Chapter Text
Click click. Tap.
Clickety tap... Tappity click...
Tap tap tap tap tappity tap.
Whump!
Whump!
Whump!
asldjfka;o giio;asgkaslfja; woiejrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrr.........................
Riley begrudgingly lifted his forehead from the keyboard and directed his eyes at the screen. Colourful blocks of text in much-too-small windows greeted him impassively. What he wouldn’t give for a second monitor.
His eyes hurt. His back hurt. His shoulders, arms, legs—all hurt. His right wrist, the one he depended on for after-work solo activities, was exceptionally sore today. He looked at the clock on the lower right corner of the screen—10:30 a.m.
Fuck
Riley stared off into space to do the simple mental calculation, and failed.
Six more hours?
No, that wasn’t right. It was seven. No one took a lunch break at Joja corporation. No, at Joja you were part of a team. And as a team you ate separately. At your desk.
Riley knew that wasn’t true for everyone. While most staff took a shorter break than was permitted, and some would occasionally skip it altogether, It was only a handful of them who skipped it always and entirely—of whom he was one.
Riley ate lunch at his desk. Alone.
Except Riley didn’t eat his lunch, he drank it—Joja Meal Replacement Piss-Yello version 3.0. That wasn’t its official name of course, but with the upcoming launch of Joja Bluu the employees had secretly renamed all their “favourite” drinks in a quiet act of defiance to the corporate overlords.
That wasn’t true at all. It was just Riley. Probably. As far as he knew, anyway.
Here at Joja, Riley showed his best team work by interacting as little as possible with the other members of the team. It was easier that way, or so he convinced himself.
He was isolated, spending the best part of his shitty days sitting in a two meter by two meter cube. Half a cube really, because the walls were only one meter tall.
One meter was tall enough to incite that caged feeling, but not tall enough to keep Samantha’s stupid trinkets from falling onto his desk. One meter wasn’t enough to muffle the sound and odour of Carl’s after-lunch gas, which Carl, and only Carl thought was hilarious. One meter didn’t protect him from hearing Jason bitch about his latest girlfriend not being perfect enough, either in looks or in the bedroom.
If Riley was honest with himself, which he rarely was, none of those things were the root of his troubles. Samantha was very kind, and her trinkets were cute depictions of characters from Riley’s favourite video games. Carl was also a likeable guy, willing to help anyone in need. His gas, while extremely prolific, wasn’t all that odorous. Plus, it did sound kind of funny.
As for Jason, he was hot—and he knew it. He was absolutely stunning and had the uncanny ability to detect who was attracted to him—possibly because it was nearly everyone—and proceed to flirt shamelessly with them. When not flirting, he would proclaim how straight he was, and how he never hooked up with colleagues. Riley hadn’t been bothered by any of this four years prior when Jason started working at Joja. Back then Riley was in a committed relationship with Marc, and Jason was barely a nuisance. Cute, but annoying.
After the relationship with Marc ended, Riley still went on plenty of dates. He had a handful of acquaintances wanting to hook up regularly enough that whenever Jason managed to get him completely flustered and speechless, Riley would go out after work and fuck the frustration away. Sometimes drunk, sometimes high, and sometimes completely sober. He thought it was a solid plan until it wasn’t. Until one day he was sitting in his half-cube staring at his single monitor and it had been ten months since his last hookup, and he didn’t even have the bandwidth to care.
Besides, the only thing he could imagine being more vile than hate-fucking Jason would be fantasizing about hate-fucking Jason, yet it was the only thing that worked to get him off most days.
If Riley had the capacity to be honest with himself—which he most certainly did not—he would have known that the real problem wasn’t his colleagues, nor the lack of sex. The real problem was Riley hated Joja Corporation and Riley hated this job.
Riley hated this job and he was expected to do it for six and three-quarters more hours. And then he was expected to do that for thirty-five more years.
Fuuuuuuck
One week later. Or was it two? Had Riley finally lost his brain to the half-cubed, single-screened, liquid-diet social experiment known as a career at Joja Corporation? Had it maybe been several years?
An unknown and impossible to measure number of days, weeks or years later Riley sat staring at the same screen. At the same desk. Caged inside the same two meter by two meter by one meter “cube.” At approximately 10:30 a.m. Again.
This time was a little different. This time Grandfather’s letter was there.
His eyes drifted down and to the right. To the drawer. He could just...
“Hey there Riley!” called a silky-smooth, flirtatious voice. In that instant all of Riley’s higher functions vanished and were replaced by the buzzing sound of bees and a desire to be shoved down face-first onto his own desk, pinned by that body. More than anything in the world he wanted that voice to coo extremely suggestive activities into his ear. He wanted to be teased into a begging, weeping mess—willing to do anything to get that man’s cock deep inside him—
When that didn’t happen, Riley was both relieved and disappointed. He rotated his chair and tilted his face up toward Jason, saying nothing. He focused his gaze through him, rather than on him, hoping his hatred of the man was plainly visible to the entire department.
“You finding it warm in here, Riley?” he teased.
“No Jason, what do you need?” asked Riley, unblinking.
“Certainly not you, calm down. Do you know where Samantha is?”
Jason knew damn well where Samantha was. He was in HR for Yoba’s sake, but Riley answered anyway. “Home. Sick. Same as she was yesterday. Same as the day before.”
“Ohhh,” replied Jason, appearing to be deep in thought. Riley knew it was an act, so he wasn’t at all surprised with what followed—
“Well, that sucks worse than Beth does. Do you think you could do me a favour?”
This fucker mentions oral and then asks me for a favour?
Riley closed his eyes in an effort to dispel that latest intrusive fantasy. When he opened them they fell not on Jason, but on his desk drawer.
Riley turned his attention back toward Jason, then back at the drawer, then at Jason. His eyes panned over him, slowly, beginning at his face and finally lingering on his crotch. In that instant he made a decision, opened the drawer and took out two letters. One was from his grandfather, the other was his two weeks’ notice. With that decided he felt a sudden wave of confidence. He stood up and found himself much too close to Jason, but he refused to back up, looking him right in the eye.
“A favour better than what Beth can do?” he asked smugly. “Yes Jason, I have completed over a decade of on-the-job training in that department and have received dozens of commendations for my work, I could even provide references if you were actually interested. Suffice it to say I am very, very good at the type of sucking you’re implying. Yet, despite all your teasing, inappropriate comments and non-stop flirtatious remarks to humiliate me, you’ve made your position on that very clear, Jason. So no, I will not suck you off, not now, not ever. However, if you’ve changed your mind about men and want to get railed in the company elevator by someone who hates your guts, I’m free to do that right now.”
Jason’s eyes went wide. Riley was positively soaring from his rare display of confidence. He chalked it up to finally having an escape plan from this personal hell. “If there’s nothing else, Jason, I’m handing in my notice and going home early from this piece-of-shit job.” He pushed past him and headed into the aisle.
Words like don’t be crazy, you can’t, and be reasonable ran on a loop through his mind as he walked to his boss’s office.
It could never be sustainable. You’ll burn through your meagre savings and have to come back.
His boss wasn’t in his office so he placed the envelope on the top of his inbox and headed for the elevator.
You’ll be a failure. Marc will have been right about you the entire time.
He stepped into the elevator and turned to look back into the office, his eyes locking on Jason’s. He was still standing by Riley’s desk, mouth agape.
“Riley, wait!” Jason called as the elevator doors closed.
Too late, Jason.