The Prisoner

As a contractor, I don’t work in one place for too long. My most recent gig put me in a corner office of an incredibly quiet wing a client’s office complex. Seemingly the place used to be full of employees. The economy being what it is the company moved to make its entire workforce contract labor. I was practically the last person standing, however. When I started there were 100 contract employees. Now? Now it was me and a handful of others. The rest of the space had become vacant, a cubicle ghost town.  Haunted by the ghosts of employees past, the place could be a little eerie at night. Every little creek of the building or inflation of the ventilation system made it sound like the building was a living, breathing creature. Much of my floor was unlit since nobody else was there. Because there were so few of us, my workload only grew. And that meant later and later workdays. From my 12th floor window, I could look out on the city as it transformed from buildings into a mesmerizing light show. The later it got, the brighter the city lights. Surrounded by millions of people but utterly alone. So quiet. Such a difference between my darkened floor and the sprawling city lights just beyond the glass of my office window.

As the city was transitioning to its illuminated state, I received an email memo from the company’s administration. The State’s prison work-release program had been awarded the new contract for office cleaning. As I understood it, prisoners who were nearing the end of their incarceration would be able to earn their community service points and gain work experience through the program. The prisoners would be in the offices with supervision, but it made me feel uneasy knowing people with criminal pasts would be hanging around my office while I was working alone. I suppose it’s not very macho to be worried about such a thing, but it was just me up on the 12th floor. Nobody there to help if I needed it. It was a silly thought but the dark and quiet can play tricks with the mind. I made sure that my paperwork and materials were locked up each night from that point forward.

There had yet to be a prisoner visit my wing during my work hours while I was there. But when I returned in the morning, I could tell that the floor had been swept and the trash had been taken out. All my valuables were untouched, and locks were still secure so, after about a month, I felt comfortable with the arrangement. The prisoners must have worked overnight around the city and my floor must be one of the last on their list before night’s end.

As the date of my contract’s conclusion approached, my work assignments intensified, and my working hours became tremendously long. Fall was settling into winter and the light shining in from my window decreased faster and faster as the month wore on. The end of a season. The end of a contract. The end of the sunlight. I felt the shadows of night roll into my already darkened floor. My office at the back of the floor was ultimately the only light on after dark.

At 10:00 pm on one of my late nights, I heard voices and laughter, echoing through the vacant office wing. My office light was the only beacon in the dark until lights over the main area of the office floor flickered on. It was almost blinding as I had become too accustomed to the darkness. It was strange to hear voices, or any sound for that matter, after 5:00. Strangers were suddenly appearing on my forgotten island of a workplace. Panic set in when I realized who the violators of my quiet and darkness were. The prisoners! The prisoners were coming.

They were early. There must have been a schedule change because they had never been there that early in the evening before. I felt my stomach tighten with anxiety. As far as I knew these were hard-core felons having spent years incarcerated, away from the public. I did not know if the very sight of me would result in a flashback and the need to maim, rob, kill…or worse if such a thing were possible. Every stupid, pathetic stereotype my imagination could drum up ran through my mind. Each new thought so extraordinarily ridiculous compared to the previous thought. It was to the point of ridiculousness, I knew, but the thoughts were there, nonetheless. And my anxiety, for no real good reason, was elevated.

I can only assume that the look on my face was as surprised as the look on her face. In my door appeared a woman. She stood a couple of inches over five feet tall. Her brown, curly hair was gray-streaked and puffed-out like she had been stuck in the ’80s for a decade or two too long. She wore a blue uniform that looked more like nurses’ scrubs than clothes you might find on a custodian. Her eyes were crystal blue and her face freckled. The badge on her shirt said, Tiffany. The “Prison Systems” logo encircled her name.

Now when I thought of the prisoners that were going to be in my office, Tiffany was not what I had envisioned. I was thinking grizzled, angry men with face tattoos on their necks and inked teardrops under their eyes. I envisioned murderers and arsonists, which was dumb because they were quite unlikely to ever be released from prison. I did not envision a middle-aged woman with piercing blue eyes. I did not envision someone so petite and demure. I did not envision in any way someone so stunningly attractive, despite her dated hairdo.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a hoarse voice. “I thought you’d forgotten to turn off the lights.”

“No, I’m here for the long haul,” I said. My voice quivered with nervousness and surprise. Sequestered from other human contacts for too long, a prisoner to my job, made the sudden appearance of someone, anyone, disorienting. But Tiffany? No, Tiffany raised the bar and I was unprepared for her. “Lots of overtime this month,” I said trying to sound interesting, important. I was neither of these. I felt her blue eyes running down my chest and arms. While I am certainly a desk-jockey, working long hours behind a desk and pushing papers around, I still work out. I’m in shape. And maybe this was the first time in a long time that Tiffany had truly been around someone on the outside that appealed to her. Still, I’m sure I looked a mess. My tie was loosened and cranked sideways. My shirt sleeves, cuffed at my forearms, and my dress pants, wrinkled from my constant shifting in my chair during a long day’s work were surely a disheveled mess to see. I didn’t know how to feel about the groping her eyes were giving me, but it made me wonder how long it had been since she’d been with a man.

“You’re…you’re with Prison Systems?” I asked trying to be nonchalant. Her demeanor changed as if she were suddenly nervous or embarrassed, maybe. She leaned back and looked down the hall searching for someone.

“Well, yes,” she said robotically, turning back to me. It seemed that she had found the person for whom she had been looking. “I’ll just get your trash and then vacuum later after you go home.” Her face was serious, and she tried to avoid eye contact. She hurried out of the office without saying another word and disappeared. I felt as though I might have scared her off but considered that maybe she was not permitted to talk to me. I had no way of knowing.

Each night that followed that first, however, Tiffany smiled at me when she picked up the trash in my office. I had come to like her visits, brief as they were. She said nothing more than the quick “hello” or “how are you tonight?” My greetings and responses were equally brief. But each night I felt more drawn to her than the night before. I began to anticipate her arrival. I started tightening my tie before she came to my office. I made sure I sat up straighter, smiled wider. It was so silly to think I was trying to impress someone so out of reach, someone living in another world that I shook my head deriding myself each time she walked away. You’re such a fool, I would tell myself. There’s nothing there. She can’t or won’t ever be with you. I told myself these things over and over. Why I cared seemed equally ridiculous. It was because I found her attractive. I found her forbidden in so many ways. I wanted what I could not have. I shook my head at myself again.

A few nights later I realized that Tiffany seemed different. Her clothes seemed less disheveled than before. And…did she have just a hint of makeup on? Makeup had to be forbidden in the prison system, didn’t it? Maybe it was contraband. Maybe she traded three cigarettes for some blush. This time, when she bent over to pick up my trash, Tiffany stepped into my office and bent down in a way that allowed me to see the full curve of her ass. She kept her knees locked when she did so. She wants me to look!