She looked up, her Bluetooth phone at her ear and her desk covered with paper. "Mila," she said, muting her phone again, "I can't find those contract copies they sent over last week."
I nodded. "They're filed, I'll get them." I stepped to the corner of her office where her master files were kept, quickly rifling through a couple of drawers. This wasn't unusual – Lauren was a very good lawyer, but she preferred to do everything electronically – by email or scan. Paper documents just got in her way, and she had no patience for them. So I kept the files myself, so that she didn't have to worry about keeping track of documents she hated dealing with anyway.
It's funny, looking back – we'd never actually discussed that, but I'd just sort of done it that way without thinking, and she'd never questioned it. In hindsight, that probably should have told me something.
I pulled the file she was looking for, slipping it onto the desk.
"Yes," Lauren was saying into the phone, "I've got them right here." She gave me a grateful look. "Yes, you were saying – about the land agreements?" She glanced up at me, and I nodded, flipping the file open and paging to the document she needed. Another thing I did without ever having been asked.
I stayed there for the rest of the call, flipping to this page or that as I tried to follow half a conversation – I'd gotten pretty good at it. Finally, Lauren disconnected the call and rolled her eyes.
"Idiot," she muttered. She shook her head, looking at the large crystal clock on her desk. "I've got a meeting in just a few minutes – make sure I'm not disturbed, okay?"
"No problem," I assured her, re-closing the file and returning it to its drawer, slipping out of the office and closing the door behind me.
This was also common. A few times a week, clients – or prospective clients – would come by. Lauren's practice depended on these meetings – basically, they were sales pitches. Thus, especially after a call like the one she'd just finished, talking to some annoying mouthpiece somewhere, she'd take a few minutes to relax and get herself together before the meeting, so that she could go in and blow their socks off with the Jauregui's legal machine. In other words, to make herself look so frighteningly competent and ruthless that the clients just wouldn't be able to imagine winning without her – and more importantly, unable to imagine losing with her.
Believe me, it worked – I'd sat in on a few of these meetings. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of her clients didn't hire her just to make absolutely sure their opponents couldn't.
I went back to my desk, sinking gratefully back down into my chair – a large, comfortable, swiveling and tilting thing. Lauren spared no expense on the office furniture, something I appreciated greatly after years of being the assistant in the "ergonomic" chair that made me feel like I was ninety years old when I went home at the end of the day.
These quiet times that Lauren spent before meetings were private – I'd always stop calls going to her phone, and make anyone who showed up to see her wait. Her office had no windows, not even in the door, and she never talked about it, so I never knew what she did to compose herself for a meeting.
No doubt, had I thought about it, I might have guessed. One of my friends from college became a surgeon – according to him, it's much more common than most people think. Lauren did the same thing that any number of surgeons, pilots, athletes, performers, and other high-stress professionals do to relax when they really need to be steady and relaxed – she got herself off. The surge of endorphins and other positive mood-affecting things that orgasm creates are more effective for calm and focus than just about any manmade drug could ever be – and cheaper, too.
So, this particular day is the day that the inevitable finally happened. A faulty latch on her office door, of all things, changed my life. I heard a slight click, and saw her door inch open, as happens with latches that don't quite fit right anymore. My desk sits just outside her door in our little corner of the floor, so I saw it immediately. Without thinking, I got up to close the door again, and, quite by accident – I swear – glanced in through the two-inch-wide crack of open doorway.
My composed, oh-so-private boss had her chair swiveled sideways and leaned back, one of her long legs up on the desk, and her hand under her skirt. Her head was thrown back, her eyes closed, and her lips slightly parted. If it hadn't been for the visible movement of her hand between her legs – and the death grip her other hand had on the arm of her chair – I might have thought she was asleep.
Now, before anyone judges me prematurely, I did exactly what any good assistant would do. I set a world record for the slowest, quietest closing of a door in the history of mankind, and crept back to my desk, where I sat perfectly still, waiting to see if I woke up. If it hadn't been for my eyes being open wide enough to actually roll out of my head if I'd so much as sneezed, no one walking by would think anything odd had just happened.
Two minutes later, Lauren left her office and went to the meeting – head to toe a calm, confident lawyer. Fortunately for me, she didn't look at me as she went – I hadn't managed to get my eyes back to their normal size yet. After a lot of thought, I realized nothing was changed. She obviously hadn't seen me, and nobody else had to know. I could pretend it hadn't happened. All right, so I was naïve.
