Not that Brandi had anything against Plus-sized people—she was one herself, after all. And she didn’t care about age either. But her boss constantly rubbed her the wrong way—by literally rubbing her—as he had just now done.
“Oh Brandi…” he sang, blowing the smell of stale coffee and unbrushed teeth right in her face.
“Mr. Grabbar, please—I’m trying to make copies!”
“Just having a little fun, Brandi-darlin’. We do like to have fun around here, you and me—don’t we?” He winked expressively at her in a way that turned Brandi’s stomach.
“Excuse me,” she said, grabbing the fresh copies and stalking back to her desk. “I have work to do.”
“Now don’t be like that, Brandi.” To her dismay, her boss followed her into her office and sat on the corner of her desk. For some reason he seemed to be in an abnormally good mood—even more-so than usual, which worried Brandi.
What is he thinking? What is he going to try next?
Unfortunately with Harold Grabbar, she could never be sure—she only knew that whatever he came up with was sure to be nasty and some form of sexual harassment.
Look at me, she thought angrily as she pretended to ignore her boss and tapped determinedly at her computer. I was thinking to myself that the #MeToo movement had passed Crystal by but I let it pass me by too. Why don’t I march down to Human Resources and say something?
But she knew the reason to that. The corporate culture at Bank of Tampa could best be described as a “boys club” and as such, they weren’t exactly open to sexual harassment complaints. The president of the Bank, Leon Grouse, protected his branch managers fiercely and any complaints were swiftly dealt with in the form of firings or transfers to other, less-well paying positions.
Brandi simply needed this job too much to risk losing it. It paid better than most secretarial posts—probably, she now acknowledged—because whoever was in her position would have to put up with Mr. Grabbar’s wandering hands.
Ugh—she hated it when he touched her! And almost as bad was the way his piggy little eyes crawled all over her body, as though he had every right to ogle her. Most men at least tried not to stare at a woman’s breasts or ass but Mr. Grabbar’s eyes hardly ever made it up to her face, which was why he probably didn’t see the looks of disgust she couldn’t help giving him.
“I know something you don’t know,” he said in a sing-song voice, apparently speaking to her breasts, since that was where his eyes were directed.
Brandi sighed. She knew he wouldn’t go away unless she humored him.
“And what would that be?” she asked, just wanting to get it over with.
“Today is your first-year performance review!” He said it the same way he might have said, “Today is your birthday!”
Brandi stared at him, wide-eyed. Had she really been doing this miserable job for a whole year now? Apparently she had because Mr. Grabbar was beaming at her.
“Is it?” she finally managed to ask. “I mean, I didn’t even realize…I haven’t had time to prepare…”
“Oh, no, no, Brandi darlin’…” He shook his head. “No preparation necessary. It just means that after lunch today you and I will sit down together and take a look at your job performance. Your strengths…your weaknesses…areas you really need to improve on…”
He wiggled his eyebrows expressively and Brandi’s heart sank.
“Is my salary somehow tied to this?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Oh my yes—I’m afraid it is. In fact, you can earn some very lucrative bonuses if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his eyebrows some more which made him look ridiculous and lecherous at the same time.
Dirty old man, Brandi thought angrily. But she felt helpless to do anything about her situation. She needed this job. It was the only way to keep Emmaline in the nice private pre-K she drove thirty minutes every morning to get to. Plus she paid half the bills on the double-wide and had to get food and clothes for herself and Emmie too. And health insurance kept going up…
I’m trapped, she thought angrily as she looked at her boss. I’m stuck here and that bastard knows it.
“We’ll revisit this right after lunch,” Mr. Grabbar promised, a greedy gleam in his eye. “In my office at one sharp, all right?”
“Sure. After lunch,” Brandi mumbled. “I’ll be there.”
But she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that followed her through the rest of the morning.
* * * * *
Slade was halfway through his shift at the Docking Bay when he started getting a bad feeling—a feeling that something was going wrong with Brandi, down on Earth.
At first he tried to ignore it.
You’re imagining things, he told himself as he worked to fix the landing mechanism on the shuttle he was repairing. She’s fine. She’s all the way down on Earth—there’s no way you could feel her emotions all the way up on the Mother Ship. Even the strongest bond-link has limits. There’s no possible way what you’re feeling is actually coming from Brandi.