Inside Office 108 by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

Her mostly below ground level, windowless, repurposed office (formerly a miscellaneous storage room) was at the end of a hallway that always seemed to be poorly lit. Paula, an attractive, 36-year-old, brunette, struggling single mom, was a just-above-entry-level discrepancy reviewer in the Charlotte (NC, USA) junior college’s administration unit. She had had the job for six years now and liked it reasonably well, but desperately needed more money for her two teenage sons. Her boys’ father, a drunk who she never married, was long gone (somewhere in northern Florida). Without any child support, finances were very tight.

Leonard, or Lenny as he was more often called, was a 55-year-old, slim, ever-randy, silver-haired Caucasian academic who was still a bit caddish. He was married but was now a suburban empty nester. After receiving a Ph.D. in college administration, he gave up teaching for a position in such. Paula was one of his direct reports. He was giving her the come-hither eye by the end of his second week on the job.

Trevor was a 28-year-old, stocky, blonde-haired lad from the Mooresville area of southern Iredell County (25 miles – 40 km – north of Charlotte). He had joined the junior college’s security team seven years prior (in 1999). Being in the National Guard, he was called up for active duty in Iraq in January of 2004. When he came back 22 months later, Trevor was a different man. He was angry and often brooded. At a college meeting in March of 2006 on tornado safety, he made way-off-topic, vitriolic comments about Washington politicians. Many suspected PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] and wondered if he was getting treatment. He wasn’t.

It was a chilly, rainy Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving evening (November 22) in 2006. The time was 6:56 PM. All the employees in the junior college’s A5 Building had gone home two hours ago. All except for two.

Inside office 108, Paula was performing fellatio on Lenny.

“Does this feel good?” Paula lifted her head to ask.

“As good as heaven, sexy,” Lenny answered between gasps. “You’re going to get that new position. I’ll make damn sure of it.”

“Oh, thank you so much, sir!” Then Paula continued with the penile tongue-lashing.

Lenny was about to unload a burst of pearlescent protein when, all of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. What the fuck! / Oh, dear God! Now, who could that be? Housekeeping already went through here.

“Anyone in there?” Trevor asked in a direct, loud, low voice.

Lenny immediately hand-signaled Paula to not answer, and to be still and quiet. Paula complied. Office 108 was now needle-drop quiet. Time hung in an abandoned cobweb.

And then, four long seconds later, two more firm knuckle raps were imparted upon the wooden door. “Security coming in,” Trevor announced, just like he had done numerous times in Baghdad and Mosul.

In just two seconds, Trevor had the office door unlocked and opened. He entered with his service revolver drawn on a pants-down Lenny and a topless Paula.

“Freeze!” Trevor yelled at the top of his lungs at the embarrassed and utterly freaked-out duo. “Keep your hands up. Stay right where you are. Don’t move an inch.” [2.54 cm] He then got on his two-way radio as he kept his firearm pointed. “Security requesting backup to A5. Two suspects apprehended inside office 108.”

Before the first backup security officer arrived, Trevor had Lenny and Paula handcuffed.

The results of this fateful November evening:

1. Paula would be reprimanded. She would claim a momentary lapse of reason to Human Resources and keep her job.
2. Lenny would be formally admonished. He would assume a lesser position at a satellite campus, some 13 miles (21 km) away. He would no longer be Paula’s supervisor.
3. Trevor would be fired for inappropriate measures as the report would state. An employee-misconduct panel found that he should have allowed Lenny and Paula to get dressed, and that handcuffing them was unwarranted.

By the Christmas break of 2006, it seemed that all of the college’s higher-ups had heard about the incident inside office 108. And by the summer of 2007, several largely congruent versions of the event from various mid-level employees had reached my ears. I remained mum.

Then in November of 2009, almost three years to the day after the busted oralization [sic] session, I found out through multiple sources that Trevor had committed suicide (a gunshot to the head). R-I-P, vet.

And then in mid-June of 2011, it was announced that Lenny had suffered a fatal heart attack at his home over the weekend. Did his wife ever learn of the incident inside office 108? I wonder. If not, maybe she suspected as much.

Because of where I worked, I rarely saw Paula. But when I did occasionally pass her in a hallway, there was always this sheepish look that seemed to suggest that she was thinking: I wonder if he knows about the incident.

Then in April of 2013, I got a mold complaint from Paula. I went over to inspect her office. She was seated at her desk as I looked for signs of moisture. My mind re-imagined that tumescent evening. Wonder if that desk was the desk that Paula was on. Or, was Lenny on the desk with Paula in the chair? I bet they thought that they would never get caught. Obviously. Having oral sex in a college office. Man, that’s not real smart. Lenny’s sausage was doing the thinking once again. Wonder if Paula ever married a decent guy. Nope – no ring on her finger. Wonder if Paula still thinks about that encounter. Does she think about Lenny? Or, Trevor? The things that can happen in one’s life.

“Well, Paula, I don’t see any dampness, but I’ll have Lenny check the RH [relative humidity] in here.”

“Lenny?” Paula asked with a startled look. Darn! I slipped.

“I’m sorry; I mean Denny – Denny from maintenance.”

The ensuing silence was beyond awkward.