The human refrigerator—Paulie, I’m guessing—glances at me like I’m a particularly interesting museum exhibit.
“This the new girl?” he asks at full volume, as though I’m deaf or possibly a potted plant.
“No, she’s a hallucination we’re all sharing,” Slick Hair responds with eye-roll punctuation. “What do you think?”
Giovanni ignores them both, focusing on the desk placement with the same intensity he’d probably use to plan a hit. There’s something deeply unsettling about watching him arrange furniture—like seeing a shark fold laundry or a tiger do taxes.
“You get the chair from the car, Tony,” Giovanni orders Slick Hair. “Paulie, help me with the power.”
They move with practiced efficiency, like they’ve done this exact thing before. Moving furniture. Or bodies. Probably both. I remain frozen, clutching the phone like it’s the nuclear launch codes.
Paulie keeps shooting me looks that make me want to bathe in hand sanitizer. His half-smile screams “I’m thinking inappropriate thoughts and want you to know it.” Tony returns with what must be the executive version of a throne—all blackleather and chrome, probably made from the hide of previous assistants who failed the coffee test.
“Standing desk,” Tony announces with all the subtlety of a foghorn. “G says you’ll be working long hours.”
He saysworkinglike it’s the punchline to a joke I don’t want to understand. Paulie snickers. My face burns hot enough to melt steel, but I keep my expression blank. I’ve had enough practice with men like this to know reactions are the oxygen their creepiness breathes.
“She doesn’t talk much, does she?” Paulie stage-whispers to Giovanni, like I’m not standing five feet away.
“Unlike some people, she knows when to keep her mouth shut,” Giovanni replies without looking up from cable management.
Tony laughs. “Ouch. He got you there, Paulie.”
“Whatever. You sure know how to pick ’em, G. This one’s prettier than the last assistant.”
Last assistant?The words hit like ice water. What happened to the last person who stood where I’m standing? Did she fall into a vat of acid? Get shipped to a black site? Or worse—did she drink civet coffee without permission?
Giovanni straightens up and gives Paulie a look that could freeze hell itself. The big man immediately sobers, clearing his throat as though he’s trying to swallow his own tongue.
“We’re done here,” Tony says quickly, nudging Paulie toward the door like he’s steering a drunk friend away from a bar fight.
They file out, but not before Tony throws me another smirk and Paulie makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-warning. The door closes behind them with finality, leaving me alone with Giovanni and a motorized desk that now hums with power.
I’m left standing in the center of the room, clutching Giovanni’s phone while a $3,000 desk whirs to life like something from a sci-fi movie where the furniture eventuallygains sentience and murders everyone. I know it costs $3,000 because the price tag is still dangling from one corner. A power move that screams:Look what I can casually drop on a Monday morning for someone I don’t even like.
This is so weird. Demerits. Standing desks as punishment. One desk in a living room does not transform an apartment into an office. It’s like putting a litter box in your kitchen and calling it a cat café.
And then there’s the elephant in the room—or rather, the word still electric on my tongue.Spanking. I said it out loud. To my boss. On day one. My brain keeps replaying it in high-definition humiliation-vision, complete with surround sound and director’s commentary.
For fuck’s sake, Emmaleen. Get a grip. You’re standing here getting aroused over a standing desk punishment. What’s next? Sexually charged fantasies about the copy machine jamming? Office supply fetishes? Will you start finding staplers erotic?
Giovanni clears his throat, the sound cutting through my internal spiral like a knife.
“So what’s your decision?” He gestures to the phone in my hand. “I need to know now so I can cancel the temp I hired for this afternoon.”
I blink. “Temp?”
“I don’t know how you spend your days, Miss Take, but I work.” His voice is all smooth edges and sharp corners. “If you remember correctly, you were eight minutes late. At the five-minute mark, I called my temp agency. The girl will be here at one. So are you signing the contract, or not? Because if so, we’ve got things to discuss. And if not, you need to be on your way.”
The temp agency. Of course. This man has a backup plan for his backup plan. Probably has a warehouse full of desperate women waiting to be summoned to standing desks across town.
My finger hovers over the signature line on the screen. A tiny rebellion flashes through me—a second where I consider walking out, preserving whatever shreds of dignity I have left, and spending the next three weeks hustling for minimum wage jobs before officially becoming homeless.
But the math is brutal and unavoidable. Twenty-one days minus zero dollars equals zero options.
I press my finger to the screen and trace my signature.
When I look up, Giovanni’s face has transformed. He’s smiling—a real, dark, predatory satisfaction that makes his previous expressions seem like blank paper. It’s the look of someone who’s just watched their elaborate trap spring shut exactly as designed.