Chapter 1
I knew I was in trouble when Mrs. Flair asked to see me in her office at three pm on a Friday afternoon. Two hours before the weekend? It's gotta be bad news, I thought.
Now, I'm no stranger to being fired. I've been fired ... a lot. In fact I've been fired so many times that I consider myself a bit of an expert. I've heard every excuse in the book, from "We don't feel that you are the right fit for us," to "There's been some reorganization and we've had to make some unfortunate cuts," to my personal favorite "You're so incompetent at your job that we fired the person responsible for hiring you."
I'd weathered them all, stumbling from one odd job to the next, never quite finding the right fit.
That was what surprised me when she asked to see me. Why now? I'd only been with the company for nine months, but I thought I was doing fine. I'd kept my head down, never complained, hadn't driven a fork lift off the loading ramp, hadn't accidently knocked over a wall of paint cans, nor forgotten the security pin number and summoned a swarm of angry patrol cars at five am on a Tuesday morning. What could I have possibly done wrong this time?
I pondered this while I sat outside her office. I took in every detail of the cramped room. There were stacks of cardboard boxes piled high in all four corners. The unmanned secretary's desk was cluttered with plastic binders and unopened junk mail. It was chaotic, but not uncommon for a small business, especially a new clothing line.
I'd never really paid much attention to what we were actually selling. Having had no success applying my university degree in the real world, I wasn't picky when it came to what covered the bills. When I saw the job opening, I pounced. After a very short interview, I was hired on the spot to work in the small warehouse, unloading, lifting and moving stock. It was a small, two man operation and I actually enjoyed it. My co-worker, John was easy to get along with and the work wasn't too difficult, thankfully women's clothing is light.
The door creaked open and I almost leapt out of my chair.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, you can come in now," Mrs. Flair said and returned to her office.
I stood up and followed her, my heart pounding in my chest.
Her office was the size of a storage closet ... correction, it was a storage closet. She'd gutted it and converted it into the brain center of the entire operation. Her desk was small. Her chair looked like it been rescued from the curb on garbage day. Her phone was like the dashboard of a commercial airline jet. Her big clunky old computer looked like it had been crafted during the Stone Age.
"Sorry for the mess," she said as she sat down. "February is one of our busiest months and I've been buried under a mountain of paper work."
"It's ok," I said and took a seat.
I hated this part, the buttering up. After some small talk she'd bring the hammer down and I'd be back on the street, looking for a new job.
"So, I bet you're wondering why I called you in today."
I didn't reply, only smiled, knowing full well why I was here, clinging to the last few seconds of full employment.
"How do I explain this," she said, struggling to find the right words. She reached out and turned her computer monitor to face me.
Oh god, I thought, she's going to show me some grainy security footage of me slacking off on the job. But, had I? I couldn't think of a single time me and John had. Sure, we tended to chat a lot while we unloaded the trucks, but waste company time? Never.
"Do you recognize this?" she asked.
I looked up at the screen, expecting to see the damning evidence that would lead to my immediate termination. What I saw instead was a website, our company's website.
"New sexy Valentine's Day collection launches tomorrow!" It proclaimed in big bold cherry red letters above a picture of a black box with a red silk bow.
"I ... I don't understand," I said, genuinely confused. What did the company's url have to do with me, a common stock boy?
"Here, let me show you something," she said, turned the monitor back to face her and started to click.
"As you know, all of our orders are done online. We're still a small fish swimming in a very big pond, but, thankfully, we've been able to carve ourselves out a nice little piece of the pie. We have a loyal customer base and I'm really proud of all the hard work every one on the team has contributed. That being said, the one area that has eluded us so far has been social media. We have a small following, and while we will get the occasional like, it's like screaming into the void ... at least that was, until this happened."
She turned the monitor back to face me and I almost gasped.
"Do you remember when I asked everyone to contribute to our "Halloween in July" sales event?"
I did remember, but I hadn't contributed.
It had happened in, well ... July. She'd sent a company wide email CCed to all eleven of us asking us to come up with a unique spin on the new clothing line and turn it into a quick and easy Halloween costume for the fall. I'd thought nothing of it, because well, I was a guy.
"I don't understand," I said as I stared at the screen. I saw a collection of all the photographs from the staff and their various interpretations of the clothing line. There were a few bumblebees, Jen from sales had turned a short sleeve red dress into a lady bug, and in the upper right corner there was a picture of ...
"Is that ..."
"Yes, I'm afraid it is. It's you," Mrs. Flair replied.
I stared at the picture, hypnotized. It had been taken during my first day on the job. I'd been so nervous, but seeing it now, I almost didn't recognize it. I was wearing my favorite black long sleeve shirt, which was two sizes too large. One of the sleeves hung off my shoulder. My head was tilted down, my long loose hair hanging over my eyes, as I smiled nervously.
"First, I want to apologize, profusely. I don't know how this happened. Well, actually I can guess. The company that handles our website hasn't been the most reliable in the past, to say the least. I suspect they pulled it from our staff directory and added it by mistake."
"How long has that been up there?" I asked.
She swallowed hard and whispered. "Almost seven months ... and there's ... more."
"More photos?" I asked nervously.
"No, thankfully not, and I can assure you I'll have it taken down ASAP, it's just ... well, you should probably see this."
She scrolled the mouse down and clicked on the comments.
"Oh god, there are comments?" I asked.
"Hundreds, if not thousands. I wasn't even aware we'd agreed to a comments section, but there they are. They've been piling up for months."
"Trolls?" I asked.
"That's what I thought at first too, but they're all registered to our customer's accounts and they're not trolling. Look, here's a good example of what many of them have to say."
She rotated the monitor back to face her.
"ApirlWhine69 says, 'OMG, I love the spooky goth girl, who is she? She's adorable. Is that velvet? I must have it!"
I felt my head start to ache, velvet? spooky goth girl? what were they talking about?
She scrolled down further and continued to read.
"DreamDaizy says, 'is that one of their models? It has to be. I haven't seen her before.' To which CatGrrl22 replied, 'Must be, but I haven't seen her in any of the recent collections, maybe the older lines? Too which CougarGames replied ... I won't bore you with the details, but it goes on and on and on."
My headache started to manifest into a full blown migraine. The room started to sway, rocking back and forth like a ship about to capsize.
"It actually explains a lot," she said. "I've been going through our sales figures and for some reason our long sleeve black velvet dress is our number one best seller by a huge margin. I couldn't figure out why until I discovered this."
"They all think I'm wearing ... a dress?" I asked meekly.
"Not you ..." she said and turned the monitor to face me again.
She'd enlarged the photo. As I stared at it, I started to see it in a new light. The picture was cropped so you had no way of knowing how long the shirt actually was. There was a slight glimmer to the material, possibly from an odd reflection caught by the camera. If I hadn't known it was plain cloth I might have assumed it was velvet.
It brought the entire photo into a clearer focus. I saw what they saw, the natural curls of my long hair forming spirals that looked like wet paint strokes. My petite features and pouty lips and the devilish little look in my eyes. As I looked closer I saw a ...
"Honestly, I probably wouldn't have noticed the comments had they not spilled over into our new campaign."
"New campaign?" I asked, prying my eyes away from the photo.
"Yea, it's called "Dare to be Devilish." It's our first lingerie line, and wow, does it pack quite the punch. I've been working on it in my spare time for years, waiting for just the right time to launch it. This Valentine's Day is perfect. I'm really quite proud of it. It's a mix of the sour thrill of vinyl BDSM with the sweet intimacy of silk lingerie."
I listened as she talked, trying to ignore the looped drum solo in my head. I didn't understand why she was sharing all of this with me, not that I minded. If it meant I still had a job on Monday, I was happy to play along. I continued to smile, following along as best as I could. Maybe she was buttering me up after all, maybe she was going to ask me if I'd be available to work some overtime to help unload the new shipment, which as I was single I had plenty of time to do.
I tuned back in and waited for my opportunity to say yes.
"... and I've been dropping hints on social media leading up to its launch for the past few months, sharing my production designs and teasing some of the early prototypes. I was shocked by the response. Suddenly there was a flood of engagement. The likes shattered all our previous metrics, and there were comments, hundreds of them. As I read through them, there was a common thread, a name that kept popped up any time the conversation stirred towards who should model the new line and that name was ..."
I thought about what I'd do with the extra money. I could finally treat myself to something special and buy one of the new video game consoles. There was a back log of games I could probably buy cheap used. Then I'd order an extra large pizza loaded with pepperoni, lock myself in my apartment and ...
"Do you have any idea what I'm getting at?" she asked.
I snapped out of my trance and looked up at her.
"I'm sorry, what? I must have spaced out there for a second. You were talking about doing some overtime for the new shipment?"
She sat back and studied me like a hawk.
"Well, there would be some overtime involved. But it wouldn't be your usual rate, and it wouldn't involve any heavy lifting."
No heavy lifting, then what? I thought, confused.
She turned the monitor back to face me. I stared at the photo and the spooky goth girl stared right back at me.
"Here's it in a nut shell. I need the right look to model our new line. I need mysterious, I need playful and above all else, I need sexy, and based on the overwhelming support of our customer base, I think the choice is obvious ... I need you."