Despite how tall she is Melanie seems to always wear three inch heels to the office, making her only an inch shorter than my six foot three inch height.
I had a first real interaction with Melanie when I had been at Winsome about six months when we had a holiday party for all employees on the sixth floor at a local country club, spouses and significant others invited. At the time I was dating Amy, a good-looking woman my age but who I later dumped because she basically had a nasty personality and because of her good looks thought that her shit didn’t stink.
At the party Melanie seemed to seek me out to engage in conversation. It turns out that she was in a fencing club as a teenager and actually fenced for one year in college and had lots to talk to me about regarding fencing competition in college. I was a little surprised that she even knew that I was a fencer. We must have talked one-on-one for thirty minutes, not just about fencing but other things like art and movies, before she had to make some announcements and hand out holiday presents and bonuses to the sales staff.
After the announcements and gift giving for both Melanie’s department and mine Melanie introduced me to her husband Jack, who it was clear she was deeply in love with. I immediately recognized him from the large photo of him and their two young daughters that hung on the back wall of Melanie’s office and which I was told was updated every New Year.
It turned out that the holiday party was my last date with Amy. Afterwards she complained bitterly that I spent too much time talking to “that old slut” (no hetero male would ever call Melanie “old”) and otherwise exposed her nasty personality; so I dumped her. I was glad that I found out about her true colors then before investing any more time or energy in the relationship.
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My next interaction with Melanie came only a few weeks after the holiday party. I had just had a phone conversation with one of the salesmen with him on speaker, and apparently he hadn’t properly disconnected the call. Before I hung up I heard his door open and other voices so I stayed on the line. I then overheard three male employees of the sales department talking about doing some shady things with their sales reports, and possibly finding out a way to manipulate the sales department computer system to introduce false information that would make them look good. I understood the computer stuff — it wouldn’t work the way they were going to try their scheme unless they got a black hat hacker involved — although I didn’t understand the sales talk. I quietly hung up the phone after I had heard enough.
I only thought about it overnight before I knew what I had to do. I was waiting at Melanie’s office when she got in (she was always early) the next morning. She had asked at the party for me to call her “Melanie” instead of “Mrs. Brooks” so I inquired “Melanie, could I talk to you about something business related?”
“Sure Jubal,” she replied, somewhat surprised because we didn’t really have any business interactions.