There's nothing subtle about what happens next. There doesn't need to be. They are no longer in a bathroom. They're out on the mudflats of prehistory. Her lips engulf him, and they begin to beat out the primitive rhythm of the primordial ooze. Bill reaches that point from which man and woman may never return with their hearts unchanged. The white ambrosia of love spills out of her mouth and onto her dress. She will keep that dress and never launder it, a keepsake of fleeting ecstasy.
And it's fleeting, all right. You know how broads can get. She decides she loves Bill, and he strings her along a little. Tells her that he'll be retiring from the job in a few years, and he might not be married to the old lady then.
"I think we'd make a good team," says Monica.
Bill decides to be a nice guy and try to put her off. "What happens when I'm 75 and have to pee 20 times a day?" he asks her.
"We'll deal with it," she answers, and Bill knows he's in trouble.
The firm moves Monica out of the office and sends her somewhere else. This isn't Bill's doing, but he's got to be relieved. Then Monica starts pestering him to bring her back. He keeps putting her off. Finally, she realizes she's not coming back. She writes him a letter. "All you have promised me is an empty promise," the letter says. "I will never do anything to hurt you. I am simply not that kind of person. Moreover, I love you."
But she's been hinting to him that he'd better get her a job somewhere else or she'll drop the proverbial dime. What he doesn't know is that she's already been talking. Her mother knows about their trysts, and so does this woman she thinks is her friend.
The friend approaches this investigator who's spent years trying to prove that Bill is a crook, and not coming up with squat. She tells the investigator, Kenny the Hawk, about Bill and Monica. Kenny accuses him. Bill denies it. He even denies it under oath.
Well, who the hell wouldn't? It's not like he knew Monica was going to turn stool pigeon and hand over the stained dress. When she does, Bill knows the jig's up. He admits it.
Some people in his firm want to fire him, and that's what Kenny the Hawk's after. But most of the firm's customers want him to stay in the job, since they think he's good at it, and he didn't do anything a lot of them wouldn't do. The board of directors is all in an uproar, but privately, many of them are fretting about their own flings.
Bill says he's not going to quit. He says it's nobody's business but his family's. It seems the old lady decides to forgive him, like she did before even though he said he hadn't banged the weather girl. The old lady forgives him for sure. She just forgives the hell out of him. She's a very forgiving woman.
Contact Barry Graham at his online address: bgraham@newtimes.com
