Page 14 of The Wicked Virgin

“What the?” I gasped. “What’s going on here? Where’s all my stuff? Where’s my spare jacket?” I always left a nice blazer on the back of the door in case I was called into a business meeting but my real worry was my drawer of sex toys. Oh god, I’d left that locked last night, right? Hopefully it hadn’t come spilling open when they manhandled the desk out the door. Or worse, taken pliers to the lock and busted it open.

But the movers were unhelpful, shrugging at my question.

“We were told to move everything in here to another location. Didn’t someone tell you?” a scraggly looking guy answered, picking at his teeth with a finger.

“No, no one told me anything. When I left yesterday at 5 p.m. I thought everything was fine!” I choked. “I never expected to come in and find … this,” I said helplessly, gesturing at the empty space. Now that my metal desk and chair were gone, the windowless office looked even smaller and sadder, the walls a pale yellow, the floor a shiny institutional grey.

“I dunno,” shrugged the scraggly guy again. “Ask up top.”

“Fine. I’m getting on the phone with HR,” I said tightly. “They can’t just do this to me,” I huffed.

But evidently they could. When I finally got through to HR, the woman was just as dismissive.

“What was your name?” the woman drawled.

“Jones,” I replied tightly. “Tammy Jones.”

“Jones … Jones … Jones, there are so many Joneses at Luxor. Did you say you were Tabitha? Teresa? Tamara?”

And I interrupted there.

“Yes, Tamara is my full name, I go by Tammy,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Tammy is short for Tamara.”

“Right, right,” said the woman disinterestedly. “Hmm, let’s see what it says here. What’s your social security number?”

“My social?” I choked. “I’m just trying to figure out where my stuff is, can’t you do that with just my badge number?” I pleaded. This was entering the seventh circle of hell and I was desperate to locate my missing drawer. “Please,” I added, a choked tone in my voice. “I don’t know my social off the top of my head.”

And the woman seemed to take pity on me.

“Okay, yeah says here that you’ve been transferred to headquarters.”

“Headquarters?” I sputtered. “Why? Where is that?”

“I dunno, you’ll have to ask your boss,” replied the woman again, clearly bored. “We just process paperwork. Your new office will be at 1 Time Warner Center.”

And I gasped then. The Time Warner Center was probably the most expensive piece of real estate in Manhattan, prized for the building’s unobstructed view of both the Hudson River and Central Park.

“You mean at Columbus Circle?” I asked hesitantly.

“Of course at Columbus Circle,” snapped the woman. “What other Time Warner Center is there?”

And slowly, I put the receiver down. I’d certainly moved up in life if my new offices were going to be in such a shi-shi location. I only prayed that my desk was still there, intact with the drawer locked.

Slowly, I put on my coat and walked the few blocks to the new place, breathing in the air, letting my lungs expand and deflate slowly, taking deep breaths. The good thing about the Time Warner Center is that to get there from 666 Madison, I could walk along Central Park South and breathe in the scents of autumn, the unmistakable fiery smell of crackling leaves, the beautiful fall foliage turning the sky red and yellow.

“You got this,” I told myself silently. “Just march in there like you belong and no one’s going to say a word.”

So when I stepped into the lobby of the Time Warner office building, I flashed my badge with a confident smile and was immediately treated like a VIP.

“Ms. Jones is here,” said the security guard, calling upstairs. He added, “They’re expecting you on the thirtieth floor.”

“Thank you,” I said graciously, “Where are the elevators please?”

And the guard gestured to a pair of doors that opened magically, not a whisper of sound despite their construction from heavy metal. I was whisked upstairs, the elevator so fast, so luxurious that within seconds the doors were flying open again to reveal an elegant foyer.

I stepped in confidently and went straight up to the receptionist.

“Hi, I’m Tammy Jones,” I said, business-like. “I’m not sure …”

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