Today was so hard. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at Tim so I just avoided him all day, which is no good as I’m supposed to be managing his work. It’s not even his fault.
And I was in a bad mood when I got to Mel’s so I just decided to hell with her rules and I went straight up to her apartment and knocked on the door, fully clothed for the first time for ages. She opened the door and looked me up and down and said “what’s this about?” and I instantly regretted it. I just said I was distracted and I forgot and just came up. There was no way she believed me. And then she asked me if this meant I wanted our arrangement to end. I said not at all, although I’m not so sure, so she said “Give me your dress”, and because I knew I was in trouble I took it off and handed it over to her.
She tossed it into her apartment, stepped out into the lobby and closed the door behind her. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was going to sit outside and it was up to me if I came with her or waited here. Or I could go home if I wanted to. I certainly wasn’t going to walk home at this time of the evening in just my shoes. At least I had my bag and my keys, I suppose.
She went over to the lift and pressed the button and I knew she wasn’t bluffing. I decided I had to follow her, because waiting in the lobby for however long was not my idea of fun.
I was more and more nervous as we reached the ground floor, because my only item of clothing was getting further and further away from me. I followed Mel out of a back door and into the shared garden area for all the apartments and was horrified to see a couple sitting out on a bench. Mel smiled and waved at them, and they waved back, but I could tell they were baffled by what was going on.
We went and sat on a bench a little way away from them, and they were watching us all the time, and then Mel made me tell her everything. So I did. About the photos, and Tim especially, and how I never knew and it should have been obvious. And she just said “so what?” and I couldn’t believe that’s all she would say.
But her point was that photos were there to be seen, and if I wasn’t happy with that I shouldn’t have done it. Somebody was bound to see them who knew me eventually. And it seemed like Tim didn’t mind, and wasn’t even behaving differently to me, so what did it matter? I couldn’t even explain it, but it just feels wrong, what with me almost being Tim’s boss, and the fact that he had seen pictures of me and I had nothing on him, so he had a hold over me.
Mel said if that’s what worried me then I should ask him for a dick pic, because he’d be sure to oblige – they always do, and she said I was lucky I hadn’t gotten one from him already. There was obviously no way I was going to do that.
We talked for over half an hour, and even the other couple had gone by then. It was still light and as I looked up at the apartment I said a teenage boy looking out at me, and then I realised he had a mobile phone in his hand and was obviously taking photos. Mel smiled and said she didn’t see why I was worried about Tim because surely it was worse that some stranger was probably going to be masturbating to me later. If he wasn’t already. I said that wasn’t the point.
We didn’t resolve anything, and then Mel took me back upstairs, and by that point I’d kind of gotten used to being naked and so far away from my clothes too. Mel just gave me my dress back in the hallyway, told me to make sure I came to the run on Saturday and closed the door.
I don’t feel like I solved anything.
Kara Bryn 