pathetic. “Yes, I’m a man. If it will help you get it, I can pull my skirt up and my panties aside to show you the proof. But please take my, word for it. I’m a man.”

Mal’s brow furrowed as he looked just below my waist for a long moment. In a quiet voice, as if it were just becoming clear to him, he asked “And you really didn’t want to give me a blow job? What was that, an act with Darnell? Are you gay? Well, of course you’re gay…” he gestures at the way I’m presenting myself as if that defined my sexual orientation “…you have given head before, right?”

It was my turn to lose a bit of control. “What!? NO! I’m straight. I’ve gotten my cock sucked. I haven’t ever EVER sucked cock.” I take a deep breath to get back on track. “Look all of this, the clothes, the hair, the makeup, the flirting with Darnell, and yes, the flirting with you, were all a means of teaching you a lesson. I heard about how you treated women, and we needed… wanted… a way to get you to quit. It wasn’t supposed to end up with me having to be this…” I vaguely waved my hands at my skirt, blouse, breasts, and hair “…for a full year. But honestly, if it teaches you a lesson then maybe it’s at least partially worth it.”

We talked for quite a while, making several things clear. Neither of us were happy about this. Mal felt that he was being punished unjustly in and out of work. I felt I was being held against my will and had no desire to work as a woman for the rest of the year. I agreed that I’d be a good executive personal assistant in that I’d answer the phones, manage his email and schedule, and do the normal things an assistant would do. I would NOT be his sexual plaything any longer and would not accept him calling me anything other than Miss Beaufort or Paris. It honestly took some convincing that I did not want him to touch me. Not on my ass, not on my legs, not on my waist. No touching. And while he agreed to call me only by my name, he clearly didn’t understand the problem with his pet names.

As I grabbed my purse and headed out of the office, I knew another thing clearly. Mr. Orpheus had never been beaten like this in the office. He absolutely hated that he had to treat me anything like an equal. While I was safe from him being a sexual monster toward me, he was still a dangerous man. And he was still my boss.