The Shot Heard 'Round the Office

Flash Fiction by Ivy Dillinger



Her wardrobe. It was all about her wardrobe.

Ms. Carruthers, clearly the offending party, considered it freedom of expression. Human Resources considered it inappropriate. The war was on.

She'd been at the company merely a week. That's all the time it took for a memorandum to be issued directing everyone's attention to the company handbook, specifically to the dress code section, a section whose contents most (if not all) employees - at best - were aware of vaguely, in passing. "Nothing too provocative," it clearly stated. Ms. Carruthers begged to differ. With memo in manicured hand, she marched directly to the office of the HR Director, a Mr. Nathan Begley.

"What's the big idea?" she said. She waved the memo at him.

"Ms. Carruthers, you can't just-"

"Just because a woman has amazing breasts, a delicious ass and legs to die for doesn't necessarily mean she's provocative," said Ms. Carruthers.

"Uh..." Begley struggled to concentrate.

"I work as hard as anyone here. Harder."

"Ms. Carruthers..."

"Do you have any idea how much these stockings cost?" She took two steps forward, sat on his desk, allowed her right pump to slide to the floor, then dangled her stockinged foot roughly six inches from his nose. When he didn't draw back, when he froze, when he stared at her foot like a deer in headlights, she knew she had him. She inserted her foot into his mouth. Your ass is mine, she thought. I own you. Begley helplessly sucked her toes. The Director of Human Resources was sucking Ms. Carruthers' toes. Then, with the help of his memo - a memo she rubbed just below his Brooks Brothers belt buckle - he helplessly exploded into his pleated Hugo Boss trousers.



"You'll write a new memo?"

Drooling, spent, demeaned and surmounted, he mumbled something that sounded like a yes.