Page 74 of 12 Days

Alyssa’s now looking around the conference table again, giving each of us a fleeting look. The difference between now and just a fucking second ago is that now she’s looking at us out of confusion over Ty’s tactless, boneheaded statement.

“Assistants?” It’s the first word that Alyssa’s uttered in quite some time at this point, and it’s not a happy one. She’s now quite understandably confused about her entire situation here. “What does that even mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Alyssa,” I say, trying to quickly throw a bit of extra explanation together in my head, something that’ll be reassuring without having to get into the nitty-gritty of all the office goings-on. “Actually, it means never fucking listen to Ty since he doesn’t now how to fucking speak.”

“No,” responds Alyssa, who’s composing herself with admirable quickness, getting her pencil skirt into publicly presentable condition in no time. “There’s more to it than that.”

She might not be soaking up the adulation any more, but she’s still in control. I think she’s going to be okay, but I’ll leave it up to my colleagues if they want to explain in any more detail.

“You have to understand, Alyssa, sex isn’t new to this office.”

Here we go, Sean’s starting up one of his famous explanations. I know from experience that there’s nothing to do know but sit back and let him take the wheel.

“We have sex with our assistants—but it’s not the same thing, though, not even close. And we don’t do it anymore.”

Observing Alyssa, she doesn’t look thrilled, but her cool confidence is still on clear display, with plenty of self-possessed composure to spare. Of course, she’s also out of her seat now, and looks to be getting ready to leave. I guess that was bound to happen sooner or later no matter what.

Taking another look around the room, observing my colleagues this time, the feeling is a quite a bit less composed, with a number of shame-filled, ill at ease hangdog expressions than you would ever expect to see from this group.

I mean, embarrassment and shame are not exactly in our wheelhouse. Not before today, at any rate.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Alyssa states calmly before exiting with grace. She doesn’t actually do that, but hearing her say it is a sign that she’s not overly happy with the situation.

---