Deskbound Throne

The desk fell on me at 4:47 on a Tuesday.

I remember the time because I was watching the clock, counting down to five, when Mark from accounting decided to rearrange his entire cubicle. He pushed his filing cabinet. The filing cabinet hit my desk. My desk tilted. And then it wasn't tilting anymore because it was on top of me.

My legs went first. Then my chest. Then my face hit the carpet hard enough to taste blood.

The desk was one of those old wooden monsters they don't make anymore. Solid oak. Heavy enough to anchor a ship. It pinned me from the shoulders down, my head sticking out just past the front edge like a turtle peeking from its shell. I could move my neck. I could wiggle my fingers. Everything else was dead weight.

I shouted. Nothing came out but a wheeze.

The office kept humming. Phones rang. Keyboards clicked. Someone laughed near the water cooler. I tried again, louder this time, and got a cough that tasted like dust and old coffee grounds.

Nobody came.

I lay there for what felt like ten minutes, listening to the normal sounds of a place where nobody knew I was trapped under furniture. The carpet smelled like Febreze and failure. A piece of gum had hardened into the fibers near my left cheek. I stared at it and wondered if this was how I died. Pinned under a desk. Face to face with someone else's discarded spearmint.

Then I heard heels.

They came from the direction of the executive offices. Sharp. Precise. The kind of heels that meant business, literally. I knew that sound. Everyone knew that sound. It was the sound of Eleanor Vance walking down the hallway, and when Eleanor Vance walked down the hallway, you got out of her way.

The heels stopped.

I looked up from my prison and saw the most expensive shoes I had ever been this close to. Black leather. Sleek. They belonged to legs that went up forever, disappearing into a navy pencil skirt that probably cost more than my rent.

Eleanor Vance looked down at me.

She was tall. Blonde. Her face was the kind of beautiful that made you nervous, sharp cheekbones and a mouth that never quite smiled. She ran the entire marketing department with an iron grip and a complete lack of patience for anyone who couldn't keep up. I had been working here for eight months. She had spoken to me exactly three times. Once to tell me my tie was crooked. Once to tell me my report was late. Once to tell me my coffee order was wrong.

I had never seen her look confused before. She looked confused now.

"What are you doing down there?" she said.

"I'm trapped."

"Under a desk."

"Yes."

"On purpose?"

"No. Not on purpose."

She considered this. Her eyes moved from my face to the desk to the filing cabinet to Mark's empty cubicle. Mark had left. Of course Mark had left. Mark was probably already on the train, heading home to his wife and his dinner and his complete ignorance of the fact that he had ruined my life.

"I see," Eleanor said.

She didn't offer to help.

She didn't call for anyone.

She just stood there, looking at me like I was a piece of office furniture that had been left in the wrong place. Which, technically, I was.

"I can't move," I said.

"I can see that."

"Could you get someone? Maybe maintenance? Or a crowbar?"

"I could."

She didn't move.

I waited. She waited. The clock on the wall ticked. 4:49 PM. Two minutes had passed. It felt like hours.

"I have a meeting at five," she said finally. "I need to review my notes."

"Great. You can do that while you wait for help to arrive."

"I don't want to stand."

I blinked. "What?"

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The heels clicked against the floor. She looked down at me with those cold blue eyes, and I saw something flicker in them. Something I didn't recognize at first. It took me a second.

It was amusement.

"I've been on my feet all day," she said. "My arches are killing me. I have to stand through a two-hour meeting with regional directors who can't read a spreadsheet. And here you are. Right at my feet."

I didn't like where this was going.

"Eleanor. I'm trapped."

"I know."

"Under a desk."

"I know."

"You can't be serious."

She smiled. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile, and it was terrifying. It didn't reach her eyes. It was the smile of someone who had just discovered a loophole and intended to exploit it fully.

"You're comfortable down there, right?" she said.

"No. I'm not comfortable. I'm pinned under several hundred pounds of oak and I can taste blood and old gum."

"But your head is free."

I didn't answer.

She stepped closer. Her shoes stopped inches from my face. I could see the leather grain. Smell the polish. She wore stockings that shimmered under the fluorescent lights.

"I just need to rest my feet for a moment," she said. "You understand. You're a man who understands pressure. I can tell."

"I don't think this is appropriate."

"You don't think. That's your problem. You report to me. You follow my instructions. And right now, my instructions are that you're going to be my footrest until my meeting starts."

She said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. Like she was asking me to file paperwork or fetch coffee. Her voice was calm. Steady. Completely in control.

I should have said no.

I should have screamed for help. I should have kicked my legs, struggled, done something other than lie there like a beached whale waiting for the tide to come in.

But I didn't.

Because she was my boss. Because she could fire me. Because my rent was due in a week and I had three hundred dollars in my checking account and my mother needed money for her medication and I was tired. So tired. Tired of being the guy who got overlooked, the guy who got pushed around, the guy who ended up under a desk while everyone else walked by.

Maybe that's why I didn't fight.

Maybe that's why I just lay there and watched as she lifted her right foot and placed it gently on my cheek.

Her shoe was warm. The leather was soft. She pressed down, just slightly, and I felt her weight settle against my face. It wasn't painful. It was humiliating. It was the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to me, and I felt my face go red, felt the heat spread from my neck to my ears to the spot where her sole pressed against my skin.

"There," she said. "That's better."

She shifted her weight. Her left foot joined the right, one on each side of my face, her heels digging into the carpet. She stood there, on either side of my head, like I was a rug she was testing for comfort.

"Don't move," she said.

I didn't move.

She pulled out her phone. I heard her typing. A message. An email. She was checking her calendar while standing on my face, and I could do nothing about it.

"Your breathing is uneven," she said without looking down. "Stop that."

I tried to breathe evenly. It was hard. Hard to breathe at all with her standing over me, her skirt brushing the top of my head, her scent filling my nose. Something floral. Expensive. She smelled like a garden that cost more than my car.

"Better," she said.

I hated her.

I hated her so much in that moment that I could feel it in my teeth. But I didn't move. I didn't say a word. I just lay there, her feet on my face, and waited for it to be over.

The clock ticked.

4:52.

Eight more minutes until her meeting.

Eight more minutes of this.

She shifted again, and her heel pressed into my ear. I winced. She didn't notice. She was too busy typing, too busy being Eleanor Vance, too busy running her world while I lay beneath it.

I closed my eyes.

And I waited.