This will prove difficult, but we nevertheless ask that you now click on the link and turn to “Boner’s Sex Harassment #5” to read what appears to be the tragic ending to a story for which we have all had such opposite expectations
Through the high window, evening has changed into night, and Boner turns on his green banker’s desk lamp. The moon befriends him with a light frosty glance and he smiles up at it ironically before getting back to the task of signing off on the final proofs of the latest Kyiv Poster issue he is putting to bed before telling his office manager to go ahead and send it off to the printer.
His retro antique desk is large, the color of its imitation wood a deep, rich mahogany, the feeling of sitting there is warm, gratifying, and reassuringly comfortable. He signs the back of a page after giving its contents a cursory once-over and lays down his fountain pen to watch a few more of his female journalists file out of the office after they’ve done their last bit of personal business or recreation using the company’s equipment – a small indulgence Boner has allowed them after they’ve put in the hardest work of their lives into the week’s big paper production day. They are quiet, dutiful, respectful, and sexually hot. Each gives Boner a slight nod before they walk out the door, high heels clicking against the floorboards, their Kyiv Poster dress suit jackets still in order and buttoned tight – thereby cinching their waists and showing the swells of their breasts to fullest advantage.
With Boner’s last requisition to the publisher several months ago to refurbish the office, following a number of consecutive record profit-making quarters for the paper, the newsroom is now done in a rich, aristocratic style that recalls the turn of the 20th century – not the last turn, but the one 100 years before that; an environment in which H.G. Wells or Arthur Conan Doyle would feel quite comfortable, much like Boner himself.
As he again picks up his fountain pen, Boner catches the gleam of green-shaded lamplight off his left golden cufflink – the one with B.B. inscribed in it, being his initials. The right cufflink has the initials KP in it, standing, of course, for the Kyiv Poster. They were a gift to Boner from the publisher, Moe Zaire, “in appreciation for your years of meritorious service to the Kyiv Poster, your unending battle for freedom of speech and democratic values in Ukraine, and your journalistic bravery in the line of fire and under the most dangerous of conditions, With my greatest respect and admiration…” – words specially embossed in gold lettering on a specially printed thank-you card from Zaire.
Boner laughs a little at the asymmetry of the cufflinks’ different letters and shakes his head as he completes with a flourish his signature on the back of yet another Kyiv Poster proof sheet. After all, Zaire could have simply inscribed both cufflinks with the letters KP. Boner forgivingly attributes the results to Zaire’s enthusiastic overdoing it and eagerness to please.
Boner again looks up from what he’s doing and the last journalist is on her way out. Before she exits, she turns to Boner and in the newsroom’s late-night dimness shyly approaches his desk. Smiling, she extends an arm to give him a folded note. Nervously smoothing a loosened strand of long hair back into a high and tight librarian bun – a style they all maintain – she then leaves, though not without a final glance back at Boner.
This is the same girl who, some time ago, had stepped forward before the entire newsroom to denounce Boner for his alleged sex harassment. He opens the handwritten note and in it the girl addresses precisely this incident; she’s apologizing for it, apologizing sincerely and with a heartfelt remorse, which is clear. She admits she was wrong, and adds that everyone else also deeply regrets ever having accused him of anything so heinous and vile. Simply, no one has gotten up the courage yet to apologize to him for it.
She says it is her privilege to be the first, and for this, she is very, very glad. What a relief, she says, to be able to finally get the weight of this guilt off her breasts. She has crossed out the word ‘breasts’ and written in ‘chest’, but it is clear she did it on purpose.
And it is clear she wants Boner to know she has done it on purpose.
It is all very, very clear. He can edit her mistakes, if he wants, she is saying…
She says if he would like to meet her for drinks after he leaves the office for the night, she would be very happy for the chance and will be awaiting his call.
For it was after Boner began writing his personal two-page-long public confessions of his supposed office sex predation and abuse problems in the Kyiv Poster each week that sales of ad space in the paper suddenly took off. Now, the paper was bigger than it ever was, even in the gloried days of yore, whose legendary stories of moneymaking Boner has put to shame.
Before long, the paper was rolling in money. The paper had never seen so much money before. And money was everything. And money made all the difference.
Money, money, money…
“Yeah, that’s right,” grunts Boner.
Whatever thought Boner is now having, it is best if he simply keeps it to himself, without opening his mouth and blurting it out. He should just have his thought and let it pass.
But no – he is, at the end of the day, too vain, and too arrogant, and too full of himself and too pissed at everything that’d happened, and he simply can’t help himself.
There’s no stopping him now.
He slams down the fountain pen, looks up, and growls:
“Where are you now, huh, you fucking Face? You were going to fuck me up, fuck me up bad, were you?! But it all backfired on you, DIDN’T IT, FACE?!? It’s no wonder you’ve disappeared…”
Immediately, The Face appears. It is much, much larger than usual and truly terrifying.
“Do you really think this is YOU, Boner? Do you really think this is REAL? Now you will see yourself AS YOU TRULY ARE!!! So long… SUCKER!!! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA…!!!”
Filed by Mr. Joe “Bone Crusher” Carmichael, December 28, 2015