Jack’s palms left greasy smears of perspiration over his phone screen as he stared at Brenna’s beaming, clinical contact photo. Very professional. Swallowing his pride, he decided to tell a white lie and save his skin. He was a good worker, wasn’t he? Surely all of that hard work had earned him a bit of leeway here.
Pressing the phone into a clammy cheek, he immediately stuttered at the sound of Brenna’s whispered, aggressive, “Where are you?” Great question.
“Brenna, I… uh…” A malformed sentence slid from his throat like a thick loogie. He was about to puke. “I can’t come in today.” The lie, coming about three seconds deep into an already too-long awkward silence, was as convincing as it was confident. He was doing an incredible job. A snotty sniffle rattled through his nostrils. It was the best he could do as a prelude to pretending to be sick.
“What? I just heard that you’d already arrived. Weren’t you here a second ago?” A sound of tapping pattered through the speaker. “Yeah. I have a text right here, do I need to read it out loud? Get in here.”
So, Brenna had shockingly seen through Jack’s attempt at lying. How’d she do it? Stupefied and embarrassed, he spat out a few more broken syllables before she continued.
“Look, normally I’d give you a pep talk, but I don’t have time for it today. Are you coming in, or not? If you can’t, then don’t be surprised if Vanessa picks up whatever you’ve clearly lost the competence to do.”
What a humiliating proposition. Sapped of all resistance, he blubbered out a confession. “Brenna, I’m shrunken. Somehow, my shrink ray activated. I’ll come in and do anything, just get out here and help me out, can you?” He cursed himself for his tone. Perhaps that was a bit too rude. Too late now.
The phone felt frigid against his ear. “Did you hear me?” Brenna broke through the silence with a snort of impatience. The phone clicked, and she was gone.
Then she was back. Brenna discretely entered the hallway, staring at the floor. Like a desperate dog, Jack scrambled toward her pumps, hoping to be caught in the older woman’s palm. All pretensions of professionalism disappeared as he craved the warmth of a safe, bigger person’s touch. ‘What Jess doesn’t know won’t hurt her…’ he thought.
She scooped him up and let him roll around in her palm. Her voice boomed overhead, two crows eye–trimmed eyes squinting, “The meeting? Canceled—because of you, of course.” A strand of hair had come loose, dancing over her wrinkled forehead. Jack felt nauseous. Brenna was typically kind. He’d really fucked her over with this fiasco.
“Brenna! I’m sorry. This is all an embarrassing mistake. This is not me, and you know that. Just make me normal size, I’ll fill in, I can do any—“
The towering woman pressed a delicate finger over her lips. She was shushing him, like a teacher disciplining a student. Jack was immediately filled with the need to subordinate himself. He had inconvenienced her after all.
“Relax. I’m still going to get you back to normal size. But I have to admit, there’s something a little… convenient about you being at this size.”
Jack felt tense. “What do you mean?”
Brenna grinned. The cold, anxious sense of dread evaporated from Jack’s muscles, finally letting him stand limply, a slouch of tenuous comfort. This woman, somewhere inside her, was kind. He could have ended up in Vanessa’s hands, after all.
“What do you think about a promotion? Starting now. Let me show you.” Jack hadn’t even noticed, probably due to his size, that she’d lurched into motion. The door of her office slammed behind them, then she was seated in her chair. Warm flesh turned into thin air, and then Jack rolled over Brenna’s desk like a bag of grain. He wheezed as he stood at attention.
“There. Look, right there.” Her manicured finger exhibited a solid clod of goo between the C and V on her keyboard. “The thing keeps sticking. Get it out, will you?”
Normally, ‘promotion’ implied something at least slightly more dignified than… whatever this was. But the filial young man didn’t so much as question his boss’ authority as he strained and pulled the slimy heap free with a grunt. He barely leapt out of the way before she slammed into the keys repeatedly, smirking in satisfaction.
“You just earned yourself a new job, Jack. I’ve got a lot more crud stuck somewhere else for you.” Leaning back in her chair, she rested her hands on her desk, palm-down, and awaited his reaction.
“I’m being promoted? Like, how? What’s my pay, my job, my, uh…” Words slowly left him as Brenna creaked further into her chair. The clunk of her pumps being deposited atop the carpet and the popping of old joints accompanied her smile. It seemed that some things were better left unsaid.
All of this was deeply uncomfortable for Jack. Yet he felt the desire to make it up to Brenna for how much he’d troubled her. Jess would understand, she’d know that Jack hadn’t really been able to say no to such a proposal. It was his boss, and he was hers to command.
Brenna extended a fist, eyes curved into jubilant crescent moons behind her glasses as she showed Jack her wedding ring. “If you want your promotion, just kiss right here.”
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