Electrifying

Four female friends who used to work together were enjoying their monthly chat over coffee and pastries. In the past they'd worked for a company called Weston, whose attitude towards women was appalling. Criticism of their work and overt sexism was rife. One particular director was known for lunging at a woman if he caught her off guard in the canteen. 

"Give us a kiss darling," he'd say with a strong whiff of halitosis, or "Nice puppies. Do they want to come out to play," whilst staring down her cleavage. Women were classed as lackeys and expected to do the mens' work as well as their own, for no credit. The male staff were so puerile they could be entertained for hours by whoopee cushions or throwing paper planes around the office. However despite their constant denigration of the female staff they expected the work they handed in to be perfect.

At some point during the relaxing afternoon between Nicole and her friends the conversation turned to Weston. They found themselves talking about the company and its seriously flawed  attitude towards women. There was one prat who was the ringleader, who was the most sexist of them all. Singlehandedly he had ultimately led to them leaving one by one. On the bright side they'd done so much better in their careers since.

They didn't let this put a downer on things and soon talk led to other things, happier times. How if they'd not worked at Weston they'd never have met so there was a positive side. All in all it had been a lovely afternoon as always. After much hugging and planning their next "date", they parted company. 

The other three headed for the rooftop carpark but Nicole didn't like to drive in London so she always came by taxi but she also had a deep fear of lifts, which she shared with no-one.

She immediately broke into a sweat as they left knowing that the lift beckoned. So much so that she had to remove her jacket. It was just arriving and all three people got out. Nicole sighed and tried not to panic. If only one day she could come clean to her friends about her fear she was sure one of them would ride down with her, but she felt so silly. They'd all been zip lining together last summer so Nicole knew that her fear wasn't of heights. It was claustrophobia.

She'd already got in and pressed the ground floor button when she saw a man in the corridor wearing what was obviously a designer suit and carrying a very expensive looking briefcase. It was a mixed usage building, with companies of all sizes on the upper floors, but the bottom fifteen floors, including the ground floor restaurant and a bar, exclusively belonged to a swanky hotel chain. As soon as the man saw the lift doors closing he started running towards her.

"Hey, would you hold the lift please!" 

Nicole did as she was asked and the man got in. The lift passed the first four floors without stopping. Good. The quicker the better. It felt hotter in the lift or was that just the fear?

Her usual strategy was to stare straight ahead at the doors trying to stay calm, whilst blocking out any other people that might get in as they made the space smaller. Strangers usually kept quiet. It was rare for anyone to start up a conversation so she jumped when the man spoke to her.

"Hey Nic, I've just realised it's you. How're you doing?"

For the first time she looked at him properly. It was Christian Wells, the very prat she'd just been discussing with her friends. It had been such a relief to get away from him five years ago. To be standing terrified in a lift, of all places, with a man Nicole still despised was her worst nightmare but at least she could feel her fear being displaced by anger.

"Don't call me Nic. It's Nicole." 

"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

"That's rich when all you did when we worked together was offend me, and every other woman in the office. You still make my flesh crawl. I can't wait to get out of this lift and put plenty of space between us. Say about forty miles?" 

"You really hate me that much?" 

"Yes I do," Nicole said, through clenched teeth. "Even after all these years. Your behaviour at Weston was despicable." 

"It was the company way," he said, looking at the floor.  

"You have the cheek to blame it on anyone or anything else but yourself? You were a bloody lazy, sexist bastard and I can't believe that you've changed a bit. Getting me to do all your work as well as mine then taking the credit for it, the way you spent every working day making remarks about my cleavage and the length of my skirt, which was what you did to all the women. You even pinched Chloe’s bottom. Then after all that when you were offered the promotion to Account Manager over me you didn't come clean and say that I deserved it more. Are you surprised that I left?"

No need to tell him she was now Head of Department at Kaisen, a decent, sexism free company.

Out of the corner of her eye she was surprised to see him squirming at her words. He loosened his tie and looked genuinely uncomfortable. He was sweating now but then he would have been in that suit. That was another thing she remembered about him. He always wore suits whilst the other men in the office just wore shirts and ties. It was as if he was using his clothes to say he was the alpha male, even before he got the promotion.

Nicole decided she would get out at the next floor and wait for the lift to come back up again. There was no way she could bear to spend another twelve floors in Christian's company.

No sooner had the thought popped into her head than the lift stopped suddenly. It was a jarring movement that Nicole could feel through her entire body, not the sort of smooth stop that happened when a lift was being called for someone to get in or out. The lights flickered and went out before coming back on again, only dimmer. With a deep, sinking feeling in her stomach and her heart pounding she knew the lift had broken down and now she really was stuck in an enclosed space with Christian.

"What the fuck?" he said.

"Let me think…..," said Nicole, dripping sarcasm. "Maybe the men who pedal all day to make the lift work have gone on a tea break. It's broken down, you dummy!" She wasn't normally like this. It was him. He got under her skin.

Nicole quickly pressed the emergency call button. She wanted to get this lift moving again as soon as possible.

"Is anyone there?" she said. All that came back was static and she could feel panic rising and her palms becoming sweaty. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly then tried again. Relief flooded through her when there was a response.

"Yes. You're speaking to Mark on reception. Many apologies for the delay. I was having a conversation with maintenance as I'm aware the lift has broken down. They say it will be at least fifteen minutes before they can get it moving again. I'm terribly sorry but the air conditioning has stopped working too so they think the whole thing might be an electrical fault."

Nicole told him about the lights.

"Yes, they've gone onto one of our emergency generators. That's why they're not as bright. Unfortunately the air conditioning and the lift are connected to a different generator. I wish I could tell you more but I'm not an expert." 

"It's not your fault," said Nicole. "At least it's comforting to know something is being done about it."

"Even so I can't apologise enough," said Mark. "There'll be complimentary drinks in the bar when you're back on the ground floor. Of course if it's going to be longer than fifteen minutes, I'll let you know." 

Longer than fifteen minutes with Christian. What on earth had she done to deserve this? However, on the bright side, it was the perfect opportunity to tell him exactly what she thought of him. She would never have stood up to him at Weston but her career since had given her far more confidence. Was fifteen minutes long enough?

"Well. Now that we've got some unexpected quality time together you can answer my questions and don't even think about spinning me a line like you used to. I'm no longer that mousey woman you used to know as I think you've noticed already judging by how pale you've become." 

Unleashing all the bile that had built up in her during their working life together was the perfect distraction from the claustrophobia. 

"Did you have any idea how your behaviour was affecting all the women in the office? The ones who left went because of you, including me. Does it feel good knowing that?" 

There was a long period of silence when she wanted to shake him. If he wasn't going to respond, where would be the fun in that? She had to keep this up to take her mind off the fact that she was scared and she was damned if he was going to see her fear.

Then Christian removed his jacket and tie and his persona seemed to change before her eyes. The brashness was gone, along with the aura that always seemed to surround him. The one the other women at Weston had said meant, "I'm drop dead gorgeous and I know it". They hadn't just talked about his sexist behaviour. They'd all said how fanciable he would have been if he wasn't such a git. Nicole had kept out of those conversations. She looked at him as little as possible so it wouldn't encourage more remarks about her appearance, therefore any physical attractions he may or may not have had passed her by.

"I'm sorry. I know I upset every woman in the office," he said, sounding almost humble. 

Nicole herself might yet use all kinds of adjectives in the next fifteen minutes but humble was not one that she had ever associated with Christian before.

"No shit Sherlock," 

"Look, if we're going to be stuck here for a while, why don't we sit on the floor? It might be cooler down there and you can sit on my jacket if you like," said Christian.

Nicole thought this tone sounded almost conciliatory. Weird. It was almost like he'd been a big pompous balloon but all the air had been let out of him.

She took him up on his offer. How could she refuse the chance to sit on his designer jacket? She slipped her shoes off too. He was right. It was cooler on the floor.

"Okay," he said. "I promise you that this is the truth. I'd been at Weston since 2012. I really needed the job and I was under qualified so I was grateful to get it. I know you won't believe this part but I really knuckled down to get to the point where my abilities matched my job title, our job title. It quickly became obvious to me that there was an awful laddish atmosphere. Men ruled and women were very much the underdogs who did most of the work. Otherwise they were thought of as being purely for our entertainment. A sexist attitude was encouraged by  management. Remember there were no female Directors?"

"So are you saying that the behaviour you were already displaying when I came on the scene was not natural to you? Because if it wasn't you were a bloody good actor."

"That's exactly what I'm saying and I did promise to tell the truth. I hated it. I hated the way women were treated but I knew that if I didn't participate there was a good chance the company would find a way to sack me. It was part of the male ethos, almost written into our contracts. It was so well understood by every man on the payroll. I knew if I wasn't seen to be sexist then I'd be out. By then you were doing most of the work so I didn't have the confidence to look for another job only to find that I no longer knew how to do it." 

"I find this all very hard to swallow. You were by far the worst offender. I can't remember any of the other men pinching someone's bottom. You really took it to the nth degree."

"You're right I did. I wanted so much to fit I took it all too far and once I'd started I couldn't suddenly do an about face." 

Though she would never have admitted it to Christian, he did sound like he was telling the truth, but Nicole hadn't finished with him yet.

"So that's one thing then, you want me to believe that you're not really a sexist pig. What about when the promotion came up? If you were as decent as you've claimed to be, why didn't you admit that I was the better person for the job?"

"Think about it. They would never have promoted a woman over a man, plus it was a big jump up in salary. I was in the middle of a divorce that would ultimately leave me with just my clothes. Tara earned far more than me and she owned the house outright, mortgage free when I met her. She had been left it in her dad's will including all the furniture. Great big ugly thing it was I thought, but it was worth a bomb so she'd insisted I signed a pre-nup. All I wanted was for the whole damn mess to be over so I needed the extra money the promotion brought to make sure that I could afford somewhere to live and pay bills. I even had to sell my car which she was kind enough to let me keep." Now his tone reeked of sarcasm.

"Someone married you?" Nicole was gobsmacked. "I'd never have guessed that in a million years. Was she demented?" 

"You still don't believe me do you? The me you knew at Weston in the office wasn't and isn't me. I didn't stay there long after you'd gone because even with the promotion I couldn't make ends meet so I came here to Kingscourt where the pay is better and men respect women. Sexism is not tolerated nor has it ever occurred in the four and a half years I've worked here. When this lift is finally fixed feel free to come with me back upstairs to my office and see for yourself. I'm having a half day off today as I worked last Saturday morning. Does that sound like something the old me would have done?"

Nicole said nothing. Maybe it was the heat or the shock of the new, nicer, more normal Christian who seemed to have emerged from a very old chrysalis, but she was feeling lightheaded. By now the fifteen minutes were almost up and they'd been sitting side by side on the floor not looking at each other.

"What do I have to do to convince you?" he said, reaching out and putting his hand on top of her hand. Sparks flew. It was like there was enough electricity in that small space to power a dozen lifts, just from him touching her hand. He clearly felt it too as he turned towards her, put his hand seductively underneath her chin and moved towards her for a long, lingering, delicious kiss. The smell of Christian's aftershave was driving her wild. 

"I always fancied you Nicole. That made the laddish behaviour even harder because I knew that it made you hate me." 

"Oh shut up Christian and kiss me again!" He needed no further prompting. Whilst still in full smooch mode they were undoing each other's buttons and were so engrossed that neither of them noticed the lift was moving, even when they lay down fully on the floor. His belt was off, her bra was undone and Christian rolled her onto her side to get at the zip on her skirt. 

It was only then, when Nicole was on her side, that she realised the lift floor numbers were changing. Going down! Four floors to go. They quickly tried to refasten their clothing but they were all fingers and thumbs. Christian didn't have time to put his belt or his tie back on, Nicole was wearing only one shoe and both sets of their buttons were done up in the wrong order like a three year old had done them. They managed to stand up just as the doors opened, to an audience of people who had all been loitering in the lobby waiting for the lift to work again. Red faced they collected their things and Christian headed for the reception desk with Nicole limping along behind him, one shoe still in her hand.

He said, "Are you Mark? Forget the free cocktails. Can we have a double room please?"

"Certainly. In the name of Mr and Mrs……..

Without any hesitation they said in unison…."Weston!"