Secret Pet

I hold up the bag I brought with jeans and an old t-shirt in it for him to see. He nods then turns to head toward the elevator. I glance back at Eileen, still not sure what to say.

“Have fun!” she jokes.

“It’s not like that,” I lie and then take off after my boss.

****

Turns out I wasn’t lying to Eileen. Nothing sexy has happened yet this morning and, to my great disappointment, it looks like nothing sexy will happen. Today, we are really running cables. And to make matters worse, I am supposed to be dragging the cables through an odd crawl space at the bottom of the walls. The crawlspace is a little tunnel only about two and a half feet square. When I asked Christian why it is here, he told me that it was specifically put in for the computer cables, so that they aren’t all over the floor. When I asked him about just using WIFI, he snorted like I was ridiculous, and waved his hand for me to get on with my job —something I don’t want to do. I don’t really want to crawl through a dark, dusty tunnel. This certainly isn’t what I thought I signed up for.

I grab the end of the cable, giving Christian an annoyed look — luckily, I was able to change this time and am not ruining one of my nice work outfits. His blonde eyebrows rise until they are slightly over his glasses, and his blue eyes widen. His lips are fixed in a straight line. I can’t tell if he cares about my objection to what we are doing or not. We stare at each other for a few seconds until he unfolds one of his hands to gesture at the duct again as if to say: get to it.

“Fine.” I look directly into his face and roll my eyes as exaggeratedly as I can. “I’ll go down into that dirty tunnel and run your stupid cable.”

He grunts a laugh, turning away to push a few things over on his desk and sit on it. “Don’t kid yourself, Ms. Burmmell. That’s what you are here for.” Crossing his legs, he settles in and gives me an arrogant smile. “That is the only reason.”

“Yeah, right,” I snap under my breath.

Bending down, I look into the narrow duct. It’s so small. I will have to hunch my shoulders some, but I can fit inside it. This particular run is only about five feet long. I can see the light coming from the other opening. That makes me feel somewhat better. I sigh, resigning myself to my task, then drop the cable down into the opening first, so I can get on my hands and knees. It slaps against the concrete floor. Making myself as little as possible, I crawl inside.

It’s dark. It’s grimy and dusty — and I hate every moment. The top of the tunnel is hard against my back. The walls push into my shoulders. Tons of dust is getting into my hair. I try to not let it disgust me too much, but all my efforts to stay positive change when I try to crawl forward and something catches my left shoulder.

And like that, I’m stuck. The thing that clamped around my shoulder won’t let me move forward or back. My progress is halted, and I’m not even fully inside the tunnel. Whoever built this thing was either stupid or had a different idea about how to run the cables through it. Maybe a drone or something?

“Fuck!” I pull back and forth, trying to get free of what’s caught me. It doesn’t hurt. It’s not cutting into my skin or anything. It just has my shoulder trapped. “Shit! I’m stuck!” I cuss. I take a few deep breaths trying to calm myself and not panic about how stale and dusty the air is down here. They will get me out of here, I chant in my head over and over.

“What’s going on?”

I drop my head down so I can see between my legs. Christian is kneeling behind me. He puts his cheek to the floor, looking into the little tunnel between my legs. My butt is sticking out of the tunnel right above his head.

“My shoulder is caught. I can’t move,” I tell him, struggling this way and that to try to get my shoulder free. Nothing works. My head is starting to spin. I glare at Christian. He’s looking up at my ass with a slight smile on his face. “Do something!” I snap.

Sitting back, he scratches his chin glancing at the sides of the tunnel. “You say you can’t move at all.”

I blow out my breath. “No! If I could move, then I would move. I’m trapped. I cannot stay in here forever, Christian. Get me out!”