“Dear Doctor,” Melissa spoke, reading aloud from the third of the four resignation letters as we sat
“Dear Doctor,” Melissa spoke, reading aloud from the third of the four resignation letters as we sat across from one another at her desk, “I quit. We all know you hired her for her tits. Love, Ava.”My heart was racing, I felt terrible. Melissa, in comparison though, somehow seemed cool and in control despite the slurs and slanders at both her and my expense in these letters. It was all true, of course, but I just pray Melissa didn’t believe a word. Thankfully we were alone in the office; the rest of the staff had left. But still… “Melissa I d-” “Shh shh shh it’s okay,” Melissa said, calmly stopping me in my protestations, “I’m used to it.” She didn’t need to do this!! These letters were terrible, insulting to her and goddamn just plain embarrassing to me, but she’d insisted she see them, once I made the mistake of mentioning them to her. She actually laughed a bit. “At least this one was short and sweet…and no foul language like that Pauline person’s…” she commented.I was beet red in the face, anxious and feeling 100% a failure as an employer, a business owner, a man. I sat with my elbows on my knees, my face in my hands, looking up at her. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe, also, how self-possessed Melissa seemed in the face of these women’s attacks on her competency, intelligence and abilities. How they accused her of achieving her successes solely through her figure. Plus this was an emergency, a huge blow to the practice. At the very least it meant a ton of work in finding adequate replacements…if that was even possible.Melissa placed the letter down. Ava had been a medical assistant of mine, a good one. She’d been with us for a number of years and had a great way with patients. Just like Hilda, just like Carol and Charlotte, just like Pauline and Shoshanna she was a big loss and the thought of replacing any one of them - let alone all of them, all of a sudden - was daunting. Melissa dutifully picked up the next letter: Shoshanna’s. It was thankfully the last but I shuddered when I recalled it’s contents. “Melissa, you really don’t h-”“Doctor J- Good for you,” she began, reciting the letter right over my protests, “Tits-for-brains is in charge of your office now...Well, that’s not very nice!” She giggled, and continued. “Just so you know, Melissa is half moron half boobs and you’re a 100% asshole… And that’s not very nice either! She shouldn’t talk to you that way!” She tutted and tsk’d and finished the letter. “I’m resigning, today’s my last day.”Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.Even in the face of obvious insult, Melissa laughed. “Half moron, half boobs huh? That’s a good one,” she remarked, nodding, laughing……as she put that letter atop the pile with the rest, “But I dunno… I hope I’m more ‘boob’ than ‘moron’, huh? Because, well…”On cue, she looked down at her prodigious chest, and began to fiddle with her neckline, where her bra strap had caught. I watched with prurient interest. Then…“…that would make me a pretty big moron, huh?”She laughed again. How could she be taking this so well??And Jesus did she just catch me staring??I flushed, and looked away. What could I say?? Melissa had dressed in her tightest of outfits today, a short-sleeved dress of clingy black. She had at some point - maybe for comfort - lowered its shoulders, which only emphasized her elegant throat, fit shoulders and generous torso. It was all so much, too much.I shifted in my seat. I’m sure she noticed my discomfort. “Anyway,” she began again, “I suppose we don’t need that type of toxicity in the workplace. It’s actually good that they’re gone.” I was getting the feeling that Melissa was - unlike myself - somehow seeing all this change, the loss of all these staff members, as a positive thing. Her voice was actually building, becoming pregnant with excitement. “And now we get to hire more people…yay!” “Uhhh…” I began. It was hard not to get bedazzled by her enthusiasm, mollified by her cheerfulness, comforted by her confidence. Her perfume was strong, also helping to hypnotize me, keeping me from thinking too hard on the last time we needed to hire someone. "It’ll be sooo good to have some new people in here, fun people. Not people that talk like that…especially when talking about their superiors. You wouldn’t talk about me like that, would you Dr J?”“I, uh…no..”That was a slip, right? She wasn’t saying that she was my su-?“No, you’re too much of a gentleman…that’s what I love about you…”“U-uhhh…” ‘A gentleman’?? oh god if she only knew…could see the stuff of her I have collected on my computer…“And don’t these girls know I’m all about empowering women, not, like, not-empowering them? Haven’t they seen all the quotes I have up, here on my desk??”Still reeling from that kiss, I was able to think to myself- the woman does like her motivational quotes. I’d noticed them before, in little picture frames. Trite bon mots. I glanced around at them… “Strong is the New Pretty”…“Empowered Women Empower Women”…“The Future is Female”. The coffee mug with “Girl Boss” on it. That sort of…well, I would have called it drivel, before. But, now…Jesus. This boner. I shifted in my seat again, tried to force it down, uncomfortable aside my thigh.“They shouldn’t talk about you like that either!” she remarked, “Did you hear Carol this morning? How she called you ‘spineless’? ‘Pathetic’? Weak and helpless?”Ouch. “I, uh, yeah