Excerpt: The Out of Office Assistants

Wow. I just witnessed the weirdest namegiving ceremony in my entire Out Of Office Assistant’s life. Ginger Ventura walked in, wearing a red latex blouse (blouse ? it can’t be a blouse. The word blouse infers that the thing has some billowing power, some room for nipples to brush fabric ; this – this is like her sartorial assistant or someone because there is no way she could have dressed herself - saran-wrapped her naked torso and sprayed it with shiny red paint), anyway, wearing that latex thing tucked into her perennial black pencil skirt and tottering on her insanely high heels, she commandeered Quinton Spivey to plonk the name generator on the trestle table she and I had cleared for that purpose that morning.
You remember the machine we used to have, well this thing looked like a medieval Bang&Olufsen machine, complete with tapes the size of knäckebröd wheels like they sell at Cedergren’s.
A smell of moldy cellar clung to the machine, but Spivey plugged it in and a red little light came up. Ready for naming newbie !
The new guy was medium height, Italian looking, with dark shiny curls and slightly tinted skin, a friendly enough face but somehow wicked, I don’t know how to describe him I am still baffled by his looks and everything they imply and right, so there was the machine that Chip claims someone fed the entire Swedish porn industry’s English subtitles to and we were ready.
And so Ginger proceeded to explain the « crustimony proceedcake » (I swear if I hear her use that line one more time without saying who she stole it from, I am going to send the A.A.Milne estate a mail – but I won’t because interfering with realit-o-life is not allowed. But I digress) and the guy stood there, smiling, as La Ventura explained the customary procedure in great detail and entered his data into the machine.

After some evil gargling sounds and the two bleeps that announce the successful creation of the name Mr Newbie would henceforth be known under, a little slip of paper slid out at the side, like a justification at a parking ticket machine, and Ginger held it up to read it and blushed. The new guy and I both observed her as she did. Her face took on the hue of the red latex suit that squished her (once no doubt respectable) breasts, and suddenly the rouge on her cheeks faded to pale.
« Well ? »
She briefly shook her head, more to herself than to us or me or him, and said « You can change a name if you don’t like it. »
« I haven’t heard it yet. »
« You can change it up to three times. »
« Maybe I’d like to hear it first. »
The blushing intensified. I couldn’t believe it. Ginger Ventura ? Our office diva ? A harsh-mouthed bitch who would wear Prada if she could afford it, who had made it her hobby to make at least one of the interns break down and cry before lunch on Wednesdays and suddenly she’d gone all weak because of some words on a piece of paper ?
« Fellatio Champagne. »
The words bounced across the room, the Italianate sound mixing with the French sparkle to create what I thought was the most a wonderful party-introduction name I had ever heard.
« Fellatio Champagne ? That’s my name ? »
« Yes, ridiculous, why don’t we discard it and generate another one. » Ginger crumpled up the note and raised her finger above the yellow knob to press and generate a new moniker.
My new colleague spoke up.
« No. I like it. I’ll have it, I’ll wear it and… »
« It’s an impossible name ! » Ginger exclaimed. « How can you ever… »
« Live up to it ? » He smiled, a most gorgeous smile that pulled his lips up in a most charming V and showed a row of perfectly straight teeth. « I’ll just have to give it a try. »
Ginger Ventura straightened out the wrinkles from FC’s name sheet, which is the first piece of bureaucratic paper that we all have in our files, and handed me the carbon copy to file away. She drew the corners of her mouth down and gave us both a curt little nod.
« Fine. If you that’s how you like to be known to the world and around this office, who am I to object ? »
And just at that very moment Mahoney walked in. He’s my boss. Charles Mahoney. He was handsome once, perhaps as handsome as Fellatio, in that same handsome actor / womanizer way; but too much booze and board lunches James-Spaderized his once good looks. He did, however, manage to hang on to the suave baritone voice and the gentlemanly maneuvers and he took Ginger’s crumpled piece of paper which she’d handed to him and glanced at it while extending a welcoming hand to his new office member. I didn’t miss the killing look intended for Ginger just as he warmly shook Fellatio’s with a large smile.
« Horatio! Welcome to our office. I trust you will have a wonderful time and I am sure Miss Baird here will show you around, then take you to your new department and office. If you’ll excuse me, I must alas leave you, crazy stuff going on with the Tucker Building, so… » with a brief nod and a « Ladies. Horatio, » Mahoney strode out of the office again.
« Well, that’s that then, » Ginger said as she snapped her latex blouse as though it were a plastic red speedo swim cap. She hoisted her black pencil skirt over it then let it ride on her shapely hips. « I’m sure you shan’t mind me calling you FC. »
« Not at all », Fellatio said, « I am sure your there will be more hypocoristics. »
« Sorry ? »
« Nicknames. Diminutives. »
« Oh, really ? » Ginger pouted her diva pout, then smiled. Something seemed to have brought back her old familiar shape, the fun diva. The one we all liked and missed when it was gone. « I would never be diminutive about a name as wonderfully wicked as yours. And besides, aren’t nicknames a token of affection ? »
Fellatio smiled.
« Thank you, » he said.
« What for ? »
« My name. »
« Enjoy it, » Ginger said, and with a nod of her head to me and a final smile for Fellatio, kittily tottered towards the elevators, no doubt to the inform the New Employees Committee’s staff of their good fortune