Glow Job

Chapter 1

MAY

CHLOE

‘I like your hair like this, Miss Chloe…’ Rupa says.

I don’t know how to tell her that I’ve basically just washed it, which is why it looks reasonably healthy today.

Rupa is the kindly lady who comes in after hours to clean the office and, given that I’m here past eight o’clock in the evening most days, she’s become an acquaintance.

Actually, she’s more than that: she might be a friend of sorts.

Rupa sometimes brings me dinner, sits and shows me pictures of her kids, and talks about how her diabetes makes her toes numb.

I hate to admit it but it’s nice to chat to someone so warm, so different from the hipster wankers who normally fill this office and don’t even remember my name.

She puts a packet of sweet tea on my desk. ‘For you, Miss Chloe…’

‘Are you sure, Rupa?’ I ask.

She cups my face and nods, dragging her vacuum cleaner behind her as she goes into another office.

She does this a lot, leaves me sweets, teas and snacks.

I can’t understand the labels but I consume them all out of gratitude.

I look at the screen, studying my latest ideas for a new tender we’re bidding for.

It’s everything the brief set out – sustainable, in symbiosis with the natural setting, using exciting, innovative materials.

To see my sketches transformed on screen makes me incredibly excited, but I’m a perfectionist. I scan across Nancy’s terrible annotations that I need to correct.

I want this to be right – to reflect my rigorous approach to my design work.

I lean over, piercing the straw into my drink and sip it with my head rested against my hand.

It’s some fragrant but extremely syrupy East Asian tea.

It’s a tonic, mostly because it’s been ages since I remember drinking a packet drink like this through a straw, like a kid, pressing on the laminated cardboard to get the last dregs out.

Thank you, Rupa. My eye catches my phone glowing in the corner of my desk.

Thank you for the pyjamas and all the colouring stuff, Aunty Chloe.

I smile. I open the message to see a picture of my nephew, Arlo, wearing his recently gifted pyjamas and holding his art haul aloft, with a big gappy four-year-old grin.

I’m sorry I missed the party. Was there cake?

Chocolate. But also sixteen other feral little shits. One of them peed in the fireplace.

Could have been worse, bro, he could have taken a dump in there.

The messages suddenly stop and my phone goes to video call. I can tell I’ve made my big brother, George, laugh and he wants me to hear his laughter.

‘I knew it. I had a bet going that you’d still be at work,’ he says, unimpressed as I come into view.

‘This isn’t the office, it’s one of those fancy background filters,’ I say. ‘I’m actually in a high-end bar. They piss in the fireplace here too once everyone’s done a round of cocaine and sambuca.’

He smiles, and I can see he’s studying my face.

‘Don’t tell me I look tired,’ I say, pre-empting George’s concerns.

‘I was going to say you looked sprightly and full of the joys of spring.’

‘Don’t be a sarcastic tit either.’

He takes in the empty office behind me. ‘If I can say it out loud, I often call you at this time and you’re usually at work, sitting in that same fancy swivel chair. It’s not healthy, Chloe.’

‘I am very healthy, thank you. I eat fruit, I do yoga,’ I retort, noticing that the office lighting makes me look like a strung-out zombie.

‘At home. Off a YouTube video,’ George replies. ‘You’re twenty-five, Chlo, you work in Shoreditch. You should be in that high-end bar, you should be getting bendy with other people in the room.’

I arch my eyebrows. ‘You’re talking about the yoga, yeah?’

He smiles broadly. ‘That too. There’s not even anyone else there.’

‘The cleaner is here.’

‘You know what I mean,’ he retorts. ‘Can I ask if there’s a man on the horizon?’

‘You’re such a gossip. You’re worse than Mum,’ I say, trying to make a joke so I don’t have to tell him that the last time I was touched by a man was five months ago at the work Christmas do.

I snogged a junior drafter called Pierre who got dismissed the next day because he sent a photo of his cock to someone in HR.

‘I have a friend in my cycling group…’ George suggests.

‘Are you seriously trying to set me up with a dad in Lycra?’

‘He’s not a dad. He’s ridden his bike to Paris, you know. Legs like steel.’

‘What every woman wants, solid girders,’ I say, smiling.

He laughs again. ‘See? Your sense of humour is wasted on an empty office, little sister. You should be out meeting people. I swear, if I was in my twenties again, I’d have much more fun.’

George is now a dad to two kids and his life is packed with soft play and school runs.

I partly envy how his exhaustion is always tinged with contentment, but I’ve worked too hard to lose focus in my career.

I moved centrally to be nearer the bigger, less parochial architectural practices and I’m a year off being an associate.

As much as I hate the office dynamics, I’ve worked hard to get here and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved.

‘What sort of fun?’ I ask. ‘I don’t fancy that sort of thing. It’s a surefire way to get heartbroken.’

George rolls his eyes. ‘Just enjoy life a bit more. Be spontaneous, get out more. You work far too hard.’

‘It’s because I’m a woman. I’m given no choice,’ I explain, wearing my feminist hat.

‘You can make a choice to breathe though, to take a moment to see what’s outside your office. Have a holiday maybe?’

I see a four-year-old head suddenly appear at the corner of the screen, jumping into his dad’s lap. ‘AUNTY CHLOE!!’

I beam at my nephew, this little clone of my brother. ‘ARLO! You gorgeous little beast! How does it feel to be FOUR?’

‘AWESOME!’ he replies, screaming in a strange, sugar-powered, hyperexcitable way. I marvel to hear and see someone so joyous about life.

‘I GOT A NEW BIKE!’ he shouts with glee.

‘You are the luckiest! Remember to wear your helmet, yeah? Your dad didn’t wear his helmet and look at him now, it shrunk his brain to the size of a peanut. Sad really.’

I love how they both roar with laughter; seeing the similarity in their smiles, the joy and love I have for them overwhelming me.

I miss them. Maybe George was right that by not attending Arlo’s party today, I am missing out on those beats of life that make everything worthwhile because essentially, they are all I have.

‘Tell Aunty Chloe to come see us,’ George says. ‘She needs to come over and see your bike.’

‘COME AND SEE MY BIKE!’ Arlo begs.

‘I will, little man. Is it bedtime there?’ I ask.

They both nod. Arlo comes and kisses the screen and George waves, waiting until Arlo is out of view to sneakily put his middle finger up at me.

I return the gesture and blow him a kiss.

I feel a wave of regret at missing the party.

I missed out on cake. Chocolate cake. Instead, I’m sipping on a packet drink and I’ll pick up a yellow-stickered ready meal on the way home that I’ll eat out of the plastic container to save on the washing up.

And then I’ll wash the single fork I used to eat it and stand in my flat, wondering how this is my life.

‘Miss Chloe, it’s time to go now!’ Rupa’s voice rings through the office. She is standing by the door, a coat wrapped around her, a rubbish bag in her hands.

I like how Rupa does this. She’ll hover there for a moment to announce that her work is done for the evening, prompting me that I should be leaving now too. She’ll smile warmly, making her face go all crinkly, and wait.

‘I just need ten more minutes, Rupa, I promise. I’ll lock up.’

Rupa never tells me off or chastises me. She just nods. ‘Take care of yourself now, Miss Chloe.’

‘You too, Rupa.’

I hear her shuffle to the door. It clicks shut.

And then there’s just me. My face backlit by the computer, looking like the people you see in those information ads where the government tells you that technology is bad, you should get outside and stop believing everything you see on the internet.

I also feel bad because I lied. I won’t be ten minutes.

I want to see this in different colour schemes, maybe experiment with the cladding in a different wood.

I really need to re-read the environmental survey again, possibly talk to the landscape team about their ideas for the planting.

Maybe I’m being too ambitious, but I want this done right.

I need sweets, something to keep me going, so I bend down to find some motivational treats in the bottom drawer of my desk.

As I do, I suddenly hear the door unlatch.

I pop my head up over the monitor to see if it’s Rupa returning.

But I hear voices instead, familiar ones, and my instinct is to stay hidden so I fall to my knees and crouch under my desk.

Because I know who that is. And there’s something I can tell from their laughter and the pause they’ve taken as they make their way down the corridor that they’re not here to work.

Because, Nancy, there’s stuff to be done here if you’re dropping in.

‘No one’s here, right?’ Nancy asks in a loud whisper. This is when I should put my hand up over my desk. I could pop up like a meerkat, but at the risk of looking completely ridiculous, I continue hiding. Chloe Raymond, this might not end well, I realise with a sense of dread.

‘The cleaner is always the last one to leave, trust me.’

It won’t end well because that voice belongs to Julian, my boss.

There were talks of drinks at six o’clock when the majority of the office left today; from their slurred speech and the sounds of them stumbling around, it appears that Nancy and Julian partook in those drinks.

They continue to giggle and pause, and I hear moans, slurping and yes, a light slap.

I don’t want to look but Rosie’s desk is the nearest to that doorway: I may encourage her to wipe it down tomorrow morning.

‘God, I want your big hairy cock inside of me.’

Oh man, words. Sometimes they can just go in your ears, into your brain and the images they conjure up will infect your memory forever.

How the hell is his cock hairy? Like a gorilla?

Or a yeti? Don’t laugh, Chloe. He is a hirsute man; we knew this already.

I hear tearing. That’s either her tights or his big hairy cock making a break for freedom through his pants.

I raise a hand to try and reach for my earphones but I can’t quite get my fingertips to them.

So, I cover my ears, like a child who’s scared of thunder.

But even then, I can’t quite drown out the sounds of her moaning and his low-grade grunts.

‘You are such a dirty bitch,’ Julian says.

This isn’t wrong. Nancy is always very bad at washing up her mugs.

She is also a terrible architect with zero skills or pride in her work.

Could you drop that in? But as they continue, I realise that this isn’t a one-night thing.

This is ongoing. This is possibly the reason Nancy is still employed.

How long has this been going on? How have I not noticed anything before?

I wonder. Maybe I’ve been too busy being an architect.

‘Put a finger in my…’

I cup my hands tighter to my ears to drown out the next word.

If it is what I think it might be then Rosie will need bleach as well.

I wonder if they’ve had sex on my desk. I think about Julian’s wife and how Nancy has only just got married.

There was beef at the wedding. Julian was at the reception.

Yet while I object morally to the lying, the cheating and the very complicated nature of what’s going on, I can’t help but be a little jealous of the drama of it all.

Mere minutes ago, I was thinking of my very sad, lonely life and how I was going to eat my dinner alone.

I don’t want to have a lusty affair with a man with a big hairy cock, but as I’m hiding under my desk, I feel quite pathetic to be here, alone, crouching in the dark like an office gremlin, especially after all the time and effort I’ve put into my job.

‘Make me come, you bastard. Call me your whore,’ Nancy commands.

I don’t know what sort of affair this is, but they don’t seem to be very nice to each other.

Plus, Julian’s breathing doesn’t sound great.

Give him a chance, Nancy. Was that the sound of him dying?

Or climaxing? Either way, at least this whole charade will come to an end soon.

Please go somewhere else for your second round, somewhere more comfortable like your car, a dodgy hotel or a bed.

I take my hands away from my ears. There’s another slap and then a laugh.

‘Shit. I think we’ve torn the Spooner Group plans, Julian.’

I hear zips, them grappling to get into clothes, the rustling of paper as he sniggers under his breath. ‘No worries. We’ll blame that Chinese cleaning woman.’

‘She’s Nepalese,’ I whisper under my breath. Then silence. Shit, maybe I said that too loud. No, no, no. I gulp and curl myself into a smaller ball like a hedgehog.

‘Or we can just get Chloe to re-do them,’ Nancy says. ‘I swear that girl lives here most of the time. She really needs to get a life.’

And then there’s more laughter. It’s unbearably cruel.

So much so, my breath shudders slowly, tears forming in my eyes.

I hear footsteps pad towards the door, the latch clicking shut.

I pop my head up to check they’re gone. My screen is still on.

I look at the plans I was working on. My plans.

I move them to another folder without shared access.

I turn off my screen and I put on my coat.

I put my middle finger up to the empty office space.

I then turn and get the hell out of there.