One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

the two cleaners stepped out, having finished their work for the evening.
    ‘Can you keep that open for me, please?’ Kitty called to them, putting her make-up away. She rushed up the steps and went inside the office. It was silent inside, nobody working late apart from Pete, who as usual was bearing the brunt of responsibility. He didn’t have a girlfriend but she could imagine the frustration of sitting at home waiting for him to return at ten at night. She checked herself in the mirror at reception, fluffed her hair, opened another button on her blouse, and then ran through the story in her head, how she was best going to sell it to him.
    She heard furniture moving in Constance’s office and she headed in that direction. She was about to call out when she heard a woman laugh. Then sigh. She looked around, wondering if somebody else was in the office but it was quiet, eerily quiet. Then she got that feeling, that uh-oh feeling, and debated turning back and leaving. But it wasn’t in Kitty’s nature to leave a suspicious situation and so she moved forward, continuing to hear the furniture moving now and then, as if somebody was pushing a chair back and forth. She didn’t bother knocking. She knew instinctively that to do that would be to miss out on what she already knew in her heart. She pushed the door open and was faced with Cheryl, her grey office skirt up around her thighs, which were wrapped around the man pole she was currently gyrating against. Hands were all over her back, moving up and down, to her thighs, to her bottom, squeezing and pinching, looking so unromantic and clumsy that Kitty leaned against the doorframe and ruffled up her nose. They were not the hands of an expert.
    The sloppiness of their kisses was audible, along with an occasional sigh, and when she heard the duty editor’s voice, husky with desire, tell the acting deputy editor what exactly he planned to do with her in a rather vicious tone, she felt it was the right time to clear her throat. Cheryl jumped so far off the table Kitty wondered if it could be considered actual human flight.
    ‘Jesus, Kitty,’ Cheryl said, pulling her skirt down from her waist and pushing it back round her thighs. The buttons on her blouse were open and her fingers trembled as she tried to button them and then deserted the idea and instead pulled them closed and folded her arms. ‘We were just, I was just …’
    ‘About to screw your boss,’ Kitty said. ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry to interrupt you both. It does sound like Pete had proposed a good plan for you both but I popped by, as invited, to share my breakthrough with you. But maybe it’s not the best time for that.’ Her eyes fell on Pete and she suddenly felt emotional. She knew she had very little reason to feel that way but she genuinely felt betrayed. It had been only a few days’ flirtation but it had meant something to her, particularly after the disastrous weekend she’d had with Richie. Her love life was not going well, she was feeling sorry for herself, victimised, when really she should probably blame herself for her own ridiculous choice in men. But she wasn’t going to, not yet. Now she was going for self-pity just because of the way he was looking at her, the soft sorry expression in his eyes. She knew then that she was right to feel betrayed because she could see that
he
felt as though he had betrayed her.
    Pete had barely budged an inch from where he’d been caught. He stood at the desk, his hair a tousled mess, while he looked at Kitty expectantly, uncertain and nervous as to what she’d do next. He at least had the decency to show shame on his face.
    Cheryl sensed something was up too because she glanced from Pete to Kitty in confusion. ‘What’s going on here?’ Her two hands clasped her blouse closed so tightly her knuckles were white.
    ‘Nothing,’ Kitty said, and her voice mistakenly came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat and spoke loudly. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
    And on that note, she left.
    Apart from feeling a little humiliated, deflated and victimised, in a professional sense, Kitty was empowered now because she suddenly felt that it didn’t matter what Pete said about her article, she would write it exactly how she wanted, how she felt Constance intended it to be, and she wouldn’t bend or be changed in any way, despite his temper, authority or threats. It was what she needed for her work. It had lacked confidence and now she felt nothing but. The