The Perils of Office Romance

      Her mind was a precision instrument that made decisions based on exact debt to income ratios that had to be maintained for her to feel, right. In my evaluations I praised her steadiness under pressure. She made calculations in her head. It’s why people always mistook her for a bitch. She could fully weigh, to an astonishing degree of certainty, the consequences of executing a particularly grim task without whitewashing the collateral damage. She could perform this cost/benefit analysis, that was not without a degree of human sympathy, in the time it took others to decide chocolate or vanilla.

     She could see the future, made the future happen, deciding when and how it would go down until her hand was forced by an obstruction. She was not untouched by her role in removing these obstructions; these impediments to her future happiness, and when it came time, to the casual or terrified observer, she seemed cold. And don’t get me wrong. She could be. There were nights.

     That’s me and her, walking into the light, forcing back the nauseating fear, choking back, swallowing the burning junk your body sends to pummel you from the inside out.  I had already made the decision at this point, walking past the gas pumps, that I was on this ride. And what exquisite torture to have to relive this moment again and again. I’ve grown accustomed to it, studied it frame by frame.  The scene is projected as a looping memory that I cannot edit in my favor.

     I let go of her hand right… there. Ah, what a gentleman. Watch me open the door for her. You can’t tell from this angle, but she winked at me. You see her reach into her jacket and I want her to raise the gun in the air and scream, Kiss The Floor Motherfuckers, but she’s as professional as she can be.  Lays it on the counter and cocks, motions to the register.

     You can’t hear what's being said, now that we’ve gone inside, but no matter. I remember every sound that poor man made.