PFK1 by U Read Free Book Online

before, at the West Eugene
    branch office, until August of 1976.
    First, Megan was a unit clerk, a crummy job if ever there was one,
    she says. Unlike the worker jobs, which pay more, the unit clerk must
    be able to type. Right before she moved to Pendleton with Mark, they
    finally gave Megan the worker job she wanted.
    "A woman who had a baby decided she didn’t want to come back
    to work," Megan said. "So they let me have it."
    Although Megan looks exactly like a slender Barbie doll and
    dresses stylishly, her looks are deceiving. She’s an unrepentant rebel
    who hates authority almost as much as I do.
    Megan tells me she rues the day that she ever learned to type
    because it confined her to a job rut that she feared she would never
    escape. Despite her college degree, they have never given her a
    chance. This is her big opportunity to escape the clerical ghetto.

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    As a bonus, she gets to teach me how to be a worker. There could
    not be a more apt or willing pupil.
    I don’t know about this. Being in such close proximity to this
    beautiful woman all day long. She stands beside me at my desk and
    points out things I’m supposed to complete on the 403B forms. I can
    feel the warmth of her body near me and I drink in this lavender
    perfume she wears.
    Megan dresses like the thoroughbred she is. Holy Fucking Moley.
    Sometimes I think she often unwittingly feeds me these sub sensory
    attractant sexual chemicals that penetrate deeply into my primitive
    testosterone-soaked male brain.
    I am powerless to resist them. In the meantime, Megan is so
    beautiful and capable I can’t fucking believe my luck.
    By the end of the day, I’ve usually got a hard on a cat couldn’t
    scratch.
    Yesterday, I had to masturbate almost as soon as I got home so I
    could settle down and get back to work on my book.
    However, in her company I behave like the perfect gentleman I am.
    Believe it or not, I do know how to behave myself around women. It
    has never been my habit to stare, leer, or otherwise lech after them in
    an unseemly fashion. The simple knowledge that an intense physical
    attraction exists is more than enough for me. Be relaxed and natural is
    my way. Make clean jokes and be fun. Do be a nice boy. Don’t be a
    jackass. I guess I can thank my Catholic School upbringing for
    something, anyway.
    In addition, in the course of fashioning this journal, I have gained
    extra experience in how to divorce my thoughts from my actions. I
    am no longer as impulsive as I once was.
    Besides, inasmuch as I look forward seeing Megan at work in the
    morning, I won’t let anything distract me from my writing project. It
    is of paramount importance.
    * * * *
    March 8, 1978
    Despite my recent vow to the contrary, I sent a response to Ms.
    Ellsworth after writing it twice and typing it once. I really don’t

    40

    expect an immediate reply. In essence, I’m just swapping ideas with a
    woman I once knew.
    One thing I did do was ask her to stop insulting Chesley in our
    correspondence.
    She has no call making snitty put-downs of my friends, especially a
    person she hardly knows. It is interesting that she can take me to task
    for writing negative stuff about people and then turn around and do it
    herself.
    In nearly three years of knowing her, I have learned that the rules
    she invents for others do not necessarily apply to her.
    But I had to laugh at her fears. They are not of me but of herself.
    Surely she knows the last thing I wish for her is harm. During our
    affair I was much too casual and nonchalant about her – I admit that.
    It dawned on me way too late how truly serious she was. In
    retrospect, I think I would have preferred a good long discussion
    about The Future before we became physically intimate. A full, frank
    discussion beforehand might have given me food for thought.
    Instead, we just started fucking.
    Come to think of it, I did have a conversation like that once with
    this Sarah I. woman I knew back in Atlanta. I met her