Read Inappropriate Behavior: Stories for Free Online

every time I left my desk: at the coffee machine, in the restroom, at the copier. There was one man in particular—call him Smith—who kept asking me, each time we met, how I was doing, as if I had somehow changed in the thirty minutes since I’d run into him last. Smith was an unsightly fellow, short and squat, a heavy sweater with a thinning blond comb-over, tiny black eyes that made him look sort of prurient behind his thick, black-plastic-framed glasses, a puffy dewlap above his collar. Fine, Smith, and you? I’d reply, and each time he answered the same.
    And it wasn’t just Smith. The manager—a gray-haired, slump-shouldered man of sixty or so—seemed to be lurking around quite a bit that day. Remember, now, I’d never met this man, didn’t even know his name. I’d watch him walk to his car in the afternoons—I always tried to stay huddled in my cubicle until I was sure he’d left for the day. He parked in the first row, drove the more prestigious company car, the blue Lincoln, and his hunch-rolled stroll to his automobile was usually all I saw ofhim. Today he was wandering around seven like some kind of golem, never stopping to speak or even so much as look at anyone, his face an attitude of profound confusion. I tried to avoid his gaze, stayed crouched over the papers on my desk in what I hoped passed for intense concentration, and when he started to get too close, I’d skulk away to the bathroom, walking a little bent-kneed to stay below cubicle level. My evasive maneuvers were effective if belittling, and I made it through the end of the day, still employed, but no closer to finding that overlooked chalk mark.
    Just as I was about to leave my desk—while watching the manager slumping along to his car, head down, feet like clay—I heard a sound from outside my cubicle. It was Smith, and he was, for some reason, saying, “Psst,” and peeking over the top of the partition.
    â€œHow’re you doing, Smith?”
    â€œFine, and you?”
    â€œAnother day.”
    â€œNot quite yet,” Smith said.
    â€œSmith,” I said, suddenly aware that he had to be standing on his tiptoes, “would you like to come into my cubicle?”
    â€œThanks,” he said, his head and neck—which were one piece—then the rest of him appearing from behind the partition. “Are you ready?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “All done. So . . . I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    â€œNo, no, no,” Smith said, then peered furtively back behind the partition. He turned back toward me, leaned in close, and, barely whispering, said, “Are you ready for Schmelling?”
    The only thing I could think to say was, I don’t know, at which point Smith put his hands on my shoulders and whisked me from my chair. We moved together like dance partners toward the window, where we stopped and, lacking much space in the cubicle, stood very close. I could smell Smith next to me; just above his sweat were the odors of cigarette smoke and Brut aftershave. Up close, I could see that he had had a terrible acneproblem, and had some sort of wen on his nose as well, up near the inner canthus of his left eye, causing his black frames to rest slightly crooked on what passed for the bridge of his pug nose. He was a thoroughly unattractive man, but I soon saw that something amazing was happening to his face. He was glowing, turning a healthy, sanguine scarlet, his eyes gleaming like tiny black pearls behind his glasses, his lips trembling in what can only be described—or at least I saw it this way, and still believe it true—as the paroxysms of rapture. I wanted to see what was exciting him so, but I was so transfixed by the bliss on his face I was unable to turn my attention. His breathing was coming a little heavier now, starting to fog the window in front of him. He made a quick, jerking motion with his right arm, grabbed his graying shirt