AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When Marcus left me, he told me this wasn’t how he’d envisioned our life together. That it had become humdrum and too predictable. That I was too straitlaced.
“You made me this way!” I’d wanted to scream at him. But I hadn’t. I’d just let him leave and move in with free-love-loving Sage, who’d actually turned up to help him move out. He’d been so chill and soft-spoken that I hadn’t even been able to get mad at him, which had made me feel so much fucking worse.
I’d made him a herbal tea while Marcus was taking half the mugs from the kitchen cabinet.
I hadn’t been able to afford our little house on my own, so I’d had to move into a crappy apartment. And because my personal life had become such a shitshow, I hadn’t even entertained the idea of finding a new job on top of everything else. So I’d just stayed at HutSec.
I was over Marcus, but I was still bitter as shit. He’d pushed me into a corporate job, a steady and settled life, then told me it wasn’t what he’d envisioned? What had he envisioned then?
The worst thing was, I couldn’t even say what I’d envisioned. I couldn’t even say to myself, This wasn’t where I expected to end up at the age of thirty-nine, because I didn’t know where I had expected to end up. I’d never planned that far ahead before. I’d just gone with the flow, which was probably how I’d ended up stuck in this soul-crushing job.
‘The flow’ just so happened to be the exact same thing, day after day, and I’d been doing it for twelve years like a mindless zombie.
“Morning, Taylor!” Sharon from Accounts chirped from her desk as I trudged to the break room.
“Morning.” I smiled wanly back.
“Nice tie, man.” Gary from Finance clapped me on the shoulder as he passed, a HutSec coffee mug in his hand. “Got the same one in blue. Last week’s sale at Standard Suits and Such?”
I chuckled woodenly. “You know it.”
The break room was empty when I walked into it. The spot where I usually placed my lunch in the fridge was still clear, even though I was late putting it in there.
How do I have a precise time that I put my lunch in the fridge every day? I shrieked to myself in my head as I calmly closed the fridge door. How did this happen? What have I become? Why aren’t I the one going to orgies all the time with a twenty-something hippy called Sage?
Not that I wanted Sage, but it was the principle, damn it. Marcus had moulded me into the partner he’d thought he wanted, then he’d fucked off to drink kombucha and do naked Bikram yoga and go to awesome orgies with someone else. Marcus had turned me into this corporate shell of a man who ironed his underpants and still avoided dairy and only had a single low-carb beer when I got home from work as I sat alone, trying to tune out the godawful EDM reverberating through the wall from the apartment next door while I watched British antiquing shows.
My chest was tightening, sweat beading on my upper lip, so I walked swiftly out of the break room and into the restroom. Then I just stood there staring at the off-white tiles, trying to ignore the faint scent of piss under pine disinfectant, before slowly making my way over to the sinks.
Welp, I thought as I stared at my reflection in the smudged mirror. This is your life. Discussing tie purchases and eating the exact same thing for lunch every day. Zero pints of ice cream consumed in over a decade. Zero orgasms at the hands of another person for four years. Exactly zero orgies attended.
I used to look like a real person. I used to keep my hair just a touch too long, mainly because I liked it being pulled during sex. Marcus had never pulled my hair during sex. Probably because I’d started getting it cut shorter, but I doubted he would have anyway.
I was pretty sure I used to have some freckles on my nose from being outside more—from sitting in our yard on the weekends and going on stupid bike rides with Marcus and spending my lunch breaks in parks or outside cute little eateries. Now I was just pale and washed out. Bags permanently under my eyes because my aspiring-DJ-neighbour liked to play his crappy EDM until the wee hours. Tension lines bracketing my mouth, which looked all miserable and droopy.
Dick-starved, I decided. It was a miserable, dick-starved mouth. I hadn’t had a dick in my mouth in four long years. Whatever muscles were used for dicksucking had probably just given up. Resigned themselves to the knowledge that they would never be put to work again.
Or maybe it was the ice cream-eating muscles that had given up. Now I was picturing a nice, hard dick covered in ice cream, and I was getting a sad boner.
I hurriedly turned on the faucet and started washing my hands when the restroom door swung open. Chase, the Public Relations and Business Engagement Manager, sauntered in wearing his standard shiny grey suit and maroon tie.
Chase oversaw my department, but I had no idea what he actually did except wander over every now and then and ask how it was going. He had his own office, though. With a window. And a bigger desk. Sometimes I wondered what it’d be like to have my own office, and the fact that my lofty ambitions in life amounted to daydreaming about sitting in a soulless, eighties-era office kind of made me want to cry.
“Taylor.” Chase clapped me on the shoulder on his way to the urinals. “Great job on that release last week. Really got the message across.”
I didn’t even know what the message had been, so I just smiled blandly. “Thanks.”
“Think we need to synergise with the guys over in Sales for the next one,” he said over the sound of his urine stream. “Come up with an action plan so we can hit the ground running with the next software release in quarter four. Really drill down into what makes our product best-in-class, you know?”
“Yep. Uh-huh.” I had no idea what he was saying. Quickly drying my hands on some paper towels, I beelined for the door. “Well, better get back to the grind.”
I tried not to cringe the moment it left my mouth. Ugh, god, who was I?
Chase chuckled as he zipped up his slacks. “No doubt, no doubt. Hey, don’t forget it’s Sharon from Accounts’ birthday thing after work. Break room from five-thirty.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I’d forgotten all about it, but I supposed drinking my single beer in the company of other human beings instead of alone in my apartment might be a nice change.
Maybe I’d even have a slice of cake this time. Go full-on rebellious. Throw caution to the wind.
