"m as in mancy!"

progressive drum and bass thudded in the background as i picked away at some leftover bits of cucumber i had sliced up. this was my wall of productivity... all factors such as alienating music, mincy snack foods and the desire to avoid distractions was powerful. i was in that zone and it was safe to say i wouldn't be coming out for a few hours. fuck i love coming into the office on the weekend. it's not like i got up early to come in. late afternoon, a dead zone that afforded me to turn on music and clutter up a space much larger than what i normally can during the week.
i was multitasking a bunch of windows and pondered if it would be too late to fire the catering company i had signed up with. i didn't even give a shit-ass that it was tacky, they had done nothing but piss me off and i felt like it would be a safe win to clean house and get someone on board who was hungry. someone who would be on point knowing that my shifty face had jettisoned the competition.
no... i probably shouldn't fire them. they do a ton of contract work for pasha and it would make his life miserable. chaffs my ass to know that a friend of his would sandbag a lucrative contract.
next. next. next. it's quite a lot to wrangle all these events and opportunities but for once in my life i was passionate about it. passionate about pornography. go figure. i had no ethical apprehensions about working for a massive porno site. i managed to find a place that could balance my common sense passion for business with the sex industry. i can't believe i didn't think of looking into this sooner. typical, i find a job that i'm thrilled about and i can't talk about it with my family. it's not that i'm ashamed of it per se, just more ashamed that i went from lucrative desk jobs that one can brag about to abstract explanations about what i do for a living. i don't have a problem with smut, but a lot of people do. and that's ok! i get it! but i find myself straddling the line between stone cold lying to someone and flat out saying i moderate 30+ posting boards on porn sites. "oh i make sure there's no lame content or something that's under age. you know. the usual." like people know what the use' is in the porn industry.
for a long time my identity had been wrapped up in my job. i was a secretary for years after university. the sick thing? i was really good at it and enjoyed it. a fucking fag secretary, doling out post-it note messages to VP's... running down a list of appointments and meetings while absently adjusting a tie. they didn't even realize how chokingly GAY it all was and neither did i. i maned a reception desk on an floor full of executives. mostly out of office, always flitting around silently and never bugging me save for one an hour at most. i sat there like an advisor on display. resolute that i wasn't as prized as the men i tended to, but more powerful than other secretaries in the building.
i never lorded over any one. in fact i became the back up bitch for the front desk reception because i was so gosh dahn patient with people on the phone. and for this kind gesture i was seen as The One to consult to. i was king shit of the secretaries but certainly wouldn't talk down to anyone. the man who can talk to the downtrodden. etc.
thriving and making a name for myself [although the president of the company only called me Josh instead of Nathan. whatever.] i felt proud. but there was a nasty pull in my mind. i hesitated when describing what i did. i did communications, presentations, held my own during planning sessions and could be trusted with shit that was more expansive than my britches. sure i could try and layer in all that but when it comes down to it, i was the secretary and there's no point jazzing it up with anything more than that. i got hung up on conversations that i should be doing something more. well more what? i don't have any business training, i'm at a grade 7 level of math... and? can someone tell me what i'm supposed to do when i grow up? because apparently i can't be left to my own decision tree on this shit. i aim too low.
i pushed on... i jammed my foot in the door for project work. then more specialized projects. i was the bottom bitch because i didn't have any designations or schooling around what i was toiling over and it was an acknowledgment of my role in the corporate hamster cage. i didn't like it. to be a whiny, spoiled brat: i didn't like it. i did well at it. i made a ton of money but my heart was so far gone i ceased to remember a morning when i didn't wake up horrified. an existential weight on my chest screaming questions and demanding to know why i was doing something that sucked the life out of me.
because it's a good job! because you don't have to tell people you're the fucking secretary! because you're supposed to hate your job and why resist the feeling? it'll always be there. you're always going to hate your job.
i managed to drag myself into work for months with this hazy anger floating around my head. there was more money given to me. there were always praises. short of fresh cedar shavings to line the bottom of my cage, what more could i ask for?
in whispered conversations with coworkers i talked about leaving. i was hissed at and shut down. you don't walk away from a job like this. not after your resume was so greatly beefed up as the result of being here.
turning to friends outside of work i was shot down again. all jabbed angry fingers into my shoulder. snarly reminders that they had been trying to make a break into my employer. appalled that i would even think about walking away from a holy grail scenario.
after all that, there was nothing left to do but turn inwards. heaping stern lectures on myself that i couldn't possibly do any better, and simply, i'd never be happy anywhere else so what's the problem? wouldn't someone rather take the money than a lesser job that i'll hate just as much?
and every morning i woke up. and it took a little longer to sit up. i felt like a stain laying under the blankets. thinking that if i looked up at the ceiling just a little bit longer i'd get some sort of an answer. not surprisingly, there's not a hell of a whole lot that can be divined from white paint and a solitary light fixture.
i was beefing up on anti anxiety medications to keep a float. i nervously smoked alone to buy myself 15 minutes away from my desk. the time outside made my legs shake contemplating walking back inside and i noticed i stopped eating lunch entirely. which, when you're a hog like me, is a sign that some thing's REALLY off.
my only moments of happiness came when i left the building and when the straight boy next door neighbor invited me over to watch the baseball game. i don't even fucking understand baseball but sure enough it became my focal point. i rushed home from work to make elaborate heterosexual-centric snack foods and scoured the liquor store for fancy beer. but not too faggy fancy. i successfully cleaved off my shitty work days simmering on the couch with Will and a fascinatingly huge television. i would repeat things he said to me in the form of a question. i began doing some initial leg work on the team who was playing to string together a cohesive dialog and deflect from the fact that the first time we met i was wearing only boxers and a bandanna tied around my neck. it's not my fault i had to run out and break up the cat fighting with the neighborhood badass tom.
it worked for us and i didn't even mind when he wiggled down the couch one night and put his head in my lap. literally i had hit the point where baseball went from abstract running around to something i could get involved in. i let him lay his head down and moved my hand to play with his hair. we didn't acknowledge anything and instead yelled at the tv in unison if there was a bad call.
long story short we would up making to the half way point in games before fucking around on the couch for the remainder of the game... and it became needlessly complicated when he complained that i was using him for sex since i showed no interest in calling him up for a date. i had completely blocked out any responsibility to another human... and had utterly spaced on the fact that i had been doling out impromptu blow job workshops on some straight boy who was curious and decided to test things out on the neighbor fag. when he confronted me after we had wanked off and i'm not ashamed to say i had held him tight to look over his shoulder at a smashing home run that wrapped up the game.
"listen, what are we doing here? are you just using me for sex?"
well this isn't sex sex. this is just mucking about.
and let's get real: i was using him for the tv hooked to cable hooked to the MLB package channel that played while i got to sit on a really comfortable couch. compound that with the recent spate of getting some heavy petting sessions i had successfully found a zen spot. i blurred out the crushing hatred of work by running home in the evenings to go home & change before leaving again. i wasn't even thinking about anything that was crashing down around me, just memorizing batting orders and guiding the back of the neighbor boys head down my cock.
poor bill was sitting at the end of the couch going flush waiting for me to reply.
"bill, i'm... i'm so sorry. i should never have made you feel like you were being used. i should... [oooooo nice catch] go."
he followed me to the door and tried to think of something to say. he caught my wrist before i turned out the door and i yanked it away. i felt disgusting for using some poor boy as my xanax replacement and couldn't look him in the eye.
"wait... i didn't mean to make you upset i just wanted to talk about if you... and i could..."
yanking my wrist away i waived my hand to stop him and walked out. i've never coped well with confrontations.
i went home to an empty house and sat down on my bed to collect my thoughts. my phone buzzed off and it was Bill. "oh god, go away..."
"listen bill...."
"just let me come up."
"whatever."
i hung up and waited to hear him pop over. maybe there'd be some american beauty shit and he was coming over to shoot me? always thinking two miserable steps a head.
"nathan?"
"upstairs."
he wasn't crying but looked pale and upset. "can we not call this anything and i just come in here and lay in bed with you for a while?"
"bill, you're a cute boy. you don't need to be hanging out with me for a cuddle."
he looked so dejected and i rolled my eyes and pointed to the bed. he rolled in and folded up neatly into my shoulder. he felt... ugh. warm. i relaxed a little and felt him loosen up as well. this was nice. i think i had spent close to 3 years with my head up my ass with my job. i figured i was so mental trying to keep afloat that i couldn't even imagine inviting someone into my mindspace.
and there i was. this soft straight boy who had lovingly taught me that RBI's had nothing to do with ribs or that there were reasons behind changing the pitcher other than he was an asshole. beyond my better judgment and stern efforts to be unattractive i had caught something in a snare. even if it was just a temporary pit stop it felt warm. and nice. and made me recall something.... that i was allowed to feel happy and it was something i owed to myself. not me being happy about my own fucked up wants, but making other people happy and doing some good instead of being this mental leech on people.
i'll skip all the flooding thoughts and feelings i got holding this pudgy straight boy who had a taste for the cock close to me. his shirt smelled so nice and delicious. and there you have it. i felt so happy and content that it flooded my logic.
i spent another month ramping up the drive to quit and start looking for something else. after all my previous conversations with friends about how miserable i was, there wasn't much need to tell anyone before i left. i gave my notice and let people try to send me email forwards to my work email and see it get bounced back.
just to keep people guessing i took a job in a coffee shop and enthralled ex coworkers who came in with a large smile that they had never seen streaked across my face and gripped my midsection to jiggle and emphasize what weight had fallen off me with no real change in diet.
i schlepped coffee, came home to feed Bill and make out or just read a book while he chewed on the articles in Men's Health. it was grounding and i couldn't believe all the sights and sounds that were available with my head popped out of my ass.
after all that miserable time spent doing something that didn't make me happy i really believe that's when i opened my fucking eyes to see what was out there and that it was a hell of a whole lot more appealing to Pasha to hire a friend who was mentally stable vs one who needed a pill for each major meal of the day to ensure no one died in my presence.
as squeamish as i get about my current job and what it means to other people, i do feel smug that i managed to nail down a career that provides me with rent payment but no urgent desire to die every morning before i commute to the office. what a wonderful shift.