Just Go with It, Sandy

The first time Sandy thought about it—really thought about it and considered it and what it would mean—was the night Derek made it clear.

It was in her office, sometime after eight p.m., sometime after the building's cleaning crew had come and when they were just finishing up.

Blandly thirtysomething Sandra, blandly getting through another night at the office downtown, microwaving a sad lean cuisine for dinner; blandly pouring over the pages of boring legal arguments and the endless hieroglyphics of their footnotes, endnotes and citations that she was highly-paid to decipher for hapless corporate Americans.

Her boss Derek "on his way out, back to the old ball and chain," meaning his wife and three kids, stopping in her office because he "just remembered a thought about something," like he did at least twice a week. Each time, for reasons Derek never gave, these remembered thoughts had to be shared with Sandra in person and could never be put off until tomorrow, when the rest of their colleagues would be back in the office.

Sandra heard the elevators chime, and the sounds from down the hall where the cleaning crew's heavy tubs of trash and recycling rolled on the linoleum surface surrounding the elevator landing. Heard them roll out of the way, then heard Derek excuse himself, heard his steps clip clop back down the hall—after years at this firm, Sandra knew everyone who worked there by their tread on the office carpets and floors—where anyone could see her office light still on, spilling onto the office hallway.

And then: there Derek was, in her doorway.

Unbidden.

Sitting himself down in one of the useless client chairs in her office since her job meant she never saw clients—not that clients ever saw anyone in the firm other than the Managing Partner.

Making eye contact with the precise spot where the second button on her blouse was opened. Sandra watching him assess her, as he did at this range at least twice a week.

First, small talk about some ongoing case of hers that Derek was supervising. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you talk to so and so at the client's counsel's office. Yes and she will and she did and it was all fine. Two minutes of preamble before Derek reverted to his regular evening words of wisdom.

"Just wanted to remind you," Derek all false cheer. "But the rules have always been a majority vote. And I failed my first time!"

The first time Derek told her he failed to make partner the first year because of a then-Junior Partner's opposition— "all because there was still a year left on my five-year-counsel contract"—but who joined in the unanimous vote for Derek the following year—Sandra laughed with Derek and felt a sense of intimacy and trust. But that was years ago now. "Sure, he was the only vote against me that first year, but I respect that because I want a penny-pincher like that watching over my money!"

By these evenings, years later, Derek's position with Sandra was all about how "you can't stay a senior associate forever," and remember, "you should take an active interest in your career, and that means an active interest in the people you're going to be partners with. If, in a few years, that is, you want to be partners with us. In business with us."

And this particular evening, Derek stood up, and closed the office door, although both he and Sandra knew they were the only ones who were there, and then he approached her desk.

Sandra turned herself in her office chair to face him. He stopped himself on the edge of her desk, perching himself there, turning his hips as open to her as he casually could.

She saw the many pleats in the front of his khaki trousers.

"Because we keep you to ourselves here in litigation," Derek told her, "the rest of the groups in the firm haven't really gotten to know you. Now, eventually, you can't stay a senior associate forever, and people who haven't not gotten to know you—they're gonna wonder why you haven't made the effort, Sandy."

Derek took a long pause to look at Sandra in her eyes, behind the simple wire frames of her glasses. Sandra saw his eyes, saw the need and desperation masquerading as strength. She wondered how many months it had been since Derek's lame and controlling wife had even touched him, let alone given him what this man—this potential Legal Partner of hers—was begging for.

"Oh, I'm sure they know me," Sandra joked. "That prudish, repressed, reserved girl in litigation who works late all the time."

Derek smiled but took the bait. "Are you prudish?"

"That's neither here nor there," Sandra deflected. "But your point, subtle thought it may be, is well-taken."

"Look, Sandy," Derek said, adjusting the position of his hips against her desk, like something was uncomfortable in his pants. "I'm just saying," and he paused again to show he meant no harm, "take an interest in the guys who can be your partners and they'll take an interest in you. You've got a lot to offer, Sandy. But I'll be honest—this happened with Celia and why she had to leave to go to another firm—and between you and me, it's gonna happen with Vanessa, too, she spends too many weekends at home with her husband and too few here in the office—but I'm just saying, people who don't know you will question your commitment to this firm. I mean, when there is an emergency, this place needs people who will show up and put out the fires. We need to know you've got that commitment, if you, or anyone, is gonna be a partner. We're a small firm, really, especially in this market . . . so . . ."

Sandra took him and his words in and let him babble himself out, as she knew he would when she put her resting bitch face on and refused to budge it.

But Derek petered and dripped out his words, and finally said goodnight and Sandra smiled and said good night back and then she heard him use the elevators for real, and then Sandra was finally alone in the office and could get back to some of the miserably dull work that was her lucrative, comfortable, suburban-townhome-living, Mercedes-driving life.

Sandra; prudish, reserved and repressed, took a can of diet Cola out from the bottom of her desk drawer, one of several cans she rescued-slash-liberated from the office-kitchen-remains of one catered luncheon or another, and she took out the small bottle of Maker's Mark she kept there with them. The whiskey came from the liquor store around the corner on eighteenth street.

In ten minutes, all of the bad taste ("still metaphorical," Sandra realized to herself) was washed out of her psyche, replaced by a warm honey glow, some confidence, and the possibilities of her future.

For the next few days, Sandra looked at the partners in the firm through a new lens. She tried to make a point of smiling and finding each during the mornings, on one of her many rounds around the office; from her office to a printer, from her office to a secretary's station, from her office to a junior associate's office to dump some needless, painful busywork on him, Sandra made a point to walk past each Partner's office to see if he had arrived and when Sandra saw he had, to smile and say "Good Morning!" and call each man by his first name, and to wait there in his doorway long enough for him to look up at her, to let him see her smiling at him.

And then departing, whether or not he called out her name or any name or said anything, because she knew the point was to let them see her acknowledging them and smiling her womanly smile, flashing her repressed-librarian eyes at them with warmth and supplication and acknowledgement of her joyful deference to him, for at this time, all of the partners in this branch office of the regional law firm were men.

A glass of fizzy Cola stayed on Sandra's desk each morning, to make it easier to feel the confidence to smile at her potential partners—who felt that morning to her like something even more than merely her bosses.

Then, on Wednesday of the following week, Sandra added a second glass of fizzy Cola by mid-afternoon. On Friday afternoon, after lunch, she replaced her bottle of whiskey with a fresh one from the store around the corner on eighteenth street. The afternoon cocktail eliminated her need for late-afternoon coffee runs to the small-chain coffee shop across the street, so financially, Sandra saw, it was already a wash.

Not only was she saving money, Sandra reflected, but by not having to go out for coffee in the afternoons, she could keep her bland work pumps kicked off under the desk, and could work away and sip away in peace, her hose-clad feet relaxed and free under her desk.

And thus, Sandra added these new, simple rituals to her white-collar life.

Sandra's secret campaign to make herself More Friendly and Visible continued into a third week, and in the mid-afternoon of that week's Tuesday, Sandra, finally, reflecting, realized what the feeling was that she had been feeling each morning all the morning long since the first morning of her More Friendly and Visible Sandra. It was the feeling of Fealty, of Feudalism, of something ancient and still somewhere in the genetic code and accepted dogma of a law firm working in the western world practicing western law.

And she realized, with a strange thrilling rush, punctuated by a sharp icy fear—and then, the thrill at that fear!—how good she could be in that system, those back corners of monasteries and abbeys and dour medieval courts of law and privilege, her heavy skirts being lifted up and the sudden cool of the church library on her thighs and her—

The knock at the door made Sandra realize how deep into her daydream she had fallen.

Before she could say "come in," the door was opening.

Sandra thought she knew what that meant and who that had to be.

"Hi Bryce!"

"How'd you know it was me?" The tall, balding fifty-something said behind a smile as he stood in the open doorway.

"One of my many powers," Sandra replied.

But Bryce saw it immediately.

"Ah. Afternoon refreshment," he said.

Sandra scoffed. "Just a little pick me up. I mean, something to settle my stomach. Was. Little queasy after breakfast.'

"I never figured you for a one."

"A one of what?"

"A you know. One of the club."

"What club?"

"The Bar Association," he said.

"The Bar Association?"

"Kinda," Bryce said, "if ya get it," as he closed the door behind him, and sat down in the other of the two client chairs than the one Derek chose on his visits, such as the other evening's. Bryce leaned forward to the point where his long frame was leaning over her desk. He inhaled. 


"Smells great." A pause. "Whiskey?"

Sandra flooded with realization.

"Oh my god you mean the drink," Sandra said. "Oh yeah, I think it was an accident, a few drops must have snuck in or something."

Bryce laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna tattle. C'mon," Bryce said. "Give ol' Brycie some credit. I never figured you for an Afternoon Sipper before."

Sandra shrugged. "Me neither."

"Well, that's fine. Good to have you aboard."

"You mean—"

"Every now and then," Bryce deflected modestly. But Sandra sensed the limits of Bryce's denial. Both litigators, they both work in the world of human frailty and legal imperialism. "Makes it easier to take some of the Managing Partner's . . .managerial style, shall we say," Bryce confessed.

"I'll drink to that," Sandra joked.

Bryce laughed. "I guess it's not technically against the rules," Bryce said. He winked. "But I'll keep your secret."

"What is against the rules?" Sandra asks, emphasizing the word is.

"Not collecting from clients," Bryce said. "Going against what the Managing Partner wants," he said, and laughed.

Sandra did not respond, but she took another sip of her drink.

Bryce watched her. Sandra could tell.

"What did you come down to talk about, Bryce?"

He collected himself. "Derek told me, you guys had a little chat the other day."

"Other night, but," Sandra corrected, "go on."

"Yeah, whatever. He told me—you know, everyone values what you could add to our team. But you gotta understand—we pretty much all work the Managing Partner's Book of Business. Those are multi-million dollar clients, and they are his, so we all have to be team players."

Bryce smiled his friendly, trustworthy smile. His encouraging smile. Sandra looked at him, attentive, expressionless.

Bryce continued. "They all think you could be a great part of the team. We think you could. I for sure think you could," he said, changing his tone, trying to make it playful, "I know how late you work and how many weekends you put it, because I so often see you here. I know your life has suffered because I know my wife has suffered!" Bryce joked. Sandra reluctantly smiled.

"Look, it's not all that bad," Bryce said. His long arms reached for her glass and he took it and shook it gently, clinking the ice against the sides. "As you see, there are ways to make it go down easier," and then Bryce raised her glass to his lips without asking and sipped her drink.

Bryce made a simple murmur of appreciation at the taste and how Sandra mixed her cocktail. He showed her he liked it so much, he kept drinking; Sandra watching him the entire time, her heart racing and her body unmoving, sitting in her office chair, legs crossed, arms resting on her knees. Poised. Attentive. Her face and body giving away nothing.

When Bryce puts the glass back on her desk, only the small ruins of ice cubes remain.

"Make another," Bryce said.

Sandra considered for a beat, then said, "I'll have to get ice."

"No no no. Make it neat."

Sandra considered. "Okay."

She took the bottle from her bottom drawer.

Bryce wrapped his thick fingers around the base of her glass cocktail glass. "Finger and a half," Bruce said.

Sandra lifted the bottle, unscrewed the wax-stained cap.

"Finger and a half," he repeated, "you look like you could take about that," and he said it so simply and matter-of-factly, Sandra almost did not hear the grossness of it, the utterly boundary-exceeding nature of it. ("That is, if that was going to be her boundary," she thought to herself in a feminist instant. "Remain her boundary?" her inner voice continued, while she began to pour. "Remain her boundary?" she queried herself, "When had she ever declared it her boundary?" as she poured the final half-finger into the glass and as she blushed at Bryce's dirty joke.

"At least it means he thinks I'm tight," Sandra's deepest inner voice concluded with pride.

"Excellent," Bryce said, lifting the glass and placing it over on the desk, directly in front of Sandra. In her surprise, he reached for and Sandra let him take the bottle out of her hand holding it.

"Now," he continued, "shoot it."

Sandra was shocked. "What?"

"Shoot it."

She didn't. Sandra felt a slippery slope underneath her feet.

At her reluctance, Bryce continued. "Don't worry, I told Derek and your secretary that we were going to have a meeting. We needed a meeting on that case we've been working on. The Juarez Class Action."

Sandra looks at her glass in front of her, filled with her own liquor.

"Said we might have to take a conference call with the clients," Bryce continued, "for, maybe, an hour or so, might even take all afternoon. Might even sneak out early after it's done." He looked at her. ""Zokay. Drink up. Nobody's gonna give away your secret."

"I don't have a secret."

"Okay, Sandra. Then, nobody is going to tell. Enjoy it. You've got good taste in whiskey," Bryce told her. Tall, generally jovial, semi-paternalistic, semi-avuncular Bryce, with his short, squat wife and their children always in trouble, Sandra thought, and she realized she can smell the warmth of the whiskey.

"Just go with it, Sandy," Bryce said.

Sandra takes the glass in her hand and she does.

Sandra is feeling the whiskey burn and feeling that honey rush the whiskey gives her and she coughs and as she gets her breath back, Bryce is across the desk and he is taking her breath away again, holding her with his big hands by her shoulders and kissing her mouth, her whiskey-tasting mouth.

Sandra tastes whisky in Bryce's tongue-heavy and insistent kiss and realizes he must have taken a shot directly from the bottle when she took the one he poured for her in her glass.

"And what else did you think was going to happen?" her inner voice was asking herself.

"What else did you think he was going to do when you drank his drink?"

"What else did you lead him to think?" her sense of guilt and shame said to herself, and she felt the long-familiar relief of Intense Arousal that came over Sandy when she felt shame, delicious shame, wonderful shame, amazing shame, in little ripples of goosebumps and trembles and electricity all over her body and All About Her Body and what she chose to do with it concerning men and others.

Such as use her tongue to meet and play with Bryce's tongue in their never-ending, breath-defying, whiskey-soaked kiss.

"Only a harlot would kiss him back," her shame tells her, and she kisses Bryce harder, letting him know that the answer to his bold, wordless question is yes.

Bryce's hands on her white blouse cup her small breasts, then release them after a long, intense inspection. His large hands cover her small chest almost entirely, and that thought almost-but-not-quite chases away the fear and shame Sandra feels at how anyone could walk in like Bryce did and catch Bryce feeling her up in the middle of an afternoon.

And then Bryce quickly unbuttons her blouse, and quickly is feeling her through her bra, and then quickly slipping her bra up towards her neck so he can feel her up—in her office!—in the afternoon!—while being a married man and her senior colleague!—and his large hands, she feels, really can cover her entire chest in them, and she feels how strangely rough Bryce's large, older man hands are for someone who also works seated at a desk in their shared white-collar tomb.

His fingers on her nipples are gentle and then pinching and then hurting.

She breaks their kiss to pull away and say "stop stop stop" but Bryce and his long, powerful fingers, never let go of her chest and her nipples and he smiles and says with confidence and assurance "no one is going to hear us," and turns her nipples even harder, to prove his point.

Sandra makes an even sharper cry, but that makes Bryce chuckle, and Sandra feels the involuntary tear out of her left eye, at the pain, and she sees Bryce sees it too, and the matching tear from her right eye, as well. Bryce takes his hands off of her body to gently remove her glasses, put them next to her keyboard, and then take her head in his hands and kiss Sandra deeply.

Sandra kisses him back, as Bryce seems to de-escalate their impromptu and unscheduled, unplanned (on her part, she thinks)—oh, what should she call this? she thinks and she sinks into rhythm, kissing Bryce back and enjoying his whiskey breath of honey and attraction for her—this unplanned make-out session with a married co-worker on a random Tuesday afternoon.

Bruce is attentive, and charming, Sandra thinks and feels as his lips attend hers and charm hers. She knows this is a bad idea—it feels like both good and bad idea at once to Sandra, but perhaps, she thinks, this will be about to end, and she can maybe never drink at her desk any more . . .

"Here, let's have one more," Bryce says, breaking their kiss.

Sandra sees he has already poured another shot-worth of whiskey into her glass.

"I'll take mine from the bottle again, like the reprobate sailor I once was," Bryce says.

"That's right, you were in the Navy, right—"

"Yeah," Bryce says. "Crazy times. C'mon. Drink up." And this time, Bryce clinks the bottle against her glass, and they both shoot their shots together.

Sandra feels it burn in the good away. Then feels it burn so much it overwhelms her.