Orders.

Oh joy, a ping. This means only one thing, Brian cannot be bothered, yet again, to get up off his fat buttocks the other side of the massive oak door 2 steps the left of me. It's been 3 years I have been stuck in this dead end job waiting for something, anything with a higher salary, to come along to can get away from his stares and jeers and his demands. I am receptionist, not Brian's personal slave!

But yet, no matter how I respond, every 15 minutes, I receive the same email,

 “Emma, come in here now.

-Brian Eldridge"

And here we go again, because none of the other lawyers on floor 14 are expecting visitors or at least they aren't important in the eyes of almighty Brian. Standing up, I sigh and Stacey, the new receptionist - replacing Helen - who was working the other side of the room looked up from behind her computer screen, pushed her glasses back up her nose, looked at me sympathetically, giggled and returned to her usual workload - playing solitaire on her PC.

Walking round my empty desk I thought about how much I wished to be Stacey, to get to sit there and watch somebody else hang her head as she ran back and forth from her desk to tend to the every need of the egotistical layabout that resided behind these heavy wooden doors. But no, it's me. With my luck, it had to be me. Pushing open one the doors, I straightened my back, pushed back my shoulders and held my head up. I wouldn't let him see that he's breaking me down.

Closing the door behind me I took a deep breath in to brace myself and had to stop the vomit rising up my throat due the repulsive stench of Mr Eldridge's overpowering and rancid cologne that he must bathe in every day.

"You called for me Mr Eldridge?" I called out when I turned around and didn't spot him either behind his oversized desk or sprawled out over one of his two black leather sofas that squeak and squelch under his repulsive body.

"I'm in here, wait a minute will you?!" I hear him exclaim from the direction of his bathroom. The flush of the toilet sounded and out marched Brian Eldridge, one of the four senior partners of the ‘Eldridge, Saxon, Fox and Peterson’ law firm. He was waddling towards me, the smell of his pungent cologne growing ever stronger as he was still struggling to suck in his stomach enough to button up his suit trousers.

While trying not to show my disgust I noticed the toilet roll stuck to the bottom of his shoe - what was he doing in there and what state was it in?

"Umm, sir, there's some toilet paper stuc-" I hesitantly began to inform Brian just as he finished doing up his tacky pinstriped and looked down.

"Thank you oh so very much Miss Telmon," he boomed thick with sarcasm, "I obviously hadn't noticed it because I'm only a lowly receptionist, oh wait, that's you, not I! How dare you try to mock me, you are only here because I allow you to continue your poorly executed job! You should be kissing my fine Italian shoes as there are many more women that would be willing to work in your position." As Mr Eldridge berated me and my intelligence, increasing in volume with each syllable, he pounded across the black marble flooring in his so-called 'fine' Italian shoes that were in need of re-heeling and a good polish.

He came to a halt an inch in front of me, practically pinning me against the oak doors I just came through. The inside of my nose was on fire and his ever expanding abdomen was encroaching upon me so I couldn't breath for fear of touching the man I loathed so much. I lowered my head from the towering body in front of me and prepared my memorised apology once again.

"I am extremely sorry Mr Eldridge; I did not intend to mock you in any way. I merely tried to help you as I was unaware if you had noticed yet. Is there any way I could possibly make this up to you?" I recited through gritted teeth. In my head I was reminding myself I needed this job no matter what, my mother was travelling and I was living alone. This job was keeping me off the streets, I needed it.

"Fine, fine, whatever, whatever you silly girl," Eldridge brushed away my apology like it wasn't even worth stepping on "now, what I intended on calling you in here for was I need lunch, there's a small Thai restaurant on Cornard Street, about a mile from here." Brian took a look down at himself, brushed down his suit jacket and went and sat on one of his sofas, squelching the whole way down before continuing his order.

"They don't usually do take-away but mention you work for me, and they'll do anything you want. I want Royal shrimp, Wonton soup, and Kung pao chicken and... Finally, some Thai iced tea to drink. I want it all at the temperature it was given to you in, so hurry back." As he listed off his lunch order I felt my stomach growl silently under my dress. Great, I thought to myself, a one mile race back to the office and he still won’t be satisfied, oh well.

"Will that be all Mr Eldridge?" I asked sickeningly sweetly, to which I had to wait for the answer as he was tapping away on his phone.

"Yes." He said putting his phone in his jacket top pocket. "I've just text you the phone number of a certain man, Jack Walters. He's claiming that my client’s company is using toxic substances in their food packaging that is rubbing off onto their produce. He's trying to take them to court over it as he supposedly got ill over it. My client needs this settled, if it goes to court he's screwed, so set up a meeting for next Tuesday. Okay, do that on the way to the restaurant, I'm hungry. Hurry up!"

And with that, I turned round, heaved open one of the doors rushed to my desk, grabbed my favourite black blazer, the company card out of my top desk drawer along with my phone. I rushed towards the lift only slowing to tell Stacey,

"Take my calls please Stacey? I'll be back soon, just got to go get his lunch."

I pressed the cold silver lift button and the light flashed while the lift rose to meet me. I rolled my eyes to Stacey who repeated the motion back to me at which we both laughed. The lift doors then opened and stepped in, pressing for the ground floor and the doors closed. With a sigh of a relief a descended to street level, free from Eldridge, even if only for a while. Now to phone Mr Walters.

Reviews

[MindIsAnOcean]

Good job on the execution, it was a nice smooth read. Also I like your descriptions of the characters, it really made me hate this boss right away, and wonder where the story will develop after this. I want to know more about the main character though.

[Sarah F-W]

Thank you :) Taken into account :)