Sexemon! Ch. 01

Working for a large scale megacorporation has its benefits: the pay is good, I have sick leave and guaranteed vacation days, the workload isn't too hard and I can get away with slacking off and playing games or watching random videos on my phone. I just wish it wasn't SO. FUCKING. BORING.

My coworkers feel like they're all two dimensional cardboard cutouts from a shitty 90s sitcom. My boss rides my ass for his own fuck-ups. I'm pretty sure all my data entries and reports are being fed to the company's crappy A. I. and they want to make my department automated by the end of next year, just in time for the annual shareholder meeting and dividend dispersion! Hooray!

I mean, sure, an A. I. probably could do this job. I'm literally just typing numbers from handwritten reports into spreadsheets and then bullshit what they mean for my boss to sound competent to his boss. Bleh, I hate this. Maybe I should hide some weird command scripts in the reports? I could have any shitty A. I. vomit garbage financial reports and then my boss would hire me back as a "Professional Consultant" and I could charge them double, fuck that, TRIPLE my current salary to just do what I'm already doing.

"HOWARD!"

"Fuck me!" I yelled, jumping out of my wobbly office chair. "Ned! What the fuck man?" I hissed.

"You've been staring at your monitor for like, ten minutes. I'm standing here saying your name over and over again and you got that deer in the headlights look going on again." Ned smiled and shook his head. He was the only person I liked here and my one source for venting about... well... everything. "It's five, man. Time to get out of here. What's got you so focused?"

"I was just thinking about this, uh, report I'm working on." I looked back at my computer monitor. It was black. I had stared off into the empty void of my mind for so long my computer had decided to go take a nap and make me look like a schizophrenic idiot, again.

"Uh-huh, sure. Well can it wait till tomorrow? We got invited to go out for drinks down the street at that bar with some of the ladies from accounting."

"The Irish one?"

"Janet is Polish and Kat is Slovakian, I think? I know Luisa is from Central America somewhere, she speaks Spanish at least." Ned scratched his chin and gazed up at the sterilizing fluorescent lights.

"The FUCKING bar, Ned!"

"I dunno, Howard. It's a downtown bar catering to wage slaves like us. They serve overpriced beer and salty food. What's important is there are three gorgeous ladies waiting for us in the lobby to join them!"

I shook my head and threw the stack of papers on my desk into a file cabinet. This report could wait till next month for all I cared. "Okay, sure. Though I'm pretty sure Janet hates me and Luisa is from Panama."

"No shit? How did you know that?"

"Because she has a miniature Panama flag on her desk." Ned watched me gather up my suitcase and jacket.

"Oh." He scratched his nose and leaned on my cubicle wall. "Any chance you can teach me some pick up lines in Spanish?"

"Su gato esta muy caliente," I said, adding some flourish to my enunciation. I wasn't exactly sure if it would translate well, and I know my old high school Spanish teacher would groan at my horrible grammar, but it would serve well enough to make an interesting and fun time watching Ned fumble the words and Luisa either laugh or throw her drink at him.

"Cool. Thanks, Howard." Ned started walking ahead of me, quietly mumbling the words to himself.

I patted him on the back. "No problem, buddy."

My phone buzzed and let out a little electric chirp. Fuck me, already? I had it programmed to only ping me when I was off the clock. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see the screen.

Message from: Yara Bloodaxe. "Hey, Ward, my big stud. Are you coming soon? Or do I need to go faster, hehehe!"

"Shit," I muttered, shoving my phone back into my pocket. I really needed to get this girlfriend app working properly, or just delete the damn piece of shit software. The last thing I needed was going out for drinks with real women and having my phone send me fake messages from a fake chick I used to fill the very real hole in my soul where validation and self-worth were supposed to occupy.

"What's that?" Ned asked, scrunching his face and twisting his head to get a peek at my phone screen.

"Nothing, just a spam text."

"Oh, yeah I get those, too." After a few steps he asked, "Why did it call you 'Ward'?"

It called me 'Ward' because my unimaginative brain had to give the app something to call me by, so my real name cut down to sound like something less like my great-grandfather's generation seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus I just liked it more than 'Howard'. But I didn't say all that, because that would have been implying to Ned that I was an even bigger loser on the inside than I appeared on the outside.

"I must have used 'Ward' as a name when I signed up for something and sold my data," I said, turning my face so Ned wouldn't see me turning red.

As we walked to the glass lobby I desperately smashed the side buttons on my phone in my pocket in an effort to power it off. More embarrassing than my phone telling on me in front of Ned, would be if it did it in front of Jan, Kat and Luisa.

***

It turned out Luisa thought Ned's broken nonsensical slightly offensive Spanish was funny and cute. The two of them left the bar together barely an hour after we got there, leaving me alone with Jan and Kat. It didn't go well. In fact, it went shit. My evening would have been better off sitting on the toilet exchanging messages with my pretend A. I. fantasy barbarian girlfriend. Good god was I pathetic.

Jan ignored me for the remainder of our time at McNally's Pub. She sipped on her beer and kept scrolling on her phone and occasionally would say something to Kat. For her part, Kat at least was sociable and engaged me with small talk. But it never went beyond anything other than work or office gossip.

"Do you plan on working your way up to manager?" Kat asked me. I didn't know what to say. I hadn't thought of anything beyond simply stamping my time card, doing as little work as possible and getting paid enough money for me to drown my lonely sorrows in fleeting highs for the weekend.

"Uh, not really," I said.

Kat brushed her hair over her shoulder and batted her eyes. "So... what? Are you just going to stay at Level-4 forever?" She smiled and took a drink of her amber ale. Her fingers were delicate and long and she ran her thumb up and down the cold glass that dripped with condensation.

"I, uh, haven't thought about it much." I watched her fingers play on the chilled beer glass. Her soft skin twisted around the base and she slid her forefinger along the rim, picking up a bead of liquid that she casually squished between her finger and thumb.

"Maybe you should think hard about what you want? You won't ever make any progress if you just sit there and stare at what's in front of you," she said, smiling and tilting her head.

"Oh my god, Katherine," Jan said, putting her phone down long enough to roll her eyes and bump her with an elbow.

The two of them walked a short ways and started whispering back and forth, leaving me sitting at the tiny table to watch them like a creep drinking my beer all by myself. I couldn't help but think of what Ned and Luisa were getting up to, and that thought sent a bitter taste to my stomach at the thought that if even a loser like Ned could pick up a catch like Luisa then what was my excuse? Maybe Kat was right and I needed to focus on my career and what I wanted out of life, but honestly, it wasn't much. I just wanted to earn enough money to pay the bills, live in an apartment that wasn't moldy and just enjoy my time to myself. Sure, having a babe to share a home with, live life, have sex three times a day... no wait, FIVE TIMES a day... would be amazing.

But I didn't deserve it. I was a lazy, dumb unambitious Level-4 Finance Officer too invested in short term dopamine hits to care about long term happiness and purpose.

Fuck it, I took my phone out of my pocket and turned it back on. Yara Bloodaxe had been busy; she sent me twelve more messages, three pictures and a voice recording. I couldn't check it out here, though. The last thing I needed was for Jan to spy me chatting up my A. I. sexbot app and making me into next week's office gossip.

"Where you going?" Kat asked, stepping in front of me as I stood up from the table.

"I've got a thing tonight I forgot about and need to get home." I looked down at my feet.

"Oh. Okay." Kat glanced at Jan and then back at me. She smiled and said, "Maybe we can get drinks after work again sometime next week. Make it into a regular event?"

Why was Kat being so nice to me? Probably just to keep things from getting even more awkward, I figured. It was a kind gesture on her part, but I had no intention of making her suffer just to stroke my ego.

"Sure," I said, stepping around her and squeezing past the busy bar to head out the door. The night air was cool and crisp against my skin and the stars made a rare appearance in the city sky, but I was too lost in my own head to notice or care. I just wanted to get back home to my cramped apartment that overlooked a dirty alley and lose myself in the fantasy I had going in my own head that I was someone important somewhere else with something better to do than increase revenues for a faceless corporation.

I wanted to matter.