September 19, 2002
 "Goclean yourself off," he said. "And do that letter again." I stood slowly, and felt my skirt fall over the sticky gunk. He briskly swung open the door and I left the room, not even pulling up my panty hose and underwear, since I was going to use the bathroom anyway. He closed the door behind me, and the second unusual thing occurred. Susan, the paralegal, was standing in the waiting room with a funny look on her face. She was a blonde who wore short, fuzzy sweaters and fake gold jewelry around her neck. At her friendliest, she had a whining, abrasive quality that clung to her voice. Now, she could barely say hello. Her stupidly full lips were parted speculatively. "Hi," I said. "Just a minute." She noted the awkwardness of my walk, because of the lowered panty hose. I got to the bathroom and wiped myself off. I didn't feel embarrassed. I felt mechanical. I wanted to get that dumb paralegal out of the office so I could come back to the bathroom and masturbate. Susan completed her errand and left. I masturbated. I retyped the letter. The lawyer sat in his office all day. When my mother picked me up that afternoon, she asked me if I was all right. "Why do you ask?" "I don't know. You look a little strange." "I'm as all right as I ever am." "That doesn't sound good, honey." I didn't answer. My mother moved her hands up and down the steering wheel, squeezing it anxiously. "Maybe you'd like to stop by the French bakery and get some elephant ears" she said. "I don't want any elephant ears." My voice was unexpectedly nasty. It almost made me cry. "All right," said my mother. When I lay on my bed to take my nap, my body felt very dense and heavy, as though it would be very hard to move again, which was just as well, since I didn't feel like moving. When Donna banged on my door and yelled "Dinner!" I didn't answer. She put her head in and asked if I was asleep, and I told her I didn't feel like eating. I felt so inert, I thought I'd go to sleep, but I couldn't. I lay awake through the sounds of argument and TV and everybody going to the bathroom. Bedtime came, drawers rasped open and shut, doors slammed, my father eased into sleep with radio mumble. The orange digits on my clock said 1:30. I thought: I should get out of this pantyhose and slip. I sat up and looked out into the gray, cold street. The shrubbery on the lawn across the street looked frozen and miserable. I thought about a period of time a year before when I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking that someone was going to break into the house and kill everybody. Eventually that fear went away and I went back to sleeping again. I lay back down without taking off my clothes, and pulled a light blanket tightly around me. Sooner or later, I thought, I would sleep. I would just have to wait. But I didn't sleep, although I became mentally incoherent for long, ugly stretches of time. Hours went by; the room turned gray. I heard the morning noises: the toilet, the coughing, Donna's hostile muttering. Often, in the past, I had woken early and lain in bed listening to my family clumsily trying to organize itself for the day. Often as not, their sounds made me feel irrational loathing. This morning, I felt despair and a longing for them, and a sureness that we would never be close as long as I lived. My nasal passages became active with tears that didn't reach my eyes. My mother knocked on the door. "Honey, aren't you going to be late?" "I'm not going to work. I feel sick. I'll call in." "I'll do it for you, just stay in bed." "No, I'm going to call. It has to be me." I didn't call in. The lawyer didn't call the house. I didn't go in or call the next day or the day after that. The lawyer still didn't call. I was slightly hurt by his absent phone call, but my relief was far greater than my hurt. After I'd stayed home for four days, my father asked if I wasn't worried about taking so much time off. I told him I'd quit, in front of Donna and my mother. He was dumbfounded. "That wasn't very smart," he said. "What are you going to do now?" "I don't care," I said. "That lawyer was an asshole." To everyone's discomfort, I began to cry. I left the room, and they all watched me stomp up the stairs. The next day at dinner my father said, "Don't get discouraged because your first job didn't work out. There're plenty of other places out there." "I don't want to think about another job right now." There was disgruntlement all around the table. "Come on now Debby, you don't want to throw away everything you worked for in that typing course," said my father. "I don't blame her," said Donna. "I'm sick of working for assholes." "Oh, shit," said my father. "If I had quit every job I've had on those grounds, you would've all starved. Maybe that's what I should have done." "What happened, Debby?" said my mother. I said, "I don't want to talk about it," and I left the room again. After that they may have sensed, with their intuition for the miserable, that something hideous had happened. Because they left the subject alone. |
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Commentarium (21 Comments)
I dont know if this story is true or just another letter from Penthouse Forum. The only time I have ever playfully spanked a woman is standing next to her while playing around after showering, standing together at a nude beach before plunging in or when she is on top of me as I grasp and slap her buns to push her over the top to climax. BDSM is not what my girlfriends were enthused about other than light swatting. Nipple tweaking and kissing is great, and I am pretty good at it which I am well rewarded. Oh yeah, light spanking over my knee for being so naughty, naked, in heels, excites some babes, but I never come on too strong or kinky. I guess my sex life is well within normal. Some women love to squeeze and spank their mans buns too!
feedback
I think the lack of feedback on this story speeks volumes.
Horrible story. Long. Bad plot. Author should consider becoming a street sweeper.
I liked the honesty.
to be totally honest.....this sstory sucked.it failed to capture this reader's interest and i did try and hopethat it might but it was totally a wate of ink....unbelievable that someone was paid to write this.
more feedback
The above feedback folk sure did get excited by the story...He/she certainly used it to talk about all their sexiness. Nice.
The story had all the quiet and awkard descriptions to make it interesting. Debby became a believable and likable character through the author's making. I liked the complex view of someone's first encounter with a different kind of sex.
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do most of the commenters not know what this story is? it's not some flash-in-the -pan first time attempt from an unknown author who "should become a street sweeper", and it's not a letter from penthouse forum. mary gaitskill is an amazingly talented and very well-known writers, the above story was excerpted from her first book of short stories, published in 1988.
anyways, i love the secretary, i think it's incredibly well-written, and i, like gatskill, felt the movie version was just awful.
I disagree, I thought the movie was far more deep and interesting than the short story. The lawyer here is totally flat and gruesome. There is a very real element of beauty in bdsm, an element which is captured and explored in the film and totally absent here.
This is a great short story. Mary Gaitskill has a unique talent and I do enjoy her writing. The collection of short stories this comes from is called Bad Behavior, it is still in print in paperback and even now available as a kindle book. I think its a shame that the entire story is reprinted here without it being clear that this is a piece of contemporary fiction that has been published, and actually it is a disservice to the author to have it entirely available for free here. But if it leads to futher interest in the work of Mary Gaitskill then it is useful. There is new interest in this short story because of the similarities between the movie Secretary and the 50 Shades of Grey novels. The man is named Grey, he has copper colored hair (like Spader), he is closed and complicated, and the woman is brunette and in the end it turns into a positive relationship (in the move and 50 shades, not this story). I am a fan of the movie and this story and 50 shades just to see what all the fuss was about. The memoir that 9 1/2 weeks was based on was worth reading as well...