Chapter 6
6
Crickets. Not literal. Not in the middle of the office anyway. Proverbial crickets. The kind accompanied by wide eyes, a few gaping mouths, and several throat clearings.
“Where did I lose you? Do you not know what cunnilingus is?” I glance around at the men gathered in the break room.
The R&D team at Chester is pitifully small, which was one of Chet’s main selling points when convincing me to accept his job offer. Chester Biotech was founded to manufacture 3D-printed models of already established biomedical devices, such as artificial joints and pacemakers. His main goal wasn’t to reinvent the wheel.
Chet is the kind of power-hungry man who’s never content. Never appreciates a good thing when he has it. He always wants more.
Which is how he ended up with a new property in Paramus, even though the main headquarters of Chester Biotech is in New York City. Unsatisfied to continue making billions of dollars in production, he decided to fund his own R&D team. I was led to believe that I was brought on to grease his proverbial wheel even more. My supposed role was to create AI programs to make the research process faster.
Apparently, I only get to do those things if I succeed in the real reason I was hired.
Another two weeks have passed since my near disastrous bar conversation with Chet’s primary suspect—Peter. I’m still aggregating all available Chester R&D data to write my code. Another design has been sold on the black market.
My genius brain has uncovered nothing.
I understand more than ever why Chet is so frustrated.
This frustration has forced me into accepting Chet’s directive to take a more hands-on approach to my investigation and abandon my office more frequently. My goal is to insert myself as a peer among their ranks, so they will view me as a harmless, insipid female coworker who could not possibly be watching their every move.
Of the ten engineers that make up our R&D division—including Peter as the director—five of them are seated around a laminate, wood-paneled table that resembles a high school cafeteria.
To further my aloof—and not at all fishing—appearance, I twirl my hair around my finger in the way I’ve seen other women do. I also pretend to frown at one of the many motivational posters. The frown is not a stretch of my acting abilities.
Honestly, with these paltry furnishings and pathetic perks, it’s no wonder that Chet’s having a difficult time enticing the best and brightest minds. The R&D team is only a year old.
Decidedly still in the infant stage of development.
Theoretically, too young to engage in corporate espionage.
“Cunnilingus?” Joel coughs out after an agonizing amount of silence.
I snap my gaze to him, studying his seemingly horrified expression .
He’s clearly brave enough to break the ranks. This tracks with what I already know about him since he was the only engineer to welcome me on my first foray into engaging with them. He was also the one who introduced me to the rest of the team.
Peter couldn’t be bothered. Peter lied and roundaboutly told me that he was at a conference my first week. Peter would not have been caught in his lie had I not been brave enough to make my own introduction to the team.
I shake out of my internal musings to focus on the present situation. I need more data. I’m not entirely certain if Joel is questioning the definition of the word, or if he’s trying to throw me off course by pretending not to know.
Sadly, a very real lack of vocabulary isn’t necessarily a shock. According to my own personal research—an informal sampling of many women—most men do not perform cunnilingus. The few who do, do not perform it well. Further, almost no one uses the appropriate term for the sex act, preferring the colloquial euphemism instead.
I refuse to allow myself to remember that Peter was an exception to this rule.
“You know…”
They do not know. They continue to blink at me with blank expressions.
If they’re all phenomenal actors like Peter, then I need to break their method.
“Eating pussy,” I whisper.
Joel chokes on a bite of his sandwich.
Clearly, I must repeat at least the punchline from the beginning to determine who is pretending and who is genuinely ignorant.
I enunciate, “So, then I said, ‘If the bonus structure doesn’t also include eating pussy, then I am not interested.’ ”
Oscar, the R&D admin, turns an ironically pasty shade of red.
Fascinating. How does he do that?
Is he the best actor in the room, or he is genuinely embarrassed?
I startle when a large, warm hand wraps around my elbow.
I scowl at the familiar, grumbly whisper in my ear. “What are you doing?”
I sigh before turning to face my archnemesis—now also my boss—who is obviously still trying to steal my show. By exerting his authority. “Bonding with my new coworkers by telling jokes.”
He glances between me and the group of men who are suddenly much more interested in their lunches than they were mere minutes ago. “Telling jokes that can get you written up for sexual harassment, you mean?”
Suddenly, I understand how Oscar pulled off such a feat of seeming biological impossibility. It’s not an act. It’s a reflex. I feel my face blanch in panic, swiftly followed by a rush of heat to my cheeks in anger.
Why—oh, why—is it always the same double standard?
“Do you mean them or me?” I ask. Rhetorically.
It’s no closely guarded secret that neither academia nor corporate America has made as many strides toward an egalitarian reality that social movements call for. Women are still subjected to the good ole boys club. The operating premise for the past several decades has been if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em .
Peter frowns. He should trademark the particular expression since he wears it so often. “You’re the one telling sexually inappropriate jokes.”
“Noooooooo,” I draw out then clarify, “I walked into the breakroom to overhear blowjob jokes. I was simply mirroring their behavior as a means for forming camaraderie. ”
He opens his mouth—still frowning with his eyes—then snaps it shut.
Abruptly, he releases his hold on my arm then faces the group of our coworkers. “Okay. Let’s hear ‘em.”
Joel narrows his eyes then carefully asks, “Hear what?”
Peter gestures around the room. “The jokes. If we’re having a joke competition, then I want to hear them.”
Oscar shakes his head subtly yet wildly.
Finley clears his throat and appears to study the microwave as though it is the world’s most expensive scanning electron microscope.
Peter sighs as he likewise studies the rest of the group. “No? No one?”
“I will tell you mine,” I volunteer. Volunteering for a task no one else wants to do is an excellent rapport-building strategy. If I go first—to break the ice, as it were—the others may follow.
Soon, we will all be laughing and exchanging good-natured barbs while eating our lunches together. They will inadvertently give up the traitor among our ranks.
“When Chet interviewed me for the position, he promised Chester Biotech delivers performance-based bonuses.” I grin, certain I’ll nail the punchline this time with more commonly understood language. “So, I said to him, ‘If the bonus structure doesn’t also include eating pussy, then I am not interested.’”
Peter blinks at me so many times in such rapid succession that I’m convinced he did not hear my joke out of obvious pain from a foreign object in his eye. He’s not acting. He looks far too awkward for that.
The crickets grow louder in the room.
Sadly, I am not a newbie to this type of situation. My attempts at being an approachable confidant are shaky at best.
When I was in the third grade, my family moved to a new school district in the middle of the year. The teacher asked me to stand in front of the classroom and introduce myself. Eager for new friendships, I happily did so. At first, it was a wonderful experience. I had rehearsed my introductory speech for weeks as I packed boxes of clothes and books. Even more wonderfully, a rousing game of Q&A followed the succinct summary of my life. When asked what I liked to read, I responded immediately that I rather enjoyed Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, and the Encyclopedia Britannica .
Crickets.
I would later discover that my peers were unfamiliar with these publications. They had no idea what I was talking about. Once I explained it to them, they smiled and nodded.
“Get it?” I ask since no one understands my joke. Surely, once they understand, they will laugh. We will be friends. They will tell me all their secrets. “Performance-based? Cunnilingus? Err, eating pussy? Because bonus—and performance-based?”
Peter sways on his feet. He stutters out a long breath before whipping around to face our team. “No more sex jokes!”
With a curious vein I never noticed before throbbing in his forehead, he storms out of the breakroom. This is becoming a noticeable pattern of behavior on his part.
Oscar blows out a breath and mutters, “Makes sense. The guy who acts like he hasn’t had sex in years can’t stand to hear jokes about what he’s missing out on.”
I approach the table slowly as the other men offer up a chorus of agreement. Slowly—oh, so slowly—so as not to scare them away, I engage in yet another tried-and-true bonding tactic. Finding common ground in a shared enemy. We can share collective humiliation from a less than charismatic authority figure. “What do you mean? Of course, Peter has sex. He has a girlfriend.”
He obviously does not have a spouse. His ring finger is bare. I noticed immediately on my first day. Not that I was purposefully looking.
Joel jerks his head back on his neck. A sign of disbelief. “You’ve met her?”
As suspected—there is a her . “Um, well, no…” I stammer, pushing my salad around with the fork, avoiding direct eye contact. I’m a terrible liar. I’m forced to walk a very fine line between my abilities and my goals in this investigation.
“She has to be the most frigid bitch on the planet,” Kevin mumbles with his mouth full of what appears to be a Hot Pocket. “The guy acts like he hasn’t been laid in years.”
Joel nods like these words make total sense. “Last time I had a long dry spell, I was such a raging bastard that my own mother begged me to download Tinder.”
Oscar snorts. “Did it work?”
Joel shakes his head. “Of course not. No one wants a casual hookup with a geeky engineer whose idea of a good time is going to the museum for a date.”
I sigh unhappily. I empathize with Joel’s struggles. Sure, they have penises to my vagina, ergo their fellatio jokes to my cunnilingus ones. Also, I have no desire to date. No matter. The commonality exists. I can use this shared experience to my advantage.
“I just don’t understand what the hell he sees in this woman,” Finley confides on a whisper as he glances toward the open doorway as though he expects Peter to reappear.
Ooh. Scintillating. Confidences. I am being accepted into the fold.
Joel nods. “I’ve never seen a guy who’s so far gone be so fucking miserable all the time. It makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I agree. This is not me trying to insert myself into the conversation. This is me, being genuinely confused. I detest this feeling. My fantasy regarding Peter’s romantic life has been based on a hastily constructed coping mechanism to avoid my own pain. I go over the known facts again. “You claim he has a girlfriend?”
They collectively nod.
“Yet none of you have ever met her?”
They nod again.
“Have you seen photographic evidence of her existence?” I check. “On social media? Framed on his desk?”
They shake their heads.
I squint at them in confusion and suspicion. For such intelligent men, their hypothesis has zero data to back it up.
“Does he talk about her?”
“Nope,” Joel admits. “We don’t even know her name.”
I throw up my hands in frustration. “Then, how could you possibly assume he has a girlfriend?”
Oscar scoots his chair back as though he’s a little frightened by my outburst.
I am also frightened by my slip into emotional territory. Mostly, I’m terrified that the make-believe life I’ve imagined Peter to be living post-me is just that—pretend.
“It’s the way he acts ,” Finley insists. “We go out to the bar after a long day, and he’s swarmed by thirsty women. The rest of us sit there like a bunch of loser schmucks, but he’s legit swimming in titties.”
I stifle the urge to bristle at his crass statement. I empathize all too well with what it is like to be considered only for my “titties.” Especially regarding Peter. I also empathize with feeling like a loser schmuck, so I do not want to behave in any way that will ruin this team-building exercise.
“I have never seen that man go home with a woman,” Oscar adds. “It would be so easy for him, but he never acts on it.”
“Explain further,” I demand.
This is valuable information that I might not have obtained if I was still hiding in my private office. I hate to admit Chet’s insistence that I take a more hands-on approach was right, but…
So far, it appears to be an invaluable insight into the private workings of this team.
Ugh. I’m acutely aware that I’m distracting myself, and my own subconscious points the finger at my overly active, imaginative part of my forebrain, yelling, “Liar, liar! Pants on fire!”
The truth is…I am jealous of the thought of Peter with another woman.
I visualize batting away that revolting emotion with a swat of my hand. I have a job to do, so I’m going to do it. Emotions be damned.
The group of men stare at me with squinted eyes.
I replay the past several minutes of conversation and immediately realize my error. I am being too overtly eager for closely held information. Also, I didn’t provide enough clarity for my question. “I don’t understand what you mean when you say he doesn’t act on what would be so easy for him. Explain that to me. Please .”
I overemphasize my politeness with a higher, gentler pitch. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that my personality turns people off because I’m too, and I quote, “ Abrasive .”
I prefer to think of it as honesty, which I value. Unfortunately, I have an extremely difficult time remembering that the platinum rule supersedes the golden rule. People do not necessarily want to be treated the way I want to be treated. They want to be treated the way they want to be treated, which differs drastically from my personal predilections.
Joel shrugs. “He never asks anyone for their number. Hell, the dude barely smiles at anyone who approaches him . He’s nice about it. Lets them down gently if they’re clearly interested.”
“How does he let them down gently?”
That is not at all what I witnessed during my last observation of the team in a more natural habitat. Peter was cruel to the women who approached him. Not gentle.
Why are they covering up for him?
Finley shrugs. “You know. He gives them the brush off in a way they can’t ignore.”
“That’s how we know he has a girlfriend who never puts out,” Oscar insists. “We’ve all overheard him tell women at the bar that he can’t go home with them because he’s already met the love of his life. Then, he walks in the next morning with a scowl and a shitty attitude. Because he could’ve gotten laid the night before but chose not to.”
Oh, wow. This information is most…unexpected.
Further proof that geniuses aren’t able to predict the future.
This newly discovered knowledge bears further research.
Know thine enemy , as it were.
Who is this woman who has captured Peter’s heart yet makes him act so cruelly toward others? Is she involved somehow in his illicit sales of proprietary company information?
Curiosity has always been my fatal flaw.