Page 27 of Lesson on Depravity

Coco needs to be taught a lesson.

Chapter Eight

Coco

The transition is easier than I had expected. I was a bit of a nervous wreck, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t deal with.

The first hurdle I had to get through was Mrs. Curtis. She was against my need to branch out and leave the safety of the neighborhood where Daddy had control. I couldn’t figure out why she had vehemently hated the idea of me working at Intergrade.

It took a lot of convincing and a promise to always check-up with her. I had jokingly asked if she was going to miss me and didn’t want to be lonely without me there to help her do inventory. Mrs. Curtis threw my apron at me to signify that it would be my last day working for her, and I would miss the incense smell.

She acts as if I was never going to come back and visit her. I’ll plop my butt in the chair at the backroom over the weekend just so we could catch up.

Mr. Tito was against my desire to move into the heart of the city. It wasn’t as bad as Mrs. Curtis’ reaction, but he had sat me down to pan out every type of circumstance that would most likely happen to me and how I would deal with them when the time comes.

He’s this weird parental figure that leans on the side of strange-uncle than a concerned employee under Daddy.

He insisted that I have mace, brass knuckles, and an illegal chain whip. Mr. Tito wanted to smuggle a semi-automatic into my suitcase too.

Daddy put an end to that absurd conversation because he was going to come with me.

Out of everyone, Daddy had been the most accepting. He didn’t need to stay in his domain to run his illegal business, and he had Mr. Tito as his right-hand man.

It should have been a red flag to me, considering Daddy is one of the most possessive men I have ever met. In the beginning, he controlled every aspect of my life; he didn’t let me leave the house without him, never went a day without a verbal warning to avoid people, and he had implemented a rule of nightly conversations.

He wanted to know what my life has been, and I did tell him, but there were gruesome details of what my father did to my mother that I actively blocked out of my conscience.

Somewhere down the line, I stopped questioning whether it was morally right to let him intercept every inch of my life. I have learned that Daddy is never wrong, and he had saved me from my own fears and the dangers of outside elements.

It was just bizarre to move into a new house that had been fully furnished with the style that I would have picked, pantries stocked with food, and all of my belongings around the house. It’s as if I had always been living there after it had been cleared by a skilled housecleaner.

There wasn’t a spec of dust in the air since it had been purified by a dehumidifier.

Then, that wasn’t the oddest part of this new transition.

On my first day of work, I was given an office with a responsibility to overlook the people in my department. Everyone was so nice that it made me uncomfortable when I was settling in. The atmosphere was just off, but I chalked it up to the remnants of Daddy’s abnormally loose grip on my freedom.

I was aware of this, and I knew I was just choosing to be skeptical of things that were just normal. The workplace neither had the stereotypical workplace drama nor did people have overly ambitious competitions.

Nevertheless, I didn’t put my guard down for the first week.

Going home to Daddy would vary; he would come to pick me up sometimes, or I took a taxi home when he was tied up with illicit activities that he rather I stay out of.

I never have to tell me twice to avoid danger. I had had enough of that dangerous lifestyle by living on the streets before he got to me, and I have seen firsthand what every personification of sin looks like in people.

When I thought this tranquil silence of my workplace would continue, I was proven very wrong when one lunchbreak shatters the prideful environment.

There is no such thing as an equal playing field in a competitive company that strives for the best. It’s still an amazing company, but there are just some bad seeds that fell through the cracks.

Human nature is unpredictable and unsolvable.

I had just rinsed my coffee cup and was about to make a new cup when two people came in, a man with an egotistical opinion and a woman with snotty superiority.

Birds of a feather flock together.

The coffeemaker is at the corner since the cord is so short, and my body is blocked from their view. I was here first, so I’m not eavesdropping on their conversation, not wittingly anyway. It would be unethical to seek out trouble, but gossip has always been an entertaining pastime activity.

The woman begins with a scoff from where the last point of the conversation had been left before they came in.

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