Devin Kilroy hummed as he tended to the Zen garden on his desk. The shifting of the grains beneath his hand helped calm him, the fine movements needed to maintain the patterns he wove. He took a moment between every appointment to trace a few lines in the sand to de-stress. The Director of Human Resources had to be the calm, rational one in a time of conflict.
A red light lit up on the telephone in front of him, and Devin didn’t need to answer it to know what he would hear.
“Send them in, please.”
The two women entered, the tension between them immediately raising the temperature in the office as they took their seats on opposite sides of Devin’s desk. He dabbed unconsciously at his hairless scalp. Conflicts between women were the worst, in his experience, as they were the most resistant to accepting a man as a mediator, especially in such… sensitive matters. Men were seen as intrusive. Threatening. There was a reason that most HR directors were women.
But Devin Kilroy had a secret weapon. Devin was non-threatening. He was five feet and three inches of smiles and carefully chosen words. His was a face that said, let’s sit down and talk like reasonable people. Among all of his other duties at the university, he’d single-handedly de-escalated over a hundred of these personnel issues since he’d taken the post, and only a dozen or so had resulted in termination. He plopped his rake down into a pencil jar on his desk that read ‘#1 Arbitrator’ and considered the pair in front of him.
On the left was Verna, the new chief librarian, a middle-aged woman with thin lips and a sour expression. Her name was familiar to him, signed to dozens of affidavits that had crossed his desk over the years regarding the incompetence of her co-workers and the toxicity of her work environment. Since she’d been promoted, his office had been working overtime to deal with the sudden turnover in her department. Oh dear, he thought.
And on his right was Lacey, the original complainant. From what he’d read of her file, Lacey had worked in the library since shortly after attaining her degree, and she’d kept her head down ever since. She looked to be in her early thirties and wore an oversized checkered shirt, tied off at the waist. The men’s clothes might have made her intimidating if she didn’t also look as if she’d blow over in a stiff breeze.
He cleared his throat. “Ladies… do you understand why you’re here today?”
Neither woman said a word. Not a good start, but not unexpected either.
“Verna, Lacey here has made a sexual harassment complaint against you. She alleges that you used your position to continue to pursue her after she ended your relationship—“
“Then you’ve been misinformed. We never had a relationship,” said Verna, waving her hand as if she was shooing the offending claim away.
“Excuse me?”
Lacey’s reaction was so sudden and fierce that Devin wondered if he’d read the wrong file. Everything he had on Lacey suggested that she was the type to avoid confrontation whenever possible. What was it that her co-workers had called her, a ‘doormat’?
“What do you mean, we never had a relationship?” Lacey continued, her volume rising, “You’ve been in my house. You’ve been in my bed!”
“Mr. Kilroy doesn’t need to hear the sordid details. Clearly I gave you the wrong impression, Lacey, and I’m sorry for that.”
Devin’s heart skipped a beat. A resolution? In less than a minute? If only it could be that easy. He’d played dumb at first, but Lacey hadn’t come to his office with nothing. He patted the file on the desk in front of him.
“There’s more to it than that, I’m afraid,” he said, and bit his lip in sympathy. “There’s nothing specifically in your contracts that forbids fraternization, but it seems your relationship, um, dynamic has spilled into the workplace. That’s hardly professional—“
Verna scoffed. “I already told you, we didn’t have a relationship. I’m a heterosexual woman.”
“And I’m k.d. lang,” muttered Lacey under her breath.
“Mr. Kilroy, has anyone else made this complaint? Anyone other than Lacey?”
“Um,” said Devin, “as it happens, I have several witnesses to an incident that happened in the library last month. There are some differences in the accounts, but all of them agreed that they heard you saying to Lacey…” He paused, and cautiously read, “‘Please, I’ve been bad’, to which she is heard replying…”
He paused. Even if it was a direct quote, he felt uncomfortable saying such things out loud. It was vulgar and unprofessional. And it made him feel something that he didn’t dare admit in front of the two women.
Devin swallowed. “…‘No, Verna, I’m not going to spank you again’.”
There. He’d said it, and he was relieved. He was going to need at least five minutes with the garden after this meeting.
Verna’s face went red for a moment, but the colour faded. “That was taken out of context.”
“No, it wasn’t!” Lacey nearly leapt out of her chair. “Mr. Kilroy, do you want to know how this got started?”
“I really don’t think that I do—“
“Last year, this woman who has spent the last six years making my life miserable decides to take a day off from being a bitch—“
“Lacey, I am still your supervisor—“
“Fuck off, Verna. Last year on Valentines Day, she finds out that I’ve just had a breakup and pretends to be my friend. I’m pouring my heart out to her, and she’s barely listening until I mention that I used to spank my ex-girlfriend.”
Devin raised his hand, but Lacey barely noticed him.
“Suddenly, she’s super interested. And dumbass that I am, I take her back to my place where she strips naked and asks me to spank her, too.”
“That’s not how that happened!” Verna interrupted. “First point, I was wearing lingerie.”
“Yeah, and then you begged me to take off your panties while I spanked you. You begged. Like a dog. And you kept begging until I finger-fucked you right there on the couch.”
His mouth dry, Devin found his voice again. “Ladies, this level of detail is unnecessary.”
“And slanderous,” said Verna. “I’ll admit that I was lonely, but it’s rich of you to play the victim when I was the one who couldn’t sit comfortably for two days. You were absolutely vicious.”
“So vicious that you came back the next week wearing boots and a fur coat with nothing else? So vicious that you apologized for how things had ended with us, and when I asked what you meant, you pushed me into my own bedroom and had sex with me?”
“Do you have any proof that this happened?”
“You left a hickey on my thigh while you were going down on me—“
“Anyone could have left that hickey. Besides, ‘going down on you’ is hardly sex. Nor was what you did to me after you spanked me.”
“Hand and mouth stuff is sex, Verna! We had lesbian sex!”
“Please don’t use that word here, Lacey, it’s inappropriate.”
Devin saw the moment as the perfect time to change the subject. He could see the silhouette of his admin assistant through his frosted glass wall, and she seemed to be taking a particular interest in the sounds that were leaking through his door.
He drew up his slacks and adjusted his seat.
“Lacey, please. Clearly everyone’s feelings are a little raw, but we’re here for a reason. Let’s please stick to what you’ve already documented. Verna, do you recall the night of April 8, 2011?”
“I can’t say that I do,” said Verna immediately.
“Lacey claims that you called her into your office after hours, and when she arrived you got down on the floor and crawled over to her.”
“Not that I remember any of this, but I did not crawl.”
“You were on your hands and knees,” snapped Lacey.
“I was looking for a contact lens,” Verna replied assuredly.
“Right. So you were telling the contact lens that you missed its touch and you’d do anything just to taste its delicious pussy again?”
“None of this ever happened!”
Devin attempted his most conciliatory smile. “Verna, I know you called Lacey off-hours. There’s a call log. There’s security footage of her entering the library after closing. We know you both were there, but only Lacey has given me a reason why.”
“Fine, I lied! I don’t even like the taste of her…” Verna’s tongue caught in her mouth. “Her—”
“’Pussy’?” asked Lacey. “The word is ‘pussy’, as in, you’re being a ‘pussy’ because you’re too scared to say the word ‘pussy’, and how much you love my ‘pussy’!”
Beyond the glass, Devin could see heads rising from cubicles as if he’d disturbed a nest of gophers. A coppery taste filled his mouth. He’d quite literally bitten his tongue.
“I think we all need to take a step back…“ he tried.
But in that same time, Lacey’s hand had dipped into her pocket and retrieved her mobile phone, which she slammed on the desk before Devin could finish.
“Okay, Verna. You asked for this. December 19, 2011. 9:30 PM. Does that sound familiar?”
“Should it? Lacey, you’re complaining about my workplace conduct, but you keep bringing up things that happened outside of work. That’s not in Mr. Kilroy’s purview, is it?”
“I was still in the stacks at 9:30. You scheduled me to stay late cataloguing, remember, and then you called the office after everyone else had left. I’ll bet you never thought I’d record it, did you?”
Verna glared at Lacey, as if daring the butch woman to act on her bluff. A cold sweat poured down Devin’s back – he hadn’t been told about a recording. And harsh experience had taught him how to tell when people were bluffing. Lacey wasn’t.
Leaning over, she pressed a button on her mobile.
There was static at first. Then a voice materialized, one that Devin immediately recognized as Verna’s, even through the distortion and her pleading tone.
“Miss… Miss, please talk to me.” Silence again, then, “Lacey?”
“I’m working, remember?” came Lacey’s response.
“I know. I’m such an awful boss, aren’t I? Late hours. Unpaid overtime. I’ve been terrible to you, and we both know why.”
Verna went rigid. “I remember this.”
The recording continued. “Verna, I don’t have time for this.”
“You want to punish me, don’t you? No more of this silent treatment. Use me. Hurt me. Smother me with your sweet, sweet pussy. Anything you want. Anything at all.”
Devin coughed. “I think we’ve heard enough.”
Lacey smugly reached for her phone – only to find Verna’s hand wrapped around her wrist. The older woman had moved faster than Devin could have even seen.
“Let it play,” she hissed.
Silence again. And then they heard Lacey sigh. “Anything I want, huh? Okay. I want you to get that gift I left you last year after you got promoted. You kept it, right? I’ll be very unhappy if you didn’t keep it.”
“I kept it, Miss.”
“Good. Now go find it and open it. Take the phone with you.”
Devin reached cautiously for the phone, but wilted under the combined glare of both women. They waited, frozen in place until voices could be heard again.
“I’ve got the box, Lacey.”
“Good. Tell me what you see in it.”
The recorded Verna gulped. “It looks like a radish. A big… pink radish.”
“You like the colour? I got it especially for you, it’s the same shade as the suit you were wearing the first time you came to my house. Can you read the inscription on the base?”
There were the faint sounds of a button popping, a zipper loosening. Much like the sounds that the Wranglers that Lacey was wearing might make, Devin couldn’t help but think.
“Yes. It says, um, ‘Take this job and shove it’.”
“Good girl. Now, here’s what you’re going to do, Verna. You’re going to put the phone down on the table beside you. You’re going to take off your panties – slowly – and then bend over with your legs apart. And then you know where you’re going to shove that toy, don’t you?”
“No! I mean, it’s too big, it won’t fit—“
“I’m sure that a dirty girl like you keeps some lube around the house. Be sure to use plenty, and take it slow. I’ll be right here the whole time.”
Devin was a man of conventional tastes. Not that he was dull, but he knew what he liked and saw no reason to venture beyond those bounds. Still, he was not without imagination, and his mind was taking him to places he had never ventured before.
“I said, I think we’ve heard enough—“ he tried, his voice hoarse. There was a crowd gathering outside. He’d lost any semblance of authority in this exchange, and everyone knew. He needed to do something fast.
And then, in the recording, there was the sound of laboured breathing and something being squeezed out of a bottle. Suddenly reversing course, Verna released her grip on Lacey and dove for the phone, only to stopped short by the same hand that she’d held back in turn.
One of them must have accidentally hit the volume key, as a hideous squelching noise came blasting out of the speaker.
“Oh, God,” followed Verna’s voice. “Oh my God, it’s too much! It’s too much!”
“You’re not giving up on me, are you?”
“Mmm—no, Miss! Ooh! Ah!”
Verna’s electronic moans intensified. Under that obscene soundscape, Devin could make out the two women in front of him growling at each other.
“Who’s the harasser now, hm?”
“You treacherous slut, I’m going to whip you so hard for this—“
“Ooh, you’re making me wet. Tell me more—“
“I knew I should have made you wear that gag—“
“ENOUGH!”
The recording stopped abruptly. A tiny metal rake sat embedded in Lacey’s phone, clutched in Devin’s trembling hand.
“Listen up, you sick, sick bitches,” Devin snarled. “I don’t pretend to understand what bizarre S&M shit you have going on. I don’t care if you’re straight or gay or so deep in the closet that you’re in fucking Narnia. Did you see that sign out there?” He pointed to the door. “H.R. Director. I’m the director, you get that? I direct. And I am directing you both to take your hate-fucking back to the privacy of your own homes and out of the halls of this university!”
He turned to Lacey. “You! You don’t want Verna to leave you alone, you need her to respect your boundaries when you’re both at work! Tell me, are you the bottom, or are you the top?”
“I… well, Verna’s my supervisor, like she says…”
“That’s not what I asked. Are you the bottom, or are you the top?”
Lacey’s jaw dipped for a moment. She looked to Verna, then sat back and straightened her shoulders. “I’m the top.”
“Then grow some lady-balls and fucking act like it.” Before Verna could respond, Devin turned again. “And you! You’re going to abide by the limits your top sets for you, both professionally and personally. If not, you might as well throw out your toys, because my foot will be crammed up your asshole for the rest of your short career. Am. I. Clear?”
The last word had come out as a screech. Both women sat in stunned – no, terrified silence.
Oh dear. He’d gotten carried away again.
Devin smoothed the few strands of his hair back into order, resumed his comforting smile, and sat back in his chair.
“I think this has been a very productive meeting, hasn’t it? I’m sorry about your phone, Lacey, and I promise I’ll replace it by end of business today.”
“Don’t—“ she squeaked, and deepening her voice she finished, “Don’t rush on my account.”
“That’s the spirit! Then we’re all done here. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, ladies.”
Verna and Lacey exchanged glances. Both of them – along with the rubberneckers that Devin had seen through the glass – were gone by the time that he looked up.
He’d have to arrange to replace the phone through Accounts, he thought. But trying to put any unapproved expense through the budget office would tie him up for most of the afternoon, and that wouldn’t be ideal in his condition. Perhaps a moment with the Zen garden would help.
He reached for his rake, only to find that he’d jammed it so hard through the phone that it was pinned quite immovably to his desk.
Oh dear.
Leaving the tool standing, he picked up his office line and pressed the flashing red button.
“Could you send in my next appointment, please?”
