Rejection

As always, amber light spilled through the cracked door and I slid inside his office, stealth as a feline, gun heavy and hard in my hands.

“Janet,” he said, looking up from a mound of manuscripts I knew would be in the trash by morning, along with an empty box of Chinese food, and all the unanswered sticky notes his secretary had left him for the day.

“Hello Daniel,” I replied, swaggering up to his desk with my breasts perked and the gun leveled between his eyes — he was always a good liar and acted surprised.

“Wait, let’s talk about this,” he said to me, but I knew he didn’t really want to talk about my book; he just wanted to screw me over like every other dame, tragically discarded, and then, before I knew it, he jumped at me, seizing the gun from my wrist, and threw me against the wall, his hand up my skirt, mouth hot on my neck, each touch a little different than our last encounter, but this time, a knock at the door threw us both off.

“Hello Daniel,” his wife Ellen said, whose gun probably had at least one more bullet than mine.

“Wait, let’s talk about this,” he replied back, a habitual response by now, and that’s when I decided that children’s books might be a more suited avenue for my goals.