The CEO’s Assistant

I have been with the company for just over a year now. The hours are long, and the pay is, well, let’s just say I do well. Despite all the people I must talk to during my long days it’s lonely doing what I do. Nobody feels like a friend to me. Only my clients and co-workers are my social outlets Even then it’s always work-related. After several months on the job, my girlfriend left me because of the amount of time we spent apart. It was okay, though since I needed to focus on my job. Climbing the corporate ladder is tough. And my boss? Well, she’s something special.

She hired me away from a competing company with the explicit requirement that I bury them. That’s to say that I was to tell her all the corporate secrets. Corporate espionage. She wanted to know who was on the opposing company’s client list and then I was to go after some of their clients. She is ruthless. Aggressive. She is impossible to work for, but she is always willing to pay handsomely for my work. And I’m quite successful. She has been able to expand the business because of the clients I’ve brought in, although it seems like it’s always her that gets to close the deal. I cast the line and hook them, but she reels them in.

My boss is so impossible to work for that she churns through her executive assistants, hiring a new one every few months. Having decried the constant turnover of her assistants, my boss charged me with finding her a new one that could handle the work. I immediately contacted Isabel, who I had learned from my previous company was the best of all the executive assistants that worked there. I warned Isabel during my recruitment phone call that, if she took the job, our boss would be nearly impossible to work for. Isabel decided to take the risk after receiving the lavish salary and bonuses offered by my boss. Of course, since I had made the recommendation to hire Isabel, our boss basically owned both Isabel and me. I did not think this quite fair since I had never personally met Isabel. I recommended her based on discussions with my colleagues. Dangerous, I know, to put my own job in jeopardy by recommending someone I did not personally know. But truth be told, I had extraordinarily little time to find someone for the job due to my own heavy workload. So, Isabel was who I recommended, and who took the job.

It took me all of thirty seconds to know I wanted to sleep with Isabel. She was stunning. Her deep chocolate eyes were mesmerizing. Her curly black hair, cut shoulder-length, framed her oval face perfectly. And her light cocoa skin was so smooth and soft that I felt like I was melting into her every time we shook hands. I could not take my eyes off her during our first staff meeting together, or any meeting thereafter. I tried to be memorable with some stupid quips about the hot, humid day we were having or something I had seen on television. She barely seemed to notice me even though I had been the one to connect her with the job. Her lack of apparent interest in me stretched for the days and weeks since she had taken the job. I was simply a ghost moving back and forth in front of Isabel’s office. Day after day, meeting after meeting, I walked through her office to meet with the CEO with barely a smile at me when I said hello. I had to remember how hard the job was for her, how hard our boss was to work for. I was impressed when I realized she had lasted longer than anyone I had known in her position since I started working there.

 “She’s ready for you,” Isabel would say after messaging our CEO as to my arrival, never looking up from her computer monitor. And as any ghost should, I went through the door and disappeared until the next time I had to haunt the CEO’s office.

Isabel’s office was always a refreshing change of scenery from the cubicle hell the rest of us had to endure while working. Isabel’s office always smelled of perfume. It was a sweet scent, just shy of a floral smell. I could smell her perfume before I ever walked into the office. When I happened to be working at my desk, and her perfume wafted by my cubicle, I immediately popped up like a prairie dog and searched for her. Always too late to make eye contact. Always quick enough to see her curvy profile as she walked by. How I loved watching the curls of her hair move as she walked. Her hips swayed with each step. She was never without heels and her calves were always tight because of it. And she was always in a skirt, which was my kryptonite.

Months passed and Isabel still had paid me no attention. She had, however, learned my name, which seemed to be a victory of sorts. She did smile when she came to realize that I had been the guy who connected her with our CEO, but she did not thank me. I’m guessing she regretted taking the job, so why thank me for that? She was always professional. She never had time to chat. She was neither happy nor sad. She was just focused and busy. I finally decided that I had lost all my sexual mojo after my breakup. Or maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe she would never notice the guy always standing in front of her. I had to be different. Somehow, I needed to have her see me. That opportunity came when our CEO decided to take a business trip to Japan.

Japan’s time of day is opposite for those living in the U.S. Morning here is nighttime there. The time difference required that Isabel and I spend nights in the office, working side-by-side, responding to our CEO’s every whim. Even when it was just the two of us working all night with nobody else around, I could not tell if she noticed me. That is until the night our CEO was to go to a dinner meeting that would likely last several hours. We were expected to be available at the office once she finished her dinner meeting. Isabel came out of her office that night and said, “You might as well camp out in my office. Who knows how long this will take?”

I nearly leaped from my cubicle chair and followed Isabel toward her office. I watched her hips sway and breathed in her perfume while we walked. My heart thumped in my chest. Finally! I thought.

Isabel slid into her chair and laid her head against the chair’s cushioned headrest. A luxurious chair that us cubicle hacks did not have. “Fuck sake,” she said breathing out. “This woman is exhausting!” Isabel closed her eyes.

“I agree!” I said laughing. “She’s a real ball-buster.” For the first time, I heard Isabel laugh. It was from her belly yet a sweet, high-pitched laugh. Her laugh was my biggest victory yet with her.

“Well I wouldn’t know,” she said.

“Oh, because no balls,” I said nodding with awkward embarrassment.

“Right,” she said. “No balls.” She laughed even louder. I could not take my eyes off her. I had never seen her face alight like this before. She was beautiful in every way. I resisted the urge to reach for her, to kiss her thick, full lips.

“Thirsty?” she said looking at me for the first time with those beautiful brown eyes. They looked deep into me. She looked at me as though she had known me forever. Not like a stranger or co-worker would. No, she looked at me with intense familiarity.

“Sure. Do you want me to get you something from the vending machine?” I said.

She laughed loudly again and slapped her hand on the desk. 

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Isabel said. “Our boss is on the other side of the planet. We’ve been working overnight for a week now. I’m fucking confused as to whether it’s day or night half the time. And you want to go get a soda?”

“I…I…uhm. So, no soda then?” I said inept at keeping pace with Isabel’s thoughts.  

“We need whiskey, David,” she said. 

“I. I don’t have any whiskey,” I said stammering. Isabel had caught me unprepared, which rarely happened. She slapped her hand against her forehead and drew her palm down the front of her beautiful face.

“You act like a rookie,” Isabel said with a wry smile on her face. She leaned forward, exhaled with exhaustion, and opened her desk drawer. From there she pulled out a bottle of whiskey. She lifted it and shook it, like a dinner bell.

“Are you serious?” I said. 

“Why not?” she said. “The dragon isn’t here, and the office is empty. There won’t be anyone here for like six more hours. And I’m tired and thirsty!” She pulled out a glass from another drawer and filled it halfway. She slid it to the edge of the desk, an offer I could not refuse. She got another glass from the drawer and poured a drink for herself. She lifted it in salutation. “Let’s drink!” she said.

Isabel finished off her glass quickly and poured a second. I sipped mine. I couldn’t remember the last time I drank whiskey. College, maybe. I feared what kind of nonsense, or worse, lousy pick-up lines I might try on Isabel if I attempted to keep pace with her. Isabel would have none of it. She leaned forward and poured more whiskey in my glass after my second sip. A glass that was only a quarter full was now over half full. She eyed me. I gulped down a few swallows, fought the urge to clench my eyes and shake at the bitterness. Somehow, I managed not to give away my lack of whiskey experience, despite the beads of sweat formed on my head and my face felt hot.

Isabel leaned back in her chair and propped her feet on the desk. Her blue leather heels arched her foot and tightened her calves. Sitting across her desk my eyes could move from the pointed heel all the way up her nylon-covered legs to the shadow under her skirt, which hiked higher on her thigh with her feet on her desk. The whiskey was intoxicating. Isabel was intoxicating. I felt a burst of energy that made me want to lean forward, run my hands up her legs, and unwrap the gift hiding in the shadows of her hemline. Instead, I took another gulp from my glass.

“The taller the heel and the glitzier the design, the better,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. It was as if Isabel were in mid-conversation with me and I had missed the entire first half.

“Heels,” she said nodding to her feet. “I’ve become a bit of a shoe hoarder. I have about 30 pairs that I cycle through over a month. Each one fits a handful of my outfits. It’s such a stupid, guilty pleasure. An addiction, I guess. But I just love them.” She smiled as she moved her feet, adoring the blue leather that bound them. 

“They look great on you,” I said. “You always look hot,” I said absently. I said it without hesitation or thought. I just said it. I took a sip of whiskey and, as I raised my glass, I saw Isabel looking back at me. I bit of panic filled me. The alcohol was already affecting us. “What?” I said trying to buy time while I figured out on my own what I had done or said to draw her eyes in such a way. Her chocolate eyes shined. She smiled mischievously. “What?” I said again.

“You’ve been noticing my shoes, have you?” Her grin widened.

“Well, I guess,” I said. “I mean, you know, you are kind of hard to miss. You know?” 

“Am I now?” she said. “Exactly how am I hard to miss?” I felt Isabel’s body language change. Her eyes were more piercing, smoldering. She was attentive. Curious. It occurred to me that maybe Isabel’s apparent lack of interest in me was my own inadequacy. Maybe she dressed so well to get other’s attention, but then feared it when it arrived. More ridiculously, I considered that maybe she only demurred around me and nobody else. Maybe she was… No! I failed to stop the thought before it happened. Could she be attracted to me?! No way this goddess, could be attracted to me. Could she?