Leigh
“Come on, Leigh, use what you got.”
My boss, an older man in his early fifties named Carl, who had divorced his wife a decade ago, stared across from me in his office with a smirk on his face. I returned the smile in as professional a manner as I could, but the whole situation left me incredibly uncomfortable.
“You really want to end up like Liza and Emily?” he said. “We gave them a long string. Long, long string. Had to let them go today for not hitting their quotas. It was sad. But you have features and assets they don’t. Use ‘em! It makes you money.”
Money’s not everything,but that was a hell of an empty thought considering I’d signed up for this job—doing sales for a software company—precisely because it seemed to offer the fastest opportunity to make more money. Of course, working for Carl and dealing with men who wanted me for my body alone was a great way to make you realize money wasn’t worth everything, but now objecting on those grounds seemed to be morally hypocritical.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said.
“That’s the spirit; these programs aren’t gonna sell themselves!”
I stood up as he gave me a nod, his tongue half-sticking out like he was imagining licking…some things were probably best just not thought about in further detail, and this was very much one of them. But there was plenty worth imagining.
What a great job would look like.
What an office environment that didn’t involve harassment might look like.
What a day-to-day life that wasn’t filled with unending stress, followed by poor decisions meant to mask the pain I was feeling, might look like.
I headed back to my desk, sat down, and dropped my head in my hands. What I would have given to go back in time, choose to work for the non-profit, even for fifteen grand a year less, and actually enjoy my life. Who knew that as distant as my father was, he was right when he told me money wasn’t everything? Perhaps he was speaking from experience.
“Phones aren’t going to make the calls themselves, Leigh!” Carl yelled from his office, followed by an obnoxious laugh.
I drew in a breath.One day at a time,I thought.Speak to Hailey and learn what it’s been like for her.I couldn’t just quit and become a YouTube personality like her. I worried about making ends meet, and for better or for worse, I had more refined tastes than her. But I definitely needed a new job.
Midway through my next sales call—which somehow actually went well enough to set up another meeting—my personal phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t exactly hide anything when I grabbed it and unlocked it. It was Hailey.
“We’re grabbing drinks tonight with the boys. There’ll be a third wheel there if you want to come. Laughlin’s at 8.”
I was a little surprised reading that, if only because Laughlin’s was on the nice side of town, not exactly the stomping ground of bikers and blue-collar types of folks. But who was I to pass up a chance to dress up and look good? Who was I to say no to a night of drinking and having fun?
Who was I to say no to one of the few times during the week when I’d have control and be enjoying myself?
“I’ll be there!!!” I wrote, the number of exclamation marks I wrote more representing how I hoped I would feel by eight o’clock rather than how I felt right then.
* * *
The first decision of the night, around seven, was what to wear.
And like most nights I went out, it came down to which of the two outfits I wanted to wear—the more casual one, or the more revealing one.
The casual one was a black top that covered my shoulders, my chest, my arms—a fancy t-shirt, basically. It was a nice shirt, but it definitely was something I’d be more akin to wearing at a work happy hour than at a meetup where things might happen.
The other shirt was a red tank top that certainly showed off the curves. It didn’t leave much to the imagination, it gave boys a certain signal, and it made me feel confident. In the wrong environment, it would have brought judgment and questioning looks.
But what sort of environment was Laughlin’s going to be if it was going to be me, the Cook sisters, their men, and a third guy? And on top of that, what kind of a night did I want to have after Carl had treated me like a piece of meat to be salivated over in the workplace? Was it even really a question at that point?
No, it most certainly was not.
I called an Uber on my phone after putting on the red top—one of the few perks of the job was that I could spend money and not worry about it—and added a little bit of makeup around the eyes to intensify my look. My blonde hair with dark makeup always sent men into a tizzy, and it made me feel empowered. I knew it wasn’t the healthiest form of empowerment, but I had to take what I could get these days.
I rode the Uber in silence, wondering what kind of man the third guy would be. Would he be young, hot, and handsome? Or would he be older, pudgy, and too brash for his own good? The biker guys always seemed to fall on one end of the spectrum or the other; a world like that didn’t really draw in averages. If it was the former, well, maybe some fun could be had tonight.
And if it was the latter, well, I guess I was getting my stress release through alcohol instead of sex.
I walked into Laughlin’s and immediately spotted Hailey and Melissa—not an especially hard task considering the bar was only about a third full, what with it being a weekday and the place not serving any food. It would get somewhat crowded later in the night, but it wasn’t like we were competing against the mad rush of the crowd here.
