Fantasy Single Woman (FSW) Needed

Job #1-523

Married Man with Kids Seeks Fantasy Single Woman to Live Through Vicariously

Description:

The Center for the Male Gaze is looking for a seasoned, single woman with a thorough knowledge of MS-Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) and being objectified. Mastery of WordPress/HTML/CMS and an automatic positive response when told to Smile, baby are a plus, but not required. Training available upon request.

Fantasy Single Woman (FSW)’s primary responsibilities are delivering charming, semi-flirty, life updates, with an emphasis on dating, dating mishaps, and sexual conquests. FSW must also respond favorably to any early morning, post-gym “just checking-in” texts and emails within 30 minutes of waking up. Other tasks include but are not limited to:

• Occasional business trips, going out to dinners and/or drinks, and arranging it so that, whenever possible, other people are in attendance to curtail alone time at night.
• Applying (at minimum) lipstick in the bathroom before delivering in-person updates.
• Humorously drunk texting, but only while in other states, countries, and/or after 10 p.m. to ensure he is already asleep.

Applicants must possess:

• A minimum of three long-term relationships that went up in flames.
• A history of body image issues (required) stemming from sexual assault (optional).
• The ability to deliver high-quality sarcastic comebacks under tight deadlines.

Note about the position: No one respects women more than The Center for the Male Gaze; we are committed to transparency regarding the role applicants are expected to perform. The previous FSW maintained an impressively long run of 12 years, but she lost sight of the fact that, while it indeed takes two to tango, it was her job to be the smarter one. We are legally required to provide her final resignation (see below) but The Center chooses to view this obligation as an opportunity for the next FSW to learn from prior mistakes made.

 

Resignation Report – Day 4,328

What was the beginning of the end? Easy answer: The moment I kissed him. I cannot deny that in a previous report I omitted the fact that I kissed him. Initially, I glossed over this not-so-small detail, but the agreement to provide candidates access to this final report stipulates my full disclosure in return.

I reported meeting him at a bar after work to debrief about the recent reveal of our mutual feelings. What I left out was his admission that, for him, the attraction started on Day 1—the day he trained me for my entry level customer service job—the day I was unknowingly hired for this position. On Day 1, I was still in my twenties, and he was simply this older, skinny guy whose face had an odd, yet endearing, way of shaking as he spoke with an unusual fervor about pulling metric reports. The laughter between us started on that first day, but it wasn’t my Day 1.

For me, there was no one day but twelve years of drawing and redrawing the line in the sand until the day we officially crossed it with the kiss. Day 1,416, nearly four years later, when I was hanging by the pool at a team retreat and a co-worker elbowed me saying, “Dude, when did he get jacked?” as we watched him launch himself out of the water. On Day 2,642, my morning email included a picture of him sailing up in mid-air, arms stretched high overhead catching a football. His one-line message read: In case you’re wondering where the boy gets it… A photo I opened again later to stare at the landscape of his body, the tan strip of stomach peeking out from his raised t-shirt, while I ate my lunch at my desk. Day 3,012 in Austin for a conference and, after eight years of flirty banter and one too many tequila shots, I pulled him onto the dance floor to awkwardly Two Step while surrounded by drunken colleagues. That night, I paced the hallway of the hotel, wondering what would happen if I texted him my room number. Then I thought about “the boy,” his son, getting taller and taller in his football photos. His twin daughters in their adorable peanut butter and jelly Halloween costumes. And, like a pro, I turned off my phone and went to bed. Alone.

His “Day 1” admission shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering the thousands of days that followed, but I never truly believed he wanted me. That’s what made me so good at my job. That night at the bar, I pushed a smile, leaning into my dimple. Laughing, as I coolly confessed about Austin. Fueling past fantasies while, at the same time, steadying myself to stay the course, toe the line. To do my job and keep present fantasies from progressing any further.

After he left, I poured my loneliness into a glass. Drowning whatever feelings clawed their way to the surface in two hard pours of whiskey that I charged to his credit card. I was on the clock after all.

The next day, however, his early morning, post-gym email wasn’t the standard What you up to this weekend? check-in. Instead, it read,

Truth be told I’ve always been dying to kiss you, even at my 75-80% clip of mutual attraction belief. At 100% it’s kinda painful.

Was that the beginning of the end? Because those words, the idea of someone dying to kiss me for thousands of days, became an adulterous earworm invading my thoughts.

There is nothing remarkable to report about why Day 4,312, ten weeks after our debrief at the bar, was the day I kissed him. We went out for lunch. I had a salad, roasted chicken on bib lettuce. He had penne pasta. He spent lunch distracted by work emails on his phone. I spent lunch distracted by him.

The day I kissed him, I was walking out, seconds away from saying “have a good weekend.” Seconds away from going to my friend’s play and waking up Monday morning to a message asking, How was the show? Instead, I stepped back, hovering in the doorway of his office, chattering on about nonsense until everyone else was gone. Then, inching in toward his desk, I smiled at him, lips raw from nerves and wet with want.

“I think I’m changing my mind.”

“About?” he asked, wheeling back in his chair.

“About, what we discussed … before.” I replied, referring to that night at the bar.

For one excruciating second, there was only confusion on his face. My heart burned in the back of my throat. Then the second snapped, and he leaned back, crossing one leg over his knee, hand on his ankle, foot shaking as he peeked up at me with a bemused smile,

“Any idea when you might know for sure?”

The recollection on his face flooded my body with relief, accompanied by the siren song of anticipation. A thrill I hadn’t felt in so long, I forgot about the rocks ahead.

“I don’t know… I… I need to kiss you first.”

“What? Like, right now?” He shot up in his seat.

“Yeah, come on.”

Waving my hand as if motioning for him to cross the street before the light turned, I hustled us out of his office.

There was no plan for where I was taking him. Unable to wait any longer, he pushed me into an abandoned alcove. An ownerless workstation piled high with a hoarder’s share of stacked boxes and office supply odds and ends. There, under an archway that hung over our heads at mistletoe height, we kissed.

“Oh, thank God. Thank God,” he whispered, face shaking with excitement, when I broke away for air.

Three days, and 109 texts later, we were back in his office, alone. We’d broken protocol and texted straight through the weekend. I tried to get us back on task, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. And for 96 minutes, I fell down on the job. For 96 minutes, there was nothing but a blur of hands and lips. Breath and teeth. Him and me pushed up against each other so tight that even though we still had on our clothes, most of them anyway, I felt more than naked as I exposed to him all the desires I hide inside.

We never had sex. The Catholic part of me needs that officially noted in this report. We also never kissed again. Seven days later, he dumped me via text.

I don’t have a Day 1, but I do know “the moment” the bubble burst, and it wasn’t with his text on Day 4,319 that read,

I think I can only do meaningless. What a great trait.

The text that signified the low point in my career of being shit on by men and left me sobbing on the kitchen floor. But that wasn’t the moment.

Our endnote came shortly after the 96 minutes, when he and I tumbled out onto the street. Faces flushed and laughter rippling beneath our skin, we small-talked our way toward separate subway stations. He asked about a big presentation I had in the morning. Wondering if I was going to be ready since I obviously had not spent the evening preparing my slides as planned. With his words, REALITY with all its demands, worries, and guilt, flooded back in.

“Oh my God!” I cried, shouting his name, its familiar syllables melting away like snowflakes on my tongue. “Can you just give me like ten minutes here to enjoy this?”

Giggles boiling over, we laughed hard. From the gut. I beamed at him with unchecked adoration, all my guards down. That was the moment I stopped being a fantasy and became real, which was too much for him to handle.

My report should stop here as my instructions were to be frank about what went wrong at the end. I’m guessing, though, that anyone who has read this far should know about the beginning. What made it possible for me to be a Fantasy Single Woman for so many days. A woman who smiles upon request, grateful for the attention. A woman who fakes machismo, laughing at jokes she secretly finds distasteful. A woman who is oh so understanding when shit on. I wasn’t born that woman. I was taught to be her. My first lesson forced upon me when I was fifteen years old and on my high school swim team, the day I forgot my umbrella.

Retracing my steps, I realized I had left it in the vending machine area. The small alcove where I stood before practice talking myself out of getting a Snickers or my beloved Butterfinger because, as always, I needed to lose weight. Running back, the top of my t-shirt covered in spidery water stains from the wet tendrils of my hair, I was so focused on finding my umbrella—fearing my mother’s fury if I lost yet another one—I forgot to check if he was still there. Let’s call him John because, like Beetlejuice, I still worry that if I say his name too many times, he’ll appear.

John had the charming habit of grabbing us under the water during practice. An ass pinch here, a pussy graze there. Something the other girls told me to ignore, avoid. His unwanted touch was also my first lesson in boys being boys and, shaken, I told my sister. A few years older and protective of me, she went behind my back and complained directly to the coach.

Turning around, I discovered John and his friend blocking the doorway to the vending machine area. The only exit. Without ever speaking to me, the coach had pulled John aside after practice and given him a stern warning. And John was pissed. Thanks a lot, Coach. The boys moved in, and John stuck his face close to mine, skin blotched red with acne and soured from dried chlorine.

“Am I making you uncomfortable now?” he taunted. I tried to step around him, but he countered, pushing his body into mine, “What about now?”

I froze, making it all too possible for John’s friend to grab my hands and pin them behind my back. Crossing my wrists so tightly the bones grinded against one another. I stayed silent as John rubbed my crotch over my jeans and then stuck his hand up my shirt to grab at my breasts.

If only I hadn’t forgotten my umbrella. If only I hadn’t told my sister. If only I’d laughed off John’s underwater antics like the other girls. John twisted my titties that day, not because he wanted me, but because he wanted to punish me. To teach me that I shouldn’t get my titties in a twist over “nothing.” John’s lesson worked. I never opened my mouth again.

This teenage moment seeped back into my brain when, a couple of weeks after the bubble burst, the married man suddenly walked into my office. Everyone else had left for the day. Shutting the door behind him, he blocked the exit with his body insisting that I hear him out. My stomach twisted into a familiar knot. Trapped, I froze as the man apologized. I listened as he attempted to explain why he got so “twisted” when things between us got too real.

I listened about his kids, his marriage, and asked what, if anything, he planned to do after his children were grown and gone. I listened, and I cared. Despite everything, and because of everything, I cared about his happiness.

As we talked, I smiled, and I cracked jokes. On the inside, I never stopped screaming,

I AM NOT DOING WELL. I’M DOING MY JOB! Because the work is never done. The married man wants to go back to how things were before; I am no longer up to the task.

I always considered what happened when I was fifteen too insignificant to report. How could I compare myself to all the women who have been molested, violently abused, raped? Except, you never get the moment when someone first touches your breasts back. You wish it were with love, or at least affection. That it was like the movies, where the guy creeps his hand slowly up the girl’s side, and she tenses with a sharp intake of breath, pausing just long enough to prove she’s not a slut, before giving him the green light with a kiss. More than anything, you wish it hadn’t hurt, or that someone else wasn’t holding your hands behind your back. Or that John hadn’t leaned over and hissed in my ear,

“I don’t get what you’re whining for, fat ass. You’re lucky anyone wants to touch you.”

That I believed.

I’d love to imagine that The Center will be unable to find my replacement. Yet, I know too well how far the position a person accepts in life can be from the one we deserve. Honesty is what I hold onto now, and it is my sincere wish that whoever replaces me will, at the very least, be honest with herself sooner.

Thank you for your time and attention,

Former FSW

Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons is a Queens-based writer, educator, and storyteller. Her recent work has appeared in Human Parts, Humungus, Marie Claire, and Hippocampus Magazine. She teaches a drop-in creative writing workshop at The Astoria Bookshop, presently available via Zoom every other Sunday. Kelly Jean also produces No, YOU Tell It! (noyoutellit.com) a nonfiction series that “switches-up” the storytelling. Each show brings together four storytellers to develop their true-life tales on the page. Then they trade tales to present each other’s stories on stage. For more information on all things KJ, visit kellyjeanfitzsimmons.com.