I lay there, spent, and just longed for him. I let myself drift off to sleep, wondering what it would be like to have him there with me. I woke up feeling comforted and happy. Then memory came sliding back in. I squinted my eyes shut in dismay. I should never have indulged in graphic fantasies about my boss. Now I wouldn’t be able to look at him without blushing.
Building my career was the focus right now, not masturbating to thoughts of Brent. Damn. Just the memory of his laugh gave me tingles in places I could not allow to tingle. Something about it being forbidden just made it worse. Or better. Because my body was humming, my nipples coming to sharp peaks that begged to be pinched, a heavy dampness between my legs.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I reasoned and reached for my vibrator. I was shameless. I was going to rub one out before work, just thinking of him.
6
Brent
After my morning run, I messaged Millie to have all of HR full-time staff waiting in the conference room by nine. We had a situation to address. I might have to switch to yoga because I could definitely see myself developing high blood pressure if shit like this kept coming up.
I was a businessman, an award winner, renowned for my environmentally-conscious practices. I was not going to destroy that reputation by beating the hell out of an executive VP who deserved it richly. Despite the fact it would have given me great satisfaction. Those marketing sons of bitches always had been trouble. They had that used car salesman shine, but with higher salaries and apparently a bad case of entitlement.
My reflection showed a perfectly tailored gray suit, Italian leather wingtips gleaming as I straightened my dark purple tie. I took a long drink of water because there might be shouting, and I didn’t want my throat to grow dry. I wasn’t a bellower as a general rule. I led with dispassionate practicality. Most of the time. This kind of crap made me furious though.
The conference table was lined with solemn-faced human resources employees. I turned to Herb Rosings, my executive VP of HR.
“I expect you’ve told them what this is about?” I said. He nodded.
“The unfortunate situation with Maxwell, sir.”
“Yes. Although I’m inclined to refer to it as the felony recently committed—allegedly committed by our soon-to-be-former executive VP of marketing. In looking over his HR file, I found three previous complaints against him by female employees junior to him. In one case, it was a direct report below him, so she was reassigned to a different supervisor, but she resigned the next year. The other two involved women in the same department, an intern and an assistant. He was reprimanded and sent for sensitivity training and sexual harassment training, correct?” I said, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” Herb said.
“So now he’s sexually assaulted an intern in this building.” My voice rose of its own volition. “One of the interns in my company has been abused by an executive within the offices of this corporation, here on site. Under our noses, you might say. My information here is incomplete. She did not report this to law enforcement?”
“No, sir. The young woman, er—”
“The victim, Herb. She is the victim of a sexual assault carried out by Josh Maxwell from Marketing in the goddamn men’s room on the thirty-seventh floor. Her name?”
“Mariah Ross,” Herb said faintly, “I met her a few times. Soft-spoken, seemed like a hard worker.”
I groaned loudly, showing my frustration. “Forgive me, I find that my professional objectivity is clouded on this issue. I’m angry,” I said.
“No apology necessary,” Kim said. “We’re all mad as hell. What I want to know is what we’re doing about Maxwell?”
“Apart from firing him? Destroying his professional reputation and making him unemployable in North America and Europe? I’ll speak with legal later on, but I plan to sue him for both breach of contract and gross misconduct.”
“Shouldn’t PR be up here? To discuss how to spin this story?”
“There is no spin. An employee of Astley Corp has been terminated due to sexual harassment and a lawsuit is pending. There’s the story.”
“Brent,” Kim said patiently, “what are we doing to make sure that Mariah is taken care of and so she doesn’t sue Astley?”
“Astley is going to back her. We will go on record as being on her side, and provide a crack legal team to represent her as co-plaintiff against Maxwell. She gets all of the financial settlement. We’ll just light the torches and lead the mob,” I said decisively.
“That is—perhaps you should discuss this strategy with legal,” Kim said carefully.
“I intend to do so. But first, we need to review the current state of our sexual harassment training and reporting procedures. This can’t be allowed to happen again. I want to know what the options are with respect to reworking our policy to discipline and potentially punish offenders,” I said.
“What about educating them?” Cat interrupted. “I mean, I get wanting to punish them, because what they did was wrong and an abuse of power. If they are trained properly to recognize what is acceptable versus what is intimidating or harmful, and assessed on it, they can be required to attain a certain score. This would also qualify in due process as being made aware of conduct expectations explicitly and with a paper trail. So if there’s an infraction, cut it down to one warning with remediation followed by resignation with a poor reference.”
“I like that idea. We’d need to engage a consultant on sexual harassment training, bring in experts, have a multi-day seminar with clear examples and scenarios. Make a note of that, Herb.”
Herb obediently wrote it down while Millie scrawled it on the whiteboard she’d wheeled in for brainstorming purposes. We tossed around a variety of ideas on how to deal with violations of our policy going forward and possible rewording of the policy to make it more specific and actionable. An appendix needed to be added to all hiring contracts in this regard. All current employees and contractors needed updated training and verification.
I had Millie book a meeting in the afternoon with legal and another with finance to allocate a budget to the training program. It was all a massive headache. Anyone with common decency would have known better than to corner and intern and feel her up, for God’s sake. Ruining his name, reputation, and financial situation seemed inadequate, but it would have to do.
After adjourning the meeting, I asked Kim and Cat to come to my office to discuss their ideas further. Kim’s conservative bent would temper my rashness in the situation. She always gave sound counsel, and Cat had had good ideas in the meeting. I poured them each a glass of water and thanked them for their input.
“As a recent graduate, Ms. Sherman, you’re up to date on the industry-standard definitions of sexual harassment as well as initiatives to eliminate it. I read the professional publications, of course, and watch the news, but I’d be interested to hear a fresh perspective,” I said.
“Well, what I understand is that women of my generation are benefiting from the burgeoning attitude that this mistreatment isn’t something we have to endure and pretend to ignore. It’s all the time, wherever we go, the grocery store, a club, the train—men staring, chatting us up, asking personal questions, making remarks about our appearance. All of this unsolicited sexual attention. The old school view of sexual harassment was just a boss chasing his secretary around the desk—not being crowded against a wall while he shoves his hand up your skirt. But it happens a great deal. The definition is evolving, and I do think an ongoing conversation about acceptable versus unacceptable behavior at work needs to happen. Like, save your dirty jokes for when you’re off the clock. Never remark on the body of a coworker. Never refer to their private life or sexuality or gender identification. It’s stuff like that, things the generation in positions of power doesn’t really equate with harassment.”