Free The Kissing Game by Marie Turner Page A

check for so long. I picture his beautiful shell of a body
slipping away like a fake suit and the dragon beneath unfurling itself,
stretching out its body. The head would reach the ceiling and the wingspan
would take up the whole conference room. I imagine the emerald green scales and
cat-like eyes. The dragon would flap his wings once and make some dreadful
squealing growl like Godzilla approaching Hong Kong. With teeth barring, out
would come his forked tongue and he’d shoot flames straight across the
conference table, erupting all the boxes before lighting me on fire. Then the
dragon would somehow manage to stride across the flame-laden table to bite me
in half.  
    Anyway, why should he care that I want to work for someone else?
Does it matter so much to him that he keeps me under his thumb? Does it
give him pleasure to ruin my life specifically? Can’t he ruin another
person’s life just as easily and enjoy doing so just as much?
    Besides, I have already solved my problem. I won’t be working for
him for long, that’s for sure. Whenever the firm lets an attorney go, the
assistant fills in for people who are out sick or on vacation—until another position
opens up. So I will just float, like a raft on the ocean. A blissfully free and
happy raft.
    “But you don’t want to continue working for me—is that it?” he
asks.
    The sudden knock at the glass conference room door makes me jump.
I look up to see Conrad the copy guy and his team standing there. Conrad always
dresses like someone who doesn’t make copies for a living, more like a
well-paid stockbroker. He wears a suit underneath a rain coat. His helpers wear
jeans, t-shirts, and rain jackets. One pushes a dolly.
     “Caroline,” he greets, squeezing into the conference room. “Nice
to see you again.”
    He shakes my hand as if we’re presidents of small foreign
countries.
    “Hey Conrad, thanks for coming so quickly.”
    “Robert,” Conrad says, taking the few steps over to shake Robert’s
hand. Robert obliges, but likely only because Conrad makes a point to regularly
shower Robert with gifts. Jars filled with candy. Tickets to sporting events. A
fancy robe at Christmas time. Some people have no shame.
    “Conrad,” Robert replies.
    Before long, Conrad and his men barrel out, their dolly teetering
with boxes, and leave Robert and me to continue our work alone.
    Yet the atmosphere alters. The silence floats like dust while we
make little box cities in each corner of the conference room. As I work, I
sense Robert telepathically dissecting my brain. He’s too smart, you see. He
knows something is up. He senses the change in my attitude. Maybe he realizes he’s
falling off his very high perch. Maybe he’s consumed with worry. Perhaps he even
knows about the cameras in the elevator that likely caught the kiss on tape. His
brilliant mind no doubt simmers with all kinds of terrible consequences. I
almost want to laugh, one of those evil villain laughs, if it weren’t for the migraine
I’m getting from organizing stupid boxes for hours.
    Robert glances at his watch and then at me.
    “We’ll be working late,” he tells me. “Why don’t you take some Excedrin
for your headache and order us a couple sandwiches?” 
    I want to ask him to repeat himself. I’m not sure I heard him
correctly. How does he know I have a headache or that I take Excedrin? Such
knowledge would require Robert to be unselfish, and he is anything but that.
    “I don’t have Excedrin with me,” I barely articulate, looking at
him as though he’s the headless child now. “I left it in my backpack at the
office.” I press my finger to my temple trying to comprehend his words, which
trot mystically through my brain, along with the pounding tempo. They seem inaccessible
and without substance.
    Then Robert strides past me and out the conference room door, a
scout on a mission. I watch as he approaches the receptionist, a petite curly-haired
woman, whose head barely reaches over