Nobody Ends Up Dead in a Bathtub, Everyone Keeps Their Organs

Chapter 4

Alex was shaking when he walked into work. Little trembles all over of his body made it challenging to press the elevator's button or open the office door.

The Office Douche Bags were waiting for him at his desk, laying over it all smug-like. Andrew and Stu were whispering to each other and casting glances at Alex before ducking their heads back down close to one another.

Martin, left out of the secret conversation, pressed his elbows into the top of the desk and watched Alex approach them. He looked a bit apathetic to everything. Maybe impatient. Almost like he didn't want to be there and just wanted to get a start on his morning at his own desk.

Alex walked around them and dropped his bag by his chair. It would be just like any other Monday. Any other Monday with just one little hurdle in the very beginning.

"How was the date?" Stu asked.

Alex smiled his best fake smile. He tried imagining how Damián would do it, flashing his white teeth and tilting his head. Only, when Alex copied it, he was sure it came off as weird. Alex didn't have a charming smile like Damián. There was nothing charming about him. He relaxed his smile into his usual, no-teeth grin. Impersonal and awkward. Very him.

"It was really nice," Alex said.

The Douche Bags elbowed each other and beat their arms with their fists. "Yeah?"

"Marcus is such a great guy."

"How great was he?" Andrew asked.

Alex began booting up his computer and opening the physical planner to the day's date. As an Administrative Assistant (or glorified secretary as he called himself), he was thorough and well-organized. He had a digital calendar on his desktop and the large, binded monthly agenda that shared every single appointment and note. Appointments were written in blue, staff meetings were written in red. Very important dates—deadlines he was supposed to keep track of for the office—were in black and highlighted with a shocking yellow ink that Alex had grown sick of seeing.

"I caught on to the prank," Alex said.

"It wasn't a prank," Andrew said. "It was a favor."

It was disgusting how he said it. Like Alex was now part of some club he didn't want to be part of. Like having sex with a sex worker was some way of climbing the ladder of masculinity.

Alex would never understand the attitude some men had about sex. Like it was something to be conquered and mastered. And that if someone was not actively having sex and actively bragging about it, then they might as well be cast to the outskirts of society.

He did understand the necessity of sex to some people. It seemed nice, though he personally wouldn't know (a secret he kept very close to his own chest). Not only was there the rush of endorphins with an orgasm, but there was the connection to other people. Alex could only imagine it was the closest anyone could be with someone else, experiencing the rise of climax together and the gentle landing. And then there would be the clarity after everything settled and the feeling of company and satisfaction knowing there was another person on the pillow next to him.

But the way that Alex had heard Andrew talk about it through the years—the way he made women into numbers and ratings and sorted them into piles of "good" and "bad"—made him recoil. If Alex ever got the chance to have a partner, he would never in a million years make that person office talk.

"Whatever it was," Alex said, "Marcus and I really hit it off. For real."

The Douche Bags' smiles turned into slightly-horrified frowns. Ah. The stigma of sex work was doing its job.