Ellie

If you could believe it, I didn't like Ellie at first. She was a classic bitch. Shrewd, arrogant, and patronizing. She was rude in a polite kind of way, the kind of passive-aggressive that makes your blood boil. She worked at the same company as me - that's how we met. I was housekeeping, she was the receptionist. She was the kind of woman who was perfectly capable, but too stubborn to do anything that she thought she was above doing. She must have thought she was some kind of monarch. She never did anything except exactly what she was supposed to do, meaning what was in her job description when she applied. She left all the dirty work to the peasants. Even cleaning the area behind her desk. That wasn't the issue. You know, bitches will be bitches and there will always be bitches. Me and my co-workers in the down-to-earth department, we were working people: we knew how it was and we dealt with it. We never said a word. The problem was when she started bossing us around. She would be sitting there in the lobby, sipping on some expensive drink that costs as much as I got paid in an hour. She was always clicking away at some bullshit on the monitor. I'd happen to be walking by and she'd catch me out of the corner of her eye and flag me down. It would have been more problematic to ignore her. I know her type and I know how they operate. So I'd go up to her, say hello. The skin around her eyes was a different shade than the rest of her face from her big-rim sunglasses, and her hair was always ridiculously shiny and smooth. I mean ridiculously smooth, like she had just come from a Pantene commercial and she was modeling for the "black-granite snobby looking bitch conditioner." I had heard that apparently she was aiming for a job in corporate, and that she was probably going to get it. I guessed she probably had connections, and her receptionist position was just a test (the big wigs probably wanted it to look like she was "climbing the corporate ladder" to avoid pissing a few people off). It must have gotten to her head. When she talked to me, she spoke like she was some kind of baroness. I don't remember it clearly, but I think she usually didn't even look up from the monitor when she talked. She'd ask me to do some stupid thing, but I knew it was really a command. When a bitch says can you do this, that means do this, and if you don't do this, we're going to have a problem. I knew that I technically didn't have to do a damn thing she asked. But I'm a nice person, and I'm a patient guy, and I believe in being the bigger man (so to speak). Besides, I didn't want drama in the workplace. So I would do it. I would do whatever stupid thing she asked me to do but really actually told me to do, and she'd stare at her monitor and sip on her expensive drink and say "thanks," and that was my cue to get lost.

That shit infuriated me. Every day. Tommy, do this. Tommy, do that. She was not my boss. She was not anyone's boss, and the day she got to command me to do anything - command, not ask - that was the day I had no dignity left. And somehow I ended up doing most of the dumb shit she told me to do anyway. I got fed up pretty quickly within a couple weeks. I started telling her no. Well, it was more like I'm busy and I have to go do something else right now, and then I just didn't get back to her. After the second time, she caught on. I could tell because she would actually look away from her monitor, give me this surprised and insulted look like the one you give a printer when it suddenly stops working. Then she'd give me this annoyed sigh, and continue doing her work.

The next week, on one day when our shift was over, I did this again and she stopped me.

Before I knew it I was her stay-at-home boyfriend.

It isn't such a bad setup we have going. Ellie's a regional manager now, a real important person in corporate, and she makes enough to support both of us. You might think it's pathetic or emasculating that I'm the one who stays home. You might be right, too, but I don't mind it so much. I quit my job by Ellie's recommendation. I never really liked the place, and she wanted to support me going to school and getting a degree. I think that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. During the day from 9 to 5, Ellie goes to work. In return, I do the chores. I cook for us, and I keep her apartment clean. Not to brag, but I might just be the ideal boyfriend. I never let her go hungry. If she's upset, I help her work it out. When she wants me to do something I do it. I treat her like a queen because she is a queen. She's my queen, and she deserves every last bit of the spoiling and love I give her and more.