Ashley grimaced. Cold wind bit her face. She felt humiliated.

            She had been told that the JJC Investments needed her – their top accountant – to sell a big investor on their reliability. But Ashley hadn’t been able to get a solid ten words in without Steve or Jared interrupting her to compliment her work, praise all she had done for the JJC, or talk about her excellent credentials. It would’ve been a welcome change of pace except they wouldn’t let Ashley do her damn job. Not that the vaunted Dr. de Monde even noticed. The old leech stared at Ashley’s tits the whole time. When Ashley had made deliberate eye contact with de Monde, he had had the nerve to lick his lips. Even now, Ashley felt Dr. de Monde’s creepy eyes bore into the back of her head.

            Did it count as sexual harassment when a perspective investor did it? Ashley tried to think back. JJC made a point of everyone taking a sexual harassment workshop when they on-boarded. Ashley tried to remember what the policy was. She remembered that she had given a handjob to that cute mail room clerk during the Christmas party. Wait, that had nothing to do with a HR workshop. But it was certainly Ashley’s most vivid memory from the last few years. Certainly more vivid than anything else she had done for… job… at… company?

            Ashley paused. She tried to remember what she did for a living. All that came to mind was that handjob, free of context. Before that handjob, there was that tinder date that turned into a one-night stand. But wait, those were a year and a half apart. Surely Ashley had actually done something to pay her rent in the intervening time. It wasn’t cheap living in this city whose name Ashley couldn’t recall but she had had a handful of sexual encounters in.

            Something was wrong. Ashley had been so proud to get a job that used her masters in accounting. She had gotten her masters, right? Ashley certainly went to grad school for a reason. But she couldn’t remember finishing. She did remember having a lot of steamy sex with a boyfriend, climaxing in a tear-stained break-up fuck that smash cut to letting a drunk Tinder date finger her in a car. Her hair had grown a lot between the two incidents. Hadn’t she been worried about not finishing something? What hadn’t she finished? She certainly finished her (ex)boyfriend plenty of times.

            Ashley stumbled out of the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk and leaned against a building. It was getting hard to think about anything besides sex. It was, apparently, the only thing she had done for years on end – a string of disjointed encounters circling into Dr. de Monde’s eyes, his tongue sliding along his lips.

            She felt like fucking. It was, apparently, all she knew how to do. What a waste of college tuition. Ashley remembered nothing from undergrad but a string of experiments in the attic room of a sorority house, precluded by discretely touching herself to the sound of loud dormmates. Ashley barely understood she went to college because of the dorm ceiling she had seen on her back. She must have gone to high school, too. She reasoned you don’t get fucked in college unless you graduated from high school. Even if those years where just a blur of long nights where Ashley unsuccessfully masturbated to TV shows and gave a humiliating handjob to a teenaged boy who couldn’t stay hard.

            Was elementary school even anything? Ashley could only remember flashes of funny feelings in gym classes. It seemed so inconsequential. She had done nothing with her life except get off. Ashley maybe should’ve felt bad about that, except she couldn’t remember any vague ambition beyond it. Had she even wanted anything out of life? Had she even tried to do anything else? Ashley certainly couldn’t recall.

            It was impossible to think about anything except sex. Ashley moaned. People passing by on the street looked at her. Their gaze rolled off of her like water off a duck. One only pair of eyes mattered: the piercing gold irises of Dr. de Monde. Ashley lost herself in the swirling confusion of a horny half-life as the chill blew on her beading sweat and her vision went white.

            Ashley came to in a sunlit penthouse. She felt like a warm, gooey brownie. She rubbed her legs into the couch cushions. Everything tingled.

            “They weren’t lying about you. An excellent specimen. Good to the last drop.”

            Dr. de Monde crossed the open room. Still dressed in his vest and slacks, he had casually rolled up his shirt sleeves. He carried two glasses of wine.

            Ashley giggled. “Uh. Hey. I know you. You liiiike me.”

            “Indeed, I do,” Dr. de Monde smiled in a paternalistic way. “I think I can put such a brilliant career to good use. Not to mention, my dear, the fun side of life.”

            He held out one wine glass for Ashley, tipping it forward so she could drink. She sat up and eagerly slurped from its rim. Drops of vintage red spilled down Ashley’s chin, neck, and cleavage. Dr. de Monde set the wine down and went to work licking Ashley clean. As Ashley leaned back to let him work, de Monde’s hands eased their way into Ashley’s bra and began to tease her nipples. Ashley broke into a fresh bout of giggles.

            Ashley appreciated a life well-lived.