sgorny | Mary Sue Challenge 2

Brian awoke to the discordant sound of a clock radio tuned slightly off station. He stretched out, feeling for the warm body of the blond next to him, but realized that it was only a dream. The only thing he felt were two small fuzzy bodies, causing his cats to complain from being so rudely awakened.

He opened his eyes and, as the dream memory of a high-tech loft with imported Italian fixtures faded from his mind, the only thing that remained were the hardwood floors. He saw the usual white walls, overhead light, and mini-blind covered picture window that greeted him every morning. He stumbled out of bed and into the shower.

In his dreams, the shower was a large glass affair, with plenty of room for two or more. In reality, it was a 3x3 box, 2 sides with frosted glass, 2 with that horrid combo of pink & burgandy tiles that were so popular in the 50's. As soon as he could, he would have to change that damn shower.

Brian hurried through his morning routine, as he had heard through the grapevine that the Evil Boss was making an unexpected visit to the office in the morning, and he wanted to make sure he wasn't late. In fact, he couldn't wait to see him and confront him about the problems with the contract termination letter that he had received two days before. He smirked at himself in the mirror as he imagined how upset the Evil Boss would be when he discovered that Brian had been right about the contract, and that he (the Evil Boss), was indeed fucked.

***

Brian slipped through the door right on time, and glided back toward the Evil Boss's office. As he walked in, he saw the greedy moneygrubber hunched over his keyboard, checking out the company financials.

"Good morning," he greeted the Boss with a confident grin.

"Good morning," Boss replied, swivelling on his stool to face Brian. "I'm leaving today for a week off, so I thought I'd come in and get a few things done."

"Great," said Brian, thinking 'Hm, for someone who says he hasn't had a day off in months, you sure seem to be out of the office a lot.' "I have something I need you to do for me first."

Boss looked as him quizzically as Brian rummaged around in his black bag. Brian found the contract termination letter from Tuesday, and pulled it out. He held it out to Boss, and said, "I need you to initial this by the date. You dated it the 4th, but didn't give it to me until the 6th."

Boss took the paper, and stared at it with an odd expression. His brow furrowed, his mouth scrunched up, and Brian thought 'he'd better not give me any grief about this'. Slowly, Boss turned, took his pen, and wrote a small paragraph on the paper. Brian sighed, wondering just what the Evil One was up to now.

Boss handed the paper back, and Brian smirked as he read what was written on it. "Typed on the 4th, presented on the 6th." 'Man, does he think that makes any difference?' Brian thought. 'He could have typed it last year, but he only gave it to me on the 6th, and that's what counts.' Brian placed the paper back in his bag, and then pulled out his contract.

"I was looking at my contract last night, and it says here in Section 6.2 that "Any party terminating this Agreement pursuant to the provision of paragraph 6.1, hereof, must provide thirty (30) days written notice thereof to the other party," Brian quoted.

Boss wrinkled up his face even more (if that was possible). "Well, I'll have to have my attorney look at it," he said feebly.

"It's pretty black and white. There aren't a lot of flowery words to hide any loopholes," Brian said smugly.

Evil Boss's discomfort level went up. He seemed to be searching frantically for something to say to take back control of the situation. "Well, let's not forget the purpose of this. We are trying to come to a better agreement, and this is just to terminate the old contract," he said unctuously.

Brian put up his walls and pulled on a bland, slightly bored face. 'Yeah, to terminate the old contract and screw me out of about $3000 at a minimum,' Brian thought bitterly. 'I'll wait until later to bring up the fact that he'll have to pay me not just one month's bonus, but two according to the contract. I'd hate to have him try to slow business down to keep me from reaching goal, and he's just the person to try it.'

Boss tried to take charge of the conversation. "I am trying to come up with a contract that will be agreeable to us both, and I haven't been happy with what the attorney's have done... it's just incendiary," he said, repeating his earlier words.

'There he goes with that word again... I wonder exactly what they proposed?' thought Brian. 'I'm probably better off not knowing, though.'

Pulling out some photocopied pages, Boss began, "I got this book, called 'The Book of Agreement', and it has a lot of great information in it. Better than what I got from the attorneys. As you can see here, there are 10 major parts to an agreement..." he droned on.

Brian faded out on the conversation, realizing that this was just a ploy, trying to figure out Boss's angle. Any contract that made the Boss happy would definitely be demeaning for Brian, and he wasn't going to stand for that. But he could go through the motions and play the game if needed. He tuned back into the conversation.

"I jotted down a few things for each section, and I want you to do the same while I am gone. When I get back, we can get together and see what we have come up with," Boss finished smarmily.

'Yeah, he does this all the time. First he wants me to write my own review, which he then pulls to shreds, now he wants me to write my own contract as busy work, when we both know that this is just a little dance that will go nowhere.' Brian sighed inside, barely keeping from rolling his eyes. "Yeah, sure, I'll do just that," he said in a world-weary tone. He just wanted this done with. He'd already burned all his bridges as an employee here, and he really didn't care anymore.

It was like that relationship that you have that was never very good, but never that bad either (at least in the beginning). It keeps getting progressively worse, until it finally gets bad enough to leave, and even then it drags out forever. The writing had been on wall for about 2 years, the dance was just winding down now. He couldn't wait for it to be over, one way or the other.

"I left the financials you wanted in the Seattle office, in a sealed envelope next to the back computer. You'll have them tomorrow," said Boss as he turned back towards his computer.

Brian pondered this. 'That made a lot of sense - not. If he had the info last night (in order to leave it at the Seattle office), why didn't he bring it in today and give it over directly this morning? Something smells a bit fishy here.' Brian chuckled to himself. 'Of course, I shouldn't be surprised. All of my dealing with the man have reeked.'

Brian stuffed the busy work into his bag, turned on his heel and left Boss's office. He'd gotten the signature he wanted, and felt confident that things would work out in the long run. He'd come out on top, whatever the outcome. He always did.

TBC (if anything interesting occurs)

Damn, that ending sounds overwhelmingly self-confident. Let's just say, I always hope for the best, and am rarely significantly disappointed.