Blog: Jo’s Rings (IV)

On Monday, Jo walked into our office and closed the door. She put a vertical finger across her lips in a gesture to tell me to be silent.

“Martine told you, didn’t she? Just nod or shake your head, be silent!”

She looked at me with authority, and I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated. This, remember, is a girl who can break planks with her bare hands. Maybe my voice can bring her to her knees if I talk long enough, but she can probably punch my throat in before the arousal sets in.

So I nodded. No use lying, she’s too smart for that.

“Yeah, I figured she would. Look, I don’t know why ANY of this is happening, but whatever it is, it’s sick and perverse! You have to make it stop.”

I raised my hands and shoulders in a shrug of innocence. This isn’t my doing, I can’t UNDO it. She understood what I meant.

“That doesn’t really help me, does it? We work in the SAME OFFICE! What am I supposed to do?”

I gestured for her to sit at her computer and wiggled my fingers in the air like I was typing on an invisible keyboard. If I was going to be silent, we could at least talk through the internal messaging system. She picked up on that too and nodded. Moments later, we continued the chat through our computers.

“We can talk through Messenger,” I typed.

“Yes,” she answered, “but what about when someone comes in to talk to you? Or when you answer a phone call?”

“Well,” I replied, “then you’ll be a sexy noodle twisting in your chair?”

She glared at me over the computer screen. Okay, not funny, got it.

“Sorry. Yeah, that’ll be a problem. Maybe you can excuse yourself when that happens and get out of the office?”

She looked dubious.

“I need a separate office.”

“There’s none,” I replied. “We’re already beyond capacity.”

“Dammit!” she exclaimed. At least ONE of us could use her voice. “Well, we’ll just have to figure it out. In the meantime, just shut up as much as you can.”

“Sure,” I typed. “But can you at least tell me how this all got started? It’s pretty weird, you have to admit.”

“Not now,” she said. Our boss was coming to see me for our morning update, so she excused herself and left the room.

We haven’t spoken a word to each other in 2 days… It’s pretty awkward in here…

–Jaycee
“I’m doing it.”