Even an afternoon in the company of a widescreen TV and the Ravens getting the better of the Steelers failed to keep my attention away from how unbelievably thrilling it had been to submit to her will, to serve her and be used by her.
God how much I'd give for a repeat performance with my sizzling hot boss.
Chapter Five
Monday morning, I was up early and into the office an hour before normal, even before Zoey arrived for work.
I was already nervous when pulling up in the parking lot of our building in downtown Baltimore, heading up to our floor in the elevator, walking out there among all those empty desks - so familiar, and yet after Friday, somehow so completely different to me.
Was I really going to be able to turn things around? And perhaps more importantly, would it be enough to keep Zoey Schoenberg interested in me?
As I waited, the door to her office loomed large in my consciousness. Had all that really happened in there before the weekend? Did she really threaten me with the sack, and then relent when I went down on her? Had I not imagined it all?
My insides were fluttering like a hundred butterflies in a thunderstorm, conflicted feelings swirling around and around in there, tearing me up. I longed to see Zoey again, and yet I was terrified that she'd appear and ignore me, overlook what had happened, her declaration that I was now hers turning out to be meaningless. What if she arrived, and I was still fired, and her farewell oral sex turned out to be simply her way of rubbing my face in it?
There was nothing in my email to suggest I was fired.
Still, I was breathless, my heart pounding as I waited for things to get moving, spending the time drafting a memo for my whole sales team to the affect that our protest, such as it was, was now over. The way the economy was, we had to set aside personal feelings and pull together, yada, yada, yada. It wasn't a long message, it wasn't the kind of legendary missive that would go down in the annals of company history - I basically called a meeting.
When it actually happened, at half past the hour we were all supposed to be in work, I was surprised to find that Zoey had still not arrived.
What was that about? She was never late - in fact, she was always seriously early.
As my team gathered noisily in the meeting room in the opposite corner of the building to Zoey's office, my heart suddenly seemed to lurch into my stomach and then proceed to free fall into my legs. What if she'd been fired on Friday afternoon? The CEO had come in, worked out the terms of her severance, and then that had been that. Her final run-in with yours truly had been a last moment of revenge, forcing her worst enemy - the man who had caused her downfall - to humiliate himself.
The only logic I could use to alleviate my fears was that if she'd wanted full revenge, she probably would have walked out with my clothes when she'd left the office.
"All right, all right, simmer down," I said, closing the door on us, wishing it had been made of glass like those modern offices you see on TV, so I could keep an eye out for the boss while the meeting was going on. It wasn't, it was a crappy seventies building, could have almost been federal.
"So," I said, once a little hush had been established. "Here's the thing, guys. Much as I appreciate your support these last six months or so, we've got to start getting back in the game."
There were a few slow nods from some old-timers I had always suspected never cared who headed up the department, so long as they were still in jobs. There was also a little laughter from the end of the table.
"What happened, Jonesy? She put your balls in a vice?" It was Russell, one of my top salesmen, leaning back in his chair over there, cackling at his wise-crack.
"Yeah, something like that," I said, but I wasn't going to look for a clever comeback. Not now. "The why's not important. The thing is, if we don't start firing on all cylinders again, we'll start finding ourselves replaced by people who can."
"What, like Sweet Little Miss College Girl? Give me a break." And that was Tommy - Tweedle Dum to Russell's Tweedle Dee.
"If you mean someone straight out of college, that's a possibility," I nodded. "Straight away they'll come with qualifications you don't have - and they'll be cheaper. Might not have the sales patter down yet, but nobody in the board room's going to care about that. They'll bring something else to the company - and even if they don't, we'll be long gone by then."
You get the picture. I had to win them over, but I had certain economic realities in my favor. We all knew people who'd lost their jobs in the recession. It wasn't pretty. No one around that table wanted it to happen to them.
I laid out the motivational stuff, and I set the new standards - arrive at work on time, dress in tidy suits, and above all meet and surpass our weekly sales targets. They got the message. I could deal with the snide remarks, the whispers suggesting I was being pussy-whipped.