I didn't need to look at them to know what she had.I didn't need to look at them to know what she had. When I was younger I'd thought about becoming a writer. I've pretty much given up on that idea, but lately I'd been working on a novel. Nothing that Book-of-the-Month Club would be interested in - it was pure, hard-core pornography, as raunchy as it gets. I hadn't decided whether to try to sell it to one of the X-rated book publishers or not; for now, it was just a private exploration of some fantasies. At least it had been private. But now, here was Miss Prim sitting across from me, holding printed copies of the first six chapters of my X-rated book. No doubt she'd copied the computer files, too, so grabbing the hard copies wouldn't help. I was dizzy with both anger and embarrassment, and my face felt about ten degrees hotter than the rest of my body. "You had no business looking at those files," I said through clenched teeth, "let alone printing them out." Cheryl looked at me coolly and replied "It's the company's computer, and I don't think Mr. Moore would appreciate what you've been using it for." Bob Moore is the founder of the company and still runs everything with an iron hand. He hired me right out of college, even though I didn't have any real experience, and has seemed to be pretty happy with my work so far. He also happens to be the father of Kathy Moore, who has been the principal love object in my life for most of the last year, whenever she's home from school on breaks or vacations. Besides that, he's a deacon in the local Baptist church, president of the Rotary, and a major contributor to the Republican Party and the Moral Majority. I could see it now. If Bob Moore knew what I'd been writing, he'd fire me, forbid his daughter to see me, have me publicly branded as a pornographer, and do his damnedest to see that I never got another job in his town, or anywhere else for that matter. "What do you want?", I asked weakly. "Why don't you come over to my place this evening," Cheryl said sweetly, "about seven, and we'll talk about it." She wrote out her address on a napkin and handed it to me. I stuffed the napkin in my pocket, dropped a five dollar bill on the table and walked out. |