As soon as I enter my supervisor’s office and I close the door behind me, I’m struck with the usual envy that arises in me when I see this bastard’s workspace. I wish I didn’t have to work, but because I’m forced to, I’d prefer if I owned my own office in which I could sit with the back of the monitor facing the door, so I wouldn’t spend my workdays suspecting that my coworkers are spying on my browsing habits.
Behind the expensive desk made of dark wood, Ramsés, sitting on his leather executive chair dyed blue, was shoving a potato chip into his mustached mouth when he noticed I had entered his office without knocking. He calmly wipes his fingers with a tissue and closes the drawer of his desk that likely contains his stack of vending machine snacks. The early afternoon October sun is pouring through the tall windows and lighting Ramsés from behind, thinning further the already sparse hair growing out of the top of his head, making the graying strands look like the remnants of moldering straws. An enormous picture on the wall depicts the Pyramids of Giza, I guess partly because my boss’ parents knew in advance how big of a dickhead the guy was going to become.
Ramsés swivels his chair towards me and deploys a cordial smile with his lips and his thick mustache. I despise how this man stares at me, with a conspiratorial glint in his eye as if we shared some private joke, or sin. It makes my skin crawl.
“Leire,” Ramsés says. “Is this about your new ticket?”
I’m controlling my breathing, and hiding my rage behind a mask of professionality. Shouting at this prick as soon as I open my mouth would hurt my point. You can’t let them know you’re angry and afraid, they will use it against you and exploit you for what little value remains in your soul.
“Yes,” I say in a raspy voice. “I have to shoulder a whole new contract when I haven’t had the time to finish the previous ones.”
Ramsés runs one hand across his mustache. His nostrils flare slightly as if sniffing something unpleasant, then he purses his lips and nods a few times. He stretches his arm towards the stylized chair, made of matching dark wood and leather dyed blue, that is facing the front of his desk.
“Please, sit down. Let’s talk about this.”
He won’t agree to argue unless my ass is occupying his chair. When I sink into the leather, I have to look up at Ramsés, whose executive chair is raised partly for this purpose. His eyes are boring into me as he leans forward and places both hands atop his desk.
I wonder if the desk is hiding that my boss’ erection is protruding menacingly, and if he has coated the underside of his desk in years of dried cum. This guy keeps his suit jacket buttoned even when he’s sitting, and the buttons are struggling to contain his bloated belly. That body must be so hairy and sweaty.
I shift my weight uncomfortably in the chair as I force myself to keep holding my boss’ gaze.
“I’ll get right to the point: you are sending me way too much work. It’s stressing me the fuck out. I’m always anxious, but these past days I’ve been feeling particularly vulnerable, so I can’t handle this workload any longer.”
I had looked away to figure out how to word my point properly, and when my gaze returns to Ramsés’ face, I catch him ogling my breasts although my hoodie should be disguising most of the curves and bumps of my body. The sight of him, or any living creature for that matter, looking lasciviously at my boobs triggers a wave of anger that threatens to overwhelm my rational mind and cause my body to respond to it with uncontrollable arousal. This is the last thing I need; now my body is screaming that it needs to be fucked and filled with cum by a man, and because of that, my mind is urging me to spread my legs and accept a cock inside me. I frown and grimace, but Ramsés offers me what he likely believes to be a pleasant smile.
“I noticed that today you weren’t resolving your tickets at your usual pace. You are feeling vulnerable, you said? Is it just stress? Maybe you’ve caught a cold? It’s October, after all.”
My immune system has struggled for years; I survive on a diet of cold sandwiches and I suffer from chronic insomnia. However, unless the Chinese have fabricated a virus that can make people hallucinate horses, I’m merely losing my mind. In addition, my boss’ foul-smelling breath has reached over his desk and invaded my nostrils with the stink of cigarettes. I wonder how many cigs a human being has to smoke a day that his breath always smells foul. Maybe he smokes to hide that his normal breath smells like a sewer rat’s anus.
“No, I’m not sick,” I assure him, controlling my tone. “I’m stressed out because I’ve been sent too much work lately, and I’m frustrated because I can’t complete any of it on schedule. Ramsés, you know I’m even working overtime because I can’t get enough done during the regular workday! This stuff is too much for my brain to process anymore.”
I hate how whiny I sound, but if my boss didn’t want me to bitch about this shit, he shouldn’t send me so much work.
Ramsés rests his hands on the desk and he shoots me an aloof look. He’s probably thinking what a fool I am for having allowed myself to be trapped in a workplace where a stinky horse keeps talking in my ears for hours on end and fills my mind with worthless thoughts.
“Leire, you know I prefer that my employees refer to me as ‘sir’,” he says condescendingly.
My stomach clenches as I feel bile rising in my throat. This guy thinks that since his dick is bigger than mine, he’s entitled to treat me like a servant. He’s got no idea how hard and fast I could ride his cock if my pussy wasn’t currently stuffed full of a vibrator. He’s a piece of shit and deserves a punch in the nose.
“There’s a clear division of labor,” Ramsés adds, “and I’m the one who will suffer the most if this venture fails, not to mention that I’m paying your wages at the end of every month.”
As I stare through the shiny floor, I swallow the bitter taste in my mouth and try to regain control over my accelerated heartbeat. The murderous confidence with which I had burst into my boss’ office has fizzled out as if it had been a mirage in a desert. All that remains is my empty shell, into which I wish I could sink and disappear forever.
“You’re right, sir,” I answer reluctantly. “Sorry for calling you by your name when speaking about work issues. That’s inappropriate conduct for an employee.”
My voice had grown hoarse as I spoke, and the heat in my cheeks had spread to cover my entire face. Ramsés watches me intently with those creepy eyes of his as a shudder runs down my spine. He takes pleasure from making me squirm under his power, he enjoys watching me cower beneath his gaze and strain against my chains. He is going to take advantage and fuck me until he leaves me gasping for air with cum dripping between my thighs.
When did I cease to be a human being? My integrity had been chipped away concession by concession: by submitting to an inferior position within an organization; by agreeing to do things outside of my job description; by choosing to shut up when I should have complained; by staying around to work overtime when I should have refused to handle such workloads; by becoming obsessed with an unhealthy addiction—masturbation. Every time I woke up before the sunrise and got into my Renault Laguna to drive to the office, I should have stripped naked and run into the woods while shouting incoherently. Instead, whenever these days anyone touches me or talks to me, I have to fight the urge to fall to my knees in front of them like a submissive slut. I don’t know why I exist anymore.
Ramsés wants me to submit again by consenting to have sex with him, but he doesn’t realize that his cock is already inside me. His cum marks his territory. His will holds me captive like some kind of demonic possession. How far does this submission go? Will Ramsés fuck me so badly that I will be reduced to nothing more than an object of desire and lust for him? Is this submission an expression of gratitude towards him for having hired me at all, an admission of defeat, or a surrendering acceptance that Ramsés owns me completely?
My boss is smiling at something dark that’s inside my skull, a foul thing that’s eating at my soul like an infection. He’s the one who created this abomination, an eternal nightmare where nothing is real except for tormenting visions of pain and death. He’s a master at using his cock like an ice pick to stab deep into my brain. But I still need his greasy self, because he provides the money that allows me to live in this world.
When I dare to look back up again, Ramsés seemed to have been waiting patiently for me to engage him again, because he raises his eyebrows and sighs like a father who needs to placate his unruly daughter.
“Leire, I can’t blame you for feeling stressed. Everyone except the very rich have every reason to be worried these days, and most of the income I get from the contracts I secure goes to paying the bills of this office along with your wages.”
“What? But this place is tiny, and you only have two programmers, one of them an intern!”
Ramsés shrugs.
“Yes, that’s how bad it’s gotten,” he replies dryly. “The economy has turned sour due to the recession, and there are also too many competitors. Clients can easily hire a team from Eastern Europe that’ll give them a product for a fifth of what we can afford to charge. These are dark days, Leire. We can either accept the reality of our situation and help turn things around, or give up.”
I run a hand over my face as I take a deep breath. I’m getting dizzier, weaker.
“Sir, this new contract will involve me programming in Python,” I say in a voice drained of energy. “I haven’t touched that language in months, so I’ll need to read up on it on my spare time, but I lack any. I’m working overtime because I can’t progress in my tasks fast enough otherwise, and my weekends pass in a blur because I’m so exhausted I can barely do anything but sleep. This is just no way to live.”
Ramsés looks towards his framed diploma hanged on the wall, as if he’s considering my words, but when his dark eyes stare back into mine, they seem indifferent.
“You are my best employee, Leire,” Ramsés says in a calm but firm tone, “a great programmer, and I’m very grateful for your dedication, but life isn’t supposed to be easy. Achieving important stuff has always been a struggle. To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that you are having such problems coping with the workload, given your talent. That suggests to me that your personal life might be hindering your productivity. I know you return to an empty apartment. Do you socialize enough in your free time? You aren’t seeing someone, right?”
I let out a desperate chuckle. Even if I had a boyfriend, which is none of this bastard’s business, how would I maintain a domestic life when I work overtime most weeks, and by the time I get home I only want to sleep?
“In my free time? Did you hear what I said?”
Ramsés interlocks his fingers over the desk and leans forward with an intense look.
“When you don’t socialize with your colleagues or with friends, soon enough you get burned out, unhealthy, and emotionally unstable. Is that not the case?”
“N-no! Of course not!” I protest as I try to regain control of myself.
“What you need is some excitement and fun in your life, someone who waits for you to return home exhausted after a long, hard day at work, and makes you feel alive again. Isn’t that what everybody should strive for?”
I’m sinking into the chair as I struggle to prevent my hands from trembling. Ramsés must be convinced that people can put up with whatever bullshit life throws at them, and perform at high level most of the time. Maybe I’m the exception and most human beings just breeze through life although they complain and joke about retiring, while I feel like I have to wade through mud at every step. I’m so exhausted and sick of it all that I fear I may cry.
My boss is observing me silently, trying to figure out if I’ll break down under his gaze and become a quivering mess of emotions.
“Leire, you are clamming up again, waiting for me to just agree with you,” Ramsés says with a hint of amusement. “I think that you need to learn how to be more flexible and open to suggestions, and to face that most of the time things aren’t going to be easy. There’s no point being bitter because life is harsh and cruel sometimes. Just try to relax, loosen up a little bit. If you make the effort and keep fighting until you reach an objective, then eventually things will change. You are a good programmer, as I keep telling you, and you should feel lucky, even privileged, to be a part of this company. We are special in ways that I bet no other company in the world is. And you can rest assured that I will take care of you.”
My stomach hurts, partly because this guy keeps me on a steady diet of his shit and his poison. I’m forced to tolerate his foul-smelling breath as he dismisses my valid complaints that cause me weekly to consider throwing myself off a cliff. Ramsés must realize how miserable I am, and yet he placates me with that condescension. He’s verminous and vile, he is scum and filth and trash like me and everybody else on Earth, a sadist who uses and abuses everyone under him for profit. He’s likely also a rapist.
I want Ramsés out of my life forever, and preferably dead too. He will continue fucking with us because nobody will shove a steaming hot iron between his ribs until he screams so loud that the whole industrial park would hear him begging for help. How I wish I could get away with murdering him, or anyone I dislike for that matter. But alas, this is reality and nothing will ever be simple and nice except maybe for Ramsés himself and his ilk.
It feels like my skull is caving in, and everything inside is melting away like ice cream left in the sun. Soon enough there won’t be anything left of me but an empty husk of flesh and bones cradled by an endless void of nothingness. I picture myself leaping at my boss and pushing a knife into his heart while whispering to him in French, “tu n’es pas réel“. I envision him lying dead on a pool of blood, my knife sticking out of his chest, gaping holes where his eyes once were, and his eyeballs stuffed up his asshole.
I stare at my boss as I sustain a pasted smile. I loathe every aspect of the man I’m facing. I despise his entire species. I wish with all my might that the ground would swallow him up in a sinkhole of mud and vomit. I hope that the planet erupts in a fiery explosion as a result of the sheer magnitude of the anger built up inside me.
I struggle to speak due to how heavy and thick my tongue feels.
“Sir, maybe you could consider hiring a new programmer.”
Ramsés eyebrows twitch, and he shifts his weight in his executive chair as he studies my expression.
“You mean you want to quit? You’re quitting?”
“No, I need the money. What I meant was that you could hire another programmer, not just an intern like Jordi.”
A look of annoyance overcomes Ramsés’ clear intent to remain calm and in control. His lips curl upward slightly, revealing a glimpse of teeth, as he replies.
“I’d hate to lose someone as talented as you, Leire, so I’m glad I misunderstood you. Regarding your suggestion, I’d love to hire a second programmer, and a third, and a fourth. I’d hire a legion of them if I could! But I can barely afford the three of you with the contracts I can secure, so we’ll have to soldier on for now.”
I nod stiffly as I raise myself to my feet as if my legs had aged decades. I’m already turning away when I speak, but I regret it; now that I’ve exposed the curves of my ass, I suspect I’ll catch that look in my boss’ eyes, like a rapist who just caught a glimpse of a woman walking alone at night in a park.
“Well then, I’ll keep at it heroically.”
Ramsés leans back and smiles smugly.
“You meant it sarcastically, but that’s the spirit. We are in this together, Leire. Don’t hesitate to come talk to me whenever you want, alright? I’ll always have time for you.”
I can feel tears forming at the corners of my eyes as I walk out of my boss’ office and close the door behind me. I stand there unsteadily while my shoulders droop and a lump forms in my throat. My gaze falls upon the table where my coworkers sit facing my way, partly hidden behind their monitors. Jacqueline stares at me with curiosity, her pale face framed by smooth, raven black hair.
Once again, my rage had fizzled out as I faced my beastly boss, and now I need to restrain an intense sadness. I was born defeated. I’m struggling pointlessly through a life that only serves as a punishment for crimes I have forgotten committing.
The Domains of the Emperor Owl 