Chapter 15 (and they wonder why the maples can't be happy in their shade)
Rebecca opened the door to the newspaper office and went in. It was near 2:00 now and most of the writers were out at press conferences or hanging out at the police station waiting for news to happen. There were a couple of ad people laying out a page and arguing over whose pizza parlor ad got the top of the page. She saw Scott in his usual place on the couch and laid down her purse quietly so as to not disturb him.
"Hey, Mrs. F.," Scott said, looking up anyway. "Feeling better?" "Yes, Mr. Lane," she said, not sure what he meant but agreeing nonetheless.
Scott's eyebrow rose at the address but wrote it off as a meaningless variance in speech pattern.
"I sent Brian out on the guy who got hit by the train. He's in the ICU but the nurse said we could interview him at 2:30 before his bath. You sure you're OK, Mrs. F?" "Yes, I'm fine, Mr. Lane. And please, call me Becky." "Whoa! Becky. Are you sure? That doesn't really fit you," Scott said with hesitation.
"It fits me perfectly, Mr. Lane," Becky beamed.
"Ok, but you're really scaring me here. You gotta call me Scott, K?"
"OK, Scott," Becky said, opening her desk drawer. "By the way, Bruce said there's no way he's going to be able to meet the deadline for our website design. He says Y2K will wipe out our..."
Scott was cut short by Becky slamming her drawer shut and running for the bathroom.
"What the..." Scott started.
Just as abruptly Becky came back out and sat down next to Scott on the couch. "Scott," Becky whispered in a low voice, "can I show you something?"
"What?" Scott asked suspiciously.
"It's in the bathroom. Follow me."
Scott followed her to the bathroom. Probably a bug that needs killing, Scott thought. She doesn't want anyone else to know she's scared of it. Scott glanced around but no one was paying any attention so he slipped into the bathroom behind her.
"So where's it at, Mrs... I mean Becky," Scott said looking around.
"Here it is," she said behind him and Scott turned to find his middle-aged boss with her dress pulled up to her neck. "Do you like them?" Becky asked, snapping the elastic of her underwear with her free hand.
"Oh," was all the senior could say.
Becky let her dress drop and then spun around in a circle, letting her yellow dress fly up around her thighs.
"I'm dizzy," she giggled after she stopped spinning.
"I'm going to masturbate now, Scott. Would you like to watch me?"
Scott was again stunned by her bluntness.
"Gosh, I'd really like to, Mrs. F, Becky, whatever, but I gotta write this paper thing, uhhhh, I gotta go," Scott said, beating a hasty retreat. He had had very little experience with women and this was way too much for him to deal with.
"Shoot," Becky said, sitting down on the toilet seat. "What did I do wrong?"
Becky masturbated to no specific visual image although Coach in a policeman's uniform came up a few times. "It's this underwear," she suddenly realized. "He didn't like my ugly underwear. Who would?" she asked and finished herself off with a flurry, thinking about all the pretty panties she could wear for Scott. She kicked off her underwear and dropped them in a trashcan. Thinking better of it, she fished them out. Someone might find them and then I'd be in trouble, she thought. When she emerged from the bathroom, Scott was nowhere to be seen. Ron, the ad director, saw her and asked her to come over. Becky complied, balling her underwear up in one fist behind her back.
"What do you think of this layout?" Ron asked. As editor-in-chief, Mrs. Forester had the final word on all layout and design before printing.
"Well, Mr. Elward, do whatever you think is best. As a matter of fact, I want you to take on a larger role here. You're really smart at this stuff and I want you to be in charge of layout from now on. I was never really very good at it anyway. If I did make a change I was only pretending to know what I was doing," Becky confessed. "You take over, ok? I think it would be best for the paper if we had a man in charge." Ron was, of course, stunned by her blatant honesty although he had suspected it himself all along. He had seen some pretty poor issues over the years. "Uh, sure, sure. Why don't you take the rest of the day off, Mrs. Forester. Get some rest. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Ok, Mr. Elward. That's a good idea," Becky said and turned to leave. She put her balled up hand in front of her but not before Ron caught a glimpse of some white cloth.
"Wonder what that was," Ron said to himself and turned back to his work. Maybe I can parlay this into a raise as well, he wondered.
"OK, this looks good," he said loudly to no one in particular. "Print it."
End chapter 15