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Wiggle Room

Posted on November 22, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

She had her spectacles on. Over the four months they had been together like this he always considered it a special moment when she brought her spectacles down. They looked cool enough holding her hair back but there was something just incredibly sexy about her spectacle-clad face. She ran her pen down a sheet of paper and said without looking up, “You’re not giving me any wiggle room here.”

He had seen her ass. Not bared or anything but in those pencil skirts she wore to work everyday he had a fairly good idea of what her clothed behind looked like. So he immediately imagined what it would feel like if they were spooned together in a cramped space and she was wiggling to get more comfortable. Like Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney in that movie. He was no Clooney but her ass was way nicer than Jennifer Lopez. He definitely thought so.

She looked up at him, her eyes going over the rim of her spectacles and the movement brought him out of his little mental moment with her in the trunk of a car. He angled his head and scratched the side of his face, “What do you mean?”

She tapped the page, “We really have no bargaining space in a situation like this.”

“I don’t see that there needs to be room to bargain. It is a very generous offer. We’ve been back and forth several times over that particular point and many others. I don’t think we’re being unfair. There doesn’t have to be wiggle room.”

She sent the spectacles back up to corral the thicket of chestnut hair that reminded him of the luxurious manes sported by the likes of Cindy Crawford in the nineties. Ah the nineties, when he was in a position of no power whatsoever and it was just fun to hang out and masturbate whenever he felt like it. Of course he remembered that he didn’t feel content to simply have the option to whack off whenever he wanted back then. He had wanted to be rich and powerful. As her spectacles settled into their off position and she sat back and crossed her arms across her chest he sighed inwardly and thought to himself [Be careful of what you wish for].

“That’s really not going to work Ira. We’re here because your people, in good faith, made it clear that you were ready to do a deal. People’s livelihoods are at stake here. This is not about pride or which side gets to call which side a pussy in the long term. This is about staying locked in this room until we get a deal done because we owe it to those people out there. My people in the street as well as your people in their mansions; this strike hurts everybody.”

He leaned forward and put both his elbows on the table. Ever since they sent a woman in to do a man’s job he had been forced to behave in a civilized manner. Not something he was used to doing. He was used to bludgeoning people with the force of his presence and the might of his words. His spittle-stained papers were legendary because it was well known that there were several agreements in various Halls of Records in three countries that bore his dried up DNA. All of that was material he’d had to put away the moment she walked into the room. He was not going to be Goliath to her David. He was not going to be the guy that made the girl cry. So he had been forced to learn the virtues of patience and stillness. He had done it for so long he didn’t miss the punching of the walls, the pounding of the table or the ranting at his opposite team.

All he wished for was that this thing would be done and he could ask her out for a nice steak dinner. She didn’t give anything away so he didn’t know if she felt any of what he thought about every single moment he wasn’t being taken over the finer points of the agreement with lawyers and studio heads. He was being asked to emphasize the toll this was taking on all the people who had lost their jobs and how the studios’ hands were tied by the highly unreasonable position the writers were taking. He was asked to remind her on a twice-daily basis that she was not doing anyone a favor  by staying in that room instead of going out and telling the people that they were finally going to be able to put their pickets down.

All he really wanted to tell her was, “I think I love you.”

It definitely wasn’t something that started overnight. It definitely wasn’t love at first sight. At first sight he had thought [What the fuck, they sent a girl to do a man’s job? These people aren’t serious!]. She had been quick to address his concerns about dealing with a woman, “I am here to tell you that I have full authority to make a decision in this room on various issues. They might not be ground-breaking, they might not end this negotiation next week but I will not be saying I need to run away and check with the boys before I give you anything every single time.” The four men who formed her backup had done the bobble head nod and he had been tempted to storm out of the room screaming, “What the fuck?”

Instead he had stayed and over four months they had made some real progress.

He remembered the first time the writers had acquiesced to a request. His people had been livid, “Was that really something they had wanted before or was it something they were using as a first move advantage.”

“Go back and ask them for more.”

“No tell them we don’t want that. Tell them we want the exact opposite. Three days in and they cave on medical? What the fuck!?”

And that’s how it had gone. Without the benefits of his own screaming and table pounding and fist waving he had been able to see the points the writers were making and it occurred to him that his side had probably already seen it too. [They just don’t want to see that money go…]

And yet, here he was, sitting across from her talking about wiggle room.

He realised they were waiting for an answer so he sat back in his chair and said, “I’m sorry, that’s all I am able to offer at this time.”

That’s when he saw it. He had never been able to figure out if there was any interest on her end. He just hoped he wouldn’t cause too much damage in that room so that he could ask her out when they got out. But the moment he said those words he saw it in her eyes – she had been interested all along until he finally clarified that he didn’t have any power to make amendments without checking back with his handlers.

She put the spectacles away and pushed her chair back, “I guess we will pick this up tomorrow.” He didn’t know why but he felt like it was the last he would ever see of her.

The next morning they sent a man.

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