The Footstool Man

I didn't mean to fall asleep under Ms. Harrington’s desk. That part just happened.

The part where I couldn’t get out. That happened too.

And the part where every woman in the executive suite decided my back made a better footrest than the $400 ergonomic ottomans HR ordered last quarter? That part was just my luck. The kind of luck that follows a man around like a shadow he can’t shake.

Let me back up.

It was three in the morning when I finally gave up. The quarterly projections were due by eight, and my laptop had been crashing since noon. Every time I tried to save, the thing froze. Then it would spit out some error code that meant nothing to me, and I’d have to start the whole spreadsheet over. By midnight, I’d lost the same set of numbers four times. By two, I’d stopped swearing. By three, I just put my head down on the desk and closed my eyes.

Just for a minute. That’s what I told myself.

The cleaning crew found me at four. Or rather, they didn’t find me. They found my laptop, logged into the system, and assumed I’d gone home for the night. The guy vacuumed around my chair. I remember hearing the hum, feeling the vibration through the floor, and thinking, *I should sit up. I should say something.*

Instead, I rolled onto my side and pulled my knees toward my chest.

The carpet under Ms. Harrington’s desk was thicker than the carpet in my apartment. Thicker than the mattress I slept on. It smelled like Febreze and whatever expensive perfume she wore. Something floral but sharp. Like flowers with teeth.

I don’t know when I fell asleep for real. But when I woke up, the lights were on and the office was alive.

Voices. Footsteps. The distant hum of the coffee machine in the break room.

And a pair of heels, black and sharp as knives, standing six inches from my face.

I froze. Not the smartest move, but my brain was still catching up. I was wedged under a desk that weighed more than my car, in a position that would have made a yoga instructor wince. My left arm was pinned beneath my chest. My right leg had gone numb somewhere around four in the morning.

The heels shifted. A woman’s voice, crisp and annoyed, said, “Where is the remote?”

Another voice, softer, answered. “In your drawer, Ms. Harrington.”

Ms. Harrington. My boss. The woman who signed my paychecks, who had once made a junior analyst cry by asking him to “clarify the word *precise*” in a memo. The woman whose desk I was currently hiding under like a child playing hide and seek.

I should have crawled out right then. Should have said, “Good morning, Ms. Harrington, sorry about this, I fell asleep, it won’t happen again.”

But I didn’t.

Because the second I started to move, she sat down.

The chair rolled back, hit my shoulder, and stopped. She made a small sound of confusion. Then she pushed again, harder, and I felt the wheels dig into my side. I bit my tongue to keep from yelping.

“Something’s blocking the chair,” she said.

“I can check,” said the softer voice. An assistant. Janet, probably.

“Don’t bother. I’ll just work around it.”

She shifted her weight, and her foot found my back.

Not hard. Just resting. Like I was a cushion she’d forgotten was there. Her heel pressed into the space between my shoulder blades, and I felt the full weight of her settle onto me. She sighed, a sound of relief, and I heard her typing begin.

That was how it started.

I lay there for ten minutes, waiting for her to get up. Waiting for the right moment to reveal myself without it being the most humiliating moment of my life. But she didn’t get up. She answered emails. She made a phone call. She drank coffee, and I felt the heat of the mug through the desk above me.

And then another pair of heels appeared.

“Maggie, I need you to look at the Q3 numbers.”

“Give me one second, Rachel.”

Rachel. Rachel Torres from accounting. She had a voice like gravel and a laugh that could stop a conversation. I’d seen her make grown men stammer during budget meetings.

“What are you doing?” Rachel asked.

“Resting my feet. Something’s wrong with this chair. It won’t roll back.”

“You need a footstool.”

“I know. I’ve been meaning to order one.”

“Why don’t you just use that?”

A pause. I felt Ms. Harrington’s weight shift as she looked down.

“Use what?”

“That.” Rachel’s voice was closer now. “Whatever’s under your desk. It’s solid. It’s the right height. Looks like a cushion.”

“It’s not a cushion.”

“Then what is it?”

Another pause. I held my breath. My heart was beating so loud I was sure they could hear it.

“I don’t know,” Ms. Harrington said slowly. “But it works.”

Rachel laughed. “Well, if it works, it works. Move over.”

Ms. Harrington’s foot lifted off my back. I felt a moment of relief, a brief hope that this insanity was ending. Then Rachel’s foot replaced it.

She was heavier than Ms. Harrington. Her heel was wider, more stable. She put both feet on me, crossing her ankles, and I felt the pressure spread across my spine. She sighed, a deep satisfied sound, and said, “That’s actually perfect. Where did you get this?”

“I told you, I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, don’t get rid of it.”

They talked for another ten minutes. Numbers, deadlines, a problem with a vendor in Singapore. All while Rachel Torres used my back as a footrest. I lay there, staring at the dark underside of the desk, and tried to figure out how my life had come to this.

I had a degree. A decent one. I had a job that paid enough to cover rent and ramen. I had a mother who called every Sunday to ask if I’d met anyone nice.

I had not met anyone nice. And now I was a footstool.

The morning passed in a blur of humiliation and numbness. By ten, three more women had used me. Janet, the assistant, had been the gentlest. She’d barely put any weight on me, just rested her flats on my lower back while she read something off Ms. Harrington’s screen. Rachel had come back twice, each time settling in like I was her favorite spot on the couch.

And then Ms. Harrington herself, after lunch, had pushed her chair back and planted both feet on me. Her heels were off by then. I could feel her stockings, the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric. She wiggled her toes against my shirt and let out a sound that was almost a moan.

“That’s nice,” she said to no one.

At noon, the office went quiet. Lunch hour. I heard the distant chatter of the break room, the microwave beeping, the fridge opening and closing. I was alone.

I tried to move. The desk was too low. I tried to slide out, but my shoulders were wedged tight. I tried to push the desk up, but it was bolted to the floor. Office furniture in a building like this wasn’t going anywhere.

I was stuck.

And then I heard footsteps. Heels again. Coming closer.

“Ms. Harrington?”

A new voice. Young. Uncertain.

“She’s at lunch,” I said. The words came out before I could stop them.

Silence.

The heels stopped right in front of the desk.

“Who said that?” The voice was trembling now.

I closed my eyes. “Nobody. I’m nobody.”

More silence. Then the chair rolled back, and I felt the desk shift as someone knelt down. A face appeared at the opening. Young, maybe twenty-two, with wide brown eyes and a name tag that said *Intern*.

She stared at me. I stared at her.

“Are you,” she whispered, “the footstool?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

She looked over her shoulder, then back at me. Her expression shifted from shock to something else. Something calculating.

“They’re going to find out eventually,” she said.

“I know.”

“You should say something. Before someone gets hurt.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I thought about it. Really thought about it. The shame of crawling out, of admitting that I’d been used all morning. The look on Ms. Harrington’s face when she realized what she’d been resting her feet on. The jokes that would follow me for the rest of my career. The way every woman in this office would remember me as the guy who got stuck under a desk.

“Because I’m not sure I want to,” I said.

The intern’s mouth fell open.

And then the office door opened, and Ms. Harrington’s voice rang out. “Sarah, are you in here?”

The intern stood up. She looked at me one more time, something unreadable in her eyes.

Then she stepped back, and the chair rolled into place, and the desk went dark again.