Unlike his wife, his secretary knows exactly how he likes his coffee.
The coffee is very hot and mixed with hazelnut-flavored cream and almond extract. The secretary buys the almond extract just for him. The doughnut is round and made of chocolate. It is the doughnut he most wanted, and his secretary has satisfied his every need, his needs and wants being mutually interchangeable.
While eating and drinking, the man opens a drawer and pulls out an envelope, and in the envelope, he puts the paper he’d written the day before, and then he picks up the phone to call in his secretary. He has chocolate on his upper lip.
The man drinks his coffee. Outside his window, there is a crane moving over the new apartment building, which is made mostly of brick and glass. Beside that new building is a smaller building — a restaurant — specializing in seafood, which he has been frequenting lately because the food is consistent.
The secretary does not always burst in.
Sometimes, when the door is left ajar, she hovers in that open space, waiting for the man to call her in.
There is a lesson in here somewhere. But who will learn the lesson? It’s impossible to tell from here and now.
The secretary looms in the open space at the mouth of the man’s office. Most of the door obscures her, but she is not unseen. The man manages to ignore her. While she stands there, uninvited, he reads the report that is sitting on his desk. It is easy enough to read, so he reads it without pause. He flips pages with one hand, drinks coffee with the other. Periodically, the secretary jots down his mumblings. It appears she is taking dictations.
Although the secretary is a roadblock in the middle of the doorway, other employees continue to open and close the door, moving in and out of the man’s office. The other employees work in the factory the man manages — or rather the man is a part of management, although he does not own it, nor does he manage it alone. There is much business that must be quite essential in the office, as many employees enter, stay a while, then leave, smiling.
There is nothing suspicious about this. The man is high on the food chain, which is funny because he has been eating a single doughnut for most of the morning.
It could be expected that he would call employees into his office.
Only the man does not call them into his office.
The employees come into his office because he is a kind “suit.” He never tells on them and allows them to do whatever they choose in his office, although there is a version of taxation in that if his door is unlocked, he is inside, and if he is inside, he is allowed — by virtue of being a “suit” — to watch and participate, if he so chooses.
The man — in an attempt to be as casual and unobtrusive as possible, lest others suspect he has the treasure — is pleasant towards those who chose to come into his office, even when they have no business being there. It first happened a few weeks after he’d discovered his treasure. He had not yet learned to build compartments in his clothing. At this point, he’d simply put it in his briefcase, beneath a layer of semi-important, necessary papers. One employee came in. He was a line-worker, no one particularly noteworthy to the man. The employee complained of pain caused by repetitive motion.
The form the employee needed to fill out was in the briefcase. The man did not know what to do, so he simply sat there. He told the employee to rest a while. There: on the very lush, ergonomic couch. The employee eventually fell asleep, during which time the man put on a glove, which he’d stashed in his drawers, and removed the treasure from his briefcase and put it in shirt pocket. Although it was hot, the man put back on his suit jacket, to make the treasure seem less protruding. Then, the man transferred his treasure into his pants pocket, although it made an even more impressionable lump there. The man thought: This will have to do for now.
The employee napped until it was time for him to leave. He cleverly forgot to sign the papers necessary for him to get medical attention, thereby allowing him to begin working again.
The next day, the employee arrived at the man’s office before the man arrived. Flustered, he allowed the employee to nap again because again, he’d put his treasure in his briefcase.
That day, the man devised a series of secret compartments for his clothes. The employee spread the word that this “suit” was a good one, and other employees began to enter his office for rest and other miscellaneous activities.
There are three couches in the man’s office. Originally, there was only one, but the man asked his secretary to buy more and arrange to have them delivered. The man did not want his employees not to have a space when they came into his office. Somehow, his office expanded to accommodate the increased furniture. His office never felt crowded.
Sometimes, the employees would sit or lie with a pillow, or even a blanket if they were particularly tired, all of which the man provided. Sometimes, they would even kiss each other if they wanted to, and the man never complained about it. Sometimes, they would rub each other’s crotches with various objects, including their own crotches, and the man would mimic their behavior.
The man watches without watching. He is a busy man, filled with appointments and letters to write, calls to make, so on and so forth.
It is the man’s office. He can do as he pleases.
But he does it only to seem natural. He does not want to stick out and make others suspicious of his treasure.
Before lunch, the man transfers his treasure from hidden compartment near the spine of his undershirt to the hidden compartment in the lining of his corduroy jacket.
During lunch, the man goes to the restaurant with the seafood, and he sits behind an aquarium in a dark corner next to a mysterious door. The door says: Mysterious Door. Do NOT Enter.
He nibbles on garlic bread from a bottomless basket and drinks Pepsi from a bottomless glass. He looks at the fishes. He thinks: How are they any different from my employees?
The man does not include himself in this category. Before the treasure, he would have, but not any more.
Remember: the treasure is tucked in the man’s corduroy jacket.
It is unseasonably warm inside the restaurant so the man removes his jacket and puts it on the seat across from him.
The man looks at the empty seat across from him. Here, now, the man sees how very alone he is. Even though he has his treasure, he has shared it with nobody. He once thought of showing to his children, but their hands were unpredictably dirty and too small for gloves. He’s never considered sharing it with his wife, although when sexual intercourse is required, he thinks of his treasure while fucking her. Without that aid, he is sure he would never reach orgasm. Nor would his pecker be peppy enough for the challenge.
The man considers his secretary worthy of looking at the treasure, but she should never touch it. Of course, the man knows that once seen, the natural desire would be to touch it, which he could never allow.
While eating his bottomless basket of garlic bread, the man realizes how very lonely he is. It is a great burden, that of holding a treasure.
Just then, the mysterious door opens and a mysterious woman emerges. The man thinks: She is a chameleon. Look how she dresses as the other waitresses dress.
The mysterious woman sits across from the man. Her body hides the man’s treasure.
The man thinks: This is it. She is the one.
The mysterious woman says: I have been watching you lately and you look so sad. Are you tired? Overworked? I’m overworked. I’m always overworked.
The man thinks: She speaks!
The mysterious woman says: I’ll be right back.
The man is flustered. He does not know if he should grab his jacket and flee or stay. He is frozen.