I am sitting down to lunch with my friend, Brian, telling him my woes.
***
I have this customer today who wants me to install a new lock on his office door. He has a passage knob, one that does not lock. He wants a doorknob that locks with a key.
“You see my doorknob doesn’t lock and anybody can just walk in,” he says.
“You have a passage knob,” I say.
“I want a knob that locks with a key,” he says.
“You want an entry knob,” I say.
He nods and I go to my truck to pull an entry knob out of stock. When I come back into his office, he is on the phone.
“Honey, I’m going to be late,” he says. “I have a client who cannot come in until after he gets off work. Don’t save dinner for me. I’ll get something on my way home.”
I start pulling his passage knob off the door piece by piece and laying the pieces aside. A woman enters the lobby and saunters straight to his office and steps right by me. She bends over his desk and plants her hands on the desk, elbows locked, and starts talking quietly to him. I can’t make out what she is saying, but she has a real sweet voice. Here’s the big deal about it. Bent over the desk like that I can see down her blouse. I can see everything and I know he can too. And he is looking. I can see him looking. And he is blowing down her blouse. She grins and keeps talking.
I assemble the old knob for him to keep all the pieces together and set it aside. I begin installing the new lock on his door piece by piece.
After the titty show she sits on the corner of his desk and crosses her legs. I can see her rubbing his inner thigh with her foot.
I finish with his lock and put my tools in my toolbox. I write up an invoice and present it to him. He pays cash.
“Thank you for the quick work,” he says.
“No problem,” I say.
I’m not halfway across the lobby when I hear his door close and lock.
The thing that bothers me is, when I get home, Kate phones and tells me she has to work late. It’s the third time this week and it’s driving me crazy.
by Thomas Wigington
Flash Fiction
