Distractions At Work : Nightmare Mode

Okay.... so I'm gonna warn you straight up, this is a long one (that's what she said). It's certainly not a journey for those weak of will or faint of heart. Here's the dealio:


I was definitely planning on regurgitating all my old comics before posting new ones so they would be in a convenient, chronological order. I planned on annotating them a little bit, explaining what inspired each one, and maybe reworking them a bit to better fit their original vision. I still plan on doing all that. However... there’s no way I can refrigerate something this juicy. I have to eat it now.

This post won’t contain any stories about heartbreak or loss like the first one did, please keep in mind that stuff happened a long time ago. I’m not trying to confuse anyone by suddenly jumping to the present day (I try to help by time-stamping the old ones at the top). Like I said, I wanted to do this in order of occurrence. But after stalwartly trying really hard to pack away my interest in the topic of this post, I simply couldn’t do it.  I mean, who doesn’t want to talk about cybersex?

“…what? Cybersex?!”

Yeah. That’s what I said too. Well, at least not out loud. That would've resulted in dangerously catastrophic levels of awkwardness the likes of which man has never seen. I mean... not really, but I still wasn't about to say anything. You’ll understand soon.

So I work at this place, right? At that place I do data entry work. Not the most thrilling stuff in the world, but the job has some nice perks. The work is easy, the pay ain’t bad, I can listen to music and (discreetly) surf the internet all day, plus the work environment is pretty comfortable. Apparently a little too comfortable... But I digress.

So this is the shweet setup I have going on at work:

As you can see, I’m smack-dab in the center of a pair of dudes. They’re pretty cool dudes, too! I’m a new hire at this place and they’re really helpful when I do stuff like use the wrong software for a certain task, mix up my search queries, incorrectly enter some client information, accidentally destroy the entire database. You know, stuff like that…

Anyways, so I’m at work, just doin mah thang:

Now, in the course of a regular work day playing god for the numerical masses, I very commonly utilize both of the computer monitors at my desk to maximize efficiency (and also to look twice as busy when really I'm systematically torturing every piece of data I run across). While looking at the secondary monitor - which I have labeled in the first drawing - my head is turned to the left roughly 45 degrees away from my primary monitor. From there, I have a decent partial view of my co-worker’s primary monitor.

Explanatory Diagram 4-a

There's a reason why I’m spending so much effort describing  the setup of this situation. It's because I want it to be perfectly clear that I wasn’t spying on my co-worker. Trust me, this is one of those things I wish I could unsee. I didn’t want this to happen, it just did.

I realize that kind of sounds like a teenage girl explaining her newfound pregnancy to her boyfriend who will probably soon be her ex-boyfriend, but it's basically like the same situation so whatever.

But back to me going through my normal daily work routine. I'm rubber-necking back and forth between my monitors when something off in my left-side peripheral catches my attention. Without telling them to, my eyes flit over to my co-worker's semi-exposed computer screen. I think very little of this at the time. Sometimes there will be a neat background picture on his desktop or he'll be viewing an interesting Google maps image, whatever. The point is that this glancing reaction happens quite naturally several times per day.

On this occasion he happened to be looking at this beautiful vista with Google maps' streetview function. Nothing out of the ordinary for this job. He also happened to have a chat window up. Once again, no biggie. I mean, everyone in the office chats all mother fucking day. At the moment he happened to be typing something, and the visual movement caused my eyeballs to lazily focus in on that particular section of the screen. I couldn't see the first part of the sentence he was typing, but he ended it with "...and then I trace your lips with my finger."

That's when red flag #1 went up.

I was now much more awake, and much more entertained than I had been a few moments ago. This is the part where I thought, “…What!? Cybersex?!” to myself. Maybe now it's more clear how my verbalization of that phrase would've resulted in a fair degree of awkwardness.

To make things even more interesting, I happened to notice - as a result of my heightened state of awareness - that the chat client he was using was the one used for in-office communications. So he wasn't just e-fucking any old chick, he was virtually banging a co-worker. This was getting better by the moment! In all likelihood, he was "interacting" with someone he physically saw on a semi-regular (I mean... you have to be kind of comfortable with someone to sex them regardless of the mode) basis, probably someone on this floor. Since all the cute girls on the floor are clustered around our section, the culprit was most likely in the immediate vicinity. A smug grin made of pure satisfaction began to spread across my face.

But, it was at about that point when I decided that regardless of how humorous or intriguing it was, this shit was not my business and I should butt the fuck out. So I did. I went back to work, and continued to lord over my numerical domain. But he made it hard, though. Very hard (that may or may not have been what she said). You see… every time he vigorously rattled off a string of keystrokes in a way-faster-than-normal succession,  it became more and more difficult to not focus on the palpably growing aura of sexual energy that exuded from the co-worker to my immediate (like 3 fucking feet, dude) left.

I valiantly tried to ignore him; I really, truly did. I cranked up the volume of my music, refrained from turning my head to the left any more than I absolutely needed to, and genuinely tried to blank my mind of any and all thoughts. But just like that guy at the end of Ghostbusters who attempted a similar feat, I didn’t last very long. (That is, again, what she said)

With every passing second I lost psychological ground to the pervasive knowledge that this guy - who was arm’s length away - was intimately describing his sickest fantasies to another fellow co-worker. I'm not one for gossip or "dirt", but at that moment I simply could not wipe the shit-eating grin off my face. I felt like this was the juiciest shit ever, and I was the only one who knew. I had the power , and it felt good. 

I needed more...

Eventually, I gave into temptation and risked another glance over. "One quick peek won't hurt..." I thought, like a crackhead cooing to themselves before shooting up again for the 10th time that day. I shot a glance across the desk, pretending to look at my own monitor. The first line I see is cut in half - much like the first one I saw - but I can still clearly view the end of it, a response from whoever he was talking to:

"...and rub your huge biceps." 

My condescendingly arrogant grin grew to titanic proportions, crossing my entire face from ear-to-ear. I felt like I had this man by the balls, and he didn't even fucking know it. But in the midst of my self-proclaimed victory, things went wrong. Perhaps I had been too hasty in my reconnaissance, let my guard slip and alert him to my presence, maybe he's a Jedi. I don't know. But he chose, at that exact moment, to slowly turn his head and look back at me with the corner of his eye.

Shit! I scramble to appear as if I'd just been looking at my own monitor the whole time. A moment of intense apprehension rolls by; I know he's looking at me. However, he lingers only briefly before turning back to finish his filthy conquest. I'm still recovering from that close call when when my brain registered something. I had seen him turn like that before, with the same exact facial expression. It took me a minute to realize why that was significant, and that's when everything came together in one epiphanic instant like I was Sherlock mother fucking Holmes.

This sort of thing had been going on for weeks...

Flooded with a sudden jolt of enlightenment, the images blew into my mind riding hurricane-force winds, one after the other. All those times I had been absentmindedly staring off into the distance in his general direction and he would turn with that weird look. This was why! 

The scope of the situation now fully realized - the gravity of it all weighing down - hit me like a ton of bricks. I instantly launched a massive and thorough investigation to find the woman he'd been in touch with (lol pun) for so long. I needed closure or this would eat away at me, I needed answers... 

The hunt was on.

All real work ceased as I converged all of my energy into discovering the identity of his partner. I spent a solid 20 minutes exhausting various avenues of attack: scouring the company website bios for possible matches, attempting to observe nearby coworkers to see if their keyboard clatter corresponded to his, trying to remember if I'd seen him flirting with any girl in particular, etc. Alas, facebook stalking skills do not translate into real world stalking skills, and my efforts yielded no results.

With the thrill of the chase dying and my interest waning, I resigned myself to return to actual work instead of searching for my coworker's internet mistress. It wasn't long after that when my co-worker rose from his chair (presumably after cumming coming to a conclusion with his engagement), feigned a yawn and a stretch, and audibly called it a day. Feeling obligated by the rules of social society, I said my farewells for the day and bid him a safe journey home. After gathering his belongings, he headed towards the front of the office. 

After getting a few steps away from his desk, he paused and looked back at me. The uneasy smile that had adorned his face only a few seconds ago had vanished, replaced wholesale by the exact same expression he'd had earlier. Our eyes met for the tiniest of moments, and one truth was plain to see...

He knew that I knew.

Work is going to be a lot more interesting from now on...



UPDATE:  We both ended up pretending it didn't happen.


UPDATE #2:  What is now a few weeks later, I caught him looking at some Second Life screenshots. For some of you, this is meaningless. For other (more gaming inclined) folks, chances are you'll react similarly to how I did: 

"It all makes sense now!" 

It's now obvious why I couldn't find the partner. I was looking for the wrong sex.