Corporate Goth : because nice boots are expensive
by Vanity Kills
This work is purely fiction. All characters portrayed in this work are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events detailed below are intended solely for entertainment purposes only. So you can laugh and enjoy, it’s not real. As stated in the last installment, “for goodness sake, it’s just GOTH.”
Dear Diary,
“Corporate Goth: because nice boots are expensive.” At least that’s what the clichéd bumper sticker prominently displayed in my cubicle at work proudly states. I tacked it up to the cork board as a humble reminder to keep on rolling with the punches when mandatory overtime, caused by system crashes somewhere in India, cuts into my coffee shop time with the girls. Yes, the bi-weekly ritual of caffeine and gossip filled “Harpy Hour” is what kept me from hurling myself from the 40th floor of my corporate high rise many times over. As for the above mentioned sticker? Every single time the evil overlords on the 40th floor decided that they wanted to morph into micromanaging monsters and found a new way to torture their 12th floor office peons (that would be us), I needed SOMETHING to remind me that the high cost of latex, platform shoes, and couture corsetry is what keeps me at my job. NOT the good of the company.
I was the Peter Gibbons of the CorpGoth world. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve fantasized about gutting a fish at my desk and tossing the entrails right onto my annoying co-worker’s monitor.
Alas, there came a day when I said, “enough is enough.” The administrative slave drivers on the previously noted 40th floor unveiled their latest ploy, designed to cause us little people a great deal of misery, this past Friday. A new schedule was to be implemented starting next month. By “new schedule” I mean a cruel and unusual punishment of working Tuesday through Saturday. Yeah, you heard me right. Friday was the new Thursday! At first I dismissed the ridiculousness of such audacity with an explosion of laughter until I realized that my immediate supervisor wasn’t pulling my fishnet-covered leg! Me working Saturdays? The hell you say! Anything that cuts into Friday night clubbing is equivalent to heresy in my eyes. YOU TRY STAYING OUT ‘TILL 5 a.m. and then come in to work all bright eyed and bushy tailed on a Saturday morning. Ahem… I don’t think so.
And so a letter of resignation was promptly drafted and delivered to my boss’s desk at 8:00 AM sharp this morning.
On the way back from the managerial office, an irony of fate struck so hard and fast that I didn’t even know it hit me until 15 minutes or so after the fact.
I was en route to a much-needed pit stop at the coffee maker when I literally collided with some man of mystery. I blurted a rushed apology in his general direction before I managed to look up. An upward glance revealed cheekbones so sharp that they could have easily taken an eye out. These cheek bones were attached to a not so unfamiliar face. The face of a frienemy.
I uttered a never-ending string of curses in my head upon realizing that I just bumped into my ex- archrival, Eli Erickson.
Six or seven years ago, Eli decided that he hated my guts and decided to proclaim his newfound dislike of yours truly by dumping a drink on my head in front of the entire bar. That didn’t fly with my feisty 18-yearold self and I returned the disgrace by unceremoniously punching him in the face and fistfight ensued. That night a fierce competition of “who could win the most scene points” was born. If I posed for a local photographer, he’d suddenly flood his LiveJournal with photos taken by someone allegedly 5 times “more famous” (according to him anyway). A pair of new high-stacked platforms in my closet meant that Eli’s had to be at least two inches bigger and $200 more expensive. Anytime I’d show off my new dread falls at the club, he’d appear with installed extensions a week later and proclaim that, “only losers wear dread falls.”
This nonsense lasted around three years until Mr. Erickson decided that moving to Hollywood in order to pursue alternative modeling as a full-time profession was a wise life choice. I remember laughing on the inside upon hearing the news, while being relieved that the snobby little jerk would be out of my fake hair for good. However, in true Eli fashion, he couldn’t just pack his things and leave without throwing a monkey wrench into my life.
One drunken Friday evening, dubbed “Eli’s Official Going Away Party”, as I attempted to stumble my way to the ladies’ room, none other than Eli Erickson, grabbed my arm and pulled me into a dark alcove. Expecting “Fist Fight: the Sequel”, I tensed every single muscle in my body, ready to give the pompous idiot a farewell beat down he’d never forget. Much to my dismay throwing down was the last thing on his mind as his inebriated self began to confess his three-year-old crush on me. That’s right… a crush… on… me! An apologetic and sorrowful Eli declared that all the unfounded aggression directed at me was nothing other than projecting the rejection he felt since our initial meeting. Apparently he was all up in arms over the fact that upon meeting his posse for the first time, I had one too many and hooked up with his friend Garrett. Not straying too far from being the shallow narcissistic Eli I’ve come to “know and love” so much, he professed that he felt like it was a monumental blow to his ego, as no girl had ever chosen another over him. So he set out to destroy me socially.
To say that my jaw dropped and my ability to speak had suddenly vanished was a gross understatement. I stood there in the shadows frozen and unable to move as Eli allowed himself to be reabsorbed by the party atmosphere.
Until today that’s the last I’ve seen of Eli. He left me no updated Hollywood contact information and I wasn’t one to seek it out. Too much bad blood transpired between us for me to give a damn. I’d never forgive myself for chasing after a guy who treated me like dirt for the past three years, even if he was inconceivably hot. Not counting the fact that by the time Eli decided to drop this “I secretly desired you all along” bomb on me, I was already in the early stages of dating my present boyfriend Shayne.
So I deleted Eli from my memories and assumed that he went away for good.
Clearly, being the cybergoth Derek Zoolander was not in the cards for Eli, since he now stood before me in the flesh at my soon to be ex place of employment.
I blinked a few times to make sure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, but it was most definitely THE Eli Erickson I once exchanged so many bitter words with. In a million years I couldn’t picture Eli “selling out to the man” and working in an office complex but there he was! His waist length multi-colored dreads now replaced with a sleek black ponytail, his cheek piercings gone the way of the dinosaur and his eyebrows restored to the way that nature intended.
Still speechless for the most part, I promptly excused myself and raced back to my desk. A few frenzied texts to Cassy, Morgan, and Justine called for an emergency meeting at Hallowed be thy Grounds, the coffee shop we met at religiously twice a week to discuss our respective love lives and the latest round of juicy scene drama.
Before my meeting with the girls, I decided that fishing for more info around the office was in order. I planned on grilling some coworkers for details at lunchtime, when none other than Eli beat me to the punch. He gladly volunteered to give me the much sought after dirt.
And so, my former arch-nemesis was the newest IT guy on my floor. The same former arch-nemesis asked me to drop by at his place for wine and a viewing of Repo!: The Genetic Opera this very evening. He snarkily added that I might as well look at the real Ogre instead of wasting my time with a cheap carbon copy. A jealousy driven stab at the Skinny Puppy worshipping Shayne.
I’m due to quit in two weeks.
My onetime adversary hints at the possibility of a fling.
Furthermore somehow I didn’t find myself saying no.
Things are about to get very interesting…
from the February Issue of Auxiliary Magazine
