The Hustle

The smear of poo on the toilet bowl turns Margo’s stomach. It was the only free toilet at work, and she was busting to pee. It would have to do.

She does her wee, flushes, then looks at it, repulsed. She considers leaving it there.

If someone was waiting for the toilet, and went in after her, they would think it was hers.

Margo sighs, as she reluctantly picks up the toilet brush.

“Such a fucking claustrophobic bathroom,” she grumbles to herself, as she surveys her reflection in the mirror. pale, made her freckles stand out though, her green eyes more striking.

She stands as far away as it is possible from the bowl and scrubs quickly trying not to think about the potential splash back from the bowl getting her face.

When she got her cosy Aged Care office job, she made a vow the only other person’s shit she’d ever deal with again would be her own.

She sighs and doubles on the hospital grade soap application, her fingernails and hands sting as she scrubs them fiercely, twice.

She then begrudgingly makes her way back to her workspace.

Sure enough, someone was waiting for the loo, Merle from accounts, they avoid eye contact as they pass each other.

Margo was promoted from a nurse to work with the funding team; her location was a communal workspace.

Two weeks in, she brought herself some noise cancelling headphones.

Now she wouldn’t have to listen when Nancy and Haley breezed into her space to vocally orchestrate who was pissing them off at work this week.

A couple of months in she thought she’d finally consolidated her space, only to start her day and see someone had taken her keyboard and monitor stand.

It was then Margo made a sign and put a pot plant on her desk, some homely touches. A peace lily she affectionately called “Orlando Bloom.”

The sign was in red marker, underlined boldly.

“Margo’s workspace. Do not remove anything.”

“Boomers,” she had thought at the time of passionately scribbling out her note; “Set on working five days and raised their eyebrows that I do three. Like that is a good enough excuse to hijack my space.”

She wasn’t there to involve herself in office politics and gossip. She was busy. Hustling. She didn’t have the mental energy for other people’s drama.

Only today, three hours into her slow-moving day. Another day, completing her workload then staring at all the marks on the off-white wall she’d love to polish clean.

She can’t help herself, taking notice, when the IT guy bustles into the office.

“Erm hello,” he awkwardly announces before he plops a large sports bag onto the mahogany wall desk, between them, only a few CMs from her keyboard.

Margo sighs, she knows she’s frowning. It’s her default, facial expression, she’s even considered Botox for this.

She pushes her headphones, so she wore them around her neck, pulling her shoulder length white, blonde hair out from underneath them. Then forces herself to give him a thin smile of acknowledgement.

“I didn’t want to scare ya,” he quips. Although, he’s the one who looks intimidated as he scrubs his hand nervously through his ginger hair, which is in desperate need of a hair-cut.

If this was the first time she met him, she’d go for the headphones back on and turn back to the computer approach. Let him be scared.

The guy intrigued Margo though. He was spontaneously hilarious.

Last time he visited her office to work he’d said.

“Back in my day I used to eat a lot of those salt and vinegar chips,” he spoke in a super serious tone. Eyeing off the chip packet.

The fucker was 22, a good ten years younger than Margo, she was 32. Plus, they were working an aged care facility.

Was he being serious? Hinting for a chip?

That day when he left, she couldn’t help herself.

When he lifted his bag to leave, she called out to him.

“Don’t throw out your back old man.”

So today Margo decided she would socialise.

“It is likely my autism, you know. That led me to computer work.” He starts the conversation.

He took the lead in the conversation and all of the talking.

She soon learnt he ticked off so many cliché boxes of your classic stereotype of computer guy.

Home with mum and dad. Check.

His mum got him his job through her work. Check.

Bragged about a $5000 gaming PC. Check.

Social life talking to mates on discord. Check

Margo wasn’t oblivious to computer guys. Her partner, Mike, was a computer guy himself. As was his discord of mates.

Margo found people interesting, she didn’t like to take a “one size fits all” approach when she was getting to know people.

Despite the things he had in common with her partner he was still a bit different.

One of those being this guy was keen on giving himself a label and using it as a badge to make life easier.

“Why is a diagnosis needed?” she can’t help query. “Everyone isn’t exactly normal right? We are all a bit different.”

“I’d likely get a disability pension then.” He’s enthusiastic, this sounds like his thing. His burning passion. People get very chatty about these.

His brown eyes lit up. He was an alright looking guy, grew a decent ginger beard, thick ginger hair. Soft stomach was a bit off-putting though…

Margo shook her head; her mum really did a number on embedding fat shaming into her subconscious.

The lull in conversation felt awkward for a moment.

Margo hoped he hadn’t noticed her surveying him.

They both start to speak at the same time. She clears her throat and starts picking the skin around her thumb nail.

“You,” he gestures to her with his hand. She considers this as being pretty socially in tune for someone who “claims” to be autistic.

“What would you do all day?” She goes with asking, leaving her nail alone.

“I’m a 22-year-old with a $5000 gaming PC. What do you think?” His tone is jovial, almost laughing. Like it should have been pretty clear to Margo what his life dream consisted of.

She wouldn’t have guessed though. Maybe it was the age gap, maybe the personality difference.

She’d had a go at gaming with her partner she just didn’t see the point.

Logging off work then going to a game and doing what felt to her like unpaid work.

“She started talking, mostly to fill the silence.

‘I mean, everyone’s a bit off these days, right? Half the office could probably claim something if they wanted.

Maybe say you’ve got anxiety or something, get a pension….’ she waved her hand.

“I bet that would be easy enough to fake! Or chronic pain. Hmm you’d probably then get a prescription for heavy pain relief from them too.” She goes on, as he seems to be losing interest.

“You know it’s a three-hour appointment to get a psychiatrist to assess you for autism.” He frowns and pulls out a screwdriver surveying the laptop in front of him.

Margo didn’t think three hours sounded that long in the grand scheme of things for a dream.

“You’re easy to talk to,” he muses more to himself then Margo, staring blankly ahead before refocusing on his job.

He’s unscrewing a screw on the laptop and now completely in the zone of his work.

Margo takes this as a good opportunity to put her headphones back on.

***********************************************

Some things which may seem innocent at first glimpse, end up being disconcerting.

The initial message was simple; “hi, Margo.” In her Instagram private messages, on her web design page. Sent from Fraz13inspo.

She considered ignoring it. Then her imagination started to run wild.

She’d been hit on once on the App “Words with friends.”

She let the conversation on “words with friends” go on for a few reasons;

He was a good component, immediately took his turn, challenged her and her profile picture on the game was her kissing her partner on the cheek.

When the guy sent her a message saying he was playing naked in a hot tub she realised he was looking to be more than just a word with friends’ kind of friend.

She blocked him from the App. Changed her username and found a ghastly looking photo fox for her profile picture.

This “Fraz13inspo” had also liked a few of her posts and commented an “applause” emoji on one of her most prized designs.

Maybe he was a fellow creator?

“This page is solely for my designs, collaboration with other creators and networking. Thanks for your positive feedback.” She decided to write back, see what his intentions were.

Margo’s page was set up under a pseudonym, she only shared her work.

Him quoting her name in a private message, rattled her. Although, she needed enthusiastic followers. Did it really matter so much if they knew who she was?

His page didn’t show anything of who he could be. It had an artist take, judging by his posts. A fellow creator. She’d decided.

He immediately wrote back; “ok.”

Margo told herself she tended to overthink these things.

She’d let herself forget about it, she decided, gnawing the skin on the side of her thumb nail.

***********************************************

Going back to work, after working for free, growing her side business on her days off, almost felt like a holiday this week.

These emails, didn’t carry the heavyweight of her personal emails. Those were either non replies or rejections.

Work emails were a good place to catch up on the goings on of the place during the time she had off.

Reorientation to this world, this work.

She found she had over 100 unread emails.

“A glitch?” She wonders.

The emails are from the same email address, the owner of the email address: Orion Frazier- IT department.

“You’re actually really pretty,” caught her eye.

Bold, for a work email.

More pop up;

“Did you say I’m too ugly inside my head?”

Her head starts to spin. She needs to go outside, get some fresh air and go walking.

Her phone rings, when she looks at the screen it flashes with “unknown number.”

Hands shaking, she stares at it as it rings out.

It rings again, she presses hang up, only for it too immediately start ringing again.

When this call rings out, messages start coming in quickly. One after the other.

Message one: “Hey pretty, you left your number was on your work signature. I just found it.”

Message two: “You were flirty the other day, why won’t you talk to me now?”

Message three: Image. It contains a selfie of Orion and he is fucking crying.

Message four: “Why won’t you answer me?”

Margo wants to drop her phone. Her mind races.

“Why was he saying these things to her? She had been polite nothing more, did every single guy she was friendly to assume she was interested?”

Before she could see anything else, she flags his address to stop his emails and blocks the number he is texting her from.

She returns to her desk, sitting down she lets out a deep sigh of relief.

Day two of being harassed by Orion

As soon as she punched into work from her desktop. Her phone started to ring.

Margo jumped. She had not heard from Orion since she blocked him.

Yet, any new notification, call or email had her on edge since yesterday.

She let it call out, if it was important, they would leave a message.

It rings again, she presses hang up, only for it to immediately start ringing again.

When this call rings out, messages start coming in quickly. One after the other.

Message one: “heheh it’s me again.”

Message two: Orion smiling, looking sadistically impressed with himself.

Nancy and Hayley breeze in.

Margo presses a tissue into the bleed she’d caused by chewing her nail too short. Unbothered by the slight sting of pain and gets out her noise cancelling headphones. She presses on and the low battery sound pings in her ears. She forgot to charge them last night.

She swivels in her chair facing the giggling pair, leveling them both with a death stare she says dryly.

“You know gossiping in communal areas is against company policy, right?’

She swivels to face her desktop not caring to see their reactions, knowing they would leave.

When Margo gets home that evening, she finds a pile of notes in male handwriting on her doorstep with flowers. She frantically scoops them up and throws them in the rubbish bin, rushes inside and locks the door behind her.

She runs around the house and pulls down all the blinds.

Day three of being harassed by Orion

Going online, meant facing Orion. Everywhere. On her social media, every message platform, her emails and now even her house.

Frazo13inspo? He announced, was him. So, she was on a hiatus from her webdesign page. It turns out IT guys had access to more then she realised, if only she hadn’t been so stupid as to log onto her personal accounts from her work computer.

Margo took a personal day from work; she had to sort this out.

She didn’t want to tell anyone; in all honesty she was a bit embarrassed. Her mind plagued with thoughts such as; “had I led him on?’ “Was I too friendly?”

Margo was sitting on the couch, ensuring the blinds were still down, told Mike to leave them down as she had a headache.

Mike comes into the room with a sheet of paper in his hands and a funny look on his face.

He holds it up.

It’s her and Orion’s faces cut out and stuck onto a picture of a couple getting married.

“Inside joke?” he says jiggling his eyebrows, he holds it out and considers it for a bit. Adding softly as he notices her expression change to horrified. “It is a bit much, what is going on Margo, is everything ok with you?”

“I have it under control,” Margo abruptly gets up and snatches it from him, immediately scrunching it up. She fixes him with an icy cold glare. “You left your poo crumbs on the toilet. Again. Clean your own shit.”

Margo didn’t stay to watch his reaction; she went into the bedroom and slammed the door shut.

Day four of being harassed by Orion

Mike gave her space. Which Margo was grateful for. She felt too tired, tomorrow she had said to herself. Tomorrow she would deal with it.

She was so, incredibly tired though. She didn’t know the last time she had actually slowed down.

Mike carefully opens the bedroom door.

“Margo,” he whispers.

She turns to him and gives him a gentle smile, she tired of being bitey to him. She needs some comfort.

He senses the change in her and climbs into bed next to her, passing her his phone.

It was showing her web design page. She had exceeded 2 million followers.

Margo immediately sits up in bed, heart racing in excitement. She reaches for her own phone. Ignoring, all the notifications as they start to come through.

She goes to open her Instagram web design page and notices she can’t log in.

Wordlessly she scrolls through the messages from Orion until she finds what she is looking for.

Message 26: “Got into ya Instagram! Watch me get more follower than you.”

She felt sick. she had the overwhelming urge to get up and scrub her hands clean. The desire to rest wins. She flings her phone across the bed and cries herself to sleep.

Day five of being harassed by Orion

Mike sits on the end of the bed, the following morning.

“Your workplace contacted me. He has been fired,” Margo sits up and looks at him, her cheeks growing hot a lump forming in her throat. He reaches for her hand, and she takes the offer.

He surveys the mess she’s made of her fingernails, blue eyes shining with concern.

“We have a restraining order, if he comes here or contacts you again. We will call the cops.”

He swallows. The hard part of his speech is over. Yet, he doesn’t say anything more. He hands her the box of her antidepressants she had stopped taking a week or so ago, along with her phone.

Margo scans through her messages

Message 105: “Hey! Thanks so much, I finally got fired. Brilliant idea, by the way. I looked fully cooked. Went with ‘chronic pain’ too. If you ever want anything strong, I know a guy 😉 Seriously though, couldn’t have done it without ya.”

Message 106: “Don’t get me arrested LOL. Here’s ya Instagram back along with your new following. Ya welcome. Heart emoji.”

Margo leaps out of bed and rushes to the bathroom sink. As the strong disinfectant soap stings the raw skin of her fingernails, she can finally breath.

She takes her time to carefully rinse the blood from her wounds out of the sink, polishing the basin impossibly clean before she leaves the bathroom.